The tower's interior was impossibly large.
Shelves stretched into a darkness that had no ceiling.
Thousands of clocks hung in the air.
Some moved backward.
Some had no hands.
Others displayed times that didn't exist.
Between the shelves floated glass spheres, each containing a tiny scene.
A girl laughing beneath a tree.
An old man opening a letter.
A student standing outside a classroom, too nervous to enter.
A boy running toward someone he would never meet.
Rive slowed down.
"What are these?"
Vikram examined one of the spheres.
"Possibilities."
"Possible futures?"
"Not exactly. Moments that almost happened. Moments that were interrupted. Choices that were never made."
Rive watched a sphere containing two boys arguing beside a school gate.
One turned away.
The other reached for his hand.
The scene vanished before their fingers touched.
Rive's stomach tightened.
He knew those uniforms.
He knew that gate.
And he knew the boy who turned away.
Arin.
Rive stepped closer.
"That's…"
The sphere disappeared.
Vikram immediately grabbed his shoulder.
"Don't touch the memories."
"I didn't!"
"Your soul reacted to it."
Rive stared at the empty space.
For a moment, he could almost remember something.
A school afternoon.
A stupid argument.
Arin laughing.
Then the feeling slipped away.
Rive frowned.
"Vikram?"
"What?"
"What's my favorite memory of Arin?"
Vikram looked at him.
"You should know that."
"I know."
Rive waited for the answer to appear in his mind.
It didn't.
He remembered Arin's face.
His voice.
The way he used to make terrible jokes and then laugh before anyone else could.
But the memory he was searching for—
The one that should have been there—
Was missing.
Rive's hands began trembling.
"No."
Vikram stepped closer.
"Rive?"
"I remember him. I know I remember him."
His voice cracked with frustration.
"But there's something I can't—"
TICK.
A clock sounded behind them.
A new glass sphere appeared on the nearest shelf.
Inside it was a bedroom.
A messy desk.
A stack of sketchbooks.
A half-finished painting.
And a boy sitting by the window, talking to someone outside the frame.
Rive stopped breathing out of habit.
He knew that room.
His room.
The scene shifted.
A younger Rive sat cross-legged on the floor, holding a paintbrush. Beside him, another boy was trying to draw something on a piece of paper.
The drawing looked terrible.
Rive began laughing.
The other boy threw the paper at him.
"Shut up! It's supposed to look like that!"
The boy turned toward the sphere.
And smiled.
Arin.
Rive stepped closer.
A memory returned.
Not a vague feeling.
Not a broken image.
A real memory.
One he had forgotten.
He had been twelve.
Arin had come over after school, determined to prove he could draw better than Rive.
He couldn't.
Not even close.
They had spent the afternoon arguing about it.
It had been ordinary.
Meaningless, perhaps.
But it was theirs.
Rive smiled faintly.
Then he noticed the black crack running through the sphere.
The memory was disappearing.
"No…"
He reached toward it.
Vikram shouted.
"Rive, don't!"
Too late.
Rive's fingers touched the glass.
The tower went dark.
Every clock stopped.
Every sphere turned toward him.
And a voice spoke from the shelves.
"Payment accepted."
Rive stumbled backward.
The sphere shattered.
The memory vanished.
Completely.
He could still remember that he had once been twelve.
He could still remember having a best friend named Arin.
But the afternoon—
The laughter—
The terrible drawing—
It was gone.
Rive stared at his hand.
"What did I do?"
Vikram's face had gone pale.
"Your power took a memory in exchange for restoring another moment."
Rive looked at him.
"I didn't choose that!"
"The Archive doesn't care what you choose."
Rive's eyes burned with frustration.
"Then how do I stop it?"
A clock began ticking above them.
TICK.
TICK.
TICK.
A figure stepped from between the shelves.
It wore a long coat made of paper-thin pages. Its face was hidden behind a porcelain mask, and a ring of tiny clocks floated around its head.
In one hand, it carried a book.
In the other—
A silver key.
"By learning the difference," the figure said, "between a moment you wish to change…"
It opened the book.
"…and a moment you have the right to change."
Rive stared at it.
"Who are you?"
"The Archivist."
The figure turned a page.
"And you, Rive, are becoming a very expensive problem."