It began in a dream.
But it did not feel like one.
No haze. No softness. No mercy.
Only stone.
Ash.
And the sound of chains rattling beneath earth.
James stood at the center of a vast, black plain.
Above him, the sky swirled like ink in water.
Below him—nothing but dust and bones.
He knew this place.
Not from memory.
But from instinct.
It was a realm between—the place where men like him could be unmade.
And he wasn't alone.
Across from him, a figure emerged from shadow.
Barefoot.
Blind.
Wrapped in rags of grey cloth soaked in blood and salt.
Eyes burned shut.
Yet somehow, he saw everything.
Thaddeus Vale.
"Ah," Vale said, his voice dry and slow, like a sermon carved into a coffin lid. "The fire-walker arrives."
James said nothing.
The air was too thick to waste breath.
"You dream in the old tongue," Vale continued, circling. "That means the blood still remembers."
James's eyes tracked him.
"How did you pull me here?"
Vale smiled. "You opened the gate the moment you claimed your mother's gift. And now…"
He spread his arms.
"This realm answers to both of us."
James clenched his fists, the flame beneath his skin beginning to rise.
Veins shimmered gold under his flesh.
But Vale raised one hand—and the light dimmed.
Flickered.
Staggered.
"The flame burns outward, boy," Vale whispered. "But the mirror? The mirror turns the fire back onto the soul."
And then the world cracked.
A wave of force split the plain.
James was thrown back, tumbling through darkness—and as he rose to his feet, he saw it:
A dozen reflections of himself, appearing in shards of floating glass.
All of them broken.
Bleeding.
Screaming.
One knelt beside Isidora's burning wagon.
Another stood in a trench, hands soaked with Arthur's blood.
A third stared into Tommy's eyes, a blade pressed to his throat.
They were not visions.
They were futures.
Possibilities.
Vale stepped between the mirrors, smiling as they flickered.
"You are not a god, James Shelby."
"You are a weapon searching for a trigger."
James roared and charged—but the moment he struck, the ground split open.
Chains lashed from the dust.
Wrapped around his arms. His chest. His throat.
The fire inside him flared again—but it fought itself now, burning too hot.
Lashing out wildly.
He was drowning in his own light.
Vale stood over him, silent.
"I've broken men stronger than you. I've shattered creatures born of purer fire."
He knelt.
"But what makes you dangerous isn't your strength."
He placed a cold hand on James's chest.
"It's that you still believe you're fighting for love."
James gasped, teeth gritted.
His voice was hoarse.
"You don't know me."
"I know everything," Vale whispered. "I am your mirror."
But in that moment—
Something shifted.
From deep within James, past the fire, past the war, past even the blood of Isidora—
Came a third force.
Not rage.
Not fear.
Will.
The same will that pulled him through No Man's Land.
The same will that stood against Kimber, Campbell, the Italians, and every demon that clawed through the alleys of Birmingham.
A will that refused to break.
With a scream, James shattered the chains.
The mirrors cracked.
The images bled into smoke.
And Thaddeus—for the first time—stepped back.
James stood, eyes burning with flame and moonlight.
"No mirror shows me who I am," he said.
"And you're not ready to find out."
Vale raised a hand—
But the dream shattered.
James awoke in the betting shop basement, drenched in sweat.
Polly stood over him, incense burning.
"You were thrashing," she whispered.
"I wasn't dreaming," James said. "I was being tested."
Polly's voice trembled.
"By who?"
James looked to the window.
Toward the east.
Toward him.
"By a man who doesn't want to kill me."
He clenched his fists.
"He wants to make me kill myself."
And that, James knew—
Was far more dangerous.
Far from Birmingham, in a cold church turned prison, Thaddeus Vale stood alone.
Smoke rose from the floor in a ring of ash.
And in his palms, he held a single black feather.
It pulsed once.
Alive.
He smiled, and whispered:
"He passed the first gate."
"Now let's see if he survives the second."