Aurelia returned before the sun could rise.
The mist parted for her as if the garden had been waiting. Dew clung to her lashes. Her boots left no trace on the grass.
The Hourglass Tree loomed in the silver gloom, its branches outstretched like arms aching to remember. The air held a soft vibration, like the hum of a music box just before it plays.
She was not afraid.
Not yet.
✦•······················•✦•······················•✦✦•······················•✦•······················•✦✦•······················•✦•···········
The pond shimmered.
Something inside it moved—not with ripples, but with images. Like a film played on still water.
She leaned over, breath clouding the surface.
Two figures stood by the bench. Her and—
Thorne.
Laughing. He tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear, brushing her cheek with a gentleness so intimate it stole the air from her lungs. She tilted her face up and kissed him, unguarded. Unafraid.
It was a perfect memory.
Only—
She didn't remember it.
Aurelia stumbled back.
Her heart pounded. This wasn't just a trick of grief. She wasn't hallucinating.
She had lived that moment. She had felt that kiss.
So why had it been erased?
"Not all memories are lost through forgetting," came a voice from behind her.
The Gardener.
They stood beside the tree, hand resting on its hourglass-shaped trunk.
"Sometimes, they are given away."
"I didn't give anything," Aurelia snapped.
"You did," the Gardener said gently. "You just didn't know it."
She stared at the pond, throat closing around the questions she didn't know how to ask.
"Why show me this?"
"Because this is where it begins. Every garden blooms from what is buried."
The Gardener motioned to the tree.
On one of its lower branches, a single petal unfurled. Glowing faintly. Pale as moonlight.
"This," they said, "is a key."
"To what?"
"To a single moment."
"You're saying I can go back?"
A pause.
"Yes."
Aurelia took a step closer. The petal hovered in the air now, suspended in invisible wind.
She reached out, but the Gardener's voice stopped her.
"Time does not turn without cost, Aurelia Wren. You may return to the moment of your choosing—but you must leave something behind."
"What kind of something?"
"A memory."
"Which one?"
"You won't know... until it's gone."
She hesitated.
She thought of Thorne. Of the grave. Of how his fingers had slipped from hers.
She thought of all the things she'd never said.
"I don't care," she whispered. "Take it. Take whatever it needs."
The Gardener bowed their head. "Then the bargain is struck."
Aurelia cupped the glowing petal in her hands.
It pulsed once—like a heartbeat.
Then it dissolved.
✦•······················•✦•······················•✦✦•······················•✦•······················•✦✦•······················•✦•···········
The world tilted.
Not as if it turned—but as if it was being rewritten. Light fractured. Air split into threads of color. Her body unraveled, not in pain but in weightlessness.
And then—
She landed.
✦•······················•✦•······················•✦✦•······················•✦•······················•✦✦•······················•✦•···········
It was raining.
Not heavily, but the kind of soft drizzle that paints windows in silver. Aurelia stood under the overhang of the Wrenmere library, the scent of old paper and lavender wafting through the air.
Her fingers held a book. Her hair was longer.
A voice called from behind.
"Wren! There you are!"
She turned—and her heart skipped.
Thorne.
Alive. Breathing. Walking toward her with that lopsided grin that had once felt like sunlight.
She wanted to run to him. To fall into his arms and scream, You're alive.
But something held her back.
He didn't look surprised to see her. He looked like this was normal. Like she'd just stepped out for tea.
He kissed her on the cheek.
Casual. Familiar.
"We still meeting for the lake walk?" he asked. "Or did Elias steal you again?"
Elias.
She blinked. The name hit like a stone.
That was the cost.
She searched her memory like rifling through old letters. Elias. Her best friend. The one who'd walked with her after the funeral. The one who knew—
She couldn't remember his face.
She couldn't remember him at all.
Thorne was watching her, puzzled.
"Aurelia?"
She forced a smile. "Of course. Let's go."
She walked beside him, fingers inches from his, feeling like a thief in her own life.
She had him again.
But something had been taken.
And now the clock had started.
✦•······················•✦•······················•✦✦•······················•✦•······················•✦✦•······················•✦•···········