The word barely made it past her lips. "Yes, dear." The woman took Mae's face in both hands, brushing her cheeks. "You're burning up. What have you done to yourself?"
Mae's world tilted. This isn't real. She died. I watched her die.
Her legs gave out anyway.
She collapsed into her mother's arms and stopped fighting it. "Mom. Mom, I missed you. I thought I'd never see you again."
Her mother held her, rocking slightly, one hand moving slow circles on her back, the way she used to when Mae was small. "Shh. You're safe. You're home."
Then a voice, cold and clipped, cut across the moment. "What is this display?" Mae lifted her head.
A man stood a few feet away. Dark cape, gold trim, posture carved from stone. Arms behind his back. Eyes unreadable.
Her breath left her body.
"...Dad?"
She didn't think. She ran straight to him and buried her face in his chest, arms locking around him, holding on like he might dissolve.
"Why did you leave me?" Her voice broke against the fabric of his cloak. "Do you have any idea what I went through? What I survived alone because you weren't there?" Her fists tightened. "I hate you for leaving me. I hate you."
Melissa went rigid. Her mother made a sharp sound. Then the man spoke.
"Who are you?" Mae's arms loosened. "...What?"
"I have one daughter," he said, each word slow and deliberate. "Her name is not Mae."
His hands came up and removed her arms from his body. Carefully. Like she was something he didn't want to touch. Mae stumbled back. The warmth that had just filled her chest caved in completely, replaced by something colder than anything she had felt all night.
"Dad. It's me." Her voice was barely audible anymore. "It's Mae."
He looked at her the way you look at a stranger. "Who are you, and what have you done with my daughter?"
The silence that followed had teeth.
Mae stood very still, breathing hard, her whole body trembling. Then something in her face settled. Not peace. The opposite. The kind of stillness that comes after you've understood something you can't undo.
She stepped back from all of them.
"I think I'm losing my mind," she said quietly. Her lips pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "So just let me be. You're not my mother. He's not my father." She swallowed. "I hope you find your real daughter."
She turned and walked toward the gates before anyone could see what was happening behind her eyes.
"Marianne!" Helen called after her, voice fracturing. Mae didn't look back.
Helen rounded on Lawrence the second she was gone.
"How could you say that to her?" Her voice shook with fury. "She's our daughter. Your own flesh and blood. You couldn't even pretend—"
"She is not our daughter." Lawrence's voice didn't rise. Melissa, who knew better than to speak, spoke anyway. "Your Highness... what if she simply lost her memories?"
Lawrence laughed once. Humorless. "I know what Marianne looks like." His eyes stayed on the path Mae had disappeared down. "That woman is not her."
He turned. "Marshal."
From the far end of the colonnade, a man emerged. Broad, military black and red, the king's insignia on his chest, the kind of face that gave nothing away.
"Yes, Your Highness?"
"Find Marianne. And make sure that the woman is seen by no one. Not a word of this leaves the palace."
The Marshal nodded and disappeared into the dark.
Lawrence walked away without looking back, his footsteps echoing across the marble like something final.
Helen stood alone, knees barely holding, staring at the empty path.
"His daughter just ran barefoot into the city," she whispered, "and he didn't even flinch."
She turned to Melissa. "Go after her. Don't let her out of your sight."
Melissa was already moving.
Helen looked up at the clouded sky, her hands pressed together at her chest.
"Please," she whispered. "Keep her safe."
-----
Her bare feet found cobblestones eventually. Still cold, but not cruel like the gravel. Small mercy.
The marketplace she'd wandered into smelled of fish oil, dung, and something fermenting sourly in the air. People stared. A woman in finery, barefoot, wild-eyed, dress dragging dirt, no escort. Whispers spread behind her like rot. She barely noticed.
"Where am I. How did I get here? Who are these people?"
No questions anymore. Just words she kept saying because silence was worse.
Her eyes were still swollen. The palace was long behind her, and the brief sense of reunion had left a sour spot in her chest. Those people were not her parents. They had her mother's face, her father's voice, and none of the rest. Her parents were dead. This was something else entirely.
At the edge of the market, two beggars sat beneath a crumbling statue of a faceless knight.
"Spare a starling, miss?"
Mae backed away, arms tight around herself. This was no illusion. The stench was too real, the puddles too foul, the bloated, dead crow she nearly stepped on too specific to be a dream. And the men watching her, that particular quality of stillness in their stare, made her walk faster.
Torches lined the street corners. Actual burning torches. The buildings were stone and rotted wood, the clothes were wool, linen, and leather, the iron lanterns groaned in the wind.
She almost laughed. "Time travel," she muttered. And then didn't laugh, because it didn't feel absurd. It felt likely.
She followed the quieter streets back toward the lantern-lit side of the city, the only corner that felt even slightly familiar, and pushed into the first building that looked like an inn Because she noticed that the signs on the buildings were not the words she could decipher at the moment.
