The coffee shop became their new headquarters. Aaron had gathered Anirudh, Abhimanyu, and Ameya, and introduced them to Aurora, who now held the silver locket and the tiny, faded slip of magical paper as if they were fragile, ancient artifacts.
"So, to recap," Abhimanyu began, swirling the ice in his glass. "Aaron, our resident time god, deleted himself from his original life to save his destined love, Audrey. But the deleted life—let's call it Timeline Alpha—sent a physical souvenir, this locket, and an emotional breadcrumb, the note, to Aurora in Timeline Beta. Am I marketing this right, or is this too niche?"
"The premise is sound," Ameya cut in, her expression all serious concentration. She had the locket and the piece of paper spread on the table beside her laptop, treating them with the reverence usually reserved for complex equations. "But it's not magic, Abhimanyu. It's thermodynamics and consciousness. Aaron's memories are not a miracle; they're information."
She pointed to the faded paper. "The original ink created a powerful, localized energy field—a wormhole, essentially—that pulled information packets (your notes) into the past. When Aaron destroyed the source, the wormhole collapsed. But like any catastrophic event, it left debris."
Anirudh leaned closer, tapping the locket. "A physical object crossing a collapsing barrier? That requires an immense amount of energy. The emotional intensity Aaron poured into the life he was erasing—the sheer will to let go of Audrey—that was the energy source."
Aaron felt a sharp pang of pain at the reminder of his sacrifice. "So, the locket is a goodbye gift powered by my own sorrow?"
"More like a neutrino particle, Aaron," Ameya corrected, not unkindly. "It's a remnant of mass that defied the rules of the collapse. But the real question is how the note was written and delivered to Aurora."
"It was ordinary blue ink, ordinary paper," Aurora reminded them. "And a bird delivered it. That's either fate being extremely whimsical, or someone in the know being extremely careful."
"The bird delivery is almost certainly coincidence," Anirudh theorized. "The note writer knew Aurora would be in the park, but couldn't risk the note being traced back to them. Tossing it near her, hoping for a random scatter—it's good operational security."
Ameya zoomed in on a high-resolution photo of the locket's interior. "Look at this dust. It's not just park dirt. There are traces of an unusual mineral compound—common in a few mines in the Pacific Northwest. This could be where the alchemical paper's raw materials came from, or perhaps where the original Notebook was last seen."
Aaron felt the detective aspect of the plot taking over. This wasn't about saving a life; it was about solving a mystery. "Someone knows I have the memories. Someone knows about the locket. And they wanted me to meet Aurora."
He looked at Aurora. "Did you recognize anyone near the willow before you approached me? Anyone acting suspiciously?"
Aurora bit her lip, concentrating. "No... wait. I remember a woman. She was sitting further away, sketching. She kept looking up, not at us, but at the tree. She had rich, dark hair, very severe, and she looked familiar, almost like I'd seen her in a lecture hall or something."
Ameya's fingers flew across her keyboard, cross-referencing university staff photos. "In Timeline Alpha, do you remember anyone in the periphery? A student, perhaps?"
Aaron's mind raced through the fractured memories. The people who populated his life in the various saved and unsaved timelines were a blur. Then, a name surfaced, a painful one from his earliest attempts to save Audrey.
"Wait—the first time I used the book, I accidentally involved someone else. A student. She was brilliant, and she helped me research some of the mystical history of the notebooks. Her name was Alina."
"And what happened to her?" Abhimanyu asked.
Aaron hesitated, the shame of that timeline resurfacing. "I had to erase that timeline too. I wrote a note that made her forget everything. She was a casualty of my obsession. But she was obsessed with Audrey's fate, too, maybe even more than me. She felt a connection to Audrey's misfortune."
Ameya stopped typing. She had found a match. "The woman Aurora saw sketching... her name is Alina. She works in the university library archiving historical texts. She fits the profile. She has an innate understanding of destiny and she had proximity to the alchemical research."
The pieces snapped into place. Alina was the note writer. She had retained the memories of Timeline Alpha just as Aaron had, but instead of being consumed by guilt, she had decided to play the new game, acting as a guiding hand.
"She didn't write the note in magic ink," Aaron concluded. "She wrote it in blue pen because she wants us to follow the clues, not just obey a command. She wants us to solve the puzzle together."
He looked at the locket again, a newfound clarity washing over him. The true tragedy wasn't losing Audrey; it was failing to see the people around him who were willing to help. He had been so isolated in his time-altering loop. Now, he had a team, a mission, and Aurora as his anchor.
"Next step," Aaron announced, his voice firm. "We talk to Alina. She has the rest of the map."