The crows cried at the same moment.
Veil was already awake.
He counted each call in the dark before dawn, listening until the last of them dissolved into the silence. Then he sat up without taking his eyes from the beam above him.
Same crack.
Same cold.
Same bitterness at the back of his throat.
He dressed in silence and stepped outside.
The village began again.
Doors. Footsteps. Smoke. Muted voices. The same wheel rattle over the same broken patch of road. The same dog barking twice behind the cooper's shed.
Old Maren stood at her doorway.
"Good morning," she said.
Veil walked past her without answering.
A pause.
Then—
"Good morning."
Same tone. Same spacing.
He did not turn around.
By the time he reached the market, something hard had formed inside him. Not courage. Not yet. Something smaller, meaner.
Refusal.
"Fresh fish! A fine catch today!"
Too early.
Again.
This time, Veil did not go toward the stall. He turned sharply instead and took a lane that ran away from the square, cutting between storage sheds where the smell of fish and bread gave way to damp wood and shadow.
It was quieter there.
No vendors. No buyers. No repeating greetings.
For the first time in three mornings, the silence felt clean.
He stopped in the middle of the alley and waited.
Nothing happened.
A little of the tension in his chest loosened.
"Good," he murmured.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
Slow.
Measured.
Veil spun around.
The alley was empty.
He listened, pulse rising fast enough to hurt.
Nothing.
Only his own breathing.
He took one step forward.
Then a voice spoke just behind his shoulder.
"Would you like to try the bitter root drink?"
Veil froze.
He turned.
The old man stood there, holding the cup.
No stall. No board of fish. No knife.
Only the cup.
There was no way he could have reached the alley before him. No way he could have crossed the square unseen and arrived here without sound.
Yet there he was.
Veil took a step back. "No."
The old man did not lower his hand.
"Would you like to try the bitter root drink?"
Same tone.
Same moment.
Not repeated.
Reset.
The realization landed with nauseating force.
Veil turned and ran.
He came out into the market hard enough to nearly collide with a woman carrying onions. She cursed at him. A dog barked. A child laughed. The square swallowed him whole, alive with movement, unchanged.
He looked to the stall.
The old man was there.
Cutting fish.
Knife rising and falling in the same measured rhythm.
As if the alley had never existed.
Veil stopped moving.
His breath came unevenly now, loud in his own ears.
Then he saw the man by the wall.
Same place.
Same stillness.
Watching.
Veil met his eyes and, for the first time, did not look away.
The man's mouth curved, just slightly.
"You shouldn't do that," he said.
His tone was mild. Almost conversational.
"Do what?" Veil heard himself ask.
The man tilted his head.
"You'll break it."
A woman passed between them carrying bread. Warm air followed her for a heartbeat.
When she was gone, the man was no longer there.
Veil remained where he was, unmoving, while those words settled into him.
Break it.
If it could be broken, then it was not madness.
And if it was not madness—
what, exactly, had trapped him inside it?