NOTE: This may not be the final revision, published form may vary.

The drizzle outside had the kind of persistence that wore at a soul. No longer a downpour, just a slow bleed. The neon outside the window shifted like it was dying of some slow disease. Inside, the office was silence and the smell of gun oil. I was stretched out on our leather couch, head cradled in Mira’s lap, eyes tracing the ceiling like there was a constellation of the night sky on it.

She was tending to her piece, an old semi-auto dressed in silver filigree, beautiful and deadly, like her. Under the pale jaundiced light of the side table lamp, the gun gleamed like a polished bone. We hadn’t spoken anything in a while. The room didn’t need words; it had mood enough to float in.

My mind wasn’t so silent. It still echoed with the images, the bloodied corner office, the wide-eyed corpse of ÆtherCore’s CEO, then of the pretty boy scientist in his grandiose estate, and now Lorenzo. I knew the who and I thought I understood the why, but knowledge was a cold comfort when Lucien still walked my city, his shadow longer than the avenues themselves.

“Third-circle breachwork,” I said, voice raw like I’d swallowed glass. The syllables stuck like tar. “Vex wasn’t pulling any punches. Lucien’s neck-deep in it.”

Mira’s hands didn’t alter their rhythm. She clicked the hammer back into place. The sound sliced clean through the lingering quiet, a sharp percussion.

“Twisted is Vex’s whole lineage, Rune,” she murmured, eyes never leaving the glint of the barrel. “But he’s not wrong. Lucien—he’s infecting the city with it. A bad idea in a worse man’s hands.”

She squinted down the barrel gleaming a truth off of it. Mira’s not the type to guess. She’s the type to see things, especially when the world doesn’t want to be seen. Said the magical burn at the scene was raw, primal. Not