Eli woke with his hand pressed to his side.
There was no blood.
He pulled his shirt up. His skin was unbroken, pale where the fabric had covered it and marked by a faint scar near his ribs. He knew that scar. He had fallen from a bicycle when he was fourteen, and his mother had insisted on taking him to a doctor even though he had wanted to go home.
The wound from the cavern was gone.
His hand shook as he touched the place where the blade had entered. He pressed harder. Nothing hurt except the skin beneath his fingers.
He sat up too quickly and struck his head on the underside of a shelf.
The shelf held three books, a chipped mug full of coins, and a small wooden box. A paper tag dangled from one corner of the box. Eli stared at it, then reached up and brought it down.
The lid stuck. He remembered that too. His father had made the box from scraps and misjudged the hinge; it always caught unless Eli lifted the left side first. Inside lay a copper-colored button, a bus ticket, and a photograph of his parents standing on a pier. The photograph had a crease across one corner where Eli had once folded it to fit in his wallet.
He had lost the box when the building burned nine years ago.
Eli looked around the room. The window had a crack in the lower pane, covered with a strip of clear tape. His work boots sat beside the door. A jacket hung from a hook, its lining torn at the collar. The room was exactly as he remembered it, including the damp patch spreading over the ceiling above the radiator.
A vehicle horn sounded outside. Voices followed: a woman shouting at someone to move, a man shouting back that the road was closed.
Eli got out of bed. His knees nearly gave way when his bare feet touched the floor. He caught the edge of the table and waited for the dizziness to pass. He was not lying beneath a collapsed passage. He was standing in his old room with a box he had not seen in years.
On the table was a phone. Its case had a piece of blue tape across the back, covering a crack. He picked it up. The screen lit after the second press, and a date appeared.
He read it twice.
Ten years before the raid.
The day the first talents appeared.
“No.”
The word was too loud in the small room. He checked the date again, then opened the calendar and scrolled backward. The entries were familiar: a rent payment, a reminder to call his landlord about the leaking ceiling, a note to pick up a parcel for a neighbor. He had forgotten the parcel for two days in his first life. She had complained about it every time they met for a month.
He went to the window. The street below looked almost normal. A bus sat at an angle across the intersection, its hazard lights blinking. People crowded the sidewalk, some holding phones, others pointing at a pale shimmer above the far building. The shimmer was smaller than the gates he remembered, a thin line that opened and closed like an eye uncertain whether to wake.
Eli had seen it before. He remembered standing in this room on the same morning, trying to decide whether to go downstairs. In that version of the day, he had stayed at the window until the assessment announcement appeared on his phone. Then he had gone to the center and learned that his new talent was F rank.
He touched his side again.
If this was a dream, it included the ache in his head from hitting the shelf and the cold draft around the taped window. If it was some effect of the dungeon, he had no idea what he was supposed to do about it. He knew only that he was alive enough to act.
He set the wooden box back on the shelf and dressed. The jacket’s torn collar caught on his neck. He remembered putting off the repair until the first frost, then paying a tailor twice what a needle and thread would have cost. He left it torn.
His phone buzzed with an emergency notice. Public assessment stations were opening across the city. Anyone experiencing unusual abilities or effects was asked to report to the nearest station for registration. The notice warned against approaching any unidentified spatial disturbances.
Eli knew the announcement would be revised by noon. By evening, every news channel would be showing footage of hunters entering gates. Some would call the talents a gift. Others would call them a disaster. For years afterward, people would argue about which description had been right.
Today, before those arguments settled into institutions and ranks, there were places where a person with useful information could get ahead.
He remembered a gate on the east side, a small opening near an old freight yard. In his first life, a scavenger had recovered a valuable item there before the major guilds understood what they were looking at. The money had paid for a team, equipment, and a reputation that grew with every retelling. Eli had seen the story years later and wondered what might have happened if he had reached the gate first.
Now he had a chance to find out.
He opened his wallet. The cash inside was real enough to count: three bills and a handful of coins. His identification card had the old photograph, taken before he learned to keep his expression neutral for employers. He tucked the wallet into his jacket and found a small notebook in the desk drawer.
The first page contained a grocery list in his own handwriting. Rice, soap, batteries. He turned to a blank page and wrote down what he could remember about the freight-yard gate: the street, the recovery, and the approximate time the story said the scavenger had entered.
