5:03 p.m. — The Cradle Archives, Nowhere
The door appeared in the alley as it always did—unmarked, unhinged from time, exhaling the scent of old ink and rotting promises.
Not Nice stepped through.
Inside, shelves towered into shadow, stacked with books that whispered. Scrolls blinked with living ink. A suspended lantern glowed with a flame made from an author's dying breath.
She was waiting at the desk—Karnessa, the Librarian.
Draped in pages sewn into robes, her left eye was a spinning gear, and her right was a keyhole. A long chain bound her to the desk, links made of concepts, not metal.
"Not Nice," she said without looking up. "You've come to remember. Or forget?"
He didn't answer right away. Just approached the desk and placed a small card on the surface.
"Override Request: Emotional Clause."
Karnessa stilled.
The shelves trembled.
"Again?"
"This time I have a name," he said. "A Binding Key."
Her mechanical eye whirred.
"Let me guess. Velvenna."
He didn't confirm. He didn't need to. Karnessa's library knew.
"She is a Binding Key. But not yours."She slid a heavy book forward. "You want to alter your contract? You need your own key—someone tied to your root memory."
"Define 'root.'"
Karnessa raised her hand. A glowing glyph flickered, showing a web of memory strands—all leading to a single moment.
A hospital room.A woman in labor.Him pacing. Crying. Laughing. Terrified.
His daughter's birth.
"You can't use others to unlock the self," she said. "The clause is a cage of your own making. The only way out is to destroy the moment that made you sign it."
He clenched his fists."Then I'd forget why I made the sacrifice."
"Exactly," she said. "Do you see the prison now?"
5:30 p.m. — The Bargain
She leaned forward, suddenly solemn.
"There is another path," she whispered. "A corrupted one."
His eyes narrowed.
"Let me guess—costly."
Karnessa chuckled dryly.
"Not more costly. Just… misaligned. The alternative to emotion isn't numbness. It's transference."
She opened a ledger. The paper inside was still wet—written in blood, not ink.
"You can offload your emotion into someone else. Forge a Companion Clause. Make them feel for you."
He stepped back.
"That's psychotic."
"Isn't it? That's why it works."She tapped the paper. "You can assign someone to be your vessel. They'll cry your tears. Burn your rage. Love your family."
"And I…?"
"You'll remember what feeling looks like. But you won't own it. You'll be its ghost."
He stood there for a long time.
Then:"Show me the terms."
6:00 p.m. — Elsewhere
A little girl sat in a schoolyard, sketching her father in the notebook. She had drawn him smiling—something he never did anymore.
Her mother called her in. The light dimmed.
And far away, Not Nice signed something in blood.
He didn't know yet who the companion would be.
But the moment the ink dried, the ledger flared, and a name appeared.
Not one he expected.
"Velvenna N.—Eligible."
6:01 p.m. — Fractured Chronoscape, Velvenna's Garden
The garden existed outside the normal flow of time—eternally twilight, eternally silent.
Each flower bloomed in reverse.
Each tree grew inward, folding over memories of its own creation.
Not Nice stepped through the breach, boots crunching on ground that forgot it had ever been walked on. His breath clouded, not from cold, but from the residual ache of stolen moments.
She waited at the center—Velvenna N., the Temporal Oracle, exiled from the Clockfather's Circle for crimes against chronology. She sat on a bench beneath a tree that shed glowing petals upward into the sky.
She didn't look surprised to see him.
"Back again," she said softly, "without a gun raised this time."
He nodded. His revolver—Hourbringer—remained holstered.
"No contracts. No combat. I came to ask something… insane."
She smiled. It was warm. Painful.
"So, the ice finally cracks."
"I need a companion," he said, blunt. "Not in the usual sense. Karnessa showed me a clause—a transference. You'd feel for me. My love. My guilt. My regret."
Silence.
Then laughter. Not cruel—just tired.
"Not Nice asking for emotional outsourcing. That's a new low. Or maybe a high."
"I don't want to forget her," he said. "My daughter. Her smile. The way she held my hand when she was three and said she wasn't afraid of monsters because she had me."
Velvenna looked at him—really looked.
He wasn't a husk anymore. He was crumbling.
"You know what you're asking, don't you?" she said.
"I do."
"If I accept, I'll feel everything for you. But it won't be mine. I'll love a daughter that isn't mine. Cry for a wife I never kissed. Kill and scream and weep for you while you stand there empty."
"I know."
She stood, the petals swirling around her.
"And if I say no?"
"I'll still kill. Still steal moments. Still wear the ring and pretend I can feel again. But I'll lose myself. Bit by bit. Until there's nothing left but the contractor who made a bad deal and called it noble."
Velvenna walked to him, close enough to see the regret in the lines he didn't know he had.
"You're lucky I'm already broken," she said."I'll take the clause."
6:09 p.m. — The Binding
Karnessa's voice echoed from the ether, guiding them both:
"Companion Clause recognized: Transference of Resonant Emotional Current authorized."
Velvenna pressed her hand to his chest.
The Reclaimant ring pulsed.
She gasped—not from pain, but from impact.
A hundred memories flooded her. A hundred emotions surged. A wedding. A laugh. A slow goodbye. Blood. A birth. The sound of a child's tiny breath.
She collapsed to her knees, weeping uncontrollably.
And Not Nice…He stood, unmoved, staring at his hands like they didn't belong to him.
Velvenna whispered, voice shaking:
"She loves you so much."
"I know," he said.
And for the first time in years,he almost wished he could cry too.