Chapter Three: I Stole Its Door

feet. Every shadow in the city became an entrance. Lu could feel the dark side of the cathedral spire, the dusk beneath the river bridge, the faint black inside a stranger's collar. One step, and he could emerge from any of them. The exhilaration lasted three seconds. Then Lu realized he could no longer remember his mother's voice. He remembered her face and her lips calling him to dinner, but the memory had no sound. It had been cut cleanly away. When Isabel reached him, the shadow had returned to Lu's feet and matched his posture perfectly. “What did you pay?” she asked. “A memory.” “That wasn't payment.” Her face paled. “It was the entry fee.”