I fell to my knees.
The journals around me pulsed—pages fluttering in a wind that wasn't there, ink glowing faintly with the color of memory.
Alaira knelt beside me, her hands on my shoulders. "Evelyne, what are you seeing?"
"I'm remembering."
Not flashes. Not dreams. A life.
I was born as Evelyne Raelle Viremont in a world where I never stood a chance.
Beloved by no one. Promised to a prince who hated me. Vilified for a power I didn't understand—timeline sensitivity, they called it. A rare curse. I could see when things were wrong in reality… but no one believed me.
Not until it was too late.
On the tenth day of the royal trial, I was sentenced to die for crimes I hadn't committed.
They executed me at dusk.
But I didn't pass on.
Instead, I awoke in a void of ink and stars, kneeling before a figure with no face—only a fountain pen in one hand, and a clock in the other.
"Want to rewrite your story?" he asked.
"Yes," I whispered.
"Good. You'll have thirty days."
"To live?"
"To fix your fate."
"And if I fail?"
"You'll die. Again. But this time, even your memory will fade."
He smiled, and the world rewrote itself.
That was my first bargain.
And my first mistake.
Because I never asked what the Author really wanted.