for a while, ranav lived two days inside each day. the one at the office, where he answered messages and fixed what needed fixing. and the one that began when he got home, at the desk with the notebook, where he stayed up trying to make the clock go back.

he wrote down the times. before and after. what he had been doing. what he remembered feeling just before the white came at the edges.

at first he tried the things that seemed possible to repeat. the grip on the handlebar. the way he had been sitting. holding his breath until his chest hurt. nothing.

he returned to the traffic signal. rode the same route at the same hour. sat behind a bus through two changes of the light and felt only the heat coming off its engine.

the trouble was that he knew what he wanted to happen. even when he raised his voice alone in the room, some part of him was standing aside, watching him do it.

he crossed out a page. then another.

one night, after hours of getting nowhere, he threw the notebook against the wall.

it hit edge first. the cover folded under itself. he looked at it on the floor and felt a sudden, stupid hatred for the room, for the fan making its small dry sound, for the fact that he had been given this thing and could do nothing with it.

the push came.

he was at the desk. the notebook lay open under his hand. outside, a man was calling to someone from the street. the same man. the same words he had heard nearly forty minutes before.

ranav did not move until the voice had finished.

then he wrote something down.

after that, he stopped trying to repeat the movements.

he found other ways. an argument he should have left alone. a message he knew would get a response if he worded it badly enough. he went looking for small humiliations and stayed in them until they stopped being small.

sometimes he came home with nothing but a headache. sometimes the room gave way before he was ready.

anger was the easiest. it had things to work with.

then, one evening, he managed a jump deliberately and began to laugh. he had been trying for three hours. now the clock had gone back, the tea beside him was hot again, and he was laughing so hard he could not get enough air to stop.

the white returned.

he was standing at the sink, filling the kettle.

he held it under the running tap long after it was full.

it was not only anger.

he worked backward through the notebook. the traffic. the manager. the nights in the room. each time, something in him had risen past the point where he could hold it quietly. the feeling itself could change. the height of it seemed to matter.

that was as much as he had. he could reach for it now. he could make it happen often enough to begin trusting that it would happen again.

where it put him was another matter.

the first jumps had taken minutes. the later ones were often longer. thirty-seven minutes. fifty-two. once, almost an hour. he tried for a particular time and landed somewhere else. he tried harder and got no further.

he could bring the feeling up. he could not set the clock.

on a fresh page he began writing down things a person might do with half an hour they had already seen.

by morning he had stopped writing and was looking at one line.

the first money came from a room above a shop with its shutters down.

he lost most of what he had brought. he remembered the cards. the man's thumb flattening a bent corner. the fan overhead that clicked once each turn. he sat there while the last of his money moved across the table and discovered that the anger he needed required very little help.

when he came back, the bent card was still in the man's hand.

ranav watched him deal it.

he went home with more money than he had ever held at once. he counted it on the bed and then put it away because looking at it made his breathing change.

he had learned what that could do.

there were other rooms. there were casinos he travelled to, places with carpet thick enough to swallow the sound of a person walking out poorer than they had arrived.

he learned to lose without looking injured. to stop before the men watching him stopped smiling. once, he returned to a table and found that something he had changed had changed the hand as well. he paid for that and remembered it.

he got better.

money went into the markets. he sat before the moving numbers with the same attention he had once given the notebook. an hour was a small thing until the price of something moved inside it.

the sums grew. he began speaking to people who called before making him wait. there were statements now. accounts. profits that could be put on a screen while someone explained how remarkable they were.

the first interviewer asked about instinct.

ranav thought about the room over the shuttered shop. the damp edge of a card against his finger.

you learn to trust yourself, he said.

the interviewer nodded as though this explained a great deal.

someone called him the magic millionaire. it appeared beneath a photograph, then beneath another, then on a screen behind his head while an audience clapped.

he grew used to waiting for the applause to finish before he spoke.

on sunday, grahan woke after nine.

his daughter was on the floor near the television with a schoolbook open. his wife was in the kitchen. he could hear a spoon touching the inside of a steel vessel, the same light sound over and over.

he sat on the sofa and turned on the news.

ranav was in a chair under studio lights. one leg crossed over the other. the host was reading out a number and smiling before she had finished it.

the magic millionaire, the strip beneath him said.

grahan left his thumb on the remote.

the host asked what had changed. ranav smiled. a close, easy smile, as if he and the host had already spoken about this somewhere the audience could not hear.

grahan turned the television off.

his daughter looked up at the black screen. then she went back to her book.

the man came before grahan had finished his tea.

he stood at the door holding his phone, his shirt dark under the arms. he did not ask to come in.

today, he said.

grahan stepped outside and pulled the door partway behind him.

i told you i need a little more time.

you told me that last time.

keep your voice down.

why. your neighbors don't know yet.

grahan looked past him. a woman across the lane was rinsing something at an outside tap. her hand had stopped.

you'll get your money.

then bring it. go inside and bring it.

the man leaned sideways, looking through the gap in the door.

your wife called me and asked me not to come here. ask her how many times i've heard that now.

grahan caught the front of his shirt and pushed him backward off the step.

the man stumbled, caught himself, and looked down at where grahan's hand had been.

you put your hands on me.

get out.

my money feeds this house and you put your hands on me. you think that uniform pays what you owe. you think your family can eat your rank.

grahan went down the step toward him. the man backed into the lane, still talking, keeping just beyond his reach.

