Kid, yes, we retreated, but remember this… unless you are dead, all paths lead forward. Sometimes it is necessary to take a step back to proceed ahead.

~Lugh, God of Battle and Craft

A Clockwork woman carried him into the Clocktower and sat him down on a cushioned chair in the corner of the lobby near the desk. She handed him a glass of tea.

“Drink,” she ordered.

*Crow? You okay?*

*I don’t know, what the hell happened?*

*Time happened. Only she can fully answer you. I remember arguing with her, and she kissed you. I was sleeping before that, so I don’t know what you were doing.*

“The dragon isn’t wrong. You went through the door of beginning and endings, which complicated things.”

“The Door of Paradox?”

“Good, you remember that much at least.”

“Okay, why did I forget? That’s never happened before?”

“You read a book that existed outside of time. The moment you opened the cover until time retrieved the book was removed. You should remember that explanation. Just let your mind recover a bit.”

“No, that isn’t true. The only thing I remember is that I went through the Door of Paradox. I don’t even remember entering the Clocktower previously.”

“Wait, Door of Paradox? Not Door of Beginnings and Endings?”

“No, it definitely said Paradox.”

“That…” Tei sighed. “Do you trust me?”

*Yes, you do.* Nin sighed. *Tei, you owe me. And you should never renege on a favor with a dragon.*

“You two can… communicate?”

“Close your eyes,” Tei said, and when Crow did, she kissed him. He couldn’t stop her because a flood of memories that weren’t his entered his mind. They were the events leading up to getting the book and then the conversation afterward. Since they were her memories, they contained no knowledge of what was in the book. They helped fill in his memory gaps, and his Sage’s Mind pieced together the rest. The longer she kissed him, the more relaxed he became.

*You turd! You could have just grabbed his hand. Did you have to taunt me?*

Tei laughed in response but otherwise ignored the dragon. She had shared her memories with Crow using the same method to imprint a vestige, so it came flavored with her memories and impressions. That included her mixed emotions, and he could only give her a strange look afterward. Her feelings toward him did not repulse him. He just wasn’t sure what to make of it. No matter how he thought about it, he just felt awkward.

“I’m still confused by what happened…?” Crow scratched his head, trying not to think of her as a woman—and failing.

“Door of Paradox is a door that shouldn’t have existed in this place. Because of the book, failing the riddle, and your unfated status, you met a strange set of criteria for it to appear. While time itself didn’t reverse, you did which undid your previous entry into the tower.”

“I failed? Why?”

“The book is a strange key. It’s a win-lose scenario. Taking your time with it will definitely allow you to gain an advantage, not just in this Clocktower trial but also in all the other ones. You failed because, in this place, they consider any time paradox a loss.”

“This is confusing.”

“Time usually is.”

“What is a time paradox?”

“In this scenario, your mind is. I’m not sure how to explain it. It is a contradiction of time. It’d be like if you went back in time and killed your grandmother before she had your father. Would you still exist?”

“So my paradox is that my mind went back in time to six hours ago, and every memory I had in those six hours… ceased existing?”

“It gets worse because you opened the Door of Paradox. When we talked, you asked the wrong question—not that it’ll help you now. You asked if all doors were equal, and I told you they aren’t. You failed to ask about challenges and rewards. If we were to rank the doors, your challenge level is at the godly level. A rank given to only three doors. The Door of Paradox makes the time paradox permanent. Every time you fail, you’ll create a new paradox—meaning you’ll forget your previous run. It creates an infinite loop of failure because you’ll repeat the same mistakes over and over again.”

“And there is no way to keep my memories of each attempt?”

“There is one way. The Door of Paradox is the only path that has checkpoints. You get to one, and you will remember everything up to that point. If you reach it, the Clocktower will offer you the chance to exit. I don’t suggest leaving until you fail or you are offered the chance to leave.”

“Why?”

“Time paradox doesn’t just apply to what you accomplished in the tower…”

“Holy fuck!” Crow shouted. He wasn’t stupid, and the implications left him in a cold sweat. “If I understand you correctly, all my memories from the time I started the trail until I failed would be gone? So if I left the Clocktower and continued years later, I’d risk losing years and years of memories?”

*Woah, that’s twisted.*

“Yes.”

“No fucking way. I’m not even going to bother with this damned trial,” Crow said. The one thing he prided himself on was his memory, and this was his worst-case scenario. “What happens if I choose to ignore the trial?”

Tei’s eyes whirred, and the gears spun, making them open wider. Crow felt it weird and beautiful at the same time. It differed vastly from a human’s surprised or shocked look and yet carried the same emotion.

“If you quit now, you’d forget me.”

