He is starting to hear me. That was never supposed to happen.
Elias awoke to the sound of glass shifting. The old study windows had fogged with early morning condensation, and for a moment, he couldn't recall what house he was in, or even which year. He stared up at the ceiling, his limbs stiff with cold, his shirt damp with sweat.
The mirror layed on the floor beside him. Its surface, though still, felt heavy with presence.
He rose slowly, clutching his head. There was a dull throb behind his eyes, not quite pain, more like pressure. A memory pressing to be let in.
Footsteps above.
He scrambled upright. Rae.
She entered the study with coffee in one hand, her phone in the other. Her expression was stiff, wary.
"Sleep okay?" she asked.
"I had… dreams."
"About?"
"Fire. Smoke. Chanting. A man was speaking to me. Or maybe I was speaking to myself."
She didn't reply immediately. Instead, she handed him the coffee. "You looked like you were in a trance last night. You were murmuring something. Latin, maybe?"
"I don't know Latin."
Language, like time, leaves traces in the mind. And his mind is… pliable.
They packed up Roe's photos and notes in silence. Rae was distant. The photo timeline now sat sealed in her laptop, its images too dangerous to leave behind.
By noon, they were driving back to London, Elias half-asleep in the passenger seat, fingers brushing the mirror's cloth-wrapped frame. He could feel it pulsing like a heart.
The world outside the car blurred.
And then
A voice.
Not Rae's. Not his own.
One that echoed in the space between thoughts.
Do you remember who you were before the mirror found you? I do. I remember everything.
He jolted upright.
"What?"
Rae glanced over. "What?"
"You didn't say something just now?"
"No."
Elias looked out the window. The Watcher did not speak again. But the silence after was almost heavier.
Back in London, the city was tense. News about the explosion at ChronoTech had begun to circulate, though details were sparse. The media said it was a gas leak. The footage had been scrubbed clean.
Elias and Rae checked into a nondescript hotel under false names. A message waited for Elias at the front desk.
A folded card.
Inside: a single sentence handwritten in looping script — You are not alone. Come alone. 8 p.m. — Professor Darwish.
The meeting took place in the backroom of a closed museum, the kind of place where lightbulbs still flickered and exhibits were wrapped in plastic. Darwish waited under a dim pendant light, his cane leaning against the table.
He looked older than his photos, thinner, paler, eyes sunken with sleep lost to years.
"Elias Vale," he said, as if trying the name on his tongue.
"You know who I am?"
"I know what you are."
Elias sat slowly. The mirror rested in his coat, humming ever so faintly.
Darwish leaned forward. "You're not the first to carry the mirror. You're the first to survive touching it twice."
"Twice?"
Darwish nodded. "We found your image in a daguerreotype from 1851. Same face. Same hands. But your eyes were different then. Less afraid."
"I've never—"
"No. You don't remember. That's different."
He's not lying. Memory is not a vault. It's a mirror. Fragile. Distorted.
Elias gritted his teeth. "Why me?"
Darwish paused. "Because you lost something. Something the mirror could latch onto. A wound in time."
Elias said nothing.
Darwish slid a folder across the table. "This is everything I know. About the mirror. About Project RELIC. About Roe's death."
Elias opened the folder. Dozens of pages, ancient schematics, handwritten notes, photocopies of esoteric texts. At the bottom, a photograph.
The Haitian revolution. A man amid a circle of fire. Holding the mirror.
His face?
His.
"You want me to change history?" Elias asked.
"No," Darwish said. "I want you to remember it. Before it remembers you."
Later, back in the hotel room, Elias sat alone on the edge of the bed, folder in hand. Rae had gone out to get food, giving him space.
He stared at the mirror. His reflection shimmered faintly. The room behind him warped in the glass.
They always ask why him. They never ask why now.
Elias held the mirror up. "Who are you?"
Silence.
Then:
Closer than breath. Quieter than thought. The last witness to the first lie.
He dropped the mirror.
It didn't break. Of course it didn't.
And when he looked into it again, he wasn't alone.