The silence was the first thing that struck Celeste.

Not the serene kind, but the kind that whistles a silence that exists with a scream beneath it.


Armand reclined in her lap, still except for the shallow increase and decrease of his breathing. His eyes, once a rich, weathered brown, now glimmered dimly, catching every dance of light in the broken world. When he blinked, the air distorted, as if reality weren't certain of his position in it.


"Armand?" she breathed once more.


He tilted his head in the direction of her voice. Slow. Cautious. As if every movement were being relearned.


"I'm here."


The voice was his. But not the cadence. The tone was deeper, smoother, and had something immense behind it—like the ring of an old bell booming far beneath the ocean.


Celeste's fingers knotted against his chest. "You… you sound wrong."


He blinked slowly, looking at her. "I feel wrong."


She assisted him into a sitting position, although his weight felt different—distinctly heavier in a manner that broke the laws of physics, as if he bore his own gravity now. The light warped around him, and the air curved. The earth cast a feeble shadow where none should have existed.


"Tell me what you remember."


I remember the light." His forehead creased, pain ghosting across his face. "I remember clenching the blade. The god. it was within me, burning, shattering my bones. I believed that was the end. And then. I heard a voice."


Celeste's heart accelerated. "What did it tell you?"


He gazed up at her, his mirrored gaze inscrutable.

"It told me: 'Thank you for coming home.'"


The words hovered between them like frost.


Celeste stood back, recoiling. The bits of mirror that had surrounded them had ceased to float. Now, they quivered—trembling to him.


He observed her step back but didn't stand up. "You think I'm it now."


"I know what it's like when something old wears a man's flesh."


A ghost smile played on his lips. "Then you know I'm not it. Not yet."


She wavered, caught between the urge to flee and the attraction to the man she still saw inside that distorted reflection.


"Armand," she said hesitantly, "if it's within you, we must hold it back before it takes hold. Before—"


He rose. It wasn't sudden, but necessary. When he did, the light warped even more intensely. His shape glowed dimly, as if he were half shadow and half reflection. "Before what?"


"Before you're lost."


He took a step forward, his eyes gentler now. "Celeste… I've been away a long time. You just didn't notice." 


Her throat constricted. "Don't."


"Don't what?" 


"Don't talk like him." 


He smiled weakly. "You mean the me who still thought this world was worth saving?" 


She glared at him. "That me is the only one I want."


For an instant, the mirrored light in his eyes dimmed—dull, human once more. He took a step closer, fingers brushing against her cheek. His touch was warm now. Nearly normal.


"Then hold on to me," he breathed. "If I change, don't let me remember what I am."


Celeste's eyes drifted shut, her face leaning into his hand. "I won't."


The earth shook under them.


When she opened her eyes again, the world had changed.


The mirror world was dissipating, curling in upon itself like a wilting flower. In the cracks of its glassy exterior, Celeste caught glimpses of the real world: Blackthorn—still mist-shrouded, the manor partially destroyed, the streets flowing dark with fog that now throbbed, alive.


"The curse," she whispered. "It's seeping through."


Armand nodded gravely. "The barrier's down. The mirror shattered the difference between shadow and flesh."


"So we return."


His face clouded. "Go back… or be pulled back. The mirror is not finished with us."


The air rippled once more. Then gravity shifted. The world spun sickeningly. Celeste's gut heaved as the glass floor melted beneath them. She reached for his hand, but both of them were falling already.


They crashed onto the cobblestones with a jarring impact.


Celeste gasped, rolling onto her side. The fog was denser than she recalled—pulsating, hissing as it clung to her. The stench of old rain and decay filled her nostrils. The indistinct shapes of the manor towered in the distance, its roof broken, one tower leaning drunkenly.


But Blackthorn was mistaken.


Where homes had stood, empty glass shells now rose up—translucent fakes of what was. Those she saw moving in the mist were not human. Their faces glimmered with mirrored features—each with echoes of someone else's faintly present.


"Armand," she spat.


He stood a little distance away, unaffected by the fall. The mist clung not to him—it moved under his control.


The whispers were louder wherever he walked, hissing in tongues she didn't understand. The people—the reflections—slowly turned to face him and went to their knees.


Celeste's blood ran cold. "They… they regard you as him."


