The Clockwork Elegy

There is a city where the dead do not depart—they wind down.

Lumen-7 ticks along on stolen time, its streets humming with the sound of ten thousand slowing heartsprings. Here, the recently deceased are fitted with soul-gears and memory-pendulums, their last thoughts coiled into music boxes that play their final words on loop. The wealthy buy ornate brass lungs to keep breathing postmortem; the poor are stripped for parts to keep the city moving.

Alistair Finch is a graverobber of moments.

His job? To sneak into the Chronomortuary and steal back the last minutes of the newly departed—precious seconds sold to the highest bidder before the corpse is even cold.

But tonight, he’s not here to steal.

Tonight, he’s here to witness.

Because for the first time in Lumen-7’s history...

Someone has wound back up.