The photograph had been taken in the kitchen, on a day when Tessa’s father had insisted the light was good enough for a portrait.
It was not a portrait. Tessa was eight, missing a front tooth, and squinting at the camera while trying to balance a spoon on the end of her nose. Darius stood behind her with one hand on the back of her chair. His other hand held a dish towel, which meant he had probably been drying plates when someone told him to stand still.
The photograph had slipped sideways in its frame. Tessa straightened it with a finger and set the frame on the kitchen table.
She had come home after the morning clinic shift intending to collect a clean shirt and the small envelope of documents she needed for the supplier. Instead she had opened the cupboard where her father kept family photographs, looking for a memory she could not quite bring into focus.
At the clinic, Mrs. Larkin had asked whether Darius was still calling her Sparrow.
Tessa had not known what to say. The older woman had been rescued from the damaged building, and she had arrived for an injury check with a bag of unopened dressings. She had heard Eli use the name outside the building, she said, and it had reminded her of the day Darius taught Tessa to ride a bicycle in the courtyard.
“You were determined to do it yourself,” Mrs. Larkin had said. “He kept trying to catch you before you fell.”
“Did you tell Eli that?” Tessa had asked.
“No. I met him upstairs, when he came to help us leave, and I didn’t tell him then.”
“Did anyone else?”
“I couldn’t say. People were talking all at once.”
It was possible someone had spoken within Eli’s hearing. Tessa had been too busy treating people and looking for her father to account for every conversation. Mrs. Larkin had known the name, even if she could not recall using it that day. A neighbor could have said it without realizing what it meant.
But Eli had not described it as something he heard. He had said a memory came with the ability he accepted after Darius died. The claim had sounded impossible, and she had been too angry to ask for a detailed account. Now the photograph sat on her table, and she could remember her father holding the bicycle seat while she pedaled across the courtyard.
He had let go earlier than she thought. When she realized it, she had fallen into a hedge. He had picked her up and checked her knees before she could tell whether she was hurt. She had been angry because he laughed with relief, and he had promised to hold the seat longer next time.
That memory belonged to her. It did not prove what Eli had seen.
She took out her phone and called him. He answered on the third ring, his voice thick with sleep.
“Did I wake you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You were supposed to rest.”
“I was doing that.”
“I need to talk. Can you meet me at the park by the library in an hour?”
A pause. “Is something wrong at the clinic?”
“Not at the clinic. I want to ask about my father.”
“All right.”
She ended the call before either of them could start the conversation over the phone. Then she put the photograph back in its frame. She considered bringing it, but the picture was not evidence for him to examine. It was hers to keep.
At the park, the benches were damp except where the morning sun reached them. Eli stood near the path with a paper cup in each hand. He looked better than he had the previous evening, though he still moved stiffly when he turned.
“I wasn’t sure what you drink,” he said.
“You could have asked.”
“I could have. One is tea and one is coffee.”
“Tea.”
He handed it over. She tasted it before sitting; it was plain, hot, and strong enough to make her eyes water. Eli took the other end of the bench, leaving space between them.
“Mrs. Larkin came to the clinic,” Tessa said. “She heard you call me Sparrow.”
“I shouldn’t have said it.”
“Did she tell you the name?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“Not that I remember.” He looked down at his cup. “There were people talking around us. I can’t swear I heard every word, but I didn’t learn it from a conversation I noticed.”
Tessa appreciated the qualification. A flat denial would have been easier to challenge and harder to trust.
“She remembered my father teaching me to ride a bicycle,” Tessa said.
Eli’s hand tightened around the cup. He did not speak.
“Was that what you saw?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly?”
He watched her face. “Are you asking me to describe it?”
“I am.”
“A small girl on a bicycle that was too big for her. Your father held the back of the seat. You were afraid he would let go, and he told you to look ahead. He called you Sparrow.”
Tessa waited. The image fit, but it was not the whole afternoon. “Did you see me fall?”
“No.”
“The hedge?”
“No.”
“Did he laugh after I fell?”
“I didn’t see the fall. He laughed when you said he had let go before the tree.”
She took a breath. The account matched enough to unsettle her and omitted things she remembered clearly. That could mean the memory was a fragment, as he claimed. It could also mean someone had given him the outline of the story. She did not know why anyone would do that, but a lack of motive was not proof.
“What did it feel like?” she asked.
Eli took time before answering. “I could see the moment, but I also felt something I didn’t choose. He was afraid you would fall. He loved you. It was very strong.”
Tessa looked away toward the library. A child ran along the path, calling to a parent who followed with a folded stroller. Darius had loved her. She had known that without a system offering the knowledge to a stranger. Hearing Eli say it made her want to ask him for more and made her angry that he might have more to give.
“Can you go back to it?”
“I can remember what I saw, the way I remember anything else. I can’t choose a different moment from his life.”
“You’ve tried?”
“No. I don’t know how I would.”
“Could another memory appear?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said you’d try to find out what accepting the ability means.”
“I made a discreet call to the registry last night and asked whether inherited abilities were known. The clerk said she hadn’t heard of a case, but she wasn’t qualified to rule it out. I didn’t give her your father’s name.”
