Makun pushed through the heavy door of Hope's Rest Shelter.
The smell hit him first. Sweat. Unwashed bodies. Mildew. Something sour underneath it all that he couldn't name and didn't want to.
The main room was large. Too large. High ceilings that made every sound echo. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, half of them dead, casting the space in uneven yellow light and long shadows.
Rows of cots lined the walls. Some occupied. Some empty.
People sat on the floor. Leaned against walls. Lay curled under thin blankets that looked older than Makun.
A woman in a torn jacket muttered to herself in the corner. An old man coughed, wet and rattling. Two younger guys near the door argued in low voices about something Makun couldn't hear.
No one looked at him.
He was just another body. Another face. Another person the world had chewed up and spit out.
Makun walked deeper into the room, scanning for an empty cot.
Most were taken. The ones that weren't looked worse than the occupied ones. Stained mattresses. Missing legs. One had no mattress at all, just exposed springs.
He found one near the back corner. Away from the door. Away from the fluorescent lights.
The cot had a torn sheet on it. Holes in the fabric. Stains he didn't want to think about.
It didn't matter.
He was too exhausted to care.
Makun dropped his bag on the cot. Sat down. The frame groaned under his weight. The sheet felt rough against his skin, scratchy, like it had been washed a thousand times and never dried properly.
Heavy noise filled the room. Coughing. Snoring. Muttering. The scrape of someone dragging a cot across the floor. The distant hum of a broken heater struggling to warm a space too big for it.
Makun lay down. Pulled his bag close. Wrapped both arms around it.
The book inside pressed against his ribs. Warm. Heavy.
He closed his eyes.
The noise didn't stop. The discomfort didn't fade.
But exhaustion was heavier than both.
Within minutes, he was asleep.
Elsewhere.
A normal modern chamber.
Clean. Organized. The kind of space that didn't exist in Makun's world anymore.
Hardwood floors. A desk in the corner with a laptop, closed. A chair. A bed with actual sheets, tucked tight.
Music played in the background. Low. Instrumental. Something smooth and rhythmic that filled the silence without demanding attention.
And in the center of the room, mounted on the wall, a mirror.
It was not a normal mirror.
The frame was heavy. Ornate. Dark wood carved with patterns that looked almost floral from a distance but wrong up close. Too sharp. Too deliberate. The wood was old, stained nearly black, and along the edges, tarnished silver inlays twisted like vines.
Or chains.
At the corners, small spikes jutted out. Thin. Pointed. Like the railings of an old church, rusted and forgotten.
The glass itself was dark.
Not reflective in the way glass should be. It held light strangely, swallowing it, giving back only dim shapes and shadows that seemed to move even when the room was still.
Smoke curled inside the glass. Faint. Constantly shifting.
No incense burned in the room. No fog. But the mirror held it anyway, as if the smoke lived inside, trapped, waiting.
And along the inner edge of the frame, barely visible unless you looked close, symbols were carved. Small. Precise. Not any language Makun would recognize.
Old script. Binding marks. Meant to hold something in.
Or let something through.
Red glinted in the carvings when the light hit them right. Like eyes watching from the wood itself.
This was not a mirror you bought in a store.
This was a mirror you earned.
Or stole.
Seated in front of the mirror was a man.
Tall. Lean but solid. The kind of build that came from training, not genetics. His shoulders were broad, his posture straight even sitting.
His hair was dark, cut short but not military. Clean. Practical.
His face was sharp. Defined jaw. High cheekbones. Eyes that looked older than the rest of him, like he'd seen things that aged him from the inside.
He wore a simple black shirt. No logos. No designs. Just black. And dark jeans.
His hands rested on his knees. Fingers tapped a slow rhythm. Impatient. Frustrated.
This was Zack York.
And he sat in front of the mirror, deep in thought.
The action at the Night Market had cost him quite a bit.
He was taken by the Silver Guards. Dragged to the threshold. Held there while the masked figure decided his punishment.
Violence in the market was forbidden. Everyone knew that. First timers got warnings. Regulars got bans.
Zack was neither.
He was known. He had connections. He paid his debts.
So they gave him a choice.
Pay now. Or pay later with interest.
He chose now.
It cost him three years.
Three years off his vital energy, siphoned directly from his spiritual core and fed into the market's foundation. Payment accepted. Debt cleared.
He could feel the loss. A hollow space inside him now. Lighter. Colder.
Three years he'd never get back.
But it could have been worse.
It could have been his sight. His access. His name.
So he paid. And they let him go.
However.
He knew very well it could have ended that way when he acted.
He wasn't stupid. He knew the rules. Knew the consequences.
But he needed the book.
It was too precious for him.
He was stuck at the third grade of Adept. Had been for two years. Couldn't break through. Couldn't advance.
The path to Elite Practitioner required more than meditation and rituals for breakthrough comprehensions. It required understanding. Framework. Knowledge that wasn't written in the common texts.
And The Goal of a Mystic was one of the few books that could provide it.
He had done research. Spent months. Consulted Elite tier Seer mystics who charged fortunes just to open their mouths.
They all pointed him to the same place.
The Night Market. Old Town. Friday.
A veiled woman would have it.
He went. He saw. He offered.
And some nobody, some street rat with barely any spiritual presence, walked away with it instead.
Zack's jaw tightened.
He was furious.
Someone else stole what he spent so much time searching for.
And he was gonna get it back. No matter what.
That was why he exerted himself to leave a mark on Makun.
The mark was gonna act as a bridge between the guy and him, with the mirror as an intermediary.
The mirror was similar to what he told the veiled lady when he offered it. One could observe people they wanted, as long as there was something connecting both places.
Something belonging to either the observer or the person being observed.
Blood. Hair. A personal item.
Or in this case, a mark.
Zack had placed it deliberately. Let his blood fall. Let it attach.
Now it was a tether.
And with the mirror, he could follow it.
That was the basic function.
The price to pay was not huge. A small thread of spiritual energy. A few hours of focus. Some discomfort. Headaches. Nausea if he pushed too long.
Manageable.
However.
If you wanted more advanced features, like harming someone through the mirror, the price to pay was crazier.
Soul entrapment was a minor price that could lead to death in such a ritual.
You could reach through the mirror. Send pain. Send sickness. Send worse.
But doing so meant offering a piece of your own soul as collateral. And if the target resisted, if they had protection, if the ritual failed, the mirror would take the collateral anyway.
Permanent.
Zack was not ready for that.
Not yet.
He was gonna observe Makun. Then go to where he was before finishing him off for the book.
Simple. Clean. Efficient.