Ash couldn't stop thinking about the girl's warning. Her words echoed in his mind long after she had disappeared. I made the same mistake once. What mistake? What had the mirror done to her? And more importantly how far could it bend reality before breaking it?
The journal lay open on his desk, its brittle pages trembling beneath his fingertips. The section on the Veil of Refractions seemed darker now, as though the ink had seeped deeper into the parchment. There were annotations he hadn't noticed before half-erased scribbles in the margins.
Two mirrors, two gates. One reflects, the other consumes.
His heart quickened. "There's another mirror," he said aloud, the realization crawling under his skin.
Alice looked up from the research strewn across the floor. "Another one? Where?"
"I don't know." Ash tapped the journal. "But if there's a second mirror, it means the society isn't just guarding one artifact. They're controlling something bigger something we barely understand."
Alice frowned, her worry deepening. "If that's true, it also means they're more dangerous than we thought. What happens if both mirrors are used together?"
Ash shook his head, his mind already racing through the possibilities. If one mirror could bend reality, two might shatter it. "We need to find it before they do."
A low hum filled the room the mirror on the wall quivered faintly, its surface darkening at the edges. Ash felt its pull, a tug at the edges of his thoughts, urging him to step closer.
Alice grabbed his wrist. "Don't. Not again. You saw what it did to Oliver Kane what if you can't pull back this time?"
"I can control it," he insisted, though the words felt hollow. Each time he touched the mirror, the line between himself and the reflection blurred a little more. But he couldn't stop. Not now. Not with the truth so close.
He pressed his hand against the glass. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the surface rippled like water, and his reflection shifted no longer a perfect imitation.
This version of himself stared back with eyes too sharp, too knowing. But there was something else a second shape lurking behind it. A slender, shadowed figure with eyes like ink-black voids.
Ash's stomach twisted. "There's someone else in there."
Alice stiffened. "Who?"
Before he could answer, the mirror grew cold beneath his palm. Images flashed—an underground chamber lined with stone, a second mirror gleaming under flickering torchlight. Hooded figures circled it, their hands raised in a ritual Ash couldn't fully grasp.
He tore his hand away, gasping. "They're preparing something. There's a second mirror, and they're using it for a ritual."
Alice's face paled. "If we find it what then?"
Ash hesitated. Deep down, he knew the answer. If the society controlled both mirrors, nothing would be beyond their reach. Reality itself could be rewritten. And if he didn't act first, he'd never have another chance.
"We stop them," he said, forcing steel into his voice. "Or we take the mirrors for ourselves."
Alice's gaze sharpened with disbelief. "Ash, listen to yourself. That's exactly what they want to pull you in, to make you think you're the only one who can control this."
He opened his mouth to argue but froze when a new sound echoed through the air a faint click from the door.
Someone was outside.
Ash motioned for silence, moving toward the door. When he opened it, the hallway was empty but a folded note lay on the floor.
He knelt to pick it up, his pulse thudding in his ears. Unfolding the paper revealed a simple message:
The second mirror lies where light cannot touch.
Alice read over his shoulder. "What does that mean?"
Ash's mind reeled through possibilities basements, tunnels, hidden places but one idea stood out. "The old archives. There's a sealed section below the university. No one's supposed to go there."
Her breath caught. "And if the society's already there?"
Ash slipped the note into his pocket. "Then we're running out of time."
As he turned back toward the mirror, his reflection lingered a moment too long before mimicking his movement. And in the darkened corner of the glass, the shadowed figure remained watching, waiting.
But for what?