The rain had stopped by morning, leaving the city washed and silent.
Luke sat at the workbench, the cracked mirror laid out before him. Across from him, the woman — the one who looked like Emma — sipped coffee from a chipped mug, watching him carefully.
She'd told him her name was Iris. It was the name she'd woken up remembering — not Emma, not the past. Just that.
But when she'd said "Luke," her voice had trembled like something inside her knew.
Luke tried not to stare, but it was impossible. Every gesture, every tilt of her head, was Emma — even the way she brushed her hair behind her ear. Yet something in her eyes was different: quieter, heavier, like a memory she couldn't reach.
"You're sure you don't remember anything before last week?" he asked softly.
Iris shook her head. "I woke up in a motel room off I-94. The TV was on, playing some old documentary about house fires. When I saw the footage of Ashmere Hill, I—" she hesitated, pressing a hand to her temple. "It felt like my head was splitting. And that name — Luke — it wouldn't stop."
Luke's pulse quickened. "And you came here?"
"I didn't know where else to go. I followed the address written inside this."
She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small fragment of mirror, no bigger than a coin. Etched into its back was the same spiral symbol that had haunted him for years.
Luke took it gently. The glass was warm.
He turned it over, and his reflection shimmered — replaced by a flickering image of Ashmere Hill burning.
But it wasn't the past he saw.
It was now.
The house — or what should have been ruins — was whole again, standing beneath a gray sky. In one of the windows, a figure watched.
It was Emma. Or maybe Iris. Or maybe both.
Luke dropped the fragment, breath catching. The shard clinked softly against the floor. The reflection vanished.
Iris stared at him. "You saw it too."
He nodded slowly. "Whatever brought you back… it's not finished."
She looked at the cracked mirror on the table. The same spiral etched into the frame seemed to deepen, like fresh carvings appearing beneath the wood.
"What if the house isn't gone?" she whispered. "What if it's just waiting?"
Luke exhaled shakily. "Then the fire never died — it changed shape."
Before she could respond, every mirror in the shop — ten of them, stacked and leaning — began to hum faintly.
The lights flickered. Their reflections twisted.
One by one, the mirrors showed faces: people Luke had never seen, all mouthing the same word over and over.
"Return."
Then the largest mirror cracked straight down the center —
and from the glass, a voice echoed, soft but burning with memory.
"The heart remembers. And it's coming home."