The harbor lamp went out.

Edrin moved.

Mara stepped in front of him.

“No.”

“If that was my brother—”

“If it was Aren, running toward the water is the worst thing you can do.”

Edrin stopped.

Barely.

His face had lost every trace of its usual dry patience.

“You said he was himself for the first few days.”

“Yes.”

“And after that?”

“I told you.”

“No. You told me what happened to his memories. You did not tell me what happened to him.”

Mara looked toward the dark harbor.

“Because I don’t know.”

The answer hit him hard enough that Thira saw it.

Tavi still held the little bronze bell against his chest.

Thira crouched beside him.

“The man you saw this morning. Did he say anything besides asking whether I had returned?”

Tavi looked at Mara.

Thira shook her head.

“Look at me.”

He did.

“Did he?”

Tavi nodded.

“What?”

“He asked if you came alone.”

Behind her, Nilan inhaled.

Thira did not turn toward him.

“What did you tell him?”

“That I didn’t know.”

“And then?”

Tavi’s fingers tightened around the bell.

“He smiled.”

Thira felt colder.

“What kind of smile?”

The boy thought about it.

“Like I gave the right answer.”

Edrin looked toward the harbor again.

Mara caught his sleeve.

“This is why we do not go down there.”

Thira stood.

“You said I left a picture.”

Mara’s grip on Edrin loosened.

“Yes.”

“I want to see it.”

“Thira—”

“You said Past Me decided which answers I could have. Apparently she also decided to leave evidence.”

Mara studied her.

Then nodded.

“Inside.”

Her gaze moved to Nilan.

“He stays out.”

Nilan answered before Thira could.

“Yes.”

Thira looked at him.

No argument.

No attempt to negotiate the distance.

That somehow made leaving him outside harder.

“I won’t be long.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No.”

His mouth almost moved.

“Then I’ll be here when you come back.”

Thira stared at him for half a breath.

Then followed Mara inside.

The burned house had been rebuilt from the inside.

The outer walls were blackened stone.

Within them stood fresh timber supports, woven sleeping mats, clay jars, fishing hooks, and a narrow cooking hearth.

Life hidden inside ruins.

Tavi slipped past them and placed his bell on a shelf.

Three smaller bells rested beside it.

Thira looked at Mara.

“How many times have you needed those?”

“Since you left?”

“Yes.”

“Twice.”

Thira stopped.

“For me?”

“No.”

Mara did not explain.

Thira filed the question away.

The picture hung above a shelf of salt jars.

Charcoal on thin hide.

Thira recognized herself immediately.

Not because it was perfect.

Because whoever had drawn it had captured the way she held her chin when she was preparing to argue.

Her hair was shorter.

Her face thinner.

There was a dark line around her wrist.

Nilan’s hand was not in the picture.

But his fingers were.

Only four of them, entering from the lower edge, as though he had been standing beside the artist when the drawing was made.

Thira stepped closer.

“Who drew this?”

“Aren.”

The room seemed to shrink.

Thira turned.

“He drew me?”

“During the first days.”

Before his memories stopped belonging only to him.

Mara took the picture down.

“Turn it over.”

Writing covered the back.

Thira knew the hand before she read a word.

Her own.

She read silently.

IF I RETURN AND DO NOT REMEMBER YOU, DO NOT TRY TO MAKE ME.

Below it:

ANSWER WHAT I ASK. NOT WHAT YOU THINK I SHOULD KNOW.

Thira swallowed.

Past Thira continued to be irritatingly precise.

Then:

IF I RETURN ALONE, TAKE ME TO THE DRY ROOM.

IF NILAN IS WITH ME, RING THE BELL UNTIL WE SEPARATE.

DO NOT LET US REACH THE HARBOR TOGETHER.

And beneath that—

DO NOT LET HIM TELL ME WHAT HE REMEMBERS OF THE CLOSING.

Thira stopped breathing.

Closing.

Nilan remembered—

or had once remembered—

the closing.

Her eyes moved lower.

DO NOT TELL HIM WHAT I REMEMBER OF THE OPENING.

