Chapter Two: The Theater That Did Not Exist

The pale hand seized Shen Yao's ankle. Cold climbed into her bones—and her mother's face disappeared from her mind. Shen Yao knew she had possessed a mother, but the fact felt borrowed, like a line in a patient's chart. The thing did not eat memory. It ate the feeling that a memory belonged to you. Fear drove Shen Yao into a mistake. "I am Shen Yao," she told the girl in the booth. "Look at me, Lin Mo. You are nine years old. You are in Ninth Hospital. Your mother is beside you." "Two." Lin Mo opened her eyes. The glass shattered. The stitched door flew open. Every mouth beneath the umbrella stopped breathing. "I found you, Shen Yao." "One." She carried Lin Mo through the Ebbtide door.