Thora swears. She sprints down the alley, following the man into the surging mass of people. “Lišková!” she hears López yell. She’s aware of him somewhere to her right, drowned in the impossible brightness that burns at the corner of her eye, but she doesn’t waste time looking for him: she is busy tracking the commotion ahead of her, a ripple pointing across the square toward the ruined clock tower. As she ducks and weaves and pushes her way forward, a thought comes to her as clear as a revelation. Causality in this city has a downward slope; the tower stands in a valley where possibilities narrow to zero. She looks up to see the clock already at midnight, a premature renewal. In this square, it will be New Year’s forever. The man she is chasing breaks through the edge of the crowd, sprints for the gap in the wall of the tower. He checks over his shoulder before he disappears inside.

Thora pounds to a stop at the foot of the tower. López fetches up beside her, chest heaving. “Where did he go?”

Thora points to the jagged hole in the stones.

López is silent. Thora is used to her partner disappearing, even as he stands next to her: as if he’s communicating on a deeper level with the world, fitting together a puzzle made of cobbles and fragments of sky. But this is different. The expression on his face dislocates her: another moment, another López, a duality she can’t explain.

“Hey,” she says, touching his arm. “You okay?”

He jumps. “Yeah. Is he—did he . . .”

Thora crouches by the entrance of the tower, peering inside. She straightens up and comes back to López. “He’s climbed the stairs inside. About twenty meters up. I can see him there, pressed against the wall.”

López stares at the tower, rubbing the back of his neck. As Thora radios their location, he starts to walk toward it, slow at first and then determined.

Thora lowers the radio. “What are you doing?”

López sounds half-asleep. “Climbing up to get him.”

Thora stares at him. She sees it so clearly: López climbing, loose-limbed and unafraid, the possibility of falling never entering his mind. Rage takes hold of her, a possessive, violent refusal. “No.”

He doesn’t seem to hear her. Thora strides past him, physically puts herself between him and the yawning gap. “Hey. I’m the senior officer, remember?” Remember. Her voice echoes off the cobbles, comes back to her the same but altered. “You’re not going up there.”

López’s gaze drifts, focuses on her. “Why?”