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Twenty-three seconds left.
Mark stared at the gray crystal in Toria's hand. It caught the moonlight wrong, like it was drinking the glow instead of reflecting it. His knee throbbed where he'd slammed it against the drainpipe. Veran's boots echoed up the tower stairwell—close enough now that Mark could hear the scrape of leather on stone.
"Fifteen seconds," Toria said.
Ella stepped between them. "He's not doing it."
"Then he's dead." Toria didn't even look at her. Just kept those pale eyes locked on Mark. "Your call, otherworlder. Earth, or six more breaths."
Mark's hands were shaking. He tried to picture his apartment. The IKEA couch with the broken spring. His desk setup—two monitors, mechanical keyboard, the coffee mug that said World's Okayest Developer. Jenny's voice on the phone last week, flat and done: *Just sign the papers, Mark.*
He couldn't lose that. Those were the only things that proved he'd existed before this nightmare.
"What if I forget who I am?" The words came out hoarse.
Toria tilted her head. "You won't. The crystal takes episodic memory. Facts about Earth. Images. Not self-concept."
"Bullshit," Ella snapped. "Memory *is* self. You pull his past and he's just—"
"—alive." Toria's voice went cold. "Which is more than he'll be in ten seconds."
The stairwell door slammed open one floor down.
Mark looked at Ella. She'd burned her badge for him. Literally set her whole identity on fire and dropped it into the alley so the guards would waste time searching the wrong place. Her hands were blistered. Her eyes were wet.
"I can't let him catch us," Mark said quietly.
Ella grabbed his wrist. "Mark. Don't."
"Sorry."
He reached for the crystal.
Toria's fingers closed around his before he touched it. Her grip was ice-cold. "Smart man. Now hold still."
She pressed the crystal against his forehead.
Nothing happened.
Mark had expected pain, or a pull, or the horrible sliding feeling of something being ripped out of his skull. But there was just coolness, like someone had put a damp cloth on his skin. The crystal hummed. Toria's eyes unfocused.
"Huh," she said.
"What?" Mark tried to pull back. She held him in place.
"Your memory structure's strange. Fragmented. There's gaps."
"I'm forty-one and I've done a lot of beer. So what?"
"So nothing's in the usual layout." Her frown deepened. "This is going to take longer than—"
The rooftop door exploded outward.
Veran came through low and fast, sword already drawn. He clocked Mark and Ella in half a second, then his eyes went to Toria. He stopped.
"Grey."
"Dusk." Toria didn't let go of Mark. The crystal kept humming. "You're off your leash pretty far north."
"Temple contract." Veran's blade didn't waver. "Step away from the heretic."
"Can't. I'm mid-extraction."
Veran's jaw tightened. Mark watched his knuckles go white on the sword grip. For three long seconds nobody moved. Then Veran said, "How much?"
"For what?"
"To walk away."
Toria smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "You can't afford me, executor. Not on church wages."
"The otherworlder's wanted alive. High Priestess Mara's orders."
"Was that before or after she told you to make it look like an accident?"
Veran went still.
Mark's stomach dropped. He looked at Ella. She'd gone pale.
"That's what I thought," Toria said. "So here's the new deal. I finish the extraction. You go back and tell Mara the otherworlder got away. And nobody has to explain to the Church Council why an executor was working a black contract on temple grounds."
Veran's eyes flicked to Ella. "The apprentice is a witness."
"The apprentice burned her badge. She's no one." Toria's voice was flat. "And you were never here."
The humming from the crystal spiked. Mark gasped. This time he *did* feel it—a sharp cold spike right behind his eyes, like brain freeze from chugging a slushie. Images flickered. His car. His mom's kitchen. The coffee shop where he used to work weekends in college. All of it flashing and then—
Gone.
No. Not gone. Just. Distant. Like he was trying to remember a movie he'd seen years ago instead of his own life.
"Stop," he choked out. "Stop, that's too much—"
"I'm not even halfway through your Earth cache." Toria's voice was tight. Strained. "Something's wrong. Your memory's locked. There's a seal."
"A *what*?"
"Imperial seal. Old style. Someone didn't want you remembering everything." She pulled the crystal back. It was glowing now, a sick greenish-white. "Or someone wanted to make sure you remembered exactly the right things."
Ella made a small sound. "The summoning."
Toria looked at her. Really looked, for the first time. Then back at Mark. Her expression shifted—surprise, then calculation, then something Mark couldn't read.
"Yeah," she said softly. "The summoning."
Veran stepped forward. "Grey. What did you just find?"
"Nothing you want to know about." Toria pocketed the crystal. "Deal's off, otherworlder. I don't buy cursed goods."
"Wait—" Mark's head was spinning. "You said you'd help us—"
"I said I'd buy your memory. I didn't say I'd buy a leash." She turned to go.
Ella moved. Fast. She grabbed Toria's coat and yanked her back. "You can't just leave him like this. You already took half his past!"
"I took three weeks. He'll live."
"What's the seal?" Mark pushed past the pounding in his skull. "What does it mean?"
Toria looked at him. For a moment her face was unreadable. Then she sighed.
"It means the temple isn't hunting a failed summon," she said. "They're hunting someone who came back too soon."
Mark opened his mouth. No sound came out.
Veran's sword dropped an inch. "That's not possible."
"Check his aura yourself." Toria shrugged. "I'm done. You three sort it out."
She walked to the roof edge and jumped.
Ella lunged after her, but Toria was already gone—Mark heard the snap of a grapple line catching, then nothing. He stared at the empty space where she'd been. His thoughts were sluggish. Sticky. He tried to remember his apartment again and got static.
Three weeks. She'd taken three weeks.
He didn't even know which three.
"Mark." Ella's hand on his shoulder. "Mark, we have to move—"
"Someone who came back," he said. "What does that mean?"
Veran hadn't moved. He was staring at Mark like he'd just grown a second head. His sword arm was still raised, but his grip had gone loose. Uncertain.
"Executor." Ella's voice was shaking. "Are you going to kill us or not?"
Veran blinked. Looked at his blade. Then, slowly, he sheathed it.
"No," he said.
Ella froze. "What?"
"If Grey's right, I can't." He met Mark's eyes. "Because if you came back, that means you already died here once."
Mark's bad knee gave out.
He hit the roof hard. Pain spiked up his leg and he tasted copper. Ella caught him before he toppled sideways. She was saying something but the words weren't landing. All Mark could hear was Veran's voice, flat and certain:
*You already died here once.*
No.
No, that wasn't right. He'd been summoned. Pulled out of his apartment mid-signature on the divorce papers. He'd never been to this world before. He'd never—
A flash. Not a memory. Something older. Colder.
Stone walls. A circle of mages chanting. The high priestess with a knife. And his own voice, ragged and desperate:
*Please. Not again.*
Mark threw up.
When he looked up, Veran was gone.