The world shimmered like water poured over glass.

  Another world emerged; it was as if someone had cleaned the mirrors and transported her to another realm. She stumbled forward, every step echoing into silence, until the corridor opened into a vast chamber lined with cells.

  Each cell was a wound in reality — black panes veined with silver, like cracks in ice. Something pulsed inside them, dim and rhythmic, as if the Lex Aeterna itself had grown hearts to keep its prisoners alive.

  And then she saw him.

  Liam.

  He was thinner, his skin bruised and pale, but unmistakable. Veins shimmered faintly under his skin, threading with a light Aiko didn’t understand.

  How did this happen to him so fast?

  His eyes found hers and wavered between recognition and emptiness — as if he were caught halfway between being himself and becoming something else.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  “Aiko…?” His voice was a broken glass whisper, echoing all at once.

  She lurched toward him, pressing her palm to the barrier of his cell. The surface was cold and slick, like touching frozen water. He lifted his hand, slow, trembling, and pressed it against hers from the other side. For a heartbeat, their reflections overlapped.

  Pain seared through her palm. She gasped, yanking back as white fire lanced her skin. The barrier pulsed angrily, and Liam winced, his mouth twisting as though he felt it too.

  “No—don’t—” His words fractured, his voice cutting in and out like a broken signal.

  Then Malcolm’s presence bled into the chamber. Not a body, but a shadow that warped the mirrors, dragging their light toward him. His voice wrapped around Aiko like a snake.

  “The boy endures,” Malcolm said, tone calm, almost admiring. “That makes him useful. But even the strongest learn, eventually… that breaking is easier.”

  “No!” Aiko shouted, slamming her hand against the glass, ignoring the burn. “Don’t you touch him!”

  Malcolm’s shadow reached into the cell, seizing Liam by the chest. Liam screamed her name as he was pulled backward, deeper into the black. His body flickered like a dying star, swallowed by the shadows until only the echo of his voice remained.

  “Aiko—!”

  And then he was gone.

  The prison collapsed around her. The mirrors shuddered, cracking inward, their silver veins unraveling into darkness. She fell through the void, heart hammering, until she landed back in her own body, gasping for breath in her cell.

  Her hand still burned. She looked down and saw a faint mark, pale silver, across her palm where the glass had seared her.

  Liam was alive.