Time does not flow the same in a book.
It twists, curls, repeats. Moments blur. Years stretch like threads pulled too thin. For Alaric, it had been two hundred and five years since the collapse—since she died and he broke every law of nature trying to undo it.
And for two hundred and five years, he had lived between paragraphs.
The garden had become his prison. A creation of ink and memory—one he couldn't escape, and couldn't fully control. Flowers bloomed and withered around him in loops. Stars moved too slowly. The air always smelled like jasmine and smoke.
He didn't age. He didn't breathe.
But he remembered.
Every moment with her.
The way she used to tuck her black hair behind one ear as she read. The way her almond eyes softened when she smiled at him. The way she said his name—Alaric—like it meant something more than just a boy from 1820.
He remembered her last day too well. The way the library trembled. The scream. The crush of falling beams and stone. The cold silence after.
He hadn't even held her body.
All he had was her book—The Echo Garden—her favorite. She used to carry it everywhere. She once told him, "If I could live inside a story, I'd live here."
So he made it happen.
Through trembling hands, grief, and forbidden spells, he performed the ritual.
"If I can't follow her to the next life, let her follow me to this one."
But magic is a cruel thing. It brought him into the book—not her.
He had waited ever since.
For her soul to find its way back to him.
Every century, he'd whisper her name to the pages. Mira. Mira. Mira. But silence always answered back.
Until today.
When the garden wind suddenly changed.
When ink bled onto the air like breath.
And then… her voice.
"Is anyone there?"
He thought he was dreaming at first. Then he saw the words vanish. And new ones—hers—appear.
His heart, long still, beat again.
You found me.
The pages pulled open, drawing him forward like a tide. The air shimmered. Then—there she was.
She looked different now—older than he remembered, yet still her. Mira. Black hair brushing her shoulders. Soft, almond-shaped eyes wide with wonder and disbelief.
Her soul had returned to him.
His voice cracked as he whispered, "You."
Even through the blur of time, he saw confusion in her expression. She didn't remember everything. Not yet.
But she would.
He stepped toward the surface of the page. It shimmered like glass.
"I waited," he told her. "I swore I would."
She asked him who he was. His name, his story. Her voice trembled like the first notes of a melody he hadn't heard in centuries.
"Because I loved you," he whispered. "Before the fire. Before the collapse."
And then… her fingers reached for his.
Warm.
Real.
It was the first real thing he'd felt in so long.
He almost wept.
But the book wouldn't hold them long. The moment collapsed, like all magic does, and the page pulled him back.
Darkness.
Silence again.
But this time… not hopeless.
This time, she knew his name.
This time, Mira was coming back.