Lucian stared at the blood on his hands.
Arterial spray pattern. Close range. Temporal penetration. Time of injury: minutes ago. Current status: impossible.
His doctor's brain tried to catalog it. Tried to make it clinical. Tried to make it make sense.
It didn't work.
He forced himself to breathe. In through the nose—four counts. Hold. Out through the mouth—four counts. The technique he'd taught to patients in the ER when they came in mid-panic attack, when their bodies were convincing them they were dying.
I might actually be dying. I might be dead already.
No. Dead men don't panic. Dead men don't feel their hearts hammering against their ribs like they're trying to break out.
Lucian looked around the room again, slower this time. Details. He needed details. Something to ground him in... wherever this was.
The writing desk was mahogany, he thought. Or maybe oak. Dark wood, expensive. A brass lamp sat on one corner, unlit. The papers scattered across the surface—he picked one up.
His hands were still shaking.
The handwriting was elegant, practiced. Cursive that looped and swirled in ways his own never had. He scanned the first few lines:
—respectfully decline your invitation to the Blackwood Estate gathering. My health has not permitted social engagements of late, and I fear—
A letter. Half-finished. The ink had dried days ago, maybe weeks.
Lucian set it down and picked up another.
The shipment from the Ironworks District arrived damaged. Three crates of ceremonial steel, rendered unusable. I expect compensation or replacement within—
Ceremonial steel. Business correspondence. Nothing that explained where he was or why a bullet hole in his skull had vanished like it never existed.
He dropped the paper.
Focus. One thing at a time.
The blood. He needed to deal with the blood first.
His fingers found his temple again. The skin was smooth. Whole. Not even a scar. He'd spent six years in medical school, another four in residency, and he'd never seen a wound heal like that. Gunshot wounds didn't close themselves. Bones didn't knit back together in minutes.
This isn't real. It can't be real.
But the blood under his fingernails was real. The copper taste in his mouth was real. The ache in his head—duller now, but still present—was real.
Lucian crossed to the wardrobe. The door hung open, revealing rows of clothes that belonged in a costume drama. Coats with tails. Waistcoats in dark colors—burgundy, navy, black. White shirts with too many buttons. He pulled one out and examined the fabric.
Linen. Good quality. The kind of thing that cost more than most people made in a month.
Whoever Lucian Smith was, he had money.
He grabbed a clean shirt and looked around for a washbasin. Found it tucked in the corner—a ceramic bowl on a wooden stand, pitcher beside it. He poured water into the basin. It was cold, shockingly so, but he welcomed it. The sensation was grounding.
Lucian stripped off the bloodied shirt and cravat. His chest was broader than he remembered. More defined. He'd been fit enough on Earth—had to be, working twelve-hour shifts in the ER—but this body was different. Stronger, maybe. Younger, definitely.
He scrubbed at his hands first. The water turned pink, then red. He had to change it twice before his skin was clean.
His face next. He cupped water in his palms and splashed it against his cheeks, his forehead, the side of his head where the wound had been. The coldness shocked the panic back a few steps. Not gone. Just... manageable.
When he looked up, the stranger in the mirror stared back.
Black hair, still damp. Sharp jawline. Eyes that were darker than his had been—almost black in the dim light. Handsome, objectively. The kind of face that would've made his job easier back home. People trusted attractive doctors more. Study after study confirmed it.
But that's not my face.
He touched his cheek again. The stranger mirrored him.
That's not my face.
His breathing quickened. The panic pushed back against the calm, demanding attention.
That's not—
A knock at the door.
"Master Lucian? I've set breakfast in the dining room. Shall I prepare a bath as well?"
The voice pulled him back. Lucian blinked, realized he'd been staring at the mirror for—how long? A minute? Five?
He forced words through his throat. "Yes. Thank you."
Thank you? Was that appropriate? He didn't know. Didn't know anything about this place, these people, this life he'd apparently stolen.
Or been given.
Or trapped in.
"Very good, sir."
Footsteps retreated. Lucian waited until the sound faded completely before he moved.
He pulled on the clean shirt, fumbled with the buttons. Too many. Who needed this many buttons? His fingers remembered the motions anyway—muscle memory from a body that wasn't his. The cravat was harder. He gave up after three attempts and left it hanging loose around his neck.
