Santi shakes his head and continues backing away. He returns to the thought that led him out of the labyrinth: the thought that felt as solid as his grandfather’s knife under his hand. “We can’t know where we are if we don’t know who we are. And I—I can’t know who I am when every moment I spend with you breaks me into a hundred pieces.” He walks away from her.

“Santi,” Thora calls after him, the same way she said it in his dream: his name so tender in her mouth, like a cat carrying her kitten by the scruff of the neck.

“I never told you to call me that,” he says without turning around.

He hears her footsteps following him. “I still have your book!”

“Keep it,” he yells over his shoulder. “I don’t want it anymore.” He quickens his pace, running past the fountain where the water bubbles over coins as bright as constellations. For an instant, he sees each droplet freeze in midair.

He won’t go back to the hostel. On the streets, he will still have himself, even if everything else dissolves around him. As he runs, he feels the clock tower lean impossibly after him. For the first time he can remember, he can’t hear it ticking.

Till Next Time

“López!”

Her partner looks up from gazing at the cobbles, gleaming damp in the foggy night. “Yeah. Sorry. I thought I saw . . .” He trails off.

Thora crosses her arms. “If the end of that sentence isn’t the suspect, I’m not interested.”

López grins darkly. “Fine. I won’t tell you.”

Of course, now she’s desperate to know. As usual, López has trapped her with her own words. “Tell me when there isn’t a knife-wielding maniac on the loose.” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe you’re basically my age. I swear it’s like working with a toddler. Can you just focus for five minutes?”

López follows her into the Heumarkt, past the temporary ice rink that curves around the statue of Friedrich Wilhelm III. “I am focused,” he argues over the crowd that parts at the sight of their uniforms. “On the big picture.”

“The big picture is that innocent people are going to die if we don’t pay attention.”

López raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a little dramatic?”

Thora laughs. “I wonder who I learned that from.” She mimics him. “I am focused. On the big picture. The deepest mysteries of existence. Your petty mind is too simple to understand.”

López shakes his head sadly. “I can’t believe you are wasting time mocking me. Lišková, innocent people are going to die if we don’t pay attention.”