Chapter 3 — Searching Shadows
The streets smelled of rain and pavement, just as she remembered them. A faint tang of exhaust and bakery sugar hovered in the air, the same as it had eight years ago. Seraphina paused at the corner, coat pulled tightly around her, and let her gaze drift over the familiar blocks. Every detail was stitched into memory: the curve of the lamppost outside the café, the chipped paint on the shop window, the exact angle the morning sun hit the fountain in the park.
It should have been comforting.
It was not.
Comfort, she realized, had always been a lie. The streets were the same, but she was not. She had woken into this morning carrying thirty-two years of knowledge, of losses, of betrayals, all packed into a body that expected innocence. That incongruence made her stomach clench.
She walked slowly, deliberately, testing the way her legs responded. Each step felt like reclaiming territory that had already been stolen once. Her heart kept pace with her memories, faster when she passed a corner she knew led to her parents' old café stop, slower when she imagined who was—or wasn't—there now.
Isolde's voice came first, soft and warm, cutting through the quiet.
"Seraphina! There you are. I didn't think I'd find you outside already."
Seraphina turned. Isolde Mercer looked the same as she remembered, younger than thirty, careful in her elegance, still carrying that subtle air of someone who thought she had to measure her steps in the world. But even across a crowded square, Seraphina noticed small shifts: the way her friend's eyes lingered a fraction too long, the way she tilted her head, like she was recalibrating the person in front of her.
"Good morning," Seraphina said, voice steady. "I thought I'd stretch my legs."
"Stretching?" Isolde's brow quirked. "You? Already dressed, already out?"
Seraphina smiled faintly. "It seemed… sensible."
Isolde's gaze sharpened, the first of many little interrogations she wouldn't voice. Her friend noticed the absence of hesitation in Seraphina's movements. The absence of fear in the way she stepped around puddles. The way she scanned the square before crossing streets, as though she had already lived through traffic patterns and human distractions a dozen times.
"Everything alright?" Isolde asked softly.
Seraphina's hands flexed in her coat pockets. "Everything is… different." The words felt strange, inadequate. She couldn't say, I've already lived this once. I've already lost. That truth would sound like madness. Instead, she forced ordinariness over the tremor in her chest. "I'm… adjusting."
They walked together, slowly, in silence that was neither uncomfortable nor easy. Isolde chatted about things that should have seemed mundane: classes, a trip she'd taken years ago, small gossip about people neither of them needed to care about anymore. Seraphina responded, mechanically, observing, learning the cadence of the world she had been ripped out of.
Her eyes kept drifting to shadows between buildings, corners she knew were empty but felt like hiding places for someone she could not yet name. Julian.
He should be eight years away, in her first life timeline. But her memory of him—the patient man who had received her parents' gifts and held them lightly, without demand, without explanation—pulled at her attention like a magnet. She tried to locate him in cafés, on sidewalks, even through windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone who belonged to a life she hadn't lived yet.
He wasn't there.
Nothing.
Her chest tightened at the absence. The world was moving, indifferent, and she realized for the first time how terrifying it was that she couldn't call him, couldn't ask him to appear, couldn't shortcut the years she had yet to live to meet him. The very thought made her stomach twist with a new kind of hunger—a mix of panic and longing.
Isolde noticed her pause. "What is it?" she asked.
"Nothing," Seraphina said again. It was still true. Nothing, for now. She didn't explain the ache, the knowledge of him waiting somewhere in the future. That conversation could not happen. Not yet.
Instead, she spoke of cafes and books, of streets she had memorized but now saw through different eyes. She let the small things anchor her, like a rope thrown to herself before the ocean of everything she knew could pull her under.
Yet, every step, every laugh she forced, was measured. The precision of it would eventually be noticed. And Isolde, keen-eyed and subtle, noticed something. A calm that didn't belong to someone just returned to their twenties. A weight in her gaze that didn't belong to a young woman.
"Seraphina… you're… different," Isolde said finally, but her voice was gentle. More observation than accusation.
Seraphina smiled faintly. She could only let that lie settle for now. "Maybe," she said. "Or maybe I'm just awake earlier than usual."
Isolde didn't press. She wasn't sure how. She had noticed the shift, the unfamiliar steadiness, the way Seraphina didn't flinch when a man brushed past them in the street, or when a group laughed too close to them. Isolde only knew that something in her friend had changed—and it unnerved her.
Seraphina's gaze returned to the horizon, tracing the familiar streets. She had to find him. Julian. She didn't yet understand what she would say, what she would do, or if the meeting could even happen now. All she knew was that the absence of him burned like a wound she hadn't expected to feel in this timeline.
Hours passed, and she went from street to street, café to café, library to park, all the while searching. She asked quietly, under her breath, almost to herself:
Where are you? Where are you now?
And every answer was silence.
By the time she returned to her parents' home, the sun was high, and the normalcy of life pressed in. People moved around her, oblivious. Vendors called greetings. Children chased balls. Dogs tugged at leashes. And she felt… small, yet brimming with the weight of everything she now carried.
Seraphina paused at the top of the stairs, looking down into the living room where Alaric and Celeste were arranging afternoon tea. Her chest rose and fell in a rhythm that no one else could notice. She was alive again, young again—but she carried all of her lost years within her.
Her hands clenched at her sides. The reality hit: she had a second chance. But the world didn't bend to her knowledge. And Julian… Julian was out there, somewhere, unaware she was here, and she would have to wait, and watch, and move carefully until their paths crossed.
She breathed. Slowly. Deliberately.
Time was hers—but terrifyingly, brutally hers.
And for the first time since waking, Seraphina felt the full weight of the decision she had to make: she could be brave this time. She had to be brave.
No one could help her. No one could warn her.
She was alone with the knowledge of what was coming—and the knowledge of what could be changed.
And that alone made her pulse thunder.