Selene stared at E, her mind swirling with questions she couldn’t fully articulate. The Seam—this surreal, otherworldly expanse—felt like a dream, yet every sound, every shift in the air felt undeniably real.

“You keep talking about threads,” she said finally, gripping the clock tighter. “What does that mean? What thread are you talking about?”

E stepped closer, his movements fluid, almost too graceful. “Time is not a straight line, Selene. It’s a web, with every choice, every action, creating a thread that binds us to moments. Most people move through life unaware of these threads, but you… you’ve always been connected to the Seam.”

Selene’s pulse quickened. “Why me? I’m nobody special. I just… ran away to a quiet town to escape my mistakes.”

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E tilted his head, studying her. “You’ve felt it, haven’t you? That pull. The sense that time itself has been… different for you.”

Her breath caught. Memories surfaced—moments she couldn’t explain. The dreamlike déjà vu, the clocks that seemed to stall or race, the way the letters had spoken to parts of her she thought were buried.

“It’s not just the Seam calling to you,” E said, his voice softening. “It’s you calling to it.”

Selene’s grip on the clock faltered. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve touched time in ways most people never will. Your thread runs deep, interwoven with others—mine, Lydia’s, those who came before us. The choices you make now will ripple across all those threads.”

The weight of his words settled over her like a heavy blanket. “You’re saying I have to fix this? Whatever’s happening here?”

E nodded. “But fixing isn’t the right word. It’s not broken, Selene—it’s unraveling. You must decide what to do with it.”