The map was a lie.
Elara Voss knew this intimately, not as a criticism, but as a fundamental truth of her profession. Every map was a lie. It was a representation of a world seen through one person's eyes, filtered through their biases, their limitations, their desire to make the unknown seem knowable. This particular lie was a 17th-century Portuguese portolan chart, and its deception was a beautiful, fragile thing. The sea was a swirling turquoise monster, its edges crawling with serpents and galleons. The coast of Africa bulged with a confidence that was geographically unsound, and the whole thing was rendered in a faded, determined ink that had stubbornly refused to vanish into time.
Her job was not to correct the lie, but to preserve its voice.
Her brush, a single sable hair loaded with a gelatin-based adhesive, hovered over a tear in the vellum near the Cape of Good Hope. The workshop was silent, save for the soft hum of the climate-control system and the whisper of her own breath. This was her sanctuary: a room smelling of old paper, rabbit-skin glue, and the faint, clean scent of ethanol. Light, diffuse and kind, fell from a north-facing skylight, illuminating motes of ancient dust dancing in the air. Here, in this ordered space, she could pretend time was linear. A tear could be mended. Decay could be arrested.
Her focus was absolute, a pinpoint of concentration on the delicate task. She lowered the brush, the adhesive a glistening bead on the tip. It touched the frayed edge of the vellum—
—and the world dissolved.
It wasn't a dizzy spell. It wasn't a daydream. It was a physical wrenching, a sensation of being pulled through a pinhole in reality. The scent of glue and old paper vanished, replaced by the iron-and-salt smell of cold sea air. The silence of the workshop was obliterated by the sound of her own laughter, loud and unrestrained, and the frantic pounding of rain on weathered wood.
Shuffle.
Her consciousness slammed into a new moment, a different body. She was younger, her skin buzzing with a cold that seeped through a thin jacket. She was running, her hand clasped in a much larger, warmer one. A pier. She was on a rain-slicked pier, the planks bouncing under their feet. The lights of the city were a blurred watercolour painting across the dark water.
"Faster!" a voice shouted, a rich, laughing baritone that vibrated through the hand holding hers. She couldn't see his face—it was a blur of motion and shadow—but she felt the shape of his fingers laced through hers, a perfect, solid fit.
A jolt of pure, unadulterated joy, so sharp it was almost painful, shot through her. It was a feeling unburdened by context or consequence, a diamond-bright moment of being perfectly, incandescently happy.
"We're going to fall in!" her own voice, younger, breathless, yelled back, though the protest was swallowed by her laughter.
"So we fall!" he shouted, and he pulled her to a stop at the very end of the pier, spinning her around. The world whirled: dark water, glittering lights, his silhouette against the stormy sky. He was holding her by the waist, his forehead pressed against hers, their breath pluming in the frigid air in synchronized pants. She could feel the solid warmth of his chest, the rapid beat of his heart—or was it hers?
Stay, she begged the memory silently, the plea a familiar mantra. Let me see. Let me know.
But The Shuffle was a merciless curator. It never lingered for long.
The rain-streaked pier, the feeling of his hands, the sound of his laugh—it all fractured into a million shards of light and sensation. The cold sea air was sucked away, replaced by the sterile, suffocating smell of antiseptic and bleach.
Shuffle.
Another jolt. Another place.
She was sitting. A hard, plastic chair. The light was dim, cast from a single fixture on a beige wall. A steady, rhythmic beeping filled the air, a sound so laden with dread it made her stomach clench. Her hand was resting on a bed, her fingers curled around a pale, limp one. A man's hand. Tubes snaked from the wrist, taped down with brutal efficiency.
Her throat was tight with a grief so profound it felt like a physical weight on her chest. She couldn't look up. She couldn't bear to see the face on the pillow. She could only stare at their joined hands, at the faint, thready pulse she could feel beneath her thumb. A sob built in her chest, a wave of absolute despair.
No. Not this one. Any memory but this one.
