Shaurya had always been very good at looking as though nothing surprised him. It was one of his more irritating qualities, according to Gabriel, who had known him long enough to recognise the particular stillness that meant Shaurya was either contemplating something profound or deciding whether to commit a crime. There was rarely much distinction between the two. Tonight he stood at the edge of his Parbat with one hand resting against the cold stone balustrade, watching the mountains disappear into violet mist. His shirt was open at the throat, his hair had been ruined by the wind, and he had the faintly exhausted expression of a man who had discovered the universe contained a secret and was personally offended that it had not consulted him first.

Gabriel approached without announcing himself. Shaurya did not turn around. “You’re late,” he said.

“I wasn’t aware I had an appointment.”

“You always have an appointment. You simply prefer to arrive after everyone has become interesting.”

Gabriel leaned against the pillar beside him and looked out over the valley. “You’ve been avoiding Prashaila.”

That got him a glance. It was brief, but Gabriel smiled. There it was. The smallest fracture in the composure.

“I’m not avoiding her.”

“Of course not.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“With what?”

Shaurya looked back towards the mountains. “Things.”

Gabriel waited. Shaurya sighed.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is if you’re sufficiently intelligent.”

“Then I’m afraid we’re both doomed.”

Shaurya almost smiled. Almost. It appeared at the corner of his mouth and vanished before it could become evidence. Gabriel had always found this version of him entertaining. Other people mistook Shaurya’s silence for mystery. Gabriel knew better. Half of it was mystery. The other half was stubbornness with excellent cheekbones.

But tonight there was something else. Shaurya was frightened. Not visibly. Shaurya did not do visibly frightened. He did not pace or fidget or raise his voice. He became quieter. His stillness sharpened until it seemed less like peace and more like a door being held shut from the inside.

Gabriel studied him for a moment. “You found something.”

Shaurya said nothing.

“You found something about the hour.”

Still nothing.

“The missing hour.”

Shaurya’s jaw tightened. Gabriel’s amusement disappeared. That was confirmation enough.

Shaurya pushed away from the railing and walked towards the stone table at the centre of the pavilion. On it lay several sheets of paper, a small black notebook, and a photograph turned face-down. He had arranged everything with the irritating precision of someone trying to convince himself that chaos could be controlled if it were placed into sufficiently straight lines.

Gabriel picked up the photograph. Shaurya’s hand closed over it before he could turn it.

“Don’t.”

Gabriel looked at him. The word had been quiet. That made it worse.

“Who is in it?”

“You know who.”

“Prashaila?”

Shaurya’s eyes lifted. Gabriel nodded slowly. “Ah.”

“Don’t.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was about to say that your expression has become considerably more interesting.”

“Gabriel.”

“Fine.”

Gabriel sat on the edge of the table, studying his oldest friend. “How long have you known?”

Shaurya looked towards the mountains again.

“Since before she met me.”

Gabriel stopped smiling. The wind moved through the pavilion, lifting the corner of one of the papers. Shaurya reached out and flattened it without looking.

“What does that mean?”

“It means exactly what I said.”

“No, it doesn’t. That’s the sort of sentence people use when they want to sound profound because the actual answer is terrible.”

Shaurya gave him a sideways look. Gabriel shrugged. “I’ve known you too long to be impressed by your eyebrows.”

A reluctant smile appeared. Then vanished. Shaurya sat down. For a while neither man spoke. Below them, the Parbat descended into mist, the peaks dissolving one after another until the world looked unfinished. Shaurya watched the last visible mountain disappear.

“I remember her,” he said eventually.

Gabriel frowned.

“Before?”

Shaurya nodded.

“Before what?”

“Before the first time.”

Gabriel stared at him. Shaurya rubbed a hand over his jaw. “That’s the part I haven’t told her.”

“Because?”

“Because she’d think I was insane.”

Gabriel considered this. “That has never stopped anyone in this Academy.”

“She’s different.”

There was something in the way he said it that made Gabriel look away. Not because it was romantic. Because it was worse. Shaurya wasn’t talking about attraction. He was talking about certainty.

“I have met her before,” Shaurya continued. “Not in the ordinary sense. I don’t mean another lifetime or some poetic nonsense people use when they can’t explain recognition. I mean I remember conversations that haven’t happened yet.”

Gabriel stared at him.

Shaurya continued before he could interrupt. “Places too. Small things. The way she stands when she’s angry. The way she touches the left side of her neck when she’s trying not to reveal something. The fact that she hates being watched while she thinks. The fact that when she’s embarrassed, she becomes colder rather than warmer.”

Gabriel’s mouth twitched.

“You’ve been studying her.”

“Obviously.”

“Romantically?”

Shaurya looked offended. Gabriel laughed.

“I am asking scientifically.”

“You are asking like an idiot.”

“You’ve memorised the location of her embarrassment.”

“I notice things.”

“You notice her.”

Shaurya looked at him. Gabriel held up both hands. “Fine. Scientifically.”

The silence returned. Then Shaurya said, “I remember her kissing me.”

Gabriel nearly fell off the table. Shaurya’s expression remained completely serious.

