The warehouse in the photo wasn't far.
Old District 17—long since condemned, half torn down and forgotten by the city planners. The kind of place only squatters, addicts, and secrets called home.
Elior moved carefully through the cracked pavement, keeping to the shadows. A hoodie covered his face. His fingers nervously traced the jade ring on his hand, still warm.
He shouldn't be here.
But something pulled him.
Not the mark. Not the Codex.
Himself.
The building looked just like the photo.
Rust-streaked metal siding. Boarded-up windows. A chain-link fence twisted open just wide enough for a human body to slip through.
Inside, the air was stale—dust and metal and the faint, coppery smell of old blood.
He took one step. Then another.
His palm began to itch.
The mark glowed faintly.
There was a presence here.
Not just energy. A consciousness. Watching. Feeling.
"Who's there?" he called out.
His voice echoed. No response.
He turned a corner—
And stopped.
The far wall of the warehouse had been painted with a massive circle—three interlocked rings, nearly ten feet across. The same symbol on his palm.
But this version was burned into the concrete.
Like it had been branded there.
At the center of the circle lay something wrapped in cloth.
He knelt, slowly.
Unwrapped it.
A book.
Smaller than the Codex, bound in rough hide. Its cover bore a different emblem—a crescent moon flanked by twin flames.
He flipped it open. Pages written in the same half-symbolic language as the Codex… but these were different. Personal. Scrawled. Chaotic.
A journal.
Suddenly—
A breath.
Not his.
He spun around.
At the far end of the warehouse, a silhouette stood in the broken doorway.
Too far to make out details.
Just… watching.
Elior froze.
Then the figure raised a hand.
A matching three-ring glow lit up on their forearm.
A gesture. A message.
You are seen.
Then they vanished into the shadows.
Elior didn't chase them.
He couldn't.
Not yet.
But as he held the journal in his hands, he knew something had shifted.
He wasn't stumbling in the dark anymore.
He was following footsteps.
And soon…
He'd catch up.