The beeping of the heart monitor faltered, stuttered into a single, sustained, piercing tone—
—and she was thrown back.
Elara gasped, her body jolting as if she'd been dropped from a height. Her brush skidded across the portolan chart, leaving a faint, glistening smear of adhesive over the Indian Ocean.
She was in her workshop. The hum of the climate control. The smell of glue. The kind, northern light.
She was twenty-eight. She was alone.
For a long moment, she didn't move. She just breathed, anchoring herself in the solid reality of her desk, the familiar grain of the wood beneath her elbows. The transition was always brutal, a psychic whiplash that left her disoriented and raw. The visceral joy of the pier was a ghost-limb sensation, already fading. The crushing grief of the hospital room, however, clung to her like a shroud.
She carefully set down her brush, her hands trembling slightly. She reached for the thick, leather-bound journal that always sat to her right. She opened it to a fresh page, her movements automatic.
Log: Shuffle 1,427.
Date: Present Day. October 17th.
Anchor Sensation: Adhesive scent, touch of vellum.
Destination 1 (Shuffle 1,428): The Pier.
*Approx. Age: 24.
Sensations: Cold rain, sea air, laughter. Running. Hand-holding—right hand. His hand is large, warm, calloused. Voice: male, baritone, laughing. Emotion: Euphoric joy.
Visual: Blurred city lights at night, wooden pier.
Destination 2 (Shuffle 1,429): The Hospital.
Approx. Age: Unknown. Feels older.
Sensations: Antiseptic smell, plastic chair, rhythmic beeping. Overwhelming grief. Holding a limp, pale hand (male).
Visual: Dim light, beige walls, medical equipment.
Note: Terminal. Precedes a flatline.
She finished writing and closed the journal, the soft thud of the cover a final, decisive sound. The Memory Journal was her attempt to impose order on the chaos, to create a map of her own fractured life. It was her own portolan chart, filled with its own beautiful, terrifying lies and omissions. She had hundreds of entries for "The Pier." Dozens for "The Hospital." They were two poles of her strange existence, one of her highest highs, the other her lowest low. And she had no idea who the man in either memory was.
A sharp knock at the workshop's main door made her jump. She wasn't expecting anyone. Smoothing her hands over her work smock, she walked to the door and opened it.
A man stood there, silhouetted against the bright hallway light. He was tall, dressed in a dark, well-tailored suit that seemed out of place among the artistic chaos of the building. He held a leather portfolio.
"Elara Voss?" he asked. His voice was a calm, measured baritone.
And something in Elara's world tilted.
It was him. The voice from the pier. The laughing baritone that had shouted into the rain. It was slightly more formal now, stripped of its joy, but the timbre, the underlying resonance, was unmistakable.
Her breath caught in her throat. She could only nod, her hand tightening on the doorframe.
"My name is Kaelen Kershaw," he said, his gaze steady and intensely focused on her. It was a scientist's gaze, observant and slightly detached. "Dr. Aris sent me. He said you were the only one who could handle this."
He held out the portfolio. She took it on autopilot, her fingers brushing against his. The contact was electric, a jolt that was both a memory and a premonition. It was the same hand she had held on the pier. The same hand she had held in the hospital.
His eyes, a startling shade of hazel flecked with green, widened almost imperceptibly. A flicker of something—recognition? confusion?—crossed his face before the professional mask slid back into place.
"It's a series of celestial maps from the personal archives of Galileo," he explained, his voice even, though she saw his throat move as he swallowed. "They're… exceptionally fragile."
Elara finally found her voice, though it was little more than a whisper. "I… I'll take good care of them."
"I know you will," he said, and the words felt weighted, far heavier than they should. He held her gaze for a moment longer, a silent, unreadable communication passing between them. Then, with a curt nod, he turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing down the hall.
Elara stood frozen in the doorway, the portfolio feeling like a lead weight in her arms. She looked down at her Memory Journal, then back at the empty hallway.
The man from her future—and her past—had just walked into her present. And he looked at her as if she were a problem he needed to solve.