The girl stood barefoot on the silver-dusted streets, the tips of her toes sinking into the soft, shifting glow of the mirrored pavement. There were no footprints behind her, no sign that she had walked here at all. It was as if she had simply appeared, a fragment of the city itself—half real, half illusion.
Finn and Lyra could see themselves in her, yet something about her was wholly alien. The sharp angles of her cheekbones, the curve of her nose, the stubborn tilt of her chin—these belonged to them. And yet, the depth in her gaze belonged to something else.
Her eyes were not human.
They stretched beyond color, beyond light and shadow, into a realm of infinite knowing. They saw things, not as they were, but as they had been and could be. She watched them with a quiet patience, the kind only found in things that had already seen the future unfold.
"You took too long," she murmured. Her voice was soft, weightless, as if her words were merely drifting through the air rather than spoken.
In her small, delicate fingers, she held an apple core, gnawed down to the seeds. The seeds pulsed faintly, as if something inside them was still alive.
I. THE GIRL WHO REMEMBERED EVERYTHING
The city around them had become something wrong. Verdantia had once been a place of vibrant markets and towering spires, but now it lay twisted, as if someone had stretched its bones in unnatural ways. Buildings leaned at impossible angles, their foundations stitched together by creeping threads of living shadow. The cobblestones beneath their feet sighed softly, whispering secrets in forgotten tongues.
The air smelled of burnt honey and iron, thick with the scent of something old struggling to be reborn.
Callan, ever wary, took a step forward, his hand tightening around the hilt of his dagger. "Who are you?" he demanded.
The girl tilted her head, considering him. Then, with a faint smile, she answered, "I was Echo. Once."
The name rang hollow, as if spoken by someone who had long since abandoned it.
Finn swallowed hard. "What does that mean?"
Echo exhaled, her breath curling into mist despite the warmth of the air. "It means I was born from the Titan's tears," she said. Her gaze shifted, locking onto Lyra. "And from the seeds you swallowed when you tried to change fate."
Lyra felt her heartbeat stutter.
This girl—this child—was something impossible. Something unnatural.
She remembers every timeline. Even the ones that were erased.
II. THE SHOP THAT SOLD MEMORIES
Echo led them through the winding streets, moving as if she knew every step before she took it. At last, she stopped in front of a narrow shop squeezed between two alleys, its door crooked, its windows dark. The sign above it hung from rusted chains, the words shifting the longer they stared at them.
For a fleeting moment, Lyra could read the name:
MENDED MEMORIES: SOLD HERE.
The door creaked open without anyone touching it.
Inside, the shop was impossibly large. Shelves stretched far into the darkness, overflowing with objects that should not have existed. Jars filled with stolen laughter, their dates marked from years that hadn't happened yet. Glass bottles containing liquid regret, some already half-drunk. A cage of hummingbird hearts, each one beating to a different rhythm, fluttering without wings.
At the center of the shop sat an old worktable, cluttered with tools that shimmered between realities—an hourglass where the sand flowed upward, a knife with a blade made of frozen whispers, a quill that dripped ink before ever touching parchment.
"We need to see," Echo said, stepping behind the table. "We need to remember what was stolen."
Her hands moved with unnatural precision, gathering items that hadn't been there moments ago.
"We need payment," she murmured, without looking up.
Lyra shuddered as the air around them shifted, turning heavy. The shop wanted something from them.
A price had to be paid.
She felt a tug at her ankles and gasped, realizing what it was—her shadow was peeling away from her body, rising like living smoke. It twisted, reshaping itself, taking a form almost identical to her own. It turned its head toward Echo, and for the briefest moment, it smiled.
Callan grimaced as his own sacrifice was taken. The old scar that ran along his ribcage—the one that had erased his greatest betrayal—began to fade. His breath hitched as if something deep inside him was unraveling.
Finn remained still, his glassy skin catching the dim light. When he moved, something shifted within him. A memory—his first memory—was slipping away, lost to the void before he could even grasp at it.
The potion Echo crafted shimmered between states of matter, neither liquid nor gas, neither light nor darkness. It pulsed, swirling with fragments of stolen truths.
When they drank it, the memories came rushing back.
And they were wrong.
III. THE BETRAYAL IN THE DARK
Lyra woke to silence.
The shop was still, the air thick with the weight of unspoken things. She turned her head—and froze.
Her shadow was no longer attached to her feet.
It stood beside Echo now, shifting, writhing, no longer mimicking her movements. Instead, it had taken on a new shape—a sharper, crueler version of her. The features were too perfect, the eyes too knowing.
Echo held something in her hands. A knife made from frozen silence.
Lyra's stomach twisted.
"She'll try to tame the Titan," the shadow whispered, its voice an eerie echo of her own. "You know what must be done."
Echo looked down at the blade. She did not hesitate.
"I'll need his heart," she said softly, her gaze shifting to Finn. "The glass one."
IV. THE TITAN'S PRISON
They found it at last—the place where everything had begun.
It wasn't a temple. It wasn't a ruin.
It was a wound in the world.
A tear in reality, its edges fraying like old fabric, stitched together with threads of molten time. Inside, something pulsed—something too vast to be contained in words. It was older than gold, older than silver—older than color itself.
"This is where they made it," Echo whispered.
The visions came like lightning strikes.
A council of hooded figures, gathered around a crucible filled with dying light. A child—the first Flamekeeper—weeping as she poured her own memories into the fire. The sky cracking like an eggshell as something vast and unknowable was born.
Lyra staggered back, her breath caught in her throat.
The Titan had not been created as a weapon.
It had been betrayed first.
V. FINN'S TRANSFORMATION
Finn took a breath, and the air around him shimmered. His glass-like skin fractured—not in destruction, but in revelation. Beneath the surface was something new, something shifting and alive.
Where his heart should have been, a clockwork key turned slowly, its teeth carved from his own ribs.
His voice changed.
It was his voice—but also the Titan's. And something else. Something older.
Without hesitation, he reached into his chest. The sound was unbearable—glass against glass, bone against time.
And when he pulled his hand free, he held—
A key. A lock. A choice.
The Titan's prison groaned, ancient seals unraveling.
A door swung open.
And behind it stood every version of Lyra that ever could be.
Echo took a step forward, her small hand outstretched.
"Come meet yourself," she whispered.
And the door began to scream.