Chapter 15 · Seven Borrowed Seconds

The vault door screamed behind them.

Not opened. Not forced.

Screamed.

The sound came through the iron like a living thing being dragged across broken glass. Shelves shuddered. Thousands of sealed memory cylinders chimed in their niches, each note a different year, a different grief. Blue-white light crawled along the brass ribs of the chamber, illuminating the blood on Kieran's shirt and the pale reflection of Eve standing three aisles away.

The other Eve smiled.

She wore the same coat. The same split in her lower lip. The same tiny silver scar beneath her right eye. But her smile held no warmth, and her pupils were filled with the slow-turning numerals of a clock.

"You came back," Memory-Eve whispered.

Eve's fingers tightened around the hourglass at her throat. The glass was no larger than her palm, its silver frame warm against her skin. Seven grains of black sand rested in the upper chamber.

"I have never been here before," Eve said.

"That is what you always say."

Behind Eve, Sora made a small, strangled sound. "The door is opening."

Kieran had one hand pressed to the wound beneath his ribs.