Chapter Three: The Shared Dream

"You came sooner than I expected." The woman in the red raincoat stepped from behind the shelves. She had Shen Yao's face, but a faint scar crossed one temple. "You were inside Zhou's memory." "And Lin Mo dreams of me every night." "You planted the warning?" "I tried to warn them." "Warn them not to let me wake?" The woman seized Shen Yao's black ring. "Not you. The sentence you heard is missing a pause." "Four." The warehouse doors slammed shut. The umbrella's shadow seeped under them like ink flowing uphill. The other Shen Yao cut her own wrist. She did not bleed; countless tiny doors showed inside the wound. "Seven seconds is not the window of your gift," she said. "It's how long the door of its cage can open.