Then he wrote Tessa’s name.
His pencil hovered. He had known her in his first life, but not on this date. He did not know where she lived or whether she had already become a medic. He knew she had a clinic years later and an advocate named Marin. He did not know enough to find either of them immediately.
Below her name he wrote Aegis. Rusk. Hidden room.
His hand stopped over Bram’s name. He could see the enforcer reaching for the paper, then kneeling after the blade struck. Bram had blocked him. Bram had also called for Tessa. Eli could not decide which memory to put first, so he wrote the name without an explanation.
He tore the page free, folded it, and placed it in his wallet. He did not want to carry only a list of enemies and mysteries. He needed something he could do today.
The assessment center was first. He remembered the line outside the school gymnasium and the examiner’s expression when Gravekeeper’s result appeared. He also remembered that registered hunters gained legal access to gates, even those with low ranks. A permit would not guarantee him an opportunity, but without it he might be stopped at the entrance.
He went downstairs.
His neighbor stood in the hallway holding a small dog against her chest. The dog barked at him, then stopped when she tightened her arms.
“Eli,” she said. “Do you know what’s happening?”
He remembered her name after a pause: Mrs. Corwin. In his first life she had moved away after the fire, and he had never learned where she went.
“There’s an assessment center at the school,” he said. “They’re registering people who’ve developed abilities.”
“I don’t have an ability.”
“You don’t have to go unless you want to.” He glanced at the dog. “Are you all right?”
“He’s frightened. The lights went out twice.” She looked toward the stairs. “My daughter says to come to her place, but the buses aren’t moving.”
Eli checked his phone. Traffic notices were appearing faster than he could read them. The road to her daughter’s neighborhood was still open, though that could change.
“Can she pick you up?”
“She doesn’t drive.”
He wanted to offer to take her himself. He did not own a car, and walking her across the city would cost the time he needed at the assessment center. He had already felt how easily later could become an excuse. But he could not solve a problem he had no means to solve.
“The transit office is posting closures,” he said. “Can I show you where?”
She handed him her phone. He opened the notice and saved the page where she could find it. Then he called her daughter with her permission. The daughter said a neighbor had a car and might be able to collect them. Mrs. Corwin took over the conversation, relieved enough to sit on the stairs while she spoke.
Eli left her there with the dog and the phone. At the building entrance he looked back. She lifted a hand to let him know the call was continuing.
The street smelled of rain and vehicle exhaust. A crowd had gathered around the bus. Its driver stood outside with a police officer, pointing at a patch of asphalt that had risen into a ridge. A woman in a business suit was trying to cross the intersection; the officer sent her back.
Eli turned toward the school. The route he remembered ran along the main road for three blocks, then cut through a market. He had walked it without difficulty in his first life. Now a line of police barriers blocked the first intersection.
An officer held up a hand. “Road’s closed.”
“I need the assessment center.”
“Use Mercer and go around.”
“The center’s on the other side of this block.”
“And this block is closed.”
Eli looked beyond the barriers. A delivery truck sat at the curb with its rear doors open. The driver, a woman in a green vest, was arguing with another officer while she checked a list on a clipboard. A stack of bread crates waited on the pavement beside her.
He remembered a collision near the market. A car had swerved around a temporary barrier and struck a parked delivery truck. In his first life, the story had circulated because the driver of the car had newly awakened speed enhancement and had been trying to show it off. Nobody had died, but the crash had trapped traffic for most of the morning.
The delivery truck in the story had been white. This one was white too. Eli could not see its license plate from here.
He checked the time. The collision was supposed to happen later. The police closure was supposed to happen later as well.
The woman returned to her crates. Eli approached her from the sidewalk.
“Are you heading toward the market?” he asked.
“Was.” She lifted a crate into the truck. “Now I’m waiting until somebody decides whether bread is an emergency.”
“There may be a collision on that road. You could take the service street behind the station.”
She gave him a flat look. “There may be a collision anywhere.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“Do you?”
He glanced toward the market. A blue car was approaching the temporary barrier. Its driver leaned out of the window, speaking to a passenger. Eli could not remember the color of the car in the story. He only remembered the photograph of the truck after the impact.
“The service street is clear,” he said. “At least it was in the traffic notice.”
The woman followed his gaze. “You work for the police?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know about a collision?”
He could not tell her the truth in a way she would believe. He also could not promise that the service street was safe simply because he remembered a crash elsewhere.
