London, 1872
The Brass Lantern was thick with smoke and steam, the air was so heavy it felt like a forge. Dockworkers crowded the tables, shouting over the hiss of pipes and the clatter of mugs.
At the bar sat Jack Hale—blond hair streaked with coal dust, blue eyes dulled by sleepless nights. His coat collar was turned up against the chill, though the tavern's heat pressed in from all sides. He wasn't here for warmth. He was here to forget.
His fingers tapped impatiently against a sealed leather-bound book and a wrinkled expedition flyer. The poster showed a green shard etched with spirals, an invitation for "able-bodied men" to join a voyage into uncharted waters.
Jack's gaze lingered on the image. His chest tightened.
And suddenly, the tavern was gone.
Stone walls pressed in around him, torchlight flickering on limestone blocks. He was running, lungs burning, the ground trembling with each step. Behind him thundered a shadow of gears and iron, a monstrous machine grinding closer. He stumbled, fell—
Jack blinked hard. The bar snapped back into place. His chest heaved like he'd been sprinting.
The barkeep slid a glass of gin toward him. Jack wrapped his hand around it but didn't drink. He just needed something solid to anchor him, something to keep him tethered while his mind dragged him elsewhere.
Dreams. Always dreams.
Visions of lives that weren't his. A soldier raising a bronze shield against fire. A craftsman hammering spirals into a plate of metal while steam hissed around him. A priest pressing his hand to a great machine, whispering an oath in a language Jack had never studied, but somehow knew.
Each vision rattled him, fragments of a story he couldn't quite piece together. And always, at the edges, was his father.
Richard Hale. Archaeologist. Madman. Vanished chasing myths of gods and legends. Some said he lost his mind. Others whispered he had found something the world wasn't meant to see. Jack only knew one thing: his father had left chasing something big—and had never returned.
Jack hated being reminded of it. His father had buried himself in myths after Jack's mother died, chasing ghosts while leaving his son behind.
The tavern door creaked open. A gust of fog and coal soot curled inside.
A tall man stepped through—silver-haired, sharp-eyed, wearing a crisp coat that set him apart from the dockworkers. Jabari Kante. To the world, he was a free man of rare dignity, once enslaved before Jack's mother had fought to win his freedom. To Jack, he was the closest thing to a father he had left.
"Jack," Jabari said as he strode over, voice clipped and commanding. "Still trying to find the meaning of life at the bottom of a glass, or do you have a better excuse tonight?"
Jack didn't look up. "Keeps me warm."
Jabari chuckled and slid onto the stool beside him. His sharp gaze fell on the sealed book and the flyer beneath Jack's hand—Richard Hale's old notebook.
"You recognize it, don't you?" Jabari asked softly, pointing toward the flyer.
Jack forced a scoff. "Looks like scrap."
But it wasn't. He knew it. His father had filled those pages with sketches of spirals, labyrinths, fragments of a world no one believed in. The same spirals Jack had just seen burning in his dreams.
Jabari reached for the notebook, running a careful hand over its cover but not daring to break the seal. "How long are you going to keep this book sealed? Didn't your father send you this before he left—when you were still a child?"
Jabari then pointed at the flyer and continued, "Professor Lancer believes this shard is part of Atlantis. He's mounting an expedition to discover the lost ruins of Atlantis."
Jack froze. The name struck like a hammer blow. He remembered whispers of it from his father's study, half-heard through cracked doors. The Aegis. The shield of the gods. It is in the ruins of Atlantis.
Jabari studied him. "Your father spent his life chasing this. I'd think you'd want to finish what he started."
Jack's jaw tightened. "My father died chasing shadows."
"Or truths the world wasn't ready for," Jabari countered. His voice sharpened. "You can keep drinking yourself into oblivion, or you can do what your father could not."
He placed the old notebook down and slid it toward Jack, pushing aside the untouched gin. Jack stared at it for a long time before finally pulling it close. His hands trembled as he broke the seal.
Inside the cover, scrawled in Richard Hale's unmistakable hand, were words in Latin:
Quod fuit, erit iterum — What has been will be again.
The phrase struck Jack like a hammer to the chest. His pulse quickened. Somewhere deep inside, the words weren't just familiar—they felt like his own.
He closed the book and muttered under his breath, "I guess I'm quitting my job at the factory."