Elias reached the final landing. Before him stood a heavy wooden door, carved with the numeral . It was the same door he had reached nine hundred and ninety-eight times before. Every other time, he had turned the key, walked through, and found himself standing back at the base of the tower, the rain still hanging in the air, the count reset to zero.

His mind drifted to the first time he met Ilhan in a dim café in Kadıköy. Ilhan had been sketching a circle that never quite closed—a series of 9s that looked like falling tears or curling smoke. "Most people live in the decimals," Ilhan had whispered, sliding a tarnished brass key across the table. "They live in the almosts and the not-quites. If you want to see the whole, you have to count the cycle." Three hundred and thirty-three.

Elias turned his back to the door and looked out the final, circular window. For the first time, he didn't see a version of himself. He saw Ilhan Barutcu standing on a distant rooftop, holding a sketchpad. Ilhan looked up, smiled, and closed the book.

He continued. His boots clicked against the stone, a rhythmic metronome of penance. Nine hundred and ninety.

He reached for the handle. But this time, he remembered Ilhan’s sketch. The circle that didn't close.