But at the same time, it seems like just yesterday, with how my heart gushing out blood like it willneverstop blee—
Stop it with the melodrama, Bailey.
I absently reach for my camera...and only realize that I don’t have it with me when all my hands grasp is air. It’s only at that moment do I realize how I’ve come to use photography as a crutch. Just snapping life away—snap, snap, snap—every time I struggle to bear with the weight of my own existence.
The hallway is all dark wood paneling and burgundy carpet, oil paintings of stern-faced ancestors staring down at me from gilded frames. Morning light slants through the tall arched windows at that perfect angle—maybe 30 degrees above the horizon, the kind of light that makes everything look like a film still. If I had my camera, I’d be adjusting for the warm color cast. Bumping up the Kelvin to compensate.
Somewhere beyond these walls, in the cavernous ballroom where Abigail’s wedding is about to take place, guests are filinginto their seats. I can hear the distant murmur of voices, the faint strains of a string quartet warming up.
Okay, Bailey. You can do this. Just stand here. Watch for Amos. Don’t think about anything else.
I still haven’t told Abigail that I watched her die in another timeline. That I saw her body cold and still in that dungeon. But it can still change. That’s why I’m here. I have a job to do. A life to save. That’s it. After that, I’m—huh?
I blink.
Squint.
Rub my eyes so hard I probably smear whatever mascara Abigail insisted on putting on me.
But it’s still him.
The heartbreaker.
The husband who kicked me out.
Stop it, Bailey!
The Mafia King of the South is walking down the corridor toward me, his footsteps muffled by the thick carpet.
That...is how I’m going to think of him from now on.
Not by his name.
Not by what role he used to play in my life.
From now on, he’sjusta king.
It’s the only way I can survive thinking of him.
Looking at him.
And remembering how it all started here.
Once upon a time.
A HALLWAY. A WEDDING. And the bride stillisn’tme—
Oh God, I don’t think I can do this.
The pain is so great, the panic so terribly consuming, that I forget I have a life to save, and I just...run.
The hidden door is right where I remember it—tucked behind a faded tapestry depicting some kind of hunting scene, barely visible unless you know to look. I yank it open and slip through into the narrow passage beyond.
Stone walls press in on either side, rough and cold even through my dress. The air smells like dust and age and secrets—like opening a trunk that’s been sealed for decades. A single shaft of light filters down from somewhere above, catching the dust motes floating in the stillness.
My heart is doing its best impression of a trapped bird.
Footsteps behind me.
