Nathan had been waking the streets for hours, ensuring every fracture of time had been mended. But a subtle unease prickled at the edges of his mind. Something remained—a resonance, faint but unmistakable. It was not Kairo’s direct doing this time. It was older, quieter, but no less dangerous.The city woke, or at least it appeared to. Windows reflected the sun, people bustled along streets, and traffic hummed in orderly cadence. Yet, Nathan noticed the cracks immediately. Signs repeated, lettering warping with a language that made no sense. Street intersections looped impossibly, leading pedestrians in circles. Faces of the crowd flickered for a heartbeat—eyes misaligned, mouths delayed. It was a mirror city, reflecting itself imperfectly, subtly twisting reality around every citizen.Nathan’s boots clicked against pavement as he paused at a corner, observing a young woman approach him. For an instant, her reflection in the shop window ran ahead of her, moving faster than her own bod

There were marks hiding every face in the party, but Nathan could sense the spirits coiled beneath human skin. The corrupted ones had chosen tonight to stage their theater. He entered in silence, Harper and Miko flanking him, their masks simple compared to the jeweled monstrosities that bobbed through t wehe crowd. Whispers skittered along the marbled walls like rats: "That’s him." "The failed Sovereign." "Didn’t he lose the rings?" Nathan’s jaw tightened. He could feel the weight of their glee — the hunger of people desperate to watch him stumble. At the center of the hall, a circle opened, and a figure in a silver fox mask raised a crystal goblet. The voice carried, booming unnaturally, layered with the vibration of something not entirely human. “Tonight we celebrate the truth — that the so-called heir of the Code has fallen. Nathan, your guardianship is broken. The rings chose you, and yet you let them slip through your fingers like ash. Shall we toast to failure?” Laughter

Nathan had grown used to the eyes that followed him. Whether it was pity, suspicion, or disdain, he could never quite tell. But tonight, as he stalked down the cracked alleyways of the old quarter, he felt eyes of another kind—ones that were not bound by flesh. The city slept uneasily, its neon glow flickering as if struggling to keep shadows at bay.The humiliation of the past days—the hotel lobby, the laughter, the whispers—still clung to him like smoke. But Nathan wasn’t one to sink under the weight of shame. If anything, it sharpened him, carved away the hesitation. He had learned that humiliation was never random. Someone wanted him diminished, broken in front of others. That meant there was intent. And intent always left a trail.The investigation began where it always did—with silence. Nathan had left behind the loud avenues and bustling taverns to seek the places where no one dared linger. He found himself outside the Ashmere Hotel’s archives, a squat building attached like a

The next morning, the city was gray with rain. Droplets streaked across the windows of the midtown hotel Nathan had chosen as his temporary base. It was safer to stay away from his usual haunts—after last night’s humiliation, he knew someone wanted him rattled, and he wasn’t going to make it easy for them.Nathan sat at the desk in his suite, a black notebook open before him. His handwriting was sharp, precise, a map of thoughts that only he could untangle. He had listed the three names from the corrupted ledger, circled them, then drawn lines toward three separate words: power, debt, silence.A knock came at the door. Too soft, too cautious. Nathan didn’t move immediately. He waited, counted the beats, then rose. He opened the door to find the hotel manager, a man with slicked-back hair and a nervous smile.“Mr. Cole,” the manager began. “We… uh, we’ve had some unusual complaints this morning.”“Complaints?” Nathan asked evenly, eyes narrowing.“Yes. Guests claiming their mirrors—bat

The storm outside had only grown worse. Rain lashed the stone walls of the old academy, streaking the windows in distorted trails of light. The electricity flickered again, a reminder that even the modern world’s comforts couldn’t hold back the creeping unease that had settled over the halls.Nathan sat at a wooden desk in the archive chamber, the weight of half-burned candles pressing shadows into every corner. His eyes scanned pages that crumbled under his touch—reports from nearly seventy years ago, handwritten testimonies bound in cracked leather. Each account was the same, though written by different hands.Voices in the walls.Figures walking when no one was there.Students waking up with bruises in patterns no human hand could leave.It was eerie, not because of what was written, but because the handwriting stopped mid-sentence more than once. Pens dropped, ink spilled, and words froze in unfinished panic.Nathan leaned back, fingers pressing against his temple. He had thought