There it was.

Two halves.

Opening.

Closing.

Thira sat down without meaning to.

Mara stayed standing.

“That is why I was supposed to return alone.”

“Yes.”

“I remembered the opening.”

“You did then.”

“And Nilan remembered the closing.”

“Yes.”

Thira looked toward the doorway.

She could not see him from here.

Good.

For once, good.

“A path remembered by two is a door.”

Mara’s expression sharpened.

“You found that again.”

“Yes.”

“You wrote something like it here too.”

“Of course I did.”

Thira returned to the picture.

One final instruction waited at the bottom.

IF THE HARBOR LAMP IS ALREADY BURNING WHEN I RETURN, DO NOT TAKE ME TO THE DRY ROOM.

Under that:

ASK WHO LIT IT.

Thira looked at Mara.

“We know.”

Mara’s face had gone pale.

“Aren.”

“Or something calling itself Aren.”

Mara sat across from her.

For several moments only the small hearth spoke.

Then Thira asked,

“What is the dry room?”

Mara hesitated.

“You allowed that question.”

“How generous of me.”

“It is beneath the old net house.”

“And what is there?”

“A wall that remembers without returning anything.”

Thira frowned.

“A memory wall?”

“We never called it that.”

“Of course not.”

Mara almost smiled.

“You used it because the harbor was too dangerous.”

“To recover my missing months?”

“No.”

That answer came immediately.

Thira went still.

“Then why?”

Mara looked toward the picture.

“To leave them.”

The words did not make sense at first.

“My six months?”

“Not all at once.”

“Mara.”

“You came here carrying memories you said could not remain together.”

Thira’s black seam cooled.

“What memories?”

“You did not tell me.”

“Did Nilan know?”

“Yes.”

The answer hurt in a way Thira refused to examine.

“And Aren?”

Mara’s eyes shifted.

“He was the reason you started separating them.”

Thira thought of Edrin outside.

Of Aren returning to the Citadel.

Of him later remembering childhoods that were not his.

“What happened here three years ago?”

Mara looked at her for a long moment.

Then said,

“You came to Iruvai because Aren believed something of him had been left behind when he returned.”

Thira’s pulse changed.

“Behind where?”

“The returning place.”

The sea struck the harbor wall outside.

Mara continued.

“He said if he could get that missing part back, the false memories would stop.”

“And I believed him.”

“You wanted to.”

That was not the same answer.

“Did Nilan?”

“No.”

Thira almost smiled.

“That sounds familiar.”

“He argued with both of you.”

“Did we listen?”

“No.”

“That also sounds familiar.”

Mara’s expression did not soften.

“You opened the returning place.”

Thira’s humor vanished.

“And?”

“Aren was standing beside you when you did.”

Thira stared.

The Threshold Register returned to her.

RETURNED: SOL, AREN.

“But the record says Aren returned during the reciprocal threshold event.”

Mara shook her head.

“Aren was already there.”

Cold moved across Thira’s skin.

“Then what returned?”

Mara’s eyes filled with the same fear she had shown when she first saw Nilan.

“We never found out.”

Outside—

the little bronze bell rang.

Once.

Mara surged to her feet.

Tavi was beside them.

He had not touched it.

The bell sat alone on the shelf.

It rang again.

Thira’s mark burned.

She turned toward the doorway.

“Mara?”

The woman had gone white.

“That only happens when the boundary between you starts to close.”

Thira ran outside.

Nilan was exactly where she had left him.

Twenty paces away.

Edrin stood farther down the road.

Neither had moved.

Yet the bell rang a third time.

Thira looked toward the harbor.

Someone stood at the end of the broken wall.

A man.

Wet clothes.

Dark hair.

Too far away for his face to be clear.

Edrin whispered,

“Aren.”

The figure did not look at him.

He looked only at Thira.

Then he raised one hand—

and pointed behind her.

Toward Nilan.

Thira’s black seam split with pain.

Nilan’s scar opened at the same instant.

And across the distance between them—

a memory began to form.