The Listener's hum pressed against Kael's skull like a thumb searching for a soft spot.
He walked faster. Lira hung across his shoulders, her weight pulling at every step. Her breath came shallow against his neck. Warm. Ragged. The skittering behind them had faded but not stopped. It never stopped. It just waited for them to slow down. To stumble. To give it one good reason.
"Put me down." Lira's voice was a dry scrape.
"No."
"I'm heavy. You're slow. We're going to die tired and stupid and I'm going to spend my last moments being carried like a sack of grain."
"Then stop talking and you'll die with some dignity."
She laughed. The sound broke into a cough. Wet. Something warm dripped onto his shoulder. Blood. Again. "Dignity," she managed. "That's funny."
The street squeezed tighter. Buildings leaned in from both sides, their windows black and empty. The grey light barely reached here. Kael's legs burned. His arms had gone numb somewhere back at the hollow. The cold thread inside him was dead.
Then a window to his left flickered.
Not grey. Warm. Yellow. Soft like candlelight from another life.
He stopped.
"Kael." Lira's fingers dug into his shoulder. "Why are we stopping."
"The window. There's light. Warm light. Like something I remember."
She lifted her head. A long pause. "I don't see anything. Just dark. Just my reflection looking like death warmed over."
"It's there. I can feel it."
The light pulsed. Slow. Like a heartbeat. And inside the glow, shapes formed. A room. Small. A table. A chair. A narrow bed with a faded blanket. And sitting on that bed, a woman.
Her back was to him. Dark hair. Thin shoulders bent over sewing. Her hands moved in a rhythm he knew. The way she held the needle. The tilt of her head. The way she paused to rub her eyes.
He knew her. He didn't know how. But his chest ached with the knowing.
"Kael." Lira's voice was softer. "Talk to me. What are you looking at."
"A woman. She's sewing. She's in a room I've never seen but I know it. I know the blanket. I know the light. I know her."
"Who is she."
The woman turned.
Her face was tired. Not old. Just worn down. Her eyes were the color of the sky in his fragments. She looked through the glass and for one impossible moment, she looked at him. Not past him. At him.
Her lips moved. He read the shape.
"Kael."
But she wasn't calling him. She was calling someone else. A boy who should have been in that room. Who should have been there when she turned around. And wasn't.
"I had a mother." The words came out raw. Splintered. "Before. In the other place. Before I woke up in this body. I had a mother."
Lira said nothing. Her hand found the back of his neck. Just rested there. Warm. Steady.
"I don't remember her name. I don't remember her voice. I just remember that room. That blanket. Those hands. And I remember that she loved me. And I left her alone in that room and I never came back."
Lira's grip tightened. "You didn't leave her. You were taken. There's a difference."
"Is there."
"Yeah. One means you chose to go. The other means something chose for you. Trust me. I know the difference."
Kael closed his eyes. The woman faded. The light dimmed. And when he opened his eyes, he was staring at his own reflection.
Only the reflection wasn't right.
It wore his face. His clothes. But its mouth was moving. Its eyes were older. Emptier. Like something waiting behind his face for a very long time.
It smiled.
"Shit."
"What." Lira's voice sharpened.
"The reflection. It's smiling. I'm not smiling."
She stared. "Kael. It's just you."
"You don't see it. It's reaching for me."
The reflection pressed its palm against the glass. Kael felt the cold bloom in his own hand. A chill climbing his wrist. His forearm. His chest. The reflection's smile widened. Its lips shaped a single word.
"Stay."
The cold thread flickered. The window was pulling. The glass rippled like water. Fingers emerged. Pale. Thin. His fingers. Not his.
Lira's voice cut the air.
A single focused note. Sharp. Controlled. It struck the glass and the window cracked edge to edge with a sound like a bone breaking.
The reflection's face twisted. Not angry. Hurt. Like he'd betrayed something sacred. The fingers withdrew. The glass went dark. Truly dark. No reflection. No light. Just a thin crack and the faint smell of something burnt.
Kael's legs buckled. He hit the ground hard. Lira tumbled off his shoulder, caught herself on the wall, slid down beside him. Her nose was bleeding again. Fresh red against grey skin.
They sat there. Breathing. The Listener's hum was closer now.