The university courtyard was older than I remembered.
Frost gathered in the lines between the flagstones, and the air smelled faintly of coal and wet paper. Students moved past us in clusters—some laughing, some hunched in silence. I recognized none of them. They didn't recognize me.
We stood near the front entrance to the philosophy wing. The bell had rung only minutes earlier, and the hallway beyond the doors was already beginning to fill with the low drone of moving bodies.
"I don't know who we're looking for," Clara said quietly.
"I know someone who might."
She looked at me.
"Erich Richter," I said. "He's the one who recommended Dr. Eberhardt to me. If anyone's heard of another patient like us—especially from the university—it's him."
Konrad gave a small nod, but said nothing.
The doors opened with a long creak. I led them inside, the sound of footsteps and shifting satchels washing over us as we stepped into the wide hallway.
Everything smelled of old varnish and colder mornings—books, wool, chalk, steam. The walls hadn't changed. The same marble tiles. The same crack by the stairwell.
And yet, it felt like entering somewhere new. Or returning to somewhere we didn't belong.
Clara stayed close. She moved like someone watching the shape of her own breath, tracing unseen patterns in the warmth of passing bodies. Her hand brushed mine briefly—not intentional, but steady.
Konrad walked just behind us, his coat buttoned high. He watched everything. The corners. The exists. The students who glanced too long.
I kept my eyes ahead.
It had only been a few days since I walked these halls last—but it could have been a year.
We moved past the lecture boards and the study lounges, descending the staircase toward the archive wing. The light thinned there. Fewer windows. Fewer people.
Each step echoed a little too loud.
My stomach felt tight—but not with nerves.
With the sense that whatever came next was already in motion.
We were just catching up.
***
I found him in the archive hall, two levels down.
It wasn't surprising. Erich had always preferred solitude to lecture halls. He was standing near one of the long reading tables, a roll of old faculty rosters open before him. A leather satchel rested at his feet. He didn't notice us at first.
"Erich," I called.
He turned, blinking behind his glasses. "Matthias," he said, adjusting his posture. "Wasn't expecting to see you."
"I need to ask you something."
He glanced at Clara, then at Konrad, but said nothing. "Go on."
"I heard a student had been seeing Dr. Eberhardt recently. Someone different. Someone who… described things that don't make sense. Have you heard anything?"
Erich titled his head slightly. "She doesn't share details. You know that."
"But you recommended her to me," I said. "I thought maybe—"
"People talk." He closed the ledger slowly. "But not always clearly. Most don't know how to explain what they're feeling."
"And if they did?" Clara asked.
Erich met her gaze, then looked at me. "If they did, I imagine it would sound a lot like what you told me back then."
I studied him. He was careful with his words. Measured.
"Just be careful what you find," he said, picking up his satchel. "Some answers don't want to be remembered."
Then he walked past us, disappearing behind the shelves.
***
We stood there for a moment longer, watching the space where Erich had disappeared.
Clara crossed her arms. "He knows."
Konrad shifted slightly. "And he doesn't want to."
The air in the archive hall had gone still. I reached into my coat and pulled out my journal—worn now, the spine softened by use. I didn't know why I did it. Habit, maybe. Or instinct.
I opened to a blank page.
"Do you think he's the one we're looking for?" Clara asked.
I didn't answer. Not right away.
Instead, I took out the charcoal pencil I kept tucked in the back flap and wrote:
Who is he?
The words sat there for a moment. Unmoving. Ordinary.
Then the thread behind my ribs pulsed—just once, like the slow tightening of a knot.
I placed my palm gently over the page.
A subtle warmth pressed up into my skin. Faint. Deep.
Clara and Konrad watched without speaking.
Then, slowly, beneath the line I'd written, new words began to form—thin, exact, with the shape of my own handwriting but older, angled, unfamiliar in the way a memory feels just out of reach.
The Flame of Ceaseless Ambition.
My hand froze.
Clara stepped closer, reading over my shoulder. "What is that?"
I stared at the letters. "I don't know."
"Did you write it?"
I shook my head slowly. "I think… it's me."
Konrad stepped closer, brow furrowed.
I looked down at the page again.
The line shimmered faintly. The ink already drying.
Erich Richter wasn't just familiar.
He was connected.
To the same pattern. The same pulse. The same thing that had brought us all here.
He was one of us.
Even if he didn't know it yet.