The district Inspector Arav named does not appear on Tej's current maps.
That alone tells him he has been here before.
He walks anyway.
The streets grow narrower as he moves deeper into the district, buildings pressing closer together, as if space itself is being rationed. Shop signs are blank or half-formed. Doors exist without numbers. The air feels thick, resistant, like it has been spoken about too often.
Tej stops at a familiar corner.
He does not remember arriving here.
But his body does.
His breathing slows. His shoulders tense. His hand curls slightly, as if expecting to hold something it no longer has.
The street bends inward.
Not visibly. Not enough to alarm a passerby. But enough to feel. The walls lean by a fraction, creating a subtle funnel. Sound gathers here. Footsteps echo longer than they should.
This is the place from the photograph.
A woman stands near the corner, arranging objects on a low crate. Small things—metal scraps, bits of glass, folded cloth. She pauses when Tej approaches.
"You shouldn't stand there," she says. "It remembers pressure."
Tej blinks. "This place?"
She nods once. "It tightens when people hesitate."
Her name, he learns carefully, is Mira. She speaks with the practiced indirectness of someone who knows the cost of clarity.
"What happened here?" Tej asks.
Mira gives him a long look. "That depends on how much of yourself you're willing to lose."
Tej studies the street again. The bend, the tension, the way the corner seems to pull meaning toward it.
"I think it already took something," he says.
Mira's hands still.
"Then you were involved," she says.
Before Tej can respond, a sharp pressure blooms behind his eyes. Not pain—alignment. The street shifts. The air thickens.
Someone nearby says a name.
Just once.
The effect is immediate.
The sound snaps like a wire pulled too tight. A man further down the street staggers, clutching his head. A sign above a doorway blanks completely, its letters peeling away as if ashamed to exist.
Mira swears under her breath and grabs Tej's sleeve, pulling him back.
"Don't react," she whispers. "The Law is listening."
Tej forces himself to stay still. The pressure fades slowly, reluctantly.
"Names do that now?" he asks.
"They always did," Mira says. "But not this fast."
She studies him more closely now.
"You're the Historian," she says. "The one who forgets carefully."
Tej does not correct her.
"What was taken from me?" he asks.
Mira hesitates.
"Someone you tried to protect," she says finally. "Someone you almost named."
The street tightens again, as if displeased.
Mira steps back.
"That's all I can say," she adds. "Any more and this place will demand payment."
Tej looks down at the ground. For a moment, he thinks he sees a shadow that doesn't belong to anyone standing there.
When he looks again, it's gone.
As he turns to leave, his chest tightens with a certainty he doesn't remember earning.
Whatever happened here is not finished.
And the street knows he is back.
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