Chapter 12: Of Fox Charms and Half-Remembered Heartbeats
Lior stared at the little fox charm on his desk like it might suddenly speak.
It had appeared in his pocket that morning.
No one knew how it got there. No one had seen it before. And yet, when he held it in his hand, his chest ached—like a sigh caught between his ribs and heart.
A knock on the door jolted him.
"Lior?" Elaine's voice floated in, muffled but warm.
He startled, the charm slipping from his fingers like it burned.
Elaine poked her head around the door, half-hidden behind an absurdly large stack of books. "Can I steal your windowsill again? My room has zero sun and I am photosynthesizing at a dangerous rate."
He blinked. "What?"
"Never mind. I'm moving in." She dropped the books in a dramatic heap and flopped onto the bench by the sunlit window, her hair catching threads of gold in the light.
Lior swallowed.
Something about her shimmered with déjà vu. Not the kind born from repeated moments, but deeper—cellular. Like his soul tilted toward her before his mind could catch up.
She stretched like a cat, cracked open a dusty book, and asked, "Do you ever feel like your memories are playing hide-and-seek?"
Lior blinked. "What?"
"That's twice now, Mr Knight." She looked at him through a curtain of lashes. "You should get your ears checked."
He hesitated, then reached for the fox charm. "I found this today. In my coat. It feels like it belongs to you."
Elaine's breath caught.
She stared at the charm like it was a letter from a lifetime ago.
"It does," she said quietly. "Or… it did. You gave it to me. Once."
He frowned. "When?"
"In a different version of this life," she said, reaching out. Her fingers brushed his as she took the charm—warm contact, brief and electric.
He didn't understand. Not fully. But something about her words fit into a missing piece he hadn't realized existed.
"You weren't supposed to remember," she added.
"But I want to," he said. And he meant it.
Silence wrapped around them like a blanket—soft, warm, and just a little too intimate for mid-morning library hours.
Elaine smiled faintly.
Lior tilted his head. "What is the meaning of that smile? Are you finally admitting you're secretly an escaped oracle?"
She laughed. "A bit."
That laugh. It hit him in the chest like a bell tolling from some hidden cathedral. Familiar. Too familiar.
"I think I knew you," he said. "Before. In a dream, maybe. You were wearing that same green cloak. Crying at a door. I—" He paused, voice dipping low. "I didn't want you to go."
Elaine's book closed with a soft thud.
"You didn't," she said gently.
"But I don't remember," he whispered. The truth clung to the air like mist.
She shook her head. "You didn't forget. You just remembered in the wrong order."
A beat.
Then she added, "We both did."
He looked down at the fox charm again—so small, so ordinary—and yet it carried the weight of something holy. Then he looked at her. Really looked.
"I think I'm starting to remember," he said. A small golden firework burst into thin air.
Elaine blinked. 'For real?'
He smiled. "Feels like I already did remember something."
She leaned her head against the windowpane, her voice soft with amusement. "Why does my mischievous heart go wild all of a sudden?"