He didn't reply. His eyes were far away, lost in the rolling fog.


"Armand!"


He turned, and his eyes—although still reflected—glowed with something more than light. "Perhaps they're correct."


She stood frozen. "No."


I can sense them. All of them." His voice shook, the pressure of the thousands bearing down upon it. "Each memory, each echo fettered by the curse—they're within me now."


"Then fight it!" she exclaimed.


He chuckled softly, bitterly. "Fight it? Celeste… it is me. The god wasn't some monster in the dark. It was the will of this place. The hunger of the mirror itself. And I've carried pieces of it since the first time I hunted one of them."


Celeste moved closer, shaking her head. "That's not true."


"Isn't it?" He waved his hand toward the fog, toward the kneeling men. "They report to me because I was commissioned to complete what my forefathers began. The hunters and the afflicted—they were never foes. They were two halves of the same promise."


His voice went darker on the final word, echoing through the air.


The men on their knees looked up, their eyes aglow.


Celeste's heart thrashed. "If you let it in, it'll destroy you!"


He gazed at her as if with sorrow. "If I fight it, it destroys you."


The earth shook beneath their feet. The rest of the manor's tower creaked and gave, spilling stone and dust into the fog. The glass effigies between them started melting, faces running, flowing into the street.


Celeste grasped his hand. "Then we tie it together.


His fingers wrapped around hers—but the warmth of his touch scorched now, almost too much to bear.


"You can't cage what was conceived in thought," he whispered. "It requires a mirror."


She glanced about. "Then we create one."


The understanding struck him—and for the first time since waking, the slightest hint of his former humanity reasserted itself.


"The altar," he said. "Downstairs from the manor. It remains there."


They ran.


Through the streets collapsing, beyond the whispering shadows reaching out like smoke. The gates to the manor were half-swallowed by the mist, but the iron yields to Armand's wave. The entrance hall, once grand, was now unrecognizable—walls with veined glass covering them, the chandeliers suspended motionless in midair.


The fog whispered her name as they went down into the crypt.


When they arrived at the altar, the room was glowing dimly with leftover energy—the aftermath of the destruction of the mirror.


Celeste glanced at Armand. "If we take it, we could be trapped once more."


He nodded. "Worse."


She moved nearer. "Then we complete our work."


He hesitated—then plunged his hand into his coat, pulling out the knife. Its silver blade was fissured now, black veins spreading across the metal.


"Your blood began this," she whispered. "Mine will finish it."


She didn't let him prevent her. She cut her palm and laid it on the altar. The stone sighed, thirsty for it.


"Celeste—"


"Do it," she spit.


He took a breath, cutting his own hand. Their blood mixed one last time, and the sigils on the altar blazed to life. Power poured into the air. The fog above them shrieked.


Armand sank to his knees, covering his head. The voice of the god rang out within him once more.


"YOU CANNOT KILL WHAT YOU HAVE BECOME."


Celeste bore her hand harder into the altar, her words trembling. "Then I'll kill what I became."


The light intensified. The air rent apart. The curse writhed, attempting to escape the limits of its own making.


Armand gazed up at her—eyes now half-human, half-silver. "If this works… I won't remember you."


Tears blurred her vision. "Then remember the part of you that was still yours."


He hesitated, fingers touching hers. "I'll try."


The mirror-light engulfed them both.


Celeste came to in silence once more.


Only now was it warm air. Morning light streamed through shattered stained glass. The fog had vanished. The streets outside the shattered windows of Blackthorn were almost. ordinary.


She sat up, heart racing.


"Armand?"


No response.


She got up, staggering through debris, shouting his name once more. Silence.


The altar was shattered. The knife was in fragments. But etched into the stone—new, purposeful—was a single line of blood-written words.".


"Do not seek me in the light."


Celeste's breath was stopped. She faced the window—and stiffened.


Across the town square, the few glass buildings that remained now showed only one image: a man striding slowly along the main street, cloak flowing, his image in each window striding out of sync.


And wherever his image took a step, the glass darkened to black.


Celeste has lived through the binding but Armand has been transformed into something of god and man. His presence taints reflection itself, making every mirror and window in Blackthorn a shadowy portent. He's living… but not human.