I clutched the knife tighter. It buzzed in my hand, vibrating with unspoken power, as if it recognized my desperation.
It was no longer just a blade.
It was an escape. It was destiny.
My other hand fumbled into my pocket, fingers slick with blood, until they found the note.
The paper.
Hischance.
With effort, I released it into the wind.
I watched it float downward, caught in a lazy current—spinning and drifting—before it landed near the base of a tree.
A message.
A hope.
A dare.
Then the world unraveled.
I was being pulled apart, slowly and completely, as if I were made of silk threads caught between past and future. My body felt light, yet impossibly heavy, like I was sinking through air.
Memories crashed into visions.
Laughter and blood. Warm hands and whispered prayers. Balthazar’s mouth was on my skin, and the weight of tomorrow was pressing against my chest.
The air thickened like fog, but it shimmered—otherworldly. Awind that wasn’t wind wrapped around me, coaxing me, lifting me, carrying me across centuries.
And then?—
Silence.
Stillness.
The air thinned. The pain vanished.
The pull released.
And I was no longer in the park.
No longer with Signor Zampa.
No longer in my own time.
Chapter 13
Balthazar
Isat motionless in my chair, seething in the dim glow of candlelight flickering across the walls of my study. The air was heavy, stifling, and thick with the scent of wax and smoke. Shadows danced across the stone walls like phantoms, whispering secrets I couldn’t bear to hear.
Alina had vanished.
The last time I’d seen her was days ago, slipping like a wraith along the edges of the funeral procession. Since then—nothing. Every lead, every contact, every bribe had yielded the same maddening result: dead ends and cold trails.
And the rumors… gods, the rumors.
