The world had returned.
But it was different.
Jonah stood in the middle of Glimmertide, the air heavy with a silence that shouldn't have been there. The streets looked the same—unchanged—but there was a hollow feeling to everything now. Like a painting with a missing stroke.
Evelyne and Thorne were still beside him, but they weren't the same either. Not really.
Evelyne reached out to touch his arm. "Jonah… are you sure you're alright?"
Jonah blinked, but when he looked at her, there was something wrong with the way she looked back. It wasn't that she was unfamiliar—it was that the memory of her seemed distant, like a dream fading away at dawn.
"I think so," Jonah said, though his voice faltered. "I… I don't feel the same. Time feels—" He struggled for the right word. "Out of reach. Like I'm not quite here."
Thorne's gaze softened, but only for a moment. "That's the cost. Time always collects its price."
Jonah shook his head. "But I… I did it, Thorne. I gave it back. The second. It's over now, right?"
Thorne didn't answer immediately. Instead, he took a long, slow look around. His face was unreadable.
"Nothing is ever over," he said quietly.
Jonah frowned, confused. "What do you mean?"
Thorne turned to him, his eyes dark with knowledge. "You gave the second back, yes. But you also became part of it. A fragment. It's woven into you now. And so…" He let the sentence hang in the air. "You'll always be tied to it."
Jonah's heart sank. "Tied to it?"
Evelyne stepped closer, her voice gentle but firm. "You're saying he's stuck with it forever?"
Thorne looked up at the tower. Its strange, broken face was now still. "Not forever. But for a long time."
Jonah's thoughts raced. "So what does that mean for me? For us?"
"The second is no longer lost," Thorne said, "but the archive has been… disrupted. There's a rip in time now. A rift. It will heal in time, but not without consequences. And you, Jonah, are now the thread that holds it together."
Evelyne's eyes widened. "So what happens if that thread breaks?"
Jonah's voice was barely a whisper. "Then I disappear."
Thorne nodded. "Not just you. The moment itself. The entire world as it was. The universe is fragile, Jonah. Time is not a thing we control—it's a thing we move through. But once it's been changed, even slightly, it's never the same again."
Jonah could feel it, deep in his chest. The weight of time. Of the moment he'd stolen—and the cost of returning it. It was as if part of him had become lost in the very fabric of reality itself.
"Then what do I do?" Jonah asked, desperation creeping into his voice. "How do I fix this?"
Thorne's gaze grew distant, as if he were seeing something beyond the present. "You don't fix it. You learn to live with it."
Evelyne squeezed Jonah's hand. "We'll help you. Whatever happens, you won't be alone."
Jonah nodded, though the uncertainty still gnawed at him. His life had become something unrecognizable, like a clock that had lost its hands. How could he live with something so fragile, so unstable? A second that had no place in time, now existing within him?
---
The next days passed in a blur. Jonah walked through Glimmertide, feeling the weight of every passing second. He was hyper-aware of time now—its ebb, its flow, its hidden moments. The clocks in town ticked in a rhythm that felt alien. Even the smallest actions felt distorted, as though reality was shifting beneath him.
Evelyne and Thorne were by his side, always, but Jonah knew that time was slowly pulling them away. The gap between him and the world around him was growing, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop it.
It was subtle at first—a missed word, a forgotten glance—but soon Jonah began to realize the truth: he was fading from their memories. People would speak to him, but their eyes would linger on him with a strange, unfamiliar expression. As if they were trying to place him, but couldn't quite remember.
It was like watching himself disappear into the pages of a forgotten book.
---
One evening, as they sat by the edge of the town square, Jonah looked at Evelyne. She was staring at him with a mixture of concern and curiosity, but there was something in her eyes he hadn't seen before.
"I'm not the same anymore, am I?" Jonah asked quietly.
Evelyne blinked, then shook her head. "You're still you, Jonah. Just… a little different. But it doesn't change how I feel. You're still my friend."
"But I'm not really here," he said, his voice strained. "I'm not really here anymore. It's like I'm a shadow. I—" He paused, trying to find the right words. "I feel like I'm slipping away."
Evelyne's expression softened, but her words were unwavering. "Then we hold on to you. We remind you of what you are. We remind each other."
Jonah closed his eyes, feeling the seconds slipping past him. But in that moment, he realized something.
It wasn't the seconds that defined him.
It was the choices he made within them.
---
Next up: Chapter Seventeen – "A Flicker in the Dark."
Jonah, Evelyne, and Thorne must confront the true cost of altering time. As Jonah begins to unravel, he discovers something unexpected about the nature of time—and how he might still have the power to change it.