Khalil drew maps for a living, but the one spread across his desk defied everything he understood about cartography. It had arrived folded inside a dead man's coat pocket, delivered by a courier who vanished before Khalil could ask a single question. The parchment was blank during the day. He had examined it under magnification, tested it with chemical reagents, and nearly thrown it away in frustration. Then midnight came, and the surface bloomed with silver lines that moved like living things. Mountains rose and fell. Rivers changed their courses. A single point pulsed at the center of a desert that Khalil knew to be featureless and deadly, and beside that point, a name appeared in script so ancient it predated every alphabet in his considerable library: Meridian. He was still staring at the map when Dara Nasiri climbed through his window. She landed lightly on the floor, brushed sand from her leather jacket, and pointed a pistol at his chest with the casual ease of someone who had done it many times before. 'You have something that belongs to my employer,' she said. 'That map was stolen from a private collection, and I have been sent to retrieve it.' Khalil held up his hands carefully. 'I received it from a courier. I stole nothing.' 'That does not change the fact that I need it back.' She stepped closer and caught sight of the glowing parchment. The pistol dipped slightly. 'It is active,' she breathed. 'When did it activate?' 'Midnight. Every midnight since it arrived three days ago.' Dara holstered her weapon with a decisive click. 'Then my employer's timeline just became irrelevant. That map has not activated for anyone in two hundred years. It activated for you, which means you are the only one who can read the route.' She extended her hand. 'Congratulations, cartographer. You just became my business partner.'