The mirror didn't just crack.
It pulsed.
And somewhere deep in the fracture between realities, something smiled.
Eleanor couldn't sleep. The walls of the sanctuary felt different now, thinner, as if some unseen presence were breathing beneath the stone.
Every reflection was a question, every shadow a whisper. Even her own heartbeat echoed differently at night, like it belonged to someone else in another room.
The creature Halcyra had warned her about, the one that fed on broken versions, the one with no face, had followed them back.
It hadn't crossed yet.
But it was waiting.
The Watchers
The sanctuary had become restless.
Sarai's ink had stopped behaving. Her spell markings bled off her skin in long, oily tendrils that slithered across the floor like black eels.
She wore gloves now, hands shaking beneath them. "It's not just magic," she whispered to Eleanor one night. "Something's watching through it."
