He walks in the opposite direction from the taxi rank, out into the cathedral square. The day is mild; rain has just started to fall. He doesn’t know why it seems to him that the air should be cold, the ground slippery with frost. The smell of damp cobblestones, the pungent waft of currywurst, follow him up the steps to the cathedral. Santi stands in the spitting rain and feels the city rush through him, a river of meaning he can grasp if he only gives himself up to the current. “I’m listening,” he says under his breath.

He was looking forward to visiting the cathedral. Now, the Gothic walls seem transparent to his eye, no mysteries left within. He continues into the old town. As he walks, he sings to himself, a melody that was in his head when he awoke. The rain stops. The clouds let through pale shafts of sun, fingers pointing to everything at once. Santi walks the squares and alleys of the old town like a blind man walking a maze he was born in. The buildings are a façade, paper-thin, veiling something greater. He stops under the ruined tower, looks up to see the clock still stopped at midnight. Still. He doesn’t know where that knowledge comes from, or why it seems wrong, as wrong as the season. As wrong as being alone here, when someone should be standing by his side. His eyes drift down to a message written in bold black paint. LOOK BEHIND YOU.

Santi turns. Across the square, under the sign of a centaur raising his bow to the stars, a teenage girl waves at him from an outside table. She’s younger than he remembers. The thought comes before he can make sense of it. How can he remember her older than she is? Her hair is a bright, shocking red, the color of arterial blood.

His hand goes to his throat. Dying in Thora’s arms, as the fireworks burst across the sky like exploding stars. The last time they were here. The first time they remembered.

He stumbles toward her in the kaleidoscopic sunshine. She stands, knocking her chair onto the cobbles. Laughing, they collide. Santi pulls back, gazes at her in half-terrified amazement. “How—”

“I have no fucking idea!” she yells. The other customers stare, but Santi barely notices; he’s focused on Thora, impossible Thora, sad wonder in her eyes like she’s seeing a ghost. She rubs his arm. “Shit, it’s so good to see you.”

You watched me die. Santi remembers her face staring down at him, the last thing his old self saw. His words come haltingly. “How much longer did you—after I . . .”

“Made it to fifty-five. Breast cancer. Again.” Thora rights her chair and drops back into it, glaring at him. “You left me alone.”