The next day, the sky weeps over Asterley Academy.
Not rain — something thicker. Grey droplets that leave stains on the stone paths like ink. The students walk faster, their gazes down. As if the world is remembering something it wants to forget.
Haera can barely breathe.
Cairos's words echo louder with every heartbeat:
> "You broke the first cycle."
But how? Why?
---
She skips class and returns to the greenhouse. The velvet chair is gone. In its place: a mirror, identical to the one from the chapel — but this one reflects only her.
No room. No background. Just her.
Except… her reflection blinks twice when she does once.
She steps closer.
Her reflection does not.
And then it smiles.
Her lips stay still.
"Don't trust the version of him you fell for," the reflection whispers. "He wasn't always like this. And neither were you."
---
Haera stumbles back. A soft thud lands behind her.
She spins — and finds a single page, fluttering to the ground like a leaf.
It's a torn journal entry. Written in her own hand. Signed Lilienne.
> "Cairos doesn't know I remember both.
And I cannot tell Kael.
Because this time… I choose me."
---
Later, in the library basement, she hunts for the missing volumes of The Unwritten.
She finds a hidden drawer beneath the librarian's desk. Inside: dozens of burned photographs — all with her face. Different clothes. Different centuries. Different deaths.
In every one of them, she is either reaching for Cairos… or turning away from Kael.
All but one.
In that photo, she's alone.
And smiling.
---
Cairos corners her after sundown.
"I know where you went."
She folds her arms. "Then you know I remember what you didn't tell me."
He doesn't flinch.
"I didn't want you to remember the bleeding."
"The what?"
"The first time memory returned before it was ready. You wept blood, Haera. You clawed at your own skin. I held you through it."
She steps back. "Why didn't you warn me?"
"Because if memory bleeds… it means this is the final cycle."
---
The air thickens. Her ears ring. And somewhere far off, a bell tolls.
Only three times.
Not the usual five.
---
They both freeze.
Haera looks at Cairos.
"What does that mean?"
He looks genuinely afraid for the first time.
"It means someone's broken the veil. A soul that wasn't supposed to return has forced its way in."
A long silence.
And then a name hangs between them.
Kael.
---
That night, Haera dreams not in images — but in sensations.
Pain.
Burning wrists.
A heartbeat stopping.
A scream that doesn't end.
And two hands — one pulling her back, the other letting her go.
---
She wakes, hand over her chest.
And finds her palm bleeding again, right where the cut used to be.
The binding is unsealing.