A chill runs through her. She stares at Santi: not Santi, but something uncanny, a monster pieced together from her projections. What did I do to you? “Don’t be ridiculous. You—you’re at the beginning of your life—”

He shakes his head. “I want to do the right thing. I want—I want to help you.”

For an instant, Thora sees all the way into him: his deep uncertainty, his willingness to let her nudge him into a death he’s known before. Another Santi falling. Another Santi standing at the foot of the tower, mourning his own death, accepting it as God’s will. He is, in this life, so much what she has made of him. If she told him to climb down, he would. But she’s not strong enough to do this alone. “Okay,” she says, her voice breaking.

Wind whistles through the gaps in the tower. A song in the unreal city’s voice. Do it. A thought worthy of another Santi, obsessively counting the locks on the bridge. Thora doesn’t truly hear it, but she knows one thing: if they climb down, this moment will never come again.

Her blood hammers in her ears. She has died so many times, but never like this. There is nothing familiar about hanging above this drop, knowing the crunch and shatter at the end, knowing it will be her own doing. Everything inside her screams, her body a palace of alarms telling her to back down. But she has never been one to do what she is told.

She turns to Santi, kisses his forehead. Their hands come together. “Find me, as soon as you remember,” she says. “I’ll leave a message for you.”

He presses his forehead to hers. She can feel him trembling. “I’ll wait for you.”

“I’ll wait for you.” Her hand tightens on his.

Together, they jump. As they fall, Thora knows a moment of sickening regret. No. I take it back. But it’s too late. Santi’s hand loosens from hers, lets go. She hears him cry out before they hit the ground.

At the moment of impact, she sees something else. Brightness beyond belief, hurting her eyes; then, in the dimming darkness, the shadow of a face looking back at her.

Follow the Light

Santi is waiting under the lighthouse in Ehrenfeld when Thora walks through the wall.

She looks the way she always looks to him, like reality precipitating from a dream. It’s a heart-shock to see her. She’s his age: of course, this time they must have been born at the exact same second.

She grins at him. “You figured out my message.”