The city ended not with a wall but with a gradual thinning.

  Buildings became sparser. Streets became roads. The press of people that had surrounded him since he left the building dissolved into the occasional traveler, the occasional cart, the long stretches of empty where it was just him and the dust and the sky.

  He walked.

  The sun set behind him. The light changed—gold to orange to the deep blue that came before darkness. He kept walking until he couldn't see the road clearly anymore, then found a place off it, behind a stand of trees, and sat with his back against a trunk and waited for morning.

  His ribs ached. His legs ached. His feet, which had done more walking in one day than Liu Chen's body was used to, had opinions they were expressing clearly.

  He ignored them.

  The system was still there. Still at the edge of his awareness. He reached for the Trace function.

  CONSUMPTION TRACE — ACTIVE

  Fragment signature still detected. Direction: east-northeast. Distance: approximately two and a half days' travel.

  Note: Signature remains STATIONARY. No movement detected since last scan.

  Stationary. Waiting.

  He sat with that. Whatever he was following was not moving. It had been in the same place since before he left the building—maybe longer. Maybe since before he woke in that dirty room.

  He thought about the dream. The hand in his. The warmth of fingers interlaced.

  What are you.

  No answer. But the sealed thing pressed against his chest—not urgently, but present. Like waiting.

  He closed his eyes and slept.

  ---

  He dreamed of nothing.

  Or rather—he dreamed of nothing that stayed. Fragments only. A corridor. A hand. A voice that almost formed words before dissolving into the shape of words rather than the words themselves. He woke at dawn with the sense that something important had been there and was now gone, and no way to retrieve it.

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  He stood. His body complained. He walked.

  ---

  The second day was harder than the first.

  The road had changed—rougher, less traveled, the kind of road that led to places people went only when they had reason. Farms became fewer. The occasional village became the occasional cluster of buildings that were not quite villages, just collections of houses where people had decided to be near each other.

  He stopped at one of them midday. A well. A woman drawing water.

  "Water?" she asked.

  He nodded. She gestured to the bucket. He drank.

  "Far from the city," she said. Not a question.

  "East."

  She looked at him. At his clothes. At his face. The same assessment he had seen a hundred times since waking in that room.

  "Road gets rough past here. Nothing for three days except the pass."

  "The pass?"

  "Mountain pass. Small. Not dangerous this time of year, but not comfortable either. You planning to cross?"

  He thought about the Trace. One and a half days remained. The signature was still stationary, still east-northeast. If it was in the pass or beyond, he would need to cross.

  "Yes."

  She nodded. "Then you'll want to reach the shelter before dark. Old hunting cabin, halfway up. Not maintained, but better than open ground." She pointed. "Stay on the road. You can't miss it."

  He thanked her. Walked.

  ---

  The road rose.

  It was gradual at first—the kind of incline that didn't feel like work until you looked back and saw how far you had come. Then steeper. The trees changed, became thinner, the kind that grew where the air was colder and the soil less generous.

  He reached the shelter at dusk.

  It was exactly what the woman had described—old, not maintained, but standing. Four walls. A roof that mostly worked. A fire pit with ash from previous occupants. He gathered wood, got a fire going, sat in the doorway and watched the last light fade.

  His hand moved toward his wrist.

  He let it.

  "Tomorrow," he said quietly. "Tomorrow I find you."

  The sealed thing pressed against his chest. Harder now. Like recognition. Like anticipation.

  He sat with it until the fire burned low, then banked it and slept.

  ---

  The dream came again.

  Not fragments this time. A scene.

  He was in the corridor. The same corridor—wide, clean, lit from somewhere he couldn't see. A hand in his. Warm. Familiar. He knew this hand. Had known it for longer than he could remember.

  A voice.

  "I'm afraid."

  His own voice, answering before he decided to speak:

  "Then hold on."

  His hand tightened. Her hand tightened in response. The specific grip of two people who understood that something was about to try to take them from each other.

  The corridor shuddered.

  The light changed.

  He reached—

  And woke.

  His hand was extended into darkness. Empty. Reaching for something that wasn't there.

  He lay still. Breathed. The words echoed in his mind.

  I'm afraid.

  Then hold on.

  He had said that. He knew he had said that. Not in this life—in the other one, the sealed one, the one pressing against his chest since he woke in that dirty room.

  He had told someone to hold on.

  And she had.

  And then the corridor tore them apart.

  He sat up slowly. The fire was dead. The shelter was cold. Outside, the first light of dawn was beginning to touch the sky.

  "I remember," he whispered. "Not all of it. But I remember you."

  The sealed thing pressed against his chest. Hard. Like an answer.

  He stood. Walked out of the shelter. Looked east, where the road rose toward the pass, where something was waiting.

  "Today," he said. "I find you today."

  He walked.

  ---

  End of Chapter 19

  ---