The noise hit her like a wall. Crashing mugs, roaring laughter, thick smoke, and unwashed bodies. Every head turned when she walked in. The silence lasted exactly two seconds before the staring started.
She felt like she'd walked into a den of wolves wearing a dress made of meat.
The barkeep looked up from a mug he was polishing with a rag dirtier than the floor. "What'll it be?"
"A room," she managed.
"Two Glint. Comes with two meals and a hot bath."
She hesitated. Glint? Money, probably. "I don't have any."
He groaned, eyes dropping to the jewels at her throat, the gold threading in her dress, the brooch catching light even in the dimness. "Pawn shop's next door. They'll take that necklace off your hands fast enough."
'Oh! this jewelry? I could sell it.' She thought for a moment and then nodded. She turned and walked back out.
On the doorstep, she stopped, looked down at herself. Necklace, bangles, shoulder piece, belt clasp. More wealth draped on her body than she had earned in years of her old life.
She tore the seam of one sleeve up to her elbow, the rip loud in the quiet alley. Bundled everything into the fabric, tied it tight, and tucked the pouch flat against her waist under the folds of the dress, where it disappeared into the layers.
One earring she kept in her hand. 'This should be enough for now."
She straightened up, took a breath, and stepped into the pawn shop.
On it.
The shop smelled of dust, wax, and old iron. Shelves lined every wall, piled with objects from a hundred different lifetimes. Bent daggers, faded books, tangled chains. Behind the counter, a hunched man sat beneath a single swinging lantern, peering at something in a cracked glass case.
He looked up when she approached. His face was long, nose bent sideways, teeth sharp from years of bad habits. His eyes sharpened the second he saw her dress.
He smiled like a man who smelled money.
"How may I be of service, miss?"
"I want to pawn something." Mae held out the earring.
He took it delicately, turned it under the lantern, studied the stone. Gave a slow whistle. "Where'd a girl like you come across a piece like this?"
"I'm not from around here. That's all you need to know."
He chuckled. "Palace-cut. Hand-set stone. High-tier work." He set it down. "I can offer one Aurelian and five Glints."
Mae blinked. "How much is that worth?"
His grin curled tighter. "Ah. Unfamiliar with our coin?"
She said nothing.
He seemed to decide she was worth the explanation, probably because he expected to see her again. He reached under the counter and began laying coins out one by one.
"Starling." A small brown coin, square hole through the center. "Lowest tier. Buys you bread, maybe a cup of something terrible at the bar."
Next, a hexagonal coin with a faint silver shimmer. "Lumen. Ten Starlings. Modest meal, shared room if you're not picky about lice." He dimmed the lantern with his palm. A silver thread glowed faintly along the coin's edge in the dark.
Then a thicker, ridged coin, round as a gear. "Glint. Ten Lumens. This is real money. Private rooms, warm food, clean clothes."
Mae watched without speaking.
He reached into a locked drawer and produced something heavier. Oval, hand-carved filigree curling around the edges like vines. "Aurelian. A hundred Glints. Nobility deals in these."
Then he slid off his stool, shuffled to a small iron chest, and unlocked it with the ceremony of a man who enjoyed being watched. Inside was a velvet satchel. He opened it just enough.
A golden shimmer. Smooth and cold and radiant.
"Crescents," he whispered. "Reserved for Councilors and Magisters. Rare. Dangerous to carry." He locked it away again.
"That's it?" Mae asked.
"One more. The Sol Crown. Only held by kings and the highest bloodlines." He shrugged. "Worth cities. Not relevant to either of us."
He stacked the promised coins in front of her. One Aurelian, five Glints.
Mae looked at the coins, then at him. He looked like the kind of man who'd sell her out for two Glints and a bottle of wine. But she had no other options.
"Deal." She slid the earring across. "Break it down, though. Smaller coins, I'll need them for daily things."
He nodded like he'd expected that and turned to his drawer. Came back with a medium-sized satchel, filled with coins. She took the bag and poured the contents onto the table, and her eyes narrowed. "I will be counting them," she made it clear that she didn't trust him, and the man gulped in his saliva before pulling out five more glints from the drawer and putting them on the table. He gave a weak smile.
Mae shook her head in disbelief, not knowing how much she had been scammed already by selling that earring for such a price, but she had no choice for now. She noticed a leather bag hanging beside the counter, torn at the seams, stitched poorly with twine, faded and shapeless and ugly. "That bag. How much?"
He lifted it with two fingers as it offended him. "Two Glint."
"For that?"
"Madam." He pressed a hand to his chest. "I just gave you a very generous deal. That bag is durable leather. Handcrafted. Years of use." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Perfect for carrying valuables."
It wasn't worth it. She paid anyway, dropped the pouch of hidden jewelry inside, and tied it shut. The bag smelled faintly of mold.