“Don’t.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You’re thinking very loudly.”

“I am thinking that you’ve spent months walking around looking like a man who has sworn himself to an ancient mountain and meanwhile you’ve apparently been carrying around memories of kissing Prashaila.”

“It isn’t funny.”

“No,” Gabriel said, recovering himself. “It is considerably funnier than that.”

Shaurya looked away. And Gabriel saw it. That tiny shift. That was the real confession. Shaurya wanted her. Not abstractly. Not spiritually. Not in the grand, tortured way people in the Cogniverse liked to turn desire into philosophy.

He wanted her in the simplest and most inconvenient sense. He wanted her close. He wanted her hand on him. He wanted to know what happened to the careful distance between them if he stopped respecting it.

He wanted to find out whether the woman who could stare directly into the architecture of consciousness would lose her composure if he kissed her slowly enough. And, judging by the expression he was currently trying to hide, he had thought about it far more than was dignified.

Gabriel grinned.

“Oh, you’re in trouble.”

Shaurya’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re enjoying this.”

“Immensely.”

“You’re a terrible friend.”

“I’m your best friend. There is a difference.”

Shaurya looked down at the photograph beneath his hand. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.

“The first time I remembered her, she was standing in the Temple of Ether.”

Gabriel’s smile faded.

“She wasn’t wearing what she wears now. Her hair was longer. She was angry with me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve never asked?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because when I tried, I woke up.”

Gabriel went still. Shaurya looked at him.

“That has happened three times.”

The room seemed to change. Not physically. The mountains remained where they were. The wind continued to move through the stone arches. Somewhere below, something metallic struck against rock. But Gabriel suddenly understood why Shaurya had been keeping himself apart from Prashaila.

He wasn’t afraid of discovering something about her. He was afraid of discovering something about himself.

“What happens when you wake up?” Gabriel asked.

“I forget.”

“Everything?”

“Not everything.”

“What remains?”

Shaurya’s fingers tightened against the photograph.

“The feeling.”

Gabriel watched him carefully.

“What feeling?”

Shaurya looked towards the doorway. And for the first time that evening, his composure slipped completely.

“Home.”

Gabriel said nothing. There are moments when friendship requires silence. Not because there is nothing to say, but because saying anything would cheapen what has just entered the room.

Shaurya stood.

“I need you to promise me something.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“If I forget again, don’t tell her.”

Gabriel stared at him.

“You want me to lie to Prashaila?”

“I want you to let me find her myself.”

“That is an extraordinarily stupid plan.”

“I know.”

“And you still intend to do it?”

“Yes.”

Gabriel shook his head. “You’re hopeless.”

Shaurya walked towards the edge of the pavilion.

“Probably.”

Then Gabriel noticed the photograph again. Something about the corner of it was bothering him.

“Shaurya.”

No response. Gabriel picked it up after all. This time Shaurya didn’t stop him. He turned it over. The photograph showed Prashaila standing beside Shaurya beneath a sky neither of them recognised. They were older.

Not dramatically. Not enough to make it impossible to believe. But there was something in their faces that made Gabriel’s stomach tighten. They looked peaceful. Not happy. Peaceful. As though they had survived something. Gabriel turned the photograph over.

There was writing on the back. He read it once. Then again. His expression changed.

“What?”

Shaurya looked at him.

Gabriel held out the photograph.

“You should probably read this.”

Shaurya took it. The handwriting was his.

He recognised it immediately. Three words had been written beneath the date.

DON’T LET HER REMEMBER.

Shaurya stared at it. For several seconds he did not move. Then he laughed. Not because it was funny. Because suddenly the entire universe had become unbearably, magnificently ridiculous. Gabriel watched him.

“What?”

Shaurya looked up.

“I’ve been hiding the wrong thing.”

“What have you been hiding?”

Shaurya looked at the photograph again.

“Not what I know.”

He turned it over.

“What I did.”

The wind stopped. Somewhere far beyond the Parbat, a bell rang once. Shaurya closed his hand around the photograph. And far away, in the Temple of Ether, Prashaila opened her eyes.

She had no idea why. She only knew that she had just remembered a man’s hand resting against the back of her neck. And the strange, infuriating certainty that he had kissed her before.

Not once. Not twice. Enough times that her body remembered what her mind had been instructed to forget.

She stood very still. Then she smiled. Because there was one thing Shaurya had apparently forgotten. Prashaila was exceptionally good at finding things people tried to hide from her.

Especially when those things were hiding inside her own mind. And somewhere on the Parbat, Shaurya suddenly felt the unmistakable sensation of being watched.

He looked towards the horizon. Gabriel saw the smile arrive.

Slow. Private. Almost wicked.

“What?”

Shaurya slipped the photograph into his pocket.

“She remembers.”

Gabriel stared at him.

“You’re pleased.”

“No.”

“You’re absolutely pleased.”

Shaurya began walking towards the mountain path.

“I’m terrified.”

Gabriel followed.

“You don’t look terrified.”

Shaurya glanced over his shoulder.

“I know.”

And that was the problem. He looked devastatingly calm.