Kaja and her brother find a strange clock deep in the forest, and a gnome appears with a test they never expected.
From a distance, the forest by the Old Escarpment looked harmless, almost sleepy, with sunlight dripping through the branches and the stream whispering over its stones. Kaja knew better. Her grandfather had warned her never to go past the birch trees, as if the line of white trunks marked the edge of something far less friendly than a forest. But Filip was impossible to keep still for long, and by afternoon the two of them were already darting between tree trunks, inventing spells, and daring one another to skip farther along the stream.
Filip was the first to spot it. Something flashed gold beneath the roots of a fallen tree, half hidden under a pad of moss. Kaja crouched beside him and brushed the green velvet away with her fingers. A small clock lay underneath, no bigger than her palm, warm from the sun but oddly alive in her hand. Its face had no numbers. Instead there were tiny symbols: a cloud, a moon, a leaf, and a bird that seemed to vanish when she blinked. The hands were turning backward.
"Maybe it’s broken," Filip whispered, though he sounded thrilled rather than worried.
Kaja was about to answer when the clock gave a soft chime. Not loud. Worse than loud. It was a sound that felt like it had come from somewhere deep inside the trees, as if the forest itself had heard them.
A giggle fluttered from the bracken. Kaja spun around, tightening her grip on the clock. Between the ferns stood a tiny figure with a long blue beard threaded through with silver. He wore a cap the colour of wet leaves, and his eyes shone like polished pebbles.
"So," said the gnome in a thin, bright voice, "you’ve found the Clock of the Gnome Master. That means the forest has chosen you."
Before Kaja could ask what that meant, the clock burst into light. Sparks, green and gold and blue, swirled around them in a rising circle. The trees shivered. The ground seemed to tilt. Then the forest split apart ahead of them like a curtain pulled open too fast, revealing three paths where there had been only moss and shadow a moment ago: one leading into thick mist, one curling toward giant mushrooms taller than Filip, and one vanishing straight down into the earth.
The gnome lifted one thin finger and pointed.
"Choose quickly," he said. "Night is already listening."
Kaja looked at Filip. Filip looked at the three paths. Then the clock in her hand ticked once, and from somewhere underground came a sound like something answering back.