Tessa turned back to him. “Did you tell her about the memory?”
“No. I asked about abilities appearing after someone died. She suggested keeping a record of the notices and speaking to a specialist if I found one I trusted.”
“Have you found one?”
“No.”
His answer was frustratingly consistent. He knew what had happened to him; he did not know what it meant for Darius. Tessa wanted someone to tell her whether her father had knowingly given anything, whether the system had copied an ability, and whether there was anything left of him beyond the body she had identified. Eli could answer none of those questions.
“Who else knows?” she asked.
“You, me, and the system, if it counts as someone. Vera and Corvin saw me identify the damaged support. I told them I could notice damage, not where the ability came from.”
“Did anyone at the building hear you use the name?”
“Mrs. Larkin did. I don’t know who else.”
She remembered the noise outside the collapsed building: ambulances, volunteers shouting names, a crowd pressed behind the tape. She had told him not to use the name again. He had not, until she asked him to repeat it here.
“I need a rule,” she said. “If another memory appears, you don’t tell anyone what you saw. You don’t tell a guild, a clerk, or a reporter. And you don’t tell me unless I ask.”
“I agree.”
“You also don’t use it to tell me what my father would want. You don’t know him because you saw a few seconds.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do. You called me that name because the feeling arrived with it. You acted as if it gave you a place in the family.”
Eli flinched. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I believe that. It still happened.”
He looked toward the path. “I won’t do it again.”
She could not enforce the promise except by watching what he did. She had no way to inspect his thoughts or prevent a memory from arriving. That lack of control made the agreement feel inadequate, but it was the only agreement available.
“I may ask you later,” she said. “About what you saw. I might change my mind and ask for every detail you remember. That doesn’t mean you should offer it before then.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
He considered the question. “I think you want to choose what you hear and when. I can do that. I can’t promise the memory will disappear from my head.”
“No. You can’t.”
A gust lifted a corner of the paper around her cup. She held it down. The tea had cooled enough to drink, and she took a longer swallow.
“Did accepting it hurt him?” she asked again.
“I still don’t know.”
“Would you accept another ability if you had the chance?”
Eli’s eyes moved to her face. “It would depend on what I knew about the person, and what they wanted.”
“That isn’t a no.”
“No.” He set his cup on the bench. “The ability helped us see the wall at the clinic and the support in the gate. People might have been hurt without it. I can’t say I’d refuse a chance to help someone. But I also can’t say the system’s offer proves the person consented.”
Tessa thought of the moment the clinic wall came down, after the responders had moved everyone away. She had seen the dust rise from a safe distance. If he had refused the ability, perhaps someone else would have spotted the danger. Perhaps no one would have. She would never be able to run the day again and compare.
“If it happens again,” she said, “tell me what you can about the notice. Not the private memory. The notice itself.”
“I can write down the wording.”
“Only if that doesn’t put the family at risk.”
He nodded. “I’ll ask you before I share anything involving your father.”
Tessa turned the cup between her palms. “And the map?”
His expression changed. “I still can’t explain it properly.”
“You can explain it. You haven’t decided to.”
“That may be fair.”
“It is.”
He did not argue. She found that almost as irritating as an argument. She wanted a reason she could evaluate, not another careful opening around an absence.
The child on the path stumbled. The parent caught the stroller with one hand and reached for the child with the other. The child got up before help arrived and announced that the fall had not hurt.
“My father used to let me try again,” Tessa said. “After he’d checked that I wasn’t injured. Even when he was frightened.”
Eli said nothing. She was grateful for that much.
“I don’t know whether to believe your explanation,” she continued. “But I believe you saw something you didn’t expect. The way you said the name wasn’t rehearsed.”
“I wish it hadn’t happened.”
“I wish a lot of things hadn’t happened.” She stood, carrying the cup. “That doesn’t give either of us permission to decide the rest alone.”
They walked back toward the clinic together. At the corner she stopped to buy bread from a shop that had reopened after the first gate outbreak. The owner recognized her and asked whether the clinic needed food. Tessa explained that they could accept a loaf for the volunteers but could not promise to store perishables without knowing who would collect them. He handed her two rolls instead, and she wrote the donation in her phone so Leah could add it to the ledger.
The clinic’s side door was open. Marisol was finishing a wound check while Mrs. Ortega answered the phone. Leah sat at the table with the supplier’s confirmation: the smaller order had been accepted at the agreed price.
“There was another call,” Leah said. “A representative from a private guild wants to speak with you about your father.”
Tessa set the bread on the table. “What guild?”
“He gave a name, but the line was poor. He said there was a mark they wanted to discuss. He’s coming by with a form.”
Eli stopped beside her. “What kind of mark?”
“He didn’t say.” Leah pointed to her note. “I wrote down his number. He asked for your medical records too, but I told him I couldn’t give him anything.”
Tessa picked up the note. The number meant nothing to her. The request might concern Darius’s death, or it might be an excuse to obtain information the caller had no right to see. Either way, she would read the form herself.
“Thank you for not sharing anything,” she told Leah.
Eli looked at the number. She could see questions gathering behind his eyes, questions about the ability and the system. She had her own. Before either of them could ask the caller for answers, they needed to know what he was asking from her.