The moment we stepped through the new corridor, the temperature dropped.
No guards. No torches. Just silence—and an ancient scent, like forgotten paper and iron blood.
The walls were lined with fractured mirrors. Each shimmered with moments that hadn't happened. Or had, in timelines we'd never lived.
In one, I was queen.
In another, a corpse.
"I don't think we're in the palace anymore," Alaira whispered.
"We're inside the story," I said. "The part we're not supposed to see."
The corridor twisted like a spiral, turning in on itself. We passed doorways sealed with wax sigils—one of which cracked as we neared, its wax melting without heat.
Inside was a study. Familiar.
Alaira gasped. "That's your handwriting."
A dozen journals lay open. Some pages were blank. Others bore entries I hadn't written—yet.
One caught my eye:
"When the villainess reaches the corridor between, she'll begin to remember everything the author tried to erase."
I clutched my head as a flood of memories hit me—
My first death.
My deal to return.
A face cloaked in ink and starlight offering me thirty days to "rewrite a tragedy."
I'd never been lucky. I'd just been played.
But now?
Now I remembered him.
The Author.
He'd chosen me as a pawn.
But he'd made one mistake.
He gave me just enough time to become a threat.