The corridor smelled of wet stone and old iron. I counted the steps to the door — twelve, always twelve — and stopped before touching it, because in the other life that door had cost me an arm.
It was not fear. Fear runs out; this was memory, which is worse, because memory knows exactly where it hurts and has all the time in the world to remind you.
—Llegas tarde —dijo ella sin levantar la vista del pergamino—. Otra vez.
—Llegué justo a tiempo —respondí—. Solo que a otra cosa.
Outside, snow fell over the courtyard with the administrative slowness of things in no hurry to end. Inside, the candle had been dying for two hours and still had half a night ahead of it.
There is a difference between knowing the future and being able to change it, and that difference is measured in corpses. I had learned to count them before I learned to prevent them.
I raised my hand. The seal answered on the first try — something that had not happened in twenty years of the previous life — and for a second, only one, I let myself think that maybe this time it would.
The corridor smelled of wet stone and old iron. I counted the steps to the door — twelve, always twelve — and stopped before touching it, because in the other life that door had cost me an arm.