*Dammit.*

“Dammit,” Crow muttered at the same time, instantly feeling guilty. Even held back his conflicted sigh. Other than a shared moment he’d already forgotten once, and a kiss—no, two kisses—he didn’t know who she was to him. She clearly knew more about him than he did about her. Yet, her sincerity was something that he couldn’t ignore, and he didn’t want to hurt her either.

*Why are you staying quiet? You know she’s already tugged at your heartstrings, and you…* Nin sighed. *I don’t know why I chose you. You vex me, human.*

“You two are a strange duo,” Tei laughed.

“Are you going to get in trouble for telling me all of this?” Crow asked.

“No. If anything, Father Time would compel me to explain your situation. Besides, I am me, and I am sentient, so I can make my own choices. However, there are things in this place I cannot see or share, rules not even I can bend. Like that book, I can’t read it, so I don’t know what is in it. Or the challenges on the floors, pointless for me to share what is there. Even if I could, the essence of time is change. So what I know stopped being relevant the moment I learned it.”

“That’s really damn confusing. How are you still sane?”

*Pfft. You call her sane?*

Nin had a point. Tei was odd and was a contradiction all on her own. She made cold and calculative decisions at times and then was innocent and lost at others.

“If it helps, it is only your mind that resets, but your dragon’s mind doesn’t. She could help you as long as she doesn’t leave your Soulscape—not that she can anyway.”

*He is my human. I’m not his dragon.* Nin growled, but Tei rolled her eyes which consisted of the gears shifting in a fascinating pattern.

“Can you tell me why I was left… drooling and staring at the Clocktower doors for so long? If the Door of Paradox is going to do that to me every time, who would bother taking that challenge?”

“This…” Tei said, and then the light behind her clockwork eyes dimmed for several seconds before flaring up again. “It seems there are still some rules I didn’t know existed. I’m allowed to partially explain it. So the problem is you had not one time paradox, but two. The door and the book. Not even I fully know what that means, but I did report it, and they’ll keep their eye on the situation.”

“Why all the mystery? Either way, I forget, right?”

“I’m not allowed to explain because of how the Door of Paradox works.”

*I think the problem is the timing of both events. You might have retained forbidden lore. I don’t pretend to understand how time works, but what if the Door of Paradox event happened before the book’s time paradox? Who took the knowledge from you? Was it the Clocktower or time itself? It might explain why… something? Attacked your mind.*

*Huh?* Crow really hated time.

*To put it bluntly. What if the Door of Paradox wasn’t taking your memories permanently? Rather it was holding them hostage until you completed its trial. Does that mean you’d get to retain the forbidden knowledge that was in the mysterious book?*

“Oh,” Crow finally realized the loophole, and it was strangely logical. It wasn’t something he’d expected Nin to grasp. But she was a dragon and had lived much longer than him. “Is she right?”

Tei smiled and shrugged, refusing to speak. Crow felt that Nin was probably sixty percent correct, and the remaining bits, not even the Clockwork people knew. That would explain why they wanted to keep an eye on him.

“If I go through the door, will I fail again?”

“No,” Tei said.

“Tei…”

“It is okay, Crow. Our time isn’t yet. Future, past, present… these are things you still haven’t grasped, so we can’t be together at this time. I can’t see your future, but there was a time I did. Everything between us, if it happens, will happen later. Just… remember me, or the outcome will vary.”

“That I can do,” Crow grinned. “Can I still visit with you? I have a lot of questions.”

*Pfft.*

“Pfft.”

Nin and Tei simultaneously made the same sound. Seconds later, they both burst into laughter.

“Whatever, you two…” Crow sighed and walked toward the door.

“Yes,” Tei called after him. “I can’t promise I can answer, but I’d like that.”

“Wait!” Crow stopped, remember something else that had been bothering him. “Why are the Hex Vodun creating a war they can’t win? I feel it is related to this Clocktower.”

“First reason is that there are only a limited amount of challengers allowed to enter. The second is because many ancient objects belonging to their people are within this Clocktower. If I had to guess, they are probably after the Python’s Tongue, a key required to enter the Temple of Pythons.”

“Just that?” Crow was confused. The Clocktower had a mystery that needed unraveling, but this seemed like a weak reason to kill millions.

“The Temple of Pythons is on a higher level floor, one of the Wood floors. I’m not confident which. As you can imagine, its importance isn’t small. It also was created by some of their founding ancestors, so there is no telling what is inside.”

Crow nodded and thought of Mara. She was probably thinking the same thing as him, but he also had to wonder what Torcail wanted from this place. Although he couldn’t be absolutely sure, the chances Torcail wanted a reward from this tower were high.

Did that mean the rewards for this particular Clocktower were different than the others? Or that the Clocktower appeared rarely, and no matter where it was, people could flock to it? He thought of asking Tei but decided to leave it alone for now.

Putting aside his messy thoughts, he stepped through the door to face the next trial.