“You shouldn’t be out in weather like this.”
I turn, breath trapped in my throat.
Alder leans against the sailboat. He’s perfectly dry. A soft white tunic clings to his chest, tucked into black breeches that look entirely untouched by the storm. Moonlight brushes the edges of his golden hair, and in his hand, a knife gleams as he slices a pear, slowly, methodically, eating piece by piece with devastating calm.
He’s too perfect to be real, and he can’t be.
Because I left Alder at the chapel.
For a moment, I wonder if I did step back in time. Back to earlier today, before we left for our picnic. Because this doesn’t make sense.
Then again, nothing has for days. Not waking up on the dock. Not being in this world. Not the machine. Not the Tower.
So maybe this is just one more impossible thing in a long line of impossible things.
The silver water ripples behind him, the gentle lap of waves against the hull the only sound in the thick silence stretching between us.
I can’t move. Can’t speak. My mind lurches,scrambling to reconcile the impossible.
“You—” My voice fractures, thin and trembling, barely able to carry the weight of the question forming behind it.
His lips curve into a tired half smile. “Me.”
I shuffle backward, my body acting on instinct, every nerve screaming at me to run. But I don’t. I can’t. Not yet.
First, I need answers.
My breath comes faster, uneven. “No.” I shake my head. “No, you’re not—you can’t be— You’re in the chapel with the queen, and the nobles, and the…the…” My voice pitches higher, the words tumbling too quick, desperate. “You can’t be here. It’s not possible.”
But he doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t move. Just watches me, his face cast in shadows beneath the moon’s watery glow.
I retreat another step.
“How are you down here?” My voice quivers, barely audible over the rush of the waves. “How did you—”
The answer crashes through my skull before I can even finish.
This isn’t Alder.
Not the Alder I know.
Not the Alder I left back at the chapel.
The man before me exhales slowly, like he’s giving me a moment.
And then, finally—softly—he says the words that steal every trace of warmth from my body.
“I’m not him. I’m not Alder.”
A gasp scrapes the back of my throat. The air around me stills.
“No,” I whisper, the denial automatic. I shake myhead as if I can physically push the idea away. “No, that doesn’t make sense. That’s not— It’s not possible.”
He doesn’t argue. He just holds my gaze like he’s waiting for me to catch up.
I try to force the pieces apart, but they continue to slide together, clicking into place with horrifying clarity.
The way he was on the island—warm, kind, soft in a way Alder never has been. The way he steadied me on the boat, laughed with me, made the world feel soft and manageable for the first time in what felt like forever.
