"You did what?" Barnabas Winters' face flushed crimson as he paced their small workshop. "Breaking into a restricted area of the Imperial Academy? Do you have any idea what they do to industrial spies, Calliope?"

  Mia winced. She'd told her "father" a sanitized version of events, ciming curiosity had led her astray during the exhibition. She couldn't expin her true purpose without sounding insane.

  "Nothing happened," she assured him. "No one saw me."

  "And now you have a private meeting with Director Thorne?" Barnabas shook his head in disbelief. "The Emperor's personal weapons designer? The man they call 'The Clockwork Prince'?"

  This title was news to Mia. "Is that what they call him?"

  "For good reason. Cold as the gears he designs, brilliant beyond measure, and connected to the highest levels of Imperial power." Barnabas grasped her shoulders. "Whatever he wants from you, Calliope, it isn't simple recruitment."

  "I'll be careful," she promised. "But this could be an opportunity for us. For you to finally receive recognition for your work."

  Barnabas studied her face. "There's something you're not telling me. This isn't just about career advancement, is it?"

  Mia hesitated, then offered a partial truth: "The Tempus Project seems... revolutionary. It could change everything we understand about reality."

  Her father's expression softened. "You always were drawn to the impossible questions. Just like your mother." He sighed heavily. "Go to your meeting. But at the first sign of trouble, you get out. Promise me."

  "I promise," she said, embracing him.

  The Celestial Gardens occupied a massive ptform extending from the western edge of High Crown district. Originally built as an aristocratic pleasure ground, it had become a showcase of botanical engineering—a suspended paradise where mechanically modified pnts bloomed in impossible colors and formations.

  As twilight descended, Mia approached the gardens' entrance in her finest attire. Her hand clutched the brass key Thorne had given her, its weight reassuring in her palm. The admission fee was steep, nearly a week's earnings for an ordinary mechanic, but she paid without hesitation. Finding Kael's soul was worth any price.

  Inside, illuminated walkways guided visitors through themed sections. Mechanical hummingbirds flitted between bioluminescent flowers. Gss domes protected climate-controlled environments where tropical species thrived despite the cool evening air. Above it all, the first stars appeared in the darkening sky, competing with the city lights below.

  Following the map provided at entrance, Mia located the Central Observatory—a gss rotunda built around a massive telescope. Most visitors remained on the main level, but a spiral staircase led to a restricted upper level.

  At the top, she found a locked door with a brass pte reading "Private Observation Deck—Authorized Personnel Only." The key fit perfectly, turning with a satisfying click.

  The observation deck took her breath away. A gss dome provided an unobstructed view of the night sky, while the floor was constructed of transparent crystal, offering a dizzying perspective of both heavens and earth. In the center stood an eborate asteroscope—a mechanical marvel that tracked celestial movements with unprecedented precision.

  "Beautiful, isn't it?"

  Mia turned to find Alexander Thorne emerging from the shadows. He'd exchanged his Academy uniform for civilian attire—an elegantly tailored suit of midnight blue that emphasized his lean frame. In this less formal setting, the resembnce to Kael seemed even stronger—something in his posture, the set of his shoulders, the intensity of his gaze.

  "The stars, or the mechanism?" she asked.

  "Both." He approached the asteroscope, adjusting a dial with practiced precision. "The universe and our attempts to understand it."

  Thorne activated the device, causing the dome to darken while the asteroscope projected stars onto its surface—not just the visible consteltions, but deeper celestial bodies normally hidden from the naked eye.

  "I've arranged for us to have complete privacy," he said, his back still to her. "No recording devices, no guards. Whatever is said here will remain between us."

  "Thank you for agreeing to meet me."

  "Curiosity is my primary weakness, Miss Winters." He turned to face her. "Let's begin with the obvious question: who are you really? Your technical knowledge suggests Academy-level training, yet there's no record of you in our databases beyond being Barnabas Winters' daughter."

  Mia took a deep breath. How much could she safely reveal? "My interest in the Tempus Project is personal. I believe I've experienced what you call 'temporal echoes' firsthand."

  Thorne's expression remained neutral, but something flickered in those ice-blue eyes. "Expin."

  "I've encountered... souls that exist across different realities. The same essence manifesting in different forms, different lives." She met his gaze directly. "Including yours."

  A muscle tightened in his jaw. "You refer to these... memories I've been experiencing."

  "Yes. They're not delusions or dreams. They're echoes from another existence—a different version of you."

  "Sir Kael," he said softly, testing the name.

  "A knight in a realm called Aldoria," Mia confirmed. "Brave, honorable, and initially just as skeptical as you are now."

  Thorne moved to a control panel, activating a holographic dispy of the Tempus Project's core components. "Three months ago, during initial calibration of the temporal sensors, I experienced what our medical staff diagnosed as a seizure. While unconscious, I saw vivid images of a medieval castle, a battle with shadow creatures, and..." he hesitated, "...a woman who looked remarkably like you."

  "When I saw you at the Academy yesterday, these visions intensified," he continued. "Logically, I should have you detained and examined for potential psychic interference. Instead, I find myself trusting you against all rational judgment." He frowned. "It's most disconcerting."

