I woke up with a ceiling fan above me.
For one terrible, impossible second, I didn't understand why that was wrong.
Then memory slammed back.
Not all at once.
Not cleanly.
A war.
A city.
A paper doorway.
Sera's hand in mine.
Mira beside us.
The threshold.
I sat up too fast.
The room spun.
Small apartment.
White walls.
Books stacked on the floor.
A cheap desk.
An open laptop with a half-written document glowing on the screen.
No palace.
No capital.
No impossible flowers.
No silver-eyed author asleep under the ground.
My chest went cold.
"No."
I knew this room.
Because I had seen it once through Sera's memories.
Through her death.
Through the chandelier.
Her first world.
Her real apartment.
My hands shook.
They were not my hands.
Not quite.
Same shape.
Male.
Mine enough to move.
But I was wrong here in a way that felt deeper than appearance.
The threshold had not just displaced me.
It had *cast* me.
A knock came at the door.
I froze.
