In Havenridge, time was a quiet god. It hung in the steady tick of clocks that lined every home, shop, and steeple—a rhythm so constant the townsfolk barely noticed it. The river flowed, the seasons turned, and the fog rolled in each dawn, wrapping the cobblestone streets in a shroud that softened the edges of their small, ordered world. They lived by the bells, the market days, the slow grind of the mill long since stilled at the town's edge. Change came slow here, if it came at all.