Maya's POV
I'm going to die in this alley.
Two steps. That's all I managed after Kael left. Two steps before my legs gave out and I collapsed face-first in mud that smells like sewage and rot.
My vision blurs. The brand on my shoulder screams with pain. Every breath tastes like blood.
Elara's body is shutting down. Three days without food or water, beaten half to death, infections spreading through wounds that weren't cleaned properly—this body was dying before I even arrived in it.
And Maya Chen's soul can't fix broken ribs or stop blood loss.
I try to crawl. My fingers dig into the mud, pulling myself forward inch by agonizing inch. There's a door ahead. Maybe someone will help.
Maybe someone will at least let me die inside instead of in the filth.
My hand hits the wooden door. I raise my fist to knock but I'm too weak. The fist just falls against the wood with a pathetic thump.
"Please," I whisper. "Please help me."
No answer.
I try again. Louder. "Please! I'm dying!"
The door swings open so suddenly I fall forward into the room. I land on a wooden floor—rough, splintered, but clean. Cleaner than the alley at least.
"Get out."
I look up. An old woman stands over me with a broom raised like a weapon. She's maybe seventy, with gray hair tied back and eyes hard as stone.
"I said get OUT!" She jabs the broom at me. "I don't help traitors."
"I'm not—" I cough, tasting blood. "I didn't do it. I was framed."
"That's what they all say." She lowers the broom but doesn't help me up. "You're Lady Elara Thornwood. The whole city knows your face. Poisoned the prince, got what you deserved. Now you want charity from the people you nobles spit on?"
"I was never like that," I say, though I'm speaking for Elara, not myself. "I volunteered at hospitals. Helped people. I never—"
"You served poisoned wine to the Crown Prince!" Old Nan's voice cracks like a whip. "My son was a palace guard. Lost his position because he failed to stop you. Can't feed his family now. So no, girl. I don't help the woman who destroyed good people's lives."
She starts to close the door.
"Wait!" I grab her ankle—the only thing I can reach. "I know you don't believe me. I know I look like everything you hate. But I'm begging you—"
"Begging won't save you."
"No. But knowledge will." The words come out desperate, wild. "Help me live, and I'll teach you things that could save hundreds of lives. Thousands. I'll show you how to cure sicknesses your healers can't touch. How to stop infections. How to deliver babies safely. How to—"
"You're delirious." Nan tries to shake off my hand. "Talking nonsense."
"It's not nonsense! It's science!" I pull myself up using her leg, ignoring the pain. "Listen to me. Your grandson—I can see him through the doorway. He's six? Seven? He has a cough. I can hear it from here. Wet cough, probably fluid in his lungs. Give him one more week and it'll turn into pneumonia. Then he dies."
Nan freezes. "How did you—"
"Because I know things. Things that will sound like magic but are really just facts." I meet her eyes, putting every ounce of desperation into my voice. "Help me live. Three days. Just three days to get my strength back. And I'll prove to you that I'm not a traitor. I'm something else. Something this kingdom desperately needs."
"And what's that?"
"A person who knows how to actually save lives instead of just praying over corpses."
Nan stares at me for a long, long moment. Her grandson coughs again from inside—a horrible, rattling sound that confirms my diagnosis.
"You're mad," she says finally. "Completely mad."
"Probably." I smile through the blood on my teeth. "But I'm the only chance that boy has. And deep down, you know it."
Something shifts in her face. Not trust. Not belief. But maybe... curiosity? Desperation?
"Three days," she says harshly. "You get three days to prove you're not just another lying noble. But if my grandson gets worse—if I think for one second you're cursing him instead of helping him—I'll slit your throat myself and dump your body in the river. Understood?"
"Understood."
She drags me inside and kicks the door shut. The room is tiny—one room with straw pallets on the floor, a small fire pit, and almost no possessions. Poverty that makes my engineer heart ache.
"On the mat," Nan orders. "Don't touch anything. Don't talk to my grandson. Don't even look at him wrong."
