Steam hissed in quick, nervous bursts the moment I stepped beneath the giant clock face, its red-stained glow flickering like a coded signal meant for the patient and the desperate. The air carried a metallic tang, and each suspended particle hung motionless, as if the room held its breath. Copper pipes thrummed under my palms, and the weight of their vibration fed straight into my shoulders, grounding me while the heart dangling from the pulley swung with a patrol’s precision. I tracked its arc the way we once tracked Vojta’s footsteps through alleys and archives. I remember leaning closer to the cracked window where someone etched “Where Vojta?” in a rush that still tingles with urgency. The machinery below pulsed like a dossier mid-redaction—revealing and concealing with equal intent. How did this chamber trap time so completely yet refuse to give up even a hint of where he slipped next? Every surface here freezes the moment before truth, but none of them disclose his trail. And so Vojta remains unaccounted for, drifting just past our reach.