Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
"You're trembling," he says.
“I’m cold.”
His other hand finds the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair. "You're not cold."
No. I'm not. I'm burning up from the inside.
His gaze drops to my mouth.
Fifth time.
I'm still counting.
He leans in.
His breath ghosts across my lips.
I close my eyes.
And someone knocks on the door.
"Sir." The voice is muffled but urgent. "There's a situation in Hartford. The Baron needs you immediately."
Devyn doesn't move. His hands are still on me, still cradling my face, and I can feel the war happening in his body.
Then his jaw tightens, and he steps back.
The absence of his touch makes me sway.
"We'll continue this." His voice is rough.
And then he's gone.
I sink into my chair.
Okay, Bailey. Okay.
What just happened?
I press my hands to my cheeks. They're burning. My whole body is burning. I should be glad he got called away. I should be relieved that I didn't let a mafia king kiss me while we made ridiculous demands about not sharing each other.
I am so glad.
I am so relieved.
I am such a liar.
THE HALLWAY IS EMPTY. No guards.
I don't try to remember the path. I just walk, letting my feet carry me wherever they want to go, letting the rhythm of movement calm the chaos in my chest.
I turn a corner and find myself in a hallway I've never seen. The walls are older here, the plaster cracked. And there's a door at the end of the hall.
Glowing.
Faint amber light seeping from around the edges. Warm and familiar.
No.
It can't be.
But even before I push the door open, I know. I can smell it. Cream cheese garlic buns and peppermint hot chocolate and old paper and leather.
The door swings open.
Hewhay's.
It’s exactly as I remember. The soaring ceiling, the dark wooden beams, the brass lanterns casting their intentional light. Bookshelves arranged by color. A fireplace crackling.
I step inside.
The door closes behind me.
The last time I was here, I fell asleep and woke up in another world. The last time I was here, I drank tea that tasted like safety and opened my eyes to find armed men and a groom demanding answers I didn't have.
I should leave.
But there's a book on the table beside the velvet armchair.
Not the same book. This one is smaller, bound in midnight blue instead of burgundy, silver lettering instead of gold.
The title gleams: The Transplanted Life.
I open it.
The first page is an illustration. A girl at a crossroads, one path leading back to a door marked Origin, the other leading forward into color and light. She has dark hair and violet eyes.
She looks exactly like me.
I turn the page.
The text is handwritten, elegant script that seems centuries old.
You came through Hewhay's. You fell asleep reading a story, and you woke up inside it.
You're wondering if you can go back.
Here's the truth: there's nothing to go back to.
Your life wasn't copied into this world. It was moved. Transplanted whole. The apartment in Providence exists here, in this world's timeline. The job at Lauve exists here. The people you know—your mother, your boss—they exist here, exactly as you remember them.
There is no parallel you wondering where you went. There is no hole in another world where your life used to be.
This is your life now. The only one you have.
I turn another page.
You're worried about your mother. Whether she's scared. Whether she's looking for you.
She isn't.
In this world, you've always been here. You've always been Bailey Sutton of Providence, photography assistant at Lauve Studio, reader of too many books, owner of a secret dimple that only appears when you really smile.
The only thing that's changed is you.
I turn another page. The handwriting here is different—older, more formal.
Perhaps you're wondering how this is possible.
Hewhay's doesn't follow the rules you know. It exists outside of time, outside of the boundaries between worlds. It opens doors to people this world needs—and closes doors behind them so gently that no one notices they were ever open.
When you came through, Hewhay's didn't just move your body. It moved your story. Your history. Every thread that connects you to other people was lifted, carried, and rewoven here. Your mother's memories were adjusted—not erased, but shifted. She remembers raising you. She remembers your childhood. She remembers everything that matters. The only difference is that those memories now belong to this world instead of the old one.
I stare at the words.
My mother's memories were adjusted.
That should horrify me. Some cosmic force rewrote my mother's mind, changed her understanding of reality, and did it so seamlessly she never noticed.
But the horror doesn't come.
Because if the alternative was my mother waking up tomorrow and not knowing where I was—if the alternative was her calling the police, filing missing persons reports, spending the rest of her life wondering what happened to her daughter—
Then maybe this is kindness.
Maybe knowing what souls need means knowing that some doors need to close completely. No cracks. No drafts. No lingering grief for the people left behind.