The bookstore door chimed.

  She walked straight to me.

  “Where did you go?”

  No greeting.

  “What was that door?”

  I closed the book in my hands.

  “You followed me.”

  She didn’t deny it.

  “I saw something in that alley. You disappeared. I want an explanation.”

  Words would fracture this.

  So I stepped out from behind the counter.

  “I’ll show you.”

  She hesitated only a second.

  Then nodded.

  I raised my hand.

  The air folded open.

  A vertical tear in ordinary space.

  Stable.

  Silent.

  Her breathing shifted slightly.

  But she didn’t step back.

  “This is what you saw,” I said.

  And stepped through.

  She followed.

  The alley formed.

  Older.

  Darker.

  One man.

  Two restrained children.

  She froze.

  “That’s us.”

  “Yes.”

  We stood outside the scene.

  The man’s hand tightened around my younger arm.

  “You look smaller,” she said quietly.

  “I was.”

  The younger version of me struggled.

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  Raised his hand instinctively.

  The man distorted.

  Compressed.

  Pulled inward through my palm.

  Gone.

  No explosion.

  No flame.

  Just absence.

  Her voice lowered.

  “…What was that?”

  “My power.”

  She turned to me.

  “You didn’t just push him.”

  “No.”

  “You...”

  She stopped.

  Searching for a word that didn’t exist in her vocabulary.

  “He disappeared.”

  “Yes.”

  Her gaze returned to the memory.

  Her younger self watched it happen.

  Not screaming.

  Not collapsing.

  Just staring.

  “You untied me,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t I run?”

  “You didn’t think I was a threat.”

  The alley dissolved.

  Open space replaced it.

  Stone ground.

  Wind.

  Younger us standing apart.

  “You were testing me,” I said.

  In the memory, her younger self raised her hand.

  Light gathered above her palm.

  Condensed.

  Shifted.

  Then shaped itself into a precise arc that sliced cleanly across a stone pillar.

  Effortless.

  Present Akary stiffened.

  “…That’s not possible.”

  “It was there.”

  Her younger self did it again.

  This time shaping the light into something almost solid before letting it dissolve.

  She stepped closer to the memory.

  “I’m not touching anything.”

  “No.”

  “I’m not holding anything.”

  “No.”

  Her eyes flicked to me.

  “You’re telling me that’s me?”

  “Yes.”

  Silence.

  She watched as her younger self adjusted stance and did it again.

  Controlled.

  Intentional.

  “You couldn’t do that,” she said.

  “No.”

  “What is it?”

  “Something your world could do.”

  “My world?”

  The memory faded before she could ask more.

  A large house formed.

  Empty halls.

  High ceilings.

  “You lived here,” I said.

  Her younger self sat at a long table.

  I sat across from her.

  “Do you want to stay?” her younger voice asked.

  Present Akary frowned slightly.

  “I asked that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “You knew I had nowhere else.”

  In the memory, she stood.

  “Then stay.”

  No drama.

  No ceremony.

  Just certainty.

  “That’s when you moved in,” I said.

  She watched fragments:

  Studying.

  Eating.

  Walking through the courtyard.

  Not dramatic.

  Not intimate.

  Just two people surviving together.

  “You were… calm,” she said quietly.

  “You were too.”

  The memory slowed.

  Then dissolved.

  This world formed.

  Cars.

  Noise.

  Crowds.

  “You appeared here one day,” I said.

  Her younger self walked through the street.

  Recognized.

  Acknowledged.

  As if she belonged.

  “I don’t remember coming here.”

  “I know, but you did come”

  She watched herself enter my house.

  Watched my parents greet her.

  Watched herself stay.

  “That’s when I moved in here too.”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t question any of it?”

  “No.”

  “Did you?.”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “No answers.”

  The memory faded.

  White space.

  Stillness.

  She stood very still.

  “I don’t remember any of that.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t remember doing… that.” She glanced toward where the light had formed earlier.

  “Yes.”

  She looked at her hands.

  Flexed her fingers slowly.

  “Can I do that now?”

  “Do what?”

  She hesitated.

  “…Whatever that was.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly.

  “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  Silence.

  “You’ve known all this the whole time.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you decided I didn’t need to.”

  “Yes.”

  She absorbed that.

  Not explosively.

  Quietly.

  “I feel like I just watched someone else’s life.”

  “In a way, you did.”

  Another pause.

  “…Were we okay?”

  “Yes.”

  That answer didn’t take time.

  She studied me.

  Then nodded once.

  “Take me back.”

  The doorway reopened.

  The bookstore returned.

  Ordinary shelves.

  Soft afternoon light.

  She walked toward the exit.

  Stopped.

  “If that was really me,” she said quietly, “I’ll find out.”

  “I expected you would.”

  A small pause.

  “I need time.”

  “I know.”

  She left.

  The bell chimed softly.

  And the store was silent again.

  She doesn’t know what magic is.

  But she knows something inside her once defied the laws of this world.

  And that knowledge alone is enough to begin cracking something open.