I woke on cold concrete, gasping like a fish pulled from water. The sky above wasn’t sky at all—towering cliffs of glass and steel stretched into clouds lit by unnatural stars. Voices babbled around me in a language half-familiar, warped by centuries of change. My silk gown, once royal purple, was torn and stained with ash and blood—the same blood that had seeped from my lips in Louis’s final embrace.

A woman rushed past, glancing at me with alarm. I saw my own face—my exact eyes, nose, the scar above my brow from childhood. She wore strange cloth and carried a glowing slab. When she dropped it, I snatched it up. Images flashed: Heely Smith, age 28, graphic designer.

My name. My face. But not me.

Sirens wailed in the distance. A homeless man muttered, 'Not again… the girl’s been missing for days.' I looked down at my hands—still calloused from sword training, still marked by the ring Louis gave me before he poisoned me.

Now I had a choice: vanish into shadows and survive, or step into her life and find out why the universe gave me a second chance.