I did not intend for Edmund Harrow to follow me.
That is a lie.
Every step I took away from the bakery was a question flung backward into the world: Will you come?
Every turn of the street was a dare.
Every shadow an invitation.
The city of 1904 knows how to hide men. Fog coils low between buildings like a conspirator. Alleys breathe. Stone remembers footsteps long after they fade. I chose my path carefully—not to escape, but to lead.
Behind me, I felt him before I heard him.
There is a particular weight a detective carries when he walks. Not haste. Not fear. Attention. The kind that presses against your back, measuring, judging. Edmund had that weight. I had felt it before—years ago, when my life still pretended to be ordinary.
I turned left. Then right. Then slowed.
Footsteps echoed.
Yes.
He was curious now.
---
Two days earlier.
Edmund Harrow had woken to silence.
Not the peaceful kind. The wrong kind. The kind that makes your skull ache before your eyes even open.
Stone pressed against his back. Cold bit into his palms. For one confused moment, he thought he had died and been placed somewhere unfinished.
Then pain arrived—sharp, blooming behind his eyes.
He groaned and rolled slightly, only to feel the drop.
Wind rushed up to meet him.
A rooftop.
He froze.
Slowly, carefully, he pushed himself upright. The city sprawled beneath him in dull gray lines, chimneys breathing smoke into a pale sky. He was high—dangerously so. His coat was missing. His revolver lay a few feet away, unloaded.
And someone was standing at the edge.
Calm. Still. Looking down as if gravity were merely a suggestion.
"Good morning, Detective," the man said without turning.
Edmund's hand moved instinctively toward his weapon—then stopped.
"Who are you?" he demanded. His voice sounded rough, unused.
The man chuckled softly. "You ask that as though it matters."
He turned then.
And Edmund's breath left him all at once.
"Harold?" The name escaped before sense could stop it.
The man's eyes flickered—not with surprise, but with something closer to regret.
"I told you my name once," he said. "You chose not to hear it."
"That's not possible," Edmund said, standing now, anger fighting confusion. "You're dead. I saw you—"
"You saw what I wanted you to see."
The city groaned beneath them, distant bells tolling an hour Edmund could not place.
"Why?" Edmund asked. "Why lie to me? Why befriend me? Why torment me?"
Harold smiled. It was not kind.
"You want the simple answer?" he asked. "Because you took everything from me."
"That's madness."
"Yes," Harold agreed easily. "You are very familiar with it."
---
The present folds back in on itself.
I can still see his face as he stood there—hair disheveled, eyes burning with the need to understand. Edmund Harrow has always believed that if he just followed the thread far enough, the knot would loosen.
I envied that once.
Now, I despise it.
"You killed her," I told him on that rooftop. The words felt ancient by the time they left my mouth. "Not with intent. Not with malice. But with ignorance. And the world applauded you for it."
Edmund shook his head. "I've never—"
"You arrested the wrong man," I cut in. "You closed the case because it was convenient. And she died alone because of it."
Silence stretched.
Wind pulled at our coats.
"I loved her," I continued, quieter now. "And when she died, I lived in isolation. Years of it. You want to know what that does to a man?"
Edmund said nothing.
"It teaches him how to wait."
He lunged for me then.
Desperation is a powerful thing. His fist connected with my jaw, pain flashing white behind my eyes. I staggered—but did not fall.
We fought like animals.
Fists. Elbows. Breath tearing from lungs. Years of restraint cracking open all at once. He was stronger than I remembered. Angrier too.
"You're not innocent," he shouted as we grappled. "You drugged me! You ruined me!"
I laughed—blood in my mouth, joyless. "And yet, you remember nothing of the woman you dragged into that alley, do you?"
He froze.
For half a second, I saw it—the crack.
"That wasn't me," he whispered.
"Wasn't it?"
He shoved me back with a roar, fury overtaking reason. I hit the ledge hard, stones biting into my spine.
Sirens wailed below.
Too late.
They had finally found us.
The police station—our stage the entire time—had been searching the city, never once thinking to look up.
Uniforms flooded the rooftop. Guns raised. Orders shouted.
"Hands where we can see them!"
I turned.
A mistake.
In the chaos, someone fired. Not at us. At a shadow moving behind the officers. A scream cut through the air as a man fell.
Edmund snapped.
He raised his revolver and fired blindly.
The shot struck me squarely in the chest.
For a moment, I felt nothing.
Then gravity remembered me.
I stepped back—once, twice—and the edge was gone.
As I fell, time shattered.
---
Elizabeth laughing, flour on her cheek.
Elizabeth asleep beside me, breathing softly.
Elizabeth saying I like you like it was the most dangerous thing in the world.
Elizabeth lying still, eyes closed, never to open again.
The river rushed up.
And the past swallowed me whole.
---
Below, Edmund screamed my name—though he still did not know who I truly was.
Not yet.
Some truths demand patience.
And some endings…
Some endings are only the beginning.