The Unopened Hour

Roland Pryce wakes on a cold floor in Ossaly - salt air through the walls, an unfamiliar language past the door, no memory of the crossing, nobody waiting. What arrived with him is the Standing Date: a number he carries every waking hour, counting the days of his own life left, moving one direction only, pricing everything else he can do. Ossaly is riddled with Stills - hours where people are held mid-sentence around a debt nobody settled. He can find one, open it, and buy back its frozen minutes: an hour inside costs him thirty days of his own. What he wants from every Still is the same thing: the Law holding it shut, and a finding he can sign and not have taken back.