The sun was too warm.
Not the gentle, drowsy warmth of a late afternoon — this heat was heavy, like a hand pressing her down. The air shimmered faintly, warping the horizon.
Elara pushed herself up, brushing off blades of grass that clung stubbornly to her clothes. She blinked against the light, squinting at the landscape.
It wasn't a city.
It wasn't any place she knew.
Rolling hills stretched in every direction, stitched with wildflowers in colors she couldn't name — some violet-blue, some almost metallic. The air smelled of earth and something faintly metallic, like rain that hadn't fallen yet.
Casimir was nowhere.
She yanked the journal open.
Its pages fluttered without wind, stopping on a fresh entry she hadn't read:
"You are early. You were warned."
Her pulse jumped. "Warned about what?"
The ink bled into new lines as she watched:
"About the Keeper."
She looked up sharply — the hills were empty, but the air felt different. Charged. As if something had noticed her.
Far off, on the crest of a hill, a figure stood.
Not Casimir. Taller, broader, wearing something that caught the sunlight in hard, sharp flashes.
It didn't move, but she knew — knew in her chest — that it was looking at her.
The journal's ink bled faster:
"Do not let it count you."
A shiver slid down her spine. "Count me?"
The air rippled.
One… two… three…
A slow, deliberate sound, like a finger tapping on glass.
With each beat, the light dimmed fractionally — so subtly she wouldn't have noticed if she wasn't staring right at the flowers, watching their colors drain.
The figure began walking toward her.
She turned in a frantic circle, scanning for the pendulum door, for the clock, for anything that looked like a way out. There was nothing but grass and hills, stretching forever.
The journal seared into her skin.
"Once it reaches you, you will be in the count."
"What does that even mean—"
The tapping stopped.
The figure was gone.
"Elara."
The voice was right behind her.
She spun, heart in her throat.
It was the man from the library.
The one in the long overcoat.
Only now, she saw his face — and it was hers. Older. Sharper. And smiling like someone who had been waiting a long time.
The journal snapped shut on its own.
The wind rose suddenly, bending the flowers flat.
The older-Elara leaned closer, her voice low and almost kind.
"You've been here before," she said. "But this time, you're staying."
The hills flickered — not light, but time shifting. And then everything went black.