The city was on edge. London, a place so used to its own noise, suddenly sounded different. Not louder, but sharper, like every sound had gained a serrated edge. Elias stood outside the ChronoTech Institute, the cool wind tugging at his coat, hair unkempt, eyes sunken. In his gloved hand, he held the mirror wrapped in thick cloth, as though muffling its hum could silence the things it whispered.
Rae had returned. She didn't explain why, and Elias didn't ask. There was something fragile between them now, not quite trust, but the memory of it.
"We need to get inside," she said. Her voice was tight. Her eyes avoided his.
They moved fast, slipping through a broken maintenance door on the side of the building. Smoke curled up from the western wing, and inside, sirens howled in broken loops. Someone had triggered the lockdown, but not for containment, for erasure.
The data center was in the sub-basement. That's where the encrypted files on Project RELIC were kept. Rae led the way, her boots echoing in shattered hallways. They passed toppled chairs, scorched posters about ethics in temporal technology, and a man slumped over a reception desk. He was still warm. They didn't speak.
Below, the stairwell to the sub-basement was barricaded with scorched metal. Rae pulled out a short crowbar from her backpack. "Stand back," she whispered, as though it mattered.
Elias held the mirror tighter. It felt heavier than before, as if feeding off the tension in the air. The Watcher, who had been absent in thought for much of this chaos, finally murmured:
"Destruction is often the most precise form of correction."
Elias glanced around, unsettled, but said nothing. The words weren't Rae's. They weren't his. But they were heard.
They broke through. The server room still hummed. Rae rushed to the central terminal and inserted a drive. On-screen, a fragmented map glowed.
"There are more of these relics," she said. "Seven. All located at trauma points in time. Historical hinges."
She pulled up Roe's final audio file. His voice trembled:
"The mirror is just one. Each relic is a scar left on the world. A scar that reopens when touched by the right soul. Or the wrong one."
Elias felt cold. The room seemed to spin. In the reflection of the mirror, he saw something shift, a flash of fire, a whip crack, the silhouette of a man kneeling in the dust.
The screen glitched.
A single image flashed: a date. 1791.
Rae stared. "Haiti. The uprising."
The map zoomed further in, highlighting a single location, a rural shrine, half-hidden in forest. Beneath it, a string of glyphs. One stood out, pulsing faintly.
"Third letter," the Watcher whispered. "Not of the alphabet. Of his undoing."
The symbol resembled the letter E, curled backward, like a mirror of itself.
Elias clenched his jaw. "We need to go. Now."
Suddenly, the building lurched. An explosion from above rocked the basement. The lights died. Sprinklers activated, hissing over burning wires.
Rae pulled him by the arm, dragging him toward the emergency exit. The mirror grew hot.
"Collapse is necessary," the Watcher said again. "Not all truths are born in stillness."
Outside, the ChronoTech Institute began to crumble in on itself. Fire crews were shouting. But no one noticed the two of them slipping into the alley behind the eastern wing.
Elias turned, just once, and saw the smoke curling into the shape of a question mark.
He felt the shape press against his thoughts, not just what had happened, but what must happen next.
They vanished into the streets, the mirror glowing faintly in his bag.
The letter in the cipher: E.
It was the second time that letter appeared. And yet, something told him it would not be the last.