She drops me on the straw and I nearly pass out from relief. A roof. A floor that isn't mud. A chance to not die in an alley like garbage.
"Thank you," I whisper.
"Don't thank me yet." Nan brings a cup of water—boiled, I note with approval. She's smarter than she looks. "You said you could cure Finn's cough. Prove it. But I'm warning you—try any witchcraft, any strange rituals, any suspicious nonsense, and you're done."
"No witchcraft. Just..." I search for words she'll understand. "Just very old knowledge that was forgotten. Can you bring me willow bark? And honey? And some clean cloth?"
"That's all?"
"For now. Tomorrow I'll need more. But yes, those three things can ease his cough tonight." I close my eyes, already mentally going through the treatment. "Willow bark tea for fever and pain. Honey for the throat and to fight infection. Clean cloth to catch the mucus so he doesn't spread it."
Nan doesn't move. "Every healer in the slums uses those things. They don't work."
"Because they don't use them correctly. The tea has to be strong enough—two strips of bark per cup, steeped for twenty minutes minimum. The honey has to be raw, not processed. And the cloth has to be boiled before use to kill the invisible creatures that cause sickness."
"Invisible creatures?" Nan's suspicion returns. "Now you sound like a witch."
"I sound like someone who understands how disease actually works." I force my eyes open. "But you don't have to believe me. Just do what I say. If Finn is better tomorrow, you'll know I'm telling the truth. If he's worse, you can kill me with my blessing."
Nan studies me for another long moment. Then she nods once and moves to prepare the remedy.
While she works, I close my eyes and think about what I need to do. I have three days to prove myself. Three days to get strong enough to face Kael again. Three days to figure out how to survive in a world that wants me dead.
But first, I need to save a six-year-old boy's life using nothing but willow bark, honey, and knowledge from a future that doesn't exist yet.
No pressure.
"Drink this," Nan says, pressing a cup to my lips. "You look half-dead yourself."
The liquid is bitter but warm. Willow bark tea. She made it for me too.
"You didn't have to—"
"If you die before morning, I don't get to see if you're a liar or a miracle worker." Nan settles onto her own mat. "Sleep. Tomorrow you prove yourself or I throw you back in the alley where you belong."
I drift off with those comforting words, exhaustion finally claiming me.
I dream of laboratories and betrayal. Of Derek's smile and Lisa's wave. Of fire and death and impossible blue doors.
Then I dream of something else. A woman's voice, familiar but wrong. Older. Tired.
"So you finally came," the voice whispers in my dream. "Took you long enough, Maya. I've been waiting twenty years."
"Who are you?" I ask in the dream.
"Someone who made all your mistakes before you did. Someone who's going to help you avoid them." A face appears—older, scarred, but with eyes I recognize from a mirror.
My own eyes.
"I'm Maya Chen too," the woman says. "The first one. And tomorrow, when you wake up, you need to know something very important."
"What?"
"Prince Kael knows about me. He knows about time travel. He's been preparing for your arrival for years." She leans closer, urgent. "But the council knows too. And they're going to use your connection to him to kill you both. Unless—"
I jolt awake.
Morning light streams through cracks in the walls. Nan is standing over me with a shocked expression.
"Saints preserve us," she whispers. "What are you?"
"What? Why?" I sit up, confused.
She points at Finn. The little boy is sitting up, eating bread, looking perfectly healthy. His cough is gone. His color is normal.
"He was dying yesterday," Nan says. "Dying. And now he's... he's fine. Completely fine. I've never seen—" She looks at me with something between awe and terror. "What are you? Really?"
Before I can answer, there's a pounding on the door. Harsh. Urgent.
"Open up! Royal guards! We're searching for the traitor Elara Thornwood!"
My blood goes cold. They found me already. Somehow, they know I'm here.
Nan looks at me, then at her grandson, then back at me.
She has a choice: turn me in and get a reward, or hide me and risk everything.
Her hand moves toward the door handle.
And I realize my three days just became three seconds.