[POV: Ezekiel]
He hadn't touched the bundle.
Not yet.
The key.
The knife.
The letter with his mother's crest.
He stared at them as the sun passed, watching their shadows move across the stone.
Each one looked small.
Unimportant.
Until you remembered what they meant.
Keys don't open just doors.
Knives don't just cut flesh.
And letters sealed in blood-colored wax rarely carry mercy.
---
Ezekiel sat against the cold wall, watching the items from a distance. He had long since stopped sleeping. The body did not crave rest as it once did.
He needed something else now.
He just didn't know what.
---
The mirror had changed again.
The reflection no longer smiled.
It stared.
Not accusing.
Not curious.
Expectant.
---
> "Soon," it whispered.
But not with sound.
The word etched itself briefly into the fogged glass, then vanished.
Ezekiel whispered back.
> "Not yet."
He couldn't tell if the voice behind the glass was his.
Or Azrael's.
Or someone else entirely.
---
Then came the knock.
Three soft taps.
Followed by silence.
Then one more.
Softer.
Almost… out of rhythm.
He frowned.
The guards didn't knock.
The guards didn't knock ever.
Ezekiel stood.
He didn't reach for the knife.
He didn't need to.
He walked to the door and leaned against the stone.
Another pause.
Then, a voice.
Female. Young.
But not Amelia.
Not a servant either.
Wrong accent.
Faintly clipped.
Faintly sing-song.
And with a confidence that did not match a servant's rank.
> "You don't look like much."
Ezekiel said nothing.
> "But you're heavier than the air. I can feel it. Whatever you brought out of that cave… it's still leaking."
He blinked once.
She didn't wait for his permission.
> "They think you're a weapon.
I think you're a fracture.
I'm here to see which."
Silence.
Then footsteps—retreating.
Fast.
Gone.
---
Ezekiel stepped back from the door.
Frowned.
Not at the words.
At the tone.
She wasn't court.
Wasn't Quinsley.
Wasn't afraid.
That meant one thing.
She was from Below.
---
[POV: Kael – Outer Hallway, Lower Stairwell]
Kael's voice had not returned.
Not even a croak.
He'd stopped trying.
The pain wasn't physical anymore. It was something else. Like his lungs were breathing in a different language and his mouth didn't know how to translate.
But his hands could still move.
And that was the problem.
---
On the floor near the stairwell, he had drawn something.
Not with chalk.
Not with ink.
Just with a broken shard of tile.
Again and again, he scratched the same shape into the floor.
Overlapping lines.
Twisting arcs.
He didn't know what it was.
But it came from his memory. From that moment the Hollow Prince looked toward him without seeing him.
The image burned there.
A symbol.
Like a mark the air itself had left behind.
He didn't know the name.
But if anyone had seen it, they would've screamed.
Because it was a fragment of Azrael's true sigil.
A Conceptal Glyph of Judgment.
Drawn by a mute boy who didn't know what he was.
Not yet.
---
[POV: Unknown — Outside the Tower]
The girl walked down the hall quickly.
Loose trousers. Bone jewelry. A half-hidden sigil burned into her neck, just above the collarbone.
The guards didn't see her.
The light didn't quite touch her.
She muttered beneath her breath:
> "It's true. The Vessel breathes."
She did not smile.
She did not pray.
She simply opened her sleeve, revealing a folded map burned into leather, etched in dead languages.
She whispered the next step aloud:
> "Next: breach the mirror."