Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

I WOKE UP to silk.

Not my sheets, though—those were long gone. I mean I literally woke up with silk against my skin. A shirt. Starched. Buttoned. Tucked.

I sat up fast, heart hammering, already dizzy.

The bed wasn’t mine. Neither was the room.
There was gold trim on the mirror. The walls were wallpapered like a Victorian theater. There was a goddamn chandelier above me. And I could feel something moving beneath me, faintly.

Water.

I stumbled to the window and pulled back the curtain.

Fog. Ocean. Endless blue.
And stretching out across the deck below—people in suits and dresses, laughing and strolling like they’d been pulled from a museum display. Parasols. Pocket watches. A little kid chasing a hoop with a stick.

I looked down at myself.

Black slacks. Dress shoes. A cream-colored waistcoat. A matching gold watch hanging from a chain.

The same one from the shop.

My knees buckled.

“Two weeks,” he’d said.

I didn’t know where—or when—I was.
But I knew what I was here for.

And then it hit me.

I was on a ship.
A massive ship. One that vibrated gently beneath my feet. One that shouldn’t have existed anymore.

I was on the boat.
The boat.

Unsinkable, they called it.
The beginning of everything, and for a lot of people… the end.

I walked the halls in a daze.

Everything was ornate. Every doorknob felt like it had its own lineage. People passed me like I belonged there, nodding politely, tipping their hats.

No one seemed alarmed.
Not even me.

Because somehow, deep down, I already knew the rules.

I had two weeks.
And she was here.

Somewhere on this ship. Somewhere behind one of these smiles. One of these passing glances.
I just had to find her.

And this time…
I wasn’t gonna let her slip away.