Chapter 19 · The Blank Signature

The last shard of the summer memory struck the black water and did not sink.

It floated beneath the ruined ferry dock, glowing with a thin gold light. Inside it, the little girl in the yellow dress stood barefoot on a sunlit deck. Her dark hair was tied with two red ribbons. One hand held the rail. The other was clasped around the fingers of a smaller child with no shadow.

Lin Lan could not breathe.

The market groaned around her. Stalls folded inward like wet paper. Glass jars rolled across the planks, breaking open and releasing fragments of laughter, wedding vows, hospital rooms, first kisses. Each memory struck the air as a color, then dissolved into the rain.

Nara staggered beside Lin. Her skin had gone almost translucent, the veins at her throat shining silver beneath it.

“That girl,” Nara whispered. “That was you.”

Lin’s eyes remained fixed on the shard. “And you were there.”

“I don’t remember.”

“You were holding my hand.”

Nara looked down at her own fingers as if they belonged to someone else. “Maybe I was holding yours because you told me to.