They didn't speak as they walked.
Not at first.
The streets had narrowed as they went deeper into the district—older pavement, uneven stones, lamps that flickered like they were thinking about dying. The usual city noise thinned out behind them. By the time they reached Blackwood Square, even their footsteps sounded unsure.
Mara stopped just past the corner. One hand resting on a rusted signpost, as if she needed to feel something real. Her breath curled in the air.
"Is this…?" she trailed off.
Ezra nodded, barely. "Yeah."
He didn't move right away. Just looked.
The square was wide and flat and painfully empty. Buildings boxed it in on all sides—some boarded up, others intact but hollow. The kind of hollow that made your chest hurt if you looked too long.
"There was a market here once," he said. "Used to be packed."
Mara tilted her head. "Doesn't look like it."
He stepped forward, slowly. The stones underfoot were too clean. Not fresh—just… untouched. No scuff marks. No stains. Nothing that said people had ever really been here.
"It was loud," Ezra said quietly. "Street musicians. Food stalls. Kids yelling, chasing pigeons."
Mara glanced around. "So where'd it all go?"
Ezra touched the wall of a nearby building—lightly, almost an afterthought. Brick, worn at the edges. He let his hand rest there, waiting. Searching.
But nothing stirred.
Not even a flicker.
He pulled back, blinking. His fingers felt colder than they should've.
"They didn't just clear the square," he said slowly. "They took… everything."
Mara stepped closer. Even without his abilities, she could tell. The air felt wrong. Too still. Too perfect. Like a silence that had been… arranged.
"Feels like a place waiting to be remembered," she murmured. Then frowned. "Or like it never happened at all."
Ezra's gaze didn't leave the wall.
"No," he said. "That's the terrifying part. It did happen."
He looked down at his hand—then back at the brick, as if expecting something to crawl out of it.
"You can't just erase something like this. Not without a cost."
Mara's voice was soft. "Then where did it all go?"
Ezra didn't answer.
Instead, he stepped toward one of the benches. The wood was cracked, warped from sun and time. He placed his hand against it—careful, steady.
"I'm going deeper," he said. His voice had changed—lower, guarded. "Stay close
The bench groaned under Ezra's touch—not with sound, but with something deeper. A vibration, almost. The way an old computer hums to life after years on neglect.
He closed his eyes.
Let the rest fall away.
His breath slowed, hands steady, fingers splayed across the worn wood. For a moment, it was just texture: splinters, weather stains, the faint give of softened grain.
Then something shifted.
Not a memory—yet. Just the shadow of one.
Ezra narrowed his focus. Past the silence. Past the absence.
He reached into the space where memory should be.
And found resistance.
It clawed at his mind—static, raw and violent, like something didn't want to be touched. The deeper he pushed, the more it bucked and twisted, like a lock welded shut after decades of rust.
And then—
A flicker.
A flash of movement. Someone—running. The edges were wrong, blurred, like watching a dream backward.
A match. A flare of orange light in a trembling hand.
Then a voice—fractured and low, like it had been recorded through water.
"Sable."
Ezra gasped.
His body jerked, hand yanking back from the bench like it had burned him. The memory shattered in that instant—like a mirror dropped mid-reflection. Gone.
No fade. No dissolve. Just… gone.
Mara was already at his side. "What happened?"
He didn't answer right away. He was staring at his hand—like he expected it to be bleeding.
"It wasn't a memory," he said finally, voice hoarse. "It was a fracture."
Mara frowned. "Fracture?"
Ezra shook his head. "It fought back. Like it didn't want to be remembered."
He looked around the square, eyes scanning the empty facades and quiet glass. For the first time, he wasn't just disturbed.
He was afraid.
"They're not just wiping history," he said. "They're destroying it. Mid-thought. Mid-breath. Mid-escape."
He looked at her—really looked.
"They erased someone in the middle of a memory."
Mara's voice came quieter. "But… that's not possible."
Ezra didn't correct her.
He just looked back at the bench and said, almost to the silence itself:
"Neither is this."