“I heard a warning,” he said. It was a poor answer, but he could not find a better one quickly. “Please don’t park near the market entrance.”
The blue car accelerated.
It swerved around the barrier, clipped a traffic cone, and struck a parked van with a crack that carried across the intersection. The van lurched sideways. Its alarm began to sound.
People shouted. An officer ran toward the cars. The delivery driver stared at the collision, then at Eli.
“Did you see him coming?”
“Not until a moment ago.”
The car’s driver climbed out, apparently unhurt. The van’s driver opened his door and began shouting. Eli watched long enough to see both men standing, then turned back to the woman.
“You can still take the service road,” he said.
She loaded the last crate, slammed the rear doors, and climbed into the cab. “Get in.”
He hesitated. “Why?”
“You told me not to wait there. If you know another way, show me. And if you don’t, you can help unload when we get stuck.”
He climbed in.
The cab smelled of flour and coffee. A paper cup rattled in the holder as the truck pulled away. The driver introduced herself as Mina and asked where he needed to go.
“The school assessment center.”
“I can get you within a block. I have a delivery to the shelter next door.”
The service road was narrower than Eli remembered. A municipal vehicle blocked part of it while workers laid temporary cable across the pavement. Mina waited for a signal, then eased around the obstruction with inches to spare.
“You knew that car would crash,” she said.
“I thought it might.”
“You said it like you knew.”
“I wasn’t certain.”
She gave him another look but did not press. They passed a group of people standing outside a pharmacy, staring at a floating light above a man’s hand. The man looked delighted until the light sputtered and went out. His friends laughed. He laughed with them and tried again.
Eli remembered the first time he had displayed Gravekeeper. The examiner had given him documented remains and compared the name that appeared to a confidential record. Everyone waiting for the result had wanted something spectacular. Eli had wanted it too.
He had received a name and a cause of death. Useful work, people said afterward. Not useful enough to protect a team in a fight.
He had believed them for a long time.
Mina stopped at a junction where the road narrowed to one lane. “You should go on foot. The school is just past that building.”
Eli thanked her and opened the door.
“Hey,” she said. “You never told me your name.”
“Eli.”
“Mina. If you get a talent that predicts crashes, tell the rest of us before we get on the road.”
He managed a smile. “I’ll try.”
The assessment line wrapped around the school and continued down the sidewalk. It was longer than he remembered. At the entrance, staff were already handing out numbered forms. A woman in a red coat held a clipboard while a pair of volunteers directed people into separate queues.
Eli checked the time again. He had lost minutes at the road closure, more with Mina’s delivery, and the center had opened earlier than he remembered. The collision had happened early too. Perhaps his warning had changed the route of Mina’s truck. Perhaps the police had always closed the road at this hour and he had forgotten. He had no way to tell which differences mattered.
A man near the front demonstrated a thin layer of stone forming over his knuckles. The people around him backed away, then applauded when the stone crumbled without hurting him. Farther down the line, a girl made the water in a paper cup tremble. Her mother held the cup with both hands and asked her to do it again.
Eli joined the queue.
He could leave now and go straight to the freight yard. He knew where the gate would open and what someone had recovered. If he reached it early enough, he might secure the money he needed to work without a guild. He could buy time to find Tessa, investigate Aegis, and learn what the hidden room had been for.
But he also remembered guards stopping unregistered people from entering gates. He had spent years working within rules that changed faster than anyone could explain them. On this day, with panic spreading and the city improvising its response, he could not assume a gate would be open to him without a permit.
He stayed in line.
When the volunteer reached him, she handed him a form and a pencil. The paper asked for his name, address, and any observed ability. Eli wrote his name first. Under ability, he paused.
He had not yet seen a system notice. He knew what Gravekeeper had done in his first life, but he did not know whether the same talent would appear now. The date was right. The room had been real. The road closure had been early.
He wrote: Not yet confirmed.
The volunteer took the form and gave him a number. Inside the gymnasium, someone cheered. Another person began to cry, then apologized to the examiner who had called their name.
Eli folded the number around his finger. He had come back with ten years of memories and a wound that no longer existed. Already he had been wrong about the morning’s timing. If he wanted to reach the gate before the opportunity disappeared, he needed to finish here quickly.
The doors opened. A staff member called the next group.
Eli went inside.