we'll see, he said. i'll show you what happens now. we'll see how tall you stand then.

he left with his head turned, throwing the last words back over his shoulder.

grahan's wife touched his arm.

come inside.

he pulled it away.

their daughter was in the doorway. she had brought the book with her and was holding it shut against her chest, one finger still between the pages.

go in, he said.

his wife looked at him.

both of you. go inside.

the second time he said it, he shouted.

his daughter moved before his wife did. that was what stayed with him. the small, immediate step backward.

his wife took her hand. she did not touch his arm again.

the door closed.

he stood facing the lane with his shoulders still held as though the man were in front of him.

the first cigarette bent where he gripped it. he took another.

his hand would not hold the lighter still. he cupped it with the other one, keeping both hands close to his body.

two lakhs for the school. the money he already owed. now this. a man who would come back angrier, a lane full of people who had heard him being told what he could not afford.

and inside, his daughter had stepped away from him.

he drew on the cigarette until the end burned unevenly.

he could go in. the door was not locked. he could say something to her while there was still only this morning to account for.

he stayed outside and finished it.

by monday, he had been refused by two banks.

at one, the man had turned the screen slightly toward him, as though seeing the numbers might make grahan less likely to question them. existing repayments. overdue amounts. the same salary already promised in too many places.

he went to a private bank next.

the woman at the desk took his papers. she asked him to sit. after twenty minutes he went back and she asked him to sit again.

he sat with his knees apart and the empty document folder held between them. the air conditioning reached the back of his neck. behind the desk, a printer fed out a page, stopped, fed out another.

he watched people come in and leave.

when he asked the third time, the woman called someone. she spoke quietly, with her hand beside her mouth.

one lakh, she said when she put the phone down. that's what we can approve.

i asked for two.

i understand, sir.

he looked at the folder.

one lakh would leave another lakh to find. he sat with that for a moment.

all right, he said.

she asked him to wait while they prepared the forms.

the manager came out of his office a little after twelve.

grahan straightened. the manager walked past him and out through the glass doors.

a luxury car had stopped outside.

ranav got out slowly, finishing something on his phone. the manager waited for him to put it away before offering his hand. then he held the door open and came in beside him, one palm turned toward the office at the back.

grahan looked at the woman who had his papers. she was standing now.

ranav said something to her and she laughed. he passed the chairs without looking at the people sitting in them.

the office door closed.

grahan pressed the edge of the folder flat with his thumb.

his name was called while ranav was still inside.

the forms were on a side desk, several pages with small marks beside the places he needed to sign. the woman turned the first page toward him.

here. and here.

he signed.

the office door opened again.

the manager came out with ranav and another folder. they stopped at the other end of the same desk, where there was room to lay it open.

sixty crores, the manager said. everything is ready. we just need your signatures.

grahan's pen stopped touching the paper.

he looked at the number written beneath his own name. the one followed by five zeroes.

ranav set his left hand on the open folder. the manager passed him a pen.

grahan looked down once. then he looked at ranav's face.

i saw you on television.

ranav glanced at him. the smile came easily. he had learned to have it ready.

thank you, he said.

how did you do it.

the manager looked up.

grahan kept his voice level.

all this. it happened very quickly.

ranav finished his signature before answering. he put the cap back on the pen.

it's the mindset, brother. once you get that right, the rest comes.

he gave grahan a small nod, enough to finish the conversation, and turned to the manager.

the manager was already reaching for the folder.

grahan signed the last page. the woman gave him his copies and told him when to expect the money.

outside, the heat settled on the places the air conditioning had cooled.

his motorcycle stood a little over a hundred yards down, along the left edge of the road. there had been no space for it near the entrance. he walked back along the pavement and crossed to where he had left it.

from there the bank was ahead and to his right, across the road. the manager stood beside the car while ranav got in.

the door shut. a low, heavy sound from the engine reached grahan through the traffic. two men outside a shop turned to look.

the car pulled away. the engine rose sharply, loud between the buildings, and then it was ahead of everything and gone.

the manager stood at the curb a moment longer.

grahan was smiling.

there was no one near him to receive it. he kept it there for a few seconds, looking at the space the car had left.

then his mouth settled.

he took out his phone.

sir. we need to arrest the magic millionaire.

the voice at the other end stopped him.

who.

ranav. it's him.

grahan, what are you talking about.

he stood beside the motorcycle with the folder under his arm.

do you know who you're asking me to arrest. on what grounds.

the diamond, sir.

what diamond.

the diamond is missing from his watch.

the room upstairs. the forensics team packing their things. his constable near the door, waiting to leave.

grahan had looked back once more.

something beside the far leg of the bed had caught the light. almost against the wall, where the leg met the floor. he had crouched to see it.

a stone. small enough to miss even from where he had been standing.

six sides. longer than it was wide, the ends narrowing into short, flat edges. one of its upper facets held a pale, milky reflection when he moved his head.

he had called the constable over. told the team to photograph it where it lay. watched them lift it into a small evidence bag.

at the bank, ranav's sleeve had drawn back when he reached for the pen.

the watch had stones set around the face. long, narrow hexagons. each one held between small metal claws.

one setting was empty.

grahan had watched his wrist turn as he finished signing. the bare claws. the dark, six-sided recess between them.

the same shape as the stone beside yaatri's bed.

at the other end of the call, his senior drew a breath to answer. a word started and broke off.

no words followed.