Chapter 40 · Remember You Beyond Time

Eve woke with blood in her mouth and the taste of rain on her skin.

For one suspended second, she thought the roof beneath her was still moving. The tiles rolled like black waves. The sky above Nacre City split into brass-colored rings, each one ticking backward. Somewhere below, bells screamed from every tower at once.

Then the roof stopped shaking.

The bells stopped.

The city breathed.

Eve pushed herself upright. Pain flashed through her ribs. The Living Core was gone, reduced to a jagged crater in the Assembly tower, its bronze veins still glowing beneath the broken stone. Smoke crawled over the rooftop in pale ribbons. Beyond it, Nacre City glittered under the midnight rain.

Thirteen minutes had returned to the world.

Not to memory. Not to history. The city had simply continued, as if the stolen time had been swallowed and digested by something too vast to name.

Eve looked over her shoulder.

Kieran sat near the shattered clock housing, one knee drawn up, his black coat torn open at the shoulder. A thin line of blood traced his temple.