  "What is the Tempus Project really designed to do?" Mia asked gently.

  Thorne studied her for a moment before answering. "Officially, it's a temporal observation device for strategic advantage—seeing into the past to understand historical events with perfect accuracy, projecting probability matrices for future outcomes."

  "And unofficially?"

  "It detected an anomaly." He maniputed the controls, and the holographic dispy shifted to show wavelike patterns. "A signal that suggests our reality—our entire universe—may be a sophisticated construct. When we isoted this frequency, my 'episodes' began."

  Mia's heart raced. This was more than she'd hoped for—actual scientific evidence of the virtual universe the gods had created to imprison Noir.

  "Have others experienced these visions?"

  "No." Thorne's gaze was intense now. "Only me. And they all center around you—a woman I had never met until yesterday, yet somehow recognized instantly."

  She took a step closer. "What if I told you there's a reason for that? That in another life, we knew each other?"

  "I'd say that contradicts everything I understand about empirical reality." But his voice cked conviction.

  "The Tempus Project proves otherwise. It's detecting the boundaries between worlds, Alexander. The evidence is there in your own research."

  He turned away, struggling with the implications. "Assuming, theoretically, that what you suggest is true—that these memories are genuine experiences from another existence—what does that make me? A copy? A fragment of someone else?"

  The vulnerability in his question caught her off guard. Unlike Kael, who had only recognized the truth at the moment of death, Alexander was grappling with his nature while fully conscious.

  "Not a copy," she said carefully. "The same soul in a different life. Your essence is the same, even if your experiences have shaped you differently."

  Thorne was silent for a long moment, computing this information with the same methodical precision he applied to scientific problems. Finally, he looked up at the projected stars.

  "The asteroscope is calibrated to reveal patterns invisible to conventional observation," he said. "When I look through it, I see connections between stars that others miss—evidence of a grand design beyond random celestial distribution." He turned to her. "Now I must consider that I myself may be part of a simir pattern, connected to existences I can't fully comprehend."

  Mia approached the asteroscope. "May I?"

  "Please." He stepped aside, allowing her access.

  Looking through the eyepiece, she gasped. The device didn't merely magnify stars—it revealed luminous threads between them, a cosmic web of retionships.

  "The threads represent gravitational connections, quantum entanglements, and theoretical temporal links," Thorne expined. "My theory is that consciousness may function simirly—connected across dimensions we can't normally perceive."

  "That's exactly what's happening," Mia said excitedly. "Alexander, your work with the Tempus Project could prove it scientifically."

  A mechanical chime interrupted them—a discreet notification from Thorne's pocket watch. He checked it with a frown.

  "Our privacy window is closing. Security will resume normal patrols in fifteen minutes." He closed the holographic dispy. "I need time to process this information and check certain aspects of our research data."

  "Will you help me?" Mia asked directly.

  "With what, exactly?"

  "Understanding the nature of these connections. Why you're experiencing these memories. What it means for both of us."

  Thorne considered her request. "I'm a scientist, Miss Winters. I follow evidence, not mystical intuitions. If you're correct about these cross-reality connections, there should be empirical proof in the Tempus Project data."

  "And if there is?"

  "Then we continue this conversation." He extracted a small device from his pocket—a communication transponder more advanced than anything Mia had seen in this world. "Take this. It's secure and untraceable. I'll contact you when I've verified the corretions."

  As she accepted the device, their fingers brushed. The brief contact sent a shock of recognition through her—a connection that transcended physical touch.

  Thorne felt it too; she could see it in his momentary loss of composure. He stepped back quickly, adjusting his cuffs—a protective gesture she remembered from Kael.

  "One st question," he said, regaining his analytical demeanor. "If these are genuine memories from another existence, what happened in that other life? How did it end?"

  Mia hesitated. "You died protecting others from a supernatural threat. In your final moments, you remembered something beyond that life—as if your soul recognized its true nature."

  "And now you believe I'm that same soul, reborn in this form."

  "I know you are."

  Thorne nodded slowly. "A hypothesis I cannot yet accept, but can no longer entirely dismiss." He moved toward the door. "We should leave separately. I'll exit first and ensure the path is clear."

  At the threshold, he paused. "Whatever the truth of these connections, Miss Winters, I find myself... drawn to you in a manner I cannot rationalize. It's most unsettling."

  "Sometimes the heart knows what the mind can't expin," Mia offered.

  A ghost of a smile touched his lips—so brief she might have imagined it. "How unscientific." Yet there was no mockery in his tone, only a reluctant wonder.

  After Thorne departed, Mia remained a moment longer, gazing at the celestial dispy. The stars connected by invisible threads seemed a perfect metaphor for her journey—finding Kael's soul across different realities, connected by bonds that transcended physical existence.

  She descended from the observation deck with renewed purpose. This world's version of Kael—logical, scientific, deeply skeptical—would be harder to convince than the knight had been. But the seeds were pnted. His rational mind was already confronting evidence it couldn't dismiss.

  And somewhere beneath the scientist's cool exterior, a soul was beginning to remember its true nature.