I stare at the parchment, my soft fingers are trembling. I have the logic, but the logic is cruel.
If I am here, I am sleeping like a dead person there, I realize.
The image of my little brother shaking my shoulder in our cramped apartment flashes through my mind. I see him getting scared, his voice cracking as he calls for our mother because "Sara won't wake up." The thought of them crying over my sleeping body while I'm actually sitting here eating cold broth makes my stomach churn with a new kind of guilt.
I can't just sleep whenever I want. I have to understand the signal of my absence from my real world perfectly. I have to make sure that when I am here playing the part of Elanore, my modern body is tucked away in bed during the night so they just think I'm having a long, peaceful rest.
I can't let them see me like that, I think, gripping the edge of the table. I have to be back before the sun rises in the city. I have to be the one to make the coffee, to wake up my brother, to be the 'Sara' they rely on. If I fail there, their whole world collapses. If I fail here, I may never go back at all.
The pressure is suffocating. It's like working two full-time jobs on opposite sides of the planet with no commute time. My 25-year-old heart feels heavy. I'm not just a survivor anymore; I'm a ghost haunting two different lives, terrified of being caught in the wrong one at the wrong time.
I look at the moonlight on the floor. It's time. I have to go back now and prove to myself that I'm still alive in my own world. I have to see their faces.
The servants have finally left. The tray of dinner sits empty on the table, and the palace has settled into that heavy, oppressive silence that only comes at midnight. I stand by the window, looking out at the sprawling, moonlit gardens of a world I never asked to join.
Now, I think, my heart racing. Everyone is asleep. The night is deep. The logic should hold.
I climb into the oversized bed, the silk sheets feeling cold against my skin. I close my eyes and try to visualize my apartment. I try to smell the faint scent of old coffee and city rain. I try to hear the muffled sound of my brother's TV in the next room.
"Please," I whisper into the dark. "Just let me wake up there. Let me see my family again."
I imagine my alarm clock. I imagine the 7:00 AM light hitting my face. I tell myself that if I can just fall deep enough, fast enough, I can bridge the gap. I calculate the minutes—if I sleep now, I'll wake up just in time to make breakfast for my brother before he leaves for school. I can still make it. I can still be the provider they need.
I'll see them again in just a few minutes, I promise myself. Just a few minutes of darkness, and then I'll be home.
I force my breathing to slow. I let my muscles go limp, fighting the urge to stay alert for the Duchess's spies. I focus everything on that single goal: Home.
My last conscious thought is a desperate plea to whatever force brought me here.
Don't let me be late. Just let me wake up as Sara again.
I drift off, the silk bed fading away, my mind reaching across the void for the life I'm terrified of losing.
I finally surrender. After three days of high-stakes survival, poisoning attempts, and psychological warfare, my brain shuts down. I don't just fall asleep; I drop into the darkness like a stone into a well.
I'm going home, I think as the palace fades. I'll wake up to the smell of my city, the sound of my brother's footsteps, the weight of my own life.
"But Sara doesn't realize that the 'Night Leap' doesn't happen. Hours pass. Her soul is heavy, pinned down by a fatigue so deep it feels like lead in her veins. She sleeps like a dead body—unresponsive, unmoving, lost in a void where neither world can reach her. The logic has failed because the machine—her body—has broken down from the Sleepless Journey."
Then, a sound pierces the silence.
"My Lady? Elanore? Please, you must wake up. The sun is high, and the Duke and Duchess are asking for you."
I feel a hand on my arm, shaking me. I struggle to reach for my alarm clock. I wait for the feel of my cheap cotton sheets and the sound of my phone buzzing with work emails. I wait for the my Morden life to begin.
But when I force my eyes open, the light is wrong.
It's the golden, filtered light of a medieval morning. I am still under the silk canopy. I am still in the palace. I am still trapped.
Panic, cold and sharp, jolts through me, finally cutting through the exhaustion.
Why am I still here? It's morning. Everyone is awake. By my logic, I should have spent the last eight hours in my apartment. I should be at my desk right now, typing reports to pay for my brother's school. Instead, I am staring at a stone wall.
"I didn't make it," I whisper, my voice trembling. "I didn't go back."
A terrifying thought hits me: If I am still here during the day, what is happening to my body in the modern world? Is it still lying there? Is my brother banging on my door? Is my boss calling to fire me because I've disappeared?
I look at Lily, my heart hammering against my ribs. I don't know the rules anymore. I thought I figured out the logic, but the logic just abandoned me.
"I don't know if I can go back," I breathe, a sense of total isolation washing over me. "I don't know if I'm ever going back."
The sun is high, cutting a cruel, bright line across the stone floor. I am awake. I am breathing. And I am still in the palace.
I stare at my hands—fine, pale, aristocratic hands that don't belong to me. A cold, hollow realization sinks into my chest, heavier than any medicine. I stayed asleep for eight hours. The night was deep. The logic was perfect. But I didn't go back.
I didn't go back.
The thought hits me like a physical blow. In my world, it's morning. My alarm has probably been ringing for hours. My brother is likely knocking on my bedroom door, calling my name, wondering why the 'reliable Sara' isn't waking up. I didn't even get to say a proper goodbye. I didn't tell my parents I love them one last time. I didn't leave instructions for the bills or the rent.
"What will happen to them?" I whisper, my voice cracking. "They'll find me... they'll think I'm in a coma. They'll be so scared. I don't want to see them crying. I can't leave them alone!"
A violent tremble starts in my fingertips and races up my arms. The room begins to spin. The 'Office Brain' that kept me safe for three days finally collapses under the weight of a 25-year-old daughter's heart.
"No, no, no!" I start to shout, my voice echoing off the high ceilings. I'm not talking to Lily; I'm screaming at the universe. "Let me back! This isn't fair! I have to go home!"
Lily sees me standing in the middle of the bed, clutching my hair, shaking so hard the bedframe rattles.
"My Lady! Elanore!" she cries, dropping to her knees by the bed. "What is going on? Are you in pain? Is it the wound?"
I don't even see her. I see my brother's face. I see my mother's tears. "I have to go back!" I sob, the tears finally breaking through, hot and unstoppable. "I can't stay here! They need me!"
"My Lady, please! Don't cry!" Lily is reaching for my hands, her own voice trembling with fear. "Everything will be okay! I will call the Physician! I will call the Duke! Please, just breathe!"
I collapse onto the silk pillows, my chest heaving. She is hovering over me, wiping my face with a cool cloth, whispering words of comfort that mean nothing to me. She thinks I'm having a fit of madness from the fall. She doesn't know that I am mourning a world that is millions of miles away.
I am a 25-year-old provider, and for the first time in my life, I have failed my family. I am trapped in a golden cage, and the bridge is gone.
"What will Sara do now? Will she risk a dangerous gamble to force her way back to her own world, will she able to find out the dark reason why the bridge has suddenly closed?
Find out in the next chapter."