Elara let go of my wrist like she'd been burned.
"Okay," she said briskly, stepping back. "We need distance."
"Emotionally?" I asked.
"Spatially," she replied. "Preferably both."
That earned a laugh from me—short, surprised. The sound seemed to travel farther than it should have, echoing once before the city decided echoes were unnecessary.
Elara noticed. Her jaw tightened.
"Right," she muttered. "That's new."
We walked.
Not together—not quite. She stayed a few steps ahead, leading without looking back, like she trusted I'd follow. I did. The sidewalks felt subtly off, as if Greyhaven was compressing itself around us, trimming excess space.
"Recursive," I said. "You used that word like I was supposed to know what it means."
"You will," she replied. "Sooner than I'd like."
We cut down an alley that shouldn't have connected to anything meaningful, and yet spilled us out near the river—a place that normally took fifteen minutes to reach. My phone buzzed in my pocket, confused about how little time had passed.
"This is part of the hax, isn't it," I said. "Shortcuts. Doors. Attention."
"Yes," Elara said. "But that's the surface effect. The real issue is feedback."
She stopped walking and finally faced me fully.
"When I interact with the world," she said, "it bends. When the world bends back, I absorb the correction. It's survivable if it's one-directional."
"And with me?"
"You bend with me," she said. "Then the correction has nowhere to go. So it loops."
I pictured the streetlight flickering, not failing—thinking.
"So the city experiments," I said slowly. "It tries things."
Her eyes sharpened. "Exactly."
A ripple passed through the river. Not a wave—more like the water forgot what shape it preferred.
Elara inhaled. "There. That's it checking scale."
"Scale of what?"
"Of us," she said.
The word us settled between us, dangerous and inevitable.
We stood too close. I could feel the static again, but it wasn't chaotic anymore. It was patterned. Responsive. Like a system discovering an exploit.
"I didn't ask for this," I said.
"I know," she replied. "Neither did I."
"Do you ever get tired of running from outcomes?"
Her gaze flickered—something raw, quickly masked.
"Yes," she said quietly. "But being tired doesn't make consequences optional."
I nodded. That, at least, made sense.
A woman jogged past us along the river path, earbuds in, oblivious. For half a second, she duplicated—two versions overlapping, slightly out of sync—then collapsed back into one.
She didn't notice.
Elara did.
"That's bad," she said.
"Define bad."
"That was collateral perception drift," she replied. "People aren't supposed to echo yet."
"Yet," I repeated.
She looked at me sharply. "You're handling this too well."
I considered that. "I run a bookstore on a seam," I said. "I make a living off impossible ideas. I didn't expect them to start making eye contact."
That got a real laugh out of her. It cut through the tension like a crack in glass.
For a moment, the city relaxed.
I felt it happen—pressure easing, like Greyhaven approved of levity as a stabilizing variable.
Elara felt it too. Her expression softened, then tightened again with worry.
"Don't do that," she said.
"Do what?"
"Make it easier," she replied. "The city rewards coherence. If we synchronize emotionally, the recursion accelerates."
"So… don't like you," I said.
She met my eyes, and the hum surged—warm this time, intimate.
"That ship has already rerouted," she said.
Another rule, forming itself quietly:
Avoidance increases salience.
We were standing on the edge of the river when it happened.
A door appeared in the air above the water—no frame, no hinges, just an outline folding itself into existence like a decision finalizing. It hovered, reflecting the city instead of the river beneath it.
Elara went still.
"That's not for you," she said.
"How do you know?"
"Because it's not waiting," she replied. "It's inviting."
The door opened.
Not outward.
Inward.
The space inside it was not dark. It was edited. Pieces of the city rearranged into something that felt like a question being asked too directly.
My heart pounded—not with fear, but recognition.
"This is what happens when we stand too close," I said.
Elara swallowed. "This is what happens when the city decides to observe the phenomenon directly."
The door pulsed once.
A request.
A test.
"If we step through," I said, "does it end?"
She shook her head. "No. It defines."
I looked at her—at the woman who bent reality by existing, who had tried so hard to keep her distance from anyone who could answer back.
"Then we don't," I said. "Not yet."
The door hesitated.
Actually hesitated.
Elara's breath caught. "Rowan… it's listening to you."
I reached for her hand—not touching, just close enough for the static to hum between us.
"Then tell it this," I said. "We decide together."
The door didn't close.
But it drifted—slowly—downstream, dissolving into the river like a thought deferred.
Greyhaven recalibrated.
Elara stared at me like I'd just rewritten a rule she thought was immutable.
"No one's ever said that to it before," she said.
I shrugged, pulse still racing. "Someone had to."
The city watched us walk away.
And this time, it didn't rush to follow.
It waited. Patient. Learning.