On the edge of the city, Natalia, Lena, and Roch enter a café where the clock never keeps the same time twice and something inside seems to recognise them before they do.
The night lay heavy over Kopernika Street, thick with rain and the black, wet shine of the old lime trees. Their branches moved in the wind with a restlessness that made Natalia glance up twice before pushing open the café door.
They had come here the way they always did when they wanted the world to feel smaller for a while. Natalia, Lena, and Roch stood beneath the neon glow of Pod Niewidzialnym Zegarem, warming their fingers around paper cups of tea they had bought to take away, but none of them were in a hurry to leave. Something about the place always held them back.
There was no proper signboard above the entrance, only a clock fixed to the wall, pale and old-fashioned, its face dim in the rain. People in the neighbourhood swore it never showed the same time as any other clock in the city. Natalia used to laugh at that. She had never laughed at the way her pulse quickened every time she looked up at it.
Tonight the café seemed off, as if it had been turned a fraction out of step with the rest of the street. Music drifted from inside, a low piano melody that sounded too slow for the hour. Lena leaned closer to the fogged window and frowned.
"It looks different," she said.
She was right. Behind the counter, where the usual barista should have been, stood a man in a dark green tailcoat, holding a pocket watch between two pale fingers. He looked up at once, as if he had been expecting them, and gave a small, precise wave.
Roch pushed the door open before anyone could decide not to.
Warm air wrapped around them. The café smelled of wet coats, cinnamon, and something else Natalia could not name. The man in the tailcoat led them to the window without speaking, and three cups of blue tea appeared on the table as if they had been waiting there all evening. On each saucer lay a card with one of their names written in elegant black ink.
Natalia lifted hers first. The letters shivered, then rearranged themselves.
In a moment, time will come full circle. Are you ready?
She looked up.
Outside, the clock above the door began to tick. Once. Twice. Then faster, louder, until the sound filled the room. The lights flickered, died, and a gold flare burst from somewhere behind the bar, throwing the man’s silhouette across the walls.
When Natalia could see again, his face had changed.
Or maybe it had always been that way. In the glass behind him, she caught the reflection of three familiar faces looking back at her, only older, as if years had passed in the space of a breath.
The café door creaked open behind them.
Cold air slid across Natalia’s neck, and all three of them turned at once, just as someone stepped inside who should not have been there at all.