The city was already changing.

  Darius and Ais sprinted through the lower districts of Vaelmoor, weaving between narrow alleys and shadowed streets. The walls of the buildings flickered—momentary distortions rippling across their surfaces like ink dissolving in water.

  The rewrite was already happening.

  The people who had seen them minutes ago were forgetting.

  Ais yanked Darius into a covered passage between two merchant stalls. She pressed her back against the wall, chest rising and falling in sharp, controlled breaths. Darius mirrored her, listening.

  The sounds of the city continued—but something was off.

  Not wrong.

  Not unnatural.

  Just... different.

  As if the very concept of what had happened in the tavern was already being overwritten.

  Darius gritted his teeth.

  "We have to move faster," Ais muttered.

  He nodded. "They won't stop until no one remembers I was ever here."

  Ais's grip on her dagger tightened. "It's worse than that."

  Darius turned to her, pulse steady. "How?"

  She exhaled sharply. "They aren't just erasing you." Her voice was low, urgent. "They're rewriting the entire city around the fact that you never existed."

  Darius' breath caught.

  Not just removing him.

  Repcing him.

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  They pushed forward through the shifting streets, avoiding main roads, keeping to the edges of the city.

  But with every step, Vaelmoor became more unfamiliar.

  Darius noticed it first—a street that had led toward the central pza now curved into an unfamiliar district. The banners of the city, which had once been red and gold, were now a muted shade of blue.

  The yout was different.

  Ais stopped suddenly.

  "This wasn't here before."

  Darius looked around. A rge fountain stood at the center of a market square—its waters glistening in the moonlight.

  And yet...

  There had been no fountain in Vaelmoor's original yout.

  Darius clenched his fists.

  "They're not just rewriting memories. They're rewriting the entire city's history."

  Ais's expression darkened. "If we stay here too long, we'll be rewritten too."

  A distant echo of footsteps reached them.

  Darius tensed.

  They weren't alone.

  Ais's grip on her dagger shifted slightly. "They're coming."

  Darius turned toward the open streets. The people of Vaelmoor—**the same ones who had spoken to him only minutes ago—**moved through the city as if nothing had changed.

  Because to them, nothing had.

  And that was what made it so much worse.

  The Thanatarchy did not kill.

  It did not burn cities.

  It did not destroy.

  It simply rewrote.

  Darius and Ais weren't being hunted in the conventional sense.

  They were being erased in real-time.

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  Darius exhaled. "We need to find someone who still remembers."

  Ais shook her head. "They won't. The moment we left that tavern, the rewrite started. Even the soldier who said your name is probably gone now."

  Darius' stomach twisted.

  He turned to the street. "There has to be someone who resists. There has to be someone who—"

  He stopped.

  A woman stood at the edge of the market square.

  She wasn't moving.

  She wasn't blending into the rewritten world.

  She was staring at them.

  Darius' pulse quickened.

  Ais followed his gaze, her expression sharpening. "That's not normal."

  The woman tilted her head slightly, her face shadowed beneath the glow of a ntern.

  Then—she turned and walked away.

  Darius and Ais immediately followed.

  The woman led them through narrow corridors of the city, her steps careful, deliberate.

  Darius and Ais stayed close, but cautious.

  Something about her was wrong.

  Not in the way the Thanatarchy was.

  Not like the Watchers.

  Not like the rewritten people.

  She was aware.

  She moved with purpose.

  And that meant she remembered.

  Finally, she stopped in a secluded courtyard, the light of the city barely touching the stone walls around them.

  She turned.

  And for the first time, Darius saw her face clearly.

  Her eyes were sharp—too sharp.

  Not afraid.

  Not confused.

  She knew exactly what he was.

  And in a quiet, steady voice, she said:

  "You're the one who made them remember."

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Darius tensed.

  This woman wasn't part of the rewritten world.

  She knew.

  Ais's voice was cautious. "Who are you?"

  The woman's gaze didn't leave Darius.

  "I've been waiting for someone like you."

  Darius' breath slowed.

  Waiting.

  She had been waiting.

  Which meant she knew about the Thanatarchy.

  She knew about the erasures.

  And yet, she was still here.

  Darius narrowed his eyes. "You remember me?"

  The woman tilted her head slightly. "Not exactly."

  Darius stiffened.

  She continued. "I don't remember who you are."

  She exhaled slowly.

  "But I remember that something was erased."

  Ais's expression darkened. "Then you're like us."

  The woman smiled slightly.

  "No."

  She took a slow step forward.

  "I'm much worse."