The coat came last. Black wool, well-tailored. It fit perfectly, which shouldn't have surprised him but did anyway.
Lucian caught his reflection one more time. The stranger looked back. Composed. Wealthy. Nothing like the terrified doctor who'd woken up with a bullet in his brain twenty minutes ago.
Fake it. You've faked confidence before. Every time you told a family their loved one didn't make it. Every time you held a patient's hand while they died. You can fake this.
He opened the door.
The hallway stretched in both directions, longer than any hallway had a right to be. Wallpaper in dark green, patterned with gold. Gas lamps—actual gas lamps, he realized—lined the walls at intervals. The flames flickered as he passed, casting shadows that seemed to move independently of the light source.
He ignored that. Had to ignore that.
Stairs appeared on his left. Wide, carpeted in burgundy. His hand found the bannister—polished wood, smooth under his palm—and he descended.
The house opened up below him. Not a house. A manor. High ceilings. Crown molding. A chandelier that had to weigh two hundred pounds hanging over the entrance hall. Portraits lined the walls—stern faces in old-fashioned clothes staring down at him with expressions that ranged from disapproving to actively hostile.
Who were these people? Lucian Smith's family?
He reached the bottom of the stairs and paused. Three doorways branched off from the hall. No signs. No helpful labels.
"Master Lucian?"
He turned.
The maid stood in the doorway to his right. Middle-aged, maybe forty or fifty. Her dress was black, practical, with a white apron tied at the waist. Her hair was pulled back severely, greying at the temples. She regarded him with an expression he couldn't quite read. Concern? Suspicion?
"Breakfast is ready, sir. In the dining room."
She gestured to the doorway she'd emerged from.
Lucian nodded. Followed. What else could he do?
The dining room was smaller than he'd expected but no less opulent. A table that could seat twelve dominated the space. Only one setting had been prepared—fine china, silver cutlery that gleamed even in the muted light from the window.
The window.
Lucian's attention snapped to it before he could stop himself.
The grey was still there. Still moving. But now, in daylight—if it was daylight—he could see more. The city sprawled below, but sprawled wasn't the right word. Fractured, maybe. Broken.
Buildings rose at angles that shouldn't have supported their own weight. Streets curved up the sides of structures, defying gravity. And in the distance, that tower he'd seen before hung suspended in the air, slowly rotating around an axis only it seemed aware of.
"Are you feeling unwell, sir?"
The maid's voice pulled him back. She was watching him with that same unreadable expression.
Lucian cleared his throat. "I'm fine. Just... tired."
"You didn't sleep well again."
It wasn't a question.
He took the seat at the head of the table. The chair was more comfortable than it looked. "No. I didn't."
The maid moved to the sidebar and began preparing his plate. Eggs. Toast. Something that might have been bacon but looked darker. She worked in silence, efficient movements that spoke of decades of practice.
Lucian studied her while she wasn't looking. The dress, the apron—Victorian era, definitely. Or something close to it. But her hands... were those calluses? And a scar across her knuckles, half-hidden by the sleeve.
She set the plate in front of him. Poured tea from a silver pot that steamed in the cool air.
"Will there be anything else, Master Lucian?"
He should eat. Should at least try. But his stomach was a knot of anxiety and confusion, and the thought of putting anything in it made him want to retch again.
"I..." He hesitated. "What's your name?"
The question seemed to catch her off guard. Her eyebrows rose fractionally. "Martha, sir. As I've been for the past fifteen years."
Fifteen years. This woman had known Lucian Smith his entire adult life, and he didn't even remember her name.
"Martha." He tested the word. "I'm sorry. The illness has... I'm having trouble remembering things."
Her expression softened, just slightly. "The physician said there might be confusion. Memory gaps." She folded her hands in front of her. "It's no trouble, sir. You've been through a difficult time."
"How long?" Lucian asked. "How long have I been ill?"
"Three months, sir. Give or take." Martha's mouth pressed into a thin line. "You stopped going out. Stopped taking visitors. Just stayed in your study day and night, barely eating, barely sleeping."
Three months of decline. Whatever had driven the original Lucian to put a gun to his head, it had been eating at him for a quarter of a year.
"What was I doing?" Lucian asked. "In the study?"
