The light arrived in the room slowly, bleeding through the narrow window until the grain of the floorboards became visible. Roy sat on the edge of the mattress with his hands resting on his knees. He had been awake for a while, already dressed in a charcoal-grey hoodie and a green and white striped scarf wrapped twice around his neck. His gaze remained fixed on a dark, weathered knot in the wood between his shoes, while the morning settled over the Western Road outside.

  The room remained quiet, the red sandstone walls of the Sacred Heart complex muting the sounds from the rest of the building. Roy stayed still, listening to the muffled, distant stirrings of the complex as it woke. He sat in the grey light and watched the shadows shift across the floor, waiting until the silence felt right for him to move.

  When he finally stood up, his movements were stiff and hesitant. He picked up his fishing rod from the corner and reached for his blue plastic bucket. He held the gear close to his side as he walked toward the door, his steps small.

  He paused at the exit, his chin tucked into the soft wool of his scarf. He turned the handle and opened the door just enough to slip out into the hallway. The space was narrow, the walls close enough that he could feel the cold radiating from the stone. He kept his head down, eyes on the floor tiles. As he passed the entrance to the main nave, he caught a glimpse of the mosaic floor and the dark wood of the pews through the heavy doors. The air here was cool, smelling of old incense and damp stone.

  He stayed near the wall, following the pattern of the floor as he headed toward the side exit that led to the river. The low hum of the city’s plumbing vibrated through the floor, a constant thrum behind the limestone trim. Roy kept his shoulder near the brickwork even when the soft echo of footsteps sounded from a nearby chapel. He reached the heavy outer door, pushed it open, and stepped out into the damp morning air of the Western Road.

  The mist on Western Road stayed heavy, clinging to the red sandstone of the church. Roy followed the stone wall toward the water, his movements static and unchanging. The wooden dock was slick, a single pier lost against the scale of the River Lee. The water spanned out for miles, the far bank a distant memory in the fog, though the surface chopped and bubbled against the wood with its usual, frantic energy.

  Roy wedged himself into the gap between the timber and a stack of crates. He sat with his knees pulled tight to his chest, the fishing rod a dead weight across his lap. There was no ease in his posture, only a rigid, sunken stillness.

  He baited the hook with short, stunted motions, keeping his elbows locked against his ribs. When the line hit the water, he didn't watch it with any sense of expectation. He just drew his hands back into his sleeves and stared at the dark ripples. The massive river moved past, cold and indifferent, while Roy remained fixed in the shadows, a small, invincible point of stagnation that the world simply flowed around.

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  The water continued its restless churning against the dock, the only sound in the grey morning until the heavy thud of boots hit the timber.

  Father O'Shea stumbled onto the pier, his breath coming in jagged, panicked bursts. He stopped dead, his eyes bulging as they landed on the small, hunched figure wedged between the crates. The priest’s hands flew to his chest, clutching the silver cross hanging over his vestments. His face drained of all color, turning a shade of white that matched the mist.

  Only twenty seconds ago, O'Shea had looked out the rectory window back at the church. He had watched Roy’s grey hoodie disappear around the corner of the Western Road. The Quay was five hundred miles of winding river and road away, a distance that required hours of travel, yet the boy sat here now, hook already in the water.

  A choked, terrified sound escaped the priest's throat. He didn't move toward Roy. Instead, he began to back away, his heels catching on the slick wood. His lips moved in a frantic, whispered prayer, the words tripping over each other as he fumbled for his rosary.

  "Balor," O'Shea hissed under his breath, his voice trembling with the conviction of a man looking at a curse. "The Evil Eye walks the Lee."

  He turned and bolted, his heavy footsteps hammering a frantic rhythm against the planks. He disappeared into the fog, his prayers trailing behind him like a funeral shroud. Roy didn't turn his head to watch him go. He remained fixed in his narrow gap, his hands deep in his sleeves, while the bobber sat motionless on the vast, grey expanse of the river.

  The heavy thud of the priest's boots faded into the mist, leaving only the rhythmic lap of the River Lee against the pilings. Roy didn't shift his weight. He didn't even look up as the panicked prayers vanished into the fog.

  Poor O'Shea, Roy thought, his internal voice steady and cold, devoid of the hesitation that governed his limbs. He must have used the portal again.

  The thought was a sharp contrast to his hunched frame. To Roy, the mechanical shortcuts between the church and the Quay were nothing more than instruments of blasphemy—crutches for those who couldn't simply be where they needed to be. He didn't need a gate to fold five hundred miles into twenty seconds. Space was a suggestion he had long ago stopped listening to, though he still kept his elbows tucked tight to his ribs to avoid drawing a second glance.

  He watched his bobber dip slightly in the grey water. The transition from the red sandstone of the church to this damp wooden plank had been seamless, a quiet shift in reality that required no effort and no machinery. He remained a small, grey blot in the shadows, his presence anchored in a way that made the massive scale of the Third Multiverse feel fragile by comparison.

  The water continued to lap at the dock, indifferent to the priest’s terror or the impossible distance Roy had just ignored. He kept his hands deep in his sleeves, waiting for a fish that didn't know it was being hunted by something that wasn't supposed to exist.