Page 39 of Meet Me in Another Life

Santi understands, and he doesn’t, the meaning sliding away from him like wind-blown leaves. He hates words, he decides. He wishes the ruin was covered in pictures instead. Murals, spreading all across the city like portals to other worlds.

As Thora lowers the pen, he glimpses something on her wrist. His hand moves out to catch her. She steps back, wary again. He holds up his hands. Wordlessly, he pulls back his sleeve, showing the stars inked under his own skin.

Thora makes a soft, disbelieving sound. She grabs his arm, rubs at the tattoo as if she expects it to come off.

“What is it?” Santi asks.

“A constellation,” she says. “One that doesn’t exist anymore.”

He stares down at the pattern of stars: the first thing he drew in his book after he arrived in the city. It felt so important that he went straight to the Belgian Quarter to have it inscribed on hisskin. But it doesn’t even belong to him: it belongs to Thora, to the bewildering tornado of existences she brings with her.

He steps back, pulls his sleeve down. He wanted to understand. But if the price of understanding is his own unraveling, he doesn’t think he can survive it.

“What’s wrong?” Thora asks.

Santi laughs. He points to her words, written on the wall of the tower. “We are here,” he says. “But—who are we? Where is here?”

Thora steps hesitantly toward him. “We can find out,” she says. “Together.”

Santi shakes his head and continues backing away. He returns to the thought that led him out of the labyrinth: the thought that felt as solid as his grandfather’s knife under his hand. “We can’t know where we are if we don’t know who we are. And I—I can’t know who I am when every moment I spend with you breaks me into a hundred pieces.” He walks away from her.

“Santi,” Thora calls after him, the same way she said it in his dream: his name so tender in her mouth, like a cat carrying her kitten by the scruff of the neck.

“I never told you to call me that,” he says without turning around.

He hears her footsteps following him. “I still have your book!”

“Keep it,” he yells over his shoulder. “I don’t want it anymore.” He quickens his pace, running past the fountain where the water bubbles over coins as bright as constellations. For an instant, he sees each droplet freeze in midair.

He won’t go back to the hostel. On the streets, he will still have himself, even if everything else dissolves around him. As he runs, he feels the clock tower lean impossibly after him. For the first time he can remember, he can’t hear it ticking.

Till Next Time

“López!”

Her partner looks up from gazing at the cobbles, gleaming damp in the foggy night. “Yeah. Sorry. I thought I saw...” He trails off.

Thora crosses her arms. “If the end of that sentence isn’tthe suspect, I’m not interested.”

López grins darkly. “Fine. I won’t tell you.”

Of course, now she’s desperate to know. As usual, López has trapped her with her own words. “Tell me when there isn’t a knife-wielding maniac on the loose.” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe you’re basically my age. I swear it’s like working with a toddler. Can you just focus for five minutes?”

López follows her into the Heumarkt, past the temporary ice rink that curves around the statue of Friedrich Wilhelm III. “I am focused,” he argues over the crowd that parts at the sight of their uniforms. “On the big picture.”

“The big picture is that innocent people are going to die if we don’t pay attention.”

López raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a little dramatic?”

Thora laughs. “I wonder who I learned that from.” She mimicshim. “I am focused. On the big picture. The deepest mysteries of existence. Your petty mind is too simple to understand.”

López shakes his head sadly. “I can’t believe you are wasting time mocking me. Lišková, innocent people are going to die if we don’t pay attention.”

It’s New Year’s Eve, twenty minutes to midnight. An hour ago, a drunken man stabbed two people in a beer hall and fled. Now, she and López are part of the team tasked with hunting him down. Their official search area is Heumarkt and the square to the north, but they might as well be trying to search a moving labyrinth: the stalls of the Christmas market and the crowds of revelers form infinite paths, opening and closing behind them as they force their way through. Thora scans the square, looking for someone who matches the killer’s description. She keeps thinking she catches him, then turning and seeing someone else, as if his face has been copied again and again onto the shifting crowd. Her blood fizzes with anticipation. This is the part of the job she loves most: the joy of seeking, the promise of discovery, the undercurrent of danger that makes her feel alive. Beside her, López reaches inside his jacket, a nervous motion she recognizes.

“Bringing a knife to a knife fight?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “Don’t dismiss my choice of weapon just because you don’t have the skills to use it.” He pulls the knife out without unfolding it, points the handle at her. “This can bring a man down in minutes if you do it right. Under the left arm, straight into the heart.” He demonstrates on her.

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