"Writing, mostly. In that diary of yours." She paused. "And talking to yourself. I'd hear you through the door sometimes. Arguing with... someone. Though when I'd enter, you'd be alone."
The blood in Lucian's veins turned cold.
"What was I saying?"
Martha hesitated. "I shouldn't have been listening, sir. It wasn't my place."
"Please."
She looked at him for a long moment. Then: "You kept saying someone was watching. That they were always watching. That the world was—" She stopped herself.
"That the world was what?"
"Wrong, sir. You said the world was wrong. That everything we see, everything we know, it's all... broken." She busied herself straightening the already-straight silverware. "Fever talk, the physician said. Delusions brought on by illness."
But Lucian looked out the window at the impossible architecture, at buildings that defied physics, at the grey fog that moved like something alive, and he thought: What if it wasn't delusions at all?
"Martha," he said slowly. "This city. The buildings. The way they... don't make sense. Has it always been like this?"
She followed his gaze to the window. "Since the Shattering, sir. Over two thousand years ago."
"The Shattering?"
"When the gods went to war." She said it matter-of-factly, the way someone might discuss the weather. "The Seven fought amongst themselves, and the world broke. Reality itself fractured. That's what the priests teach, anyway."
Gods. Real gods, who fought wars that shattered reality.
"Tell me about them," Lucian said. "The gods."
Martha looked surprised again. "You want to know about the Seven? You've never been much for religion, sir."
"Humor me."
She took a breath, and when she spoke, her voice carried the reverence of someone reciting a lesson learned in childhood. "Well. There's Lord Shiva, the Destroyer. "HE" holds the world's ending in "HIS" hands, they say. When it's time for this world to end, "HE'll" be the one to unmake it."
The way she said those pronouns—emphasized, sacred, separate from normal speech—made Lucian's skin prickle.
"Lord Brahma is the Creator. Though some say "HE'S" stopped creating, that "HE'S" too busy holding together what's left. Lord Vishnu preserves what remains—keeps us from sliding into complete chaos. "HIS" temples are the most well-attended after Lady Lakshmi's."
She counted them off on her fingers. "Lady Lakshmi governs fortune and prosperity. People pray to "HER" more than any other. "SHE" blesses merchants, farmers, anyone seeking wealth or luck. Lord Indra commands storms and lightning—"HIS" wrath is terrible to behold. Lord Vishwakarma crafts wonders. They say every great work of engineering is blessed by "HIS" hand."
That was six. Lucian waited.
Martha's expression darkened. Her voice dropped. "And then there's the Empty Throne."
"Empty?"
"The seventh god is gone, sir. Has been for three centuries. Some say "HE" abandoned us. Others say "HE" was destroyed. The priests won't speak of it." She lowered her voice further. "There are those who say "HIS" name brings misfortune. That even mentioning the Shadow God invites—"
She stopped. Shook her head. "But that's just superstition."
Shadow God.
Something about those words made the hair on the back of Lucian's neck stand up.
"What happened to him?"
"No one knows, sir. Or if they do, they're not telling common folk like me." Martha moved toward the door. "I should prepare your bath. Unless you'd like to finish breakfast first?"
Lucian looked down at his plate. He'd forgotten about the food entirely.
"Yes. Thank you, Martha."
She curtsied and left him alone.
Lucian sat in the silence of the dining room, staring at the cold eggs on his plate. His mind raced, trying to piece together fragments of information that didn't fit any pattern he recognized.
A world shattered by divine warfare. Gods who were real, worshipped, spoken of with pronouns that separated them from mortals. An empty throne that no one would talk about. And Lucian Smith, who'd spent three months descending into madness before putting a gun to his head.
What did you discover? Lucian thought, staring at his reflection in the polished silver. What did you see that made you want to die?
Outside, the grey fog pressed against the window. And somewhere in its depths, Lucian could have sworn he saw shapes moving. Watching.
Always watching.
He stood abruptly, the chair scraping against hardwood. He needed to move. Needed to explore. Needed to find answers before whatever drove the original Lucian to suicide came for him too.
His eyes drifted to the doorway. Somewhere in this manor was that study. That diary. And in it, maybe, were the answers he needed.
Or the same madness that had consumed his predecessor.
Only one way to find out.