Chapter 17 · The Watch That Walks Backward

The darkness did not lift so much as loosen.

A single red hand appeared in the void, ticking backward around a watch face suspended above the stage. The numbers ran in reverse beneath its cracked glass—nine, eight, seven—while the second hand jerked toward the past.

9:56.

Maeve stood barefoot on the warped boards, one hand still clenched around the torn remains of her mirror double. The paper pulsed between her fingers, wet and warm, as if something beneath the ink were trying to breathe. Somewhere beyond the curtains, a heart monitor screamed one long, unbroken note.

“Jonah?” she shouted.

Her voice traveled through the theater and came back wearing another voice.

“Help me.”

Jonah’s voice. Thin. Terrified. Close enough to touch.

Maeve spun toward the sound, but the stage had changed again. The velvet curtains had peeled away, revealing a fluorescent hospital corridor behind them. Doors lined both walls. Every door had a number, but the numbers were wrong: 04, 11, 00, 27, 04. The emergency department had been dragged into Saint Veyre like a body pulled through a trapdoor.

Eli stumbled beside her.