Alaira sat on the stone bench beneath the rose trellis, hands clasped tightly in her lap. The garden was quiet, but the air felt dense with questions.
"I didn't know you were dreaming too," she said, breaking the silence. "I thought I was going mad."
"You're not," I said, voice low. "Or if you are, then so am I."
I knelt in front of her, abandoning dignity, image, everything Evelyne Valeblanc was supposed to cling to.
"I'm not the person you think I am," I said. "I woke up one morning and found myself inside this story. I knew how it would go. How I would die. And now… things are changing. The story's glitching."
Alaira stared, breath caught halfway between disbelief and wonder. "You're saying you're not—?"
"I'm not her. Not completely."
She looked at me like I was a fragile lie, and I didn't blame her. Then, slowly, she reached into her pocket and pulled out something wrapped in velvet. A small silver hourglass.
"It appeared on my desk last week," she said. "I don't know what it means. But sometimes, the sand runs backwards."
I stared at it, blood chilling.
We weren't just reacting to a broken timeline.
We were being tested.
"I think we're in the same story," I whispered, "but someone else is writing it now."
Alaira met my gaze. "Then maybe we rewrite it ourselves."
We shook hands in the garden, forming a pact that wasn't meant to exist.
Heroine and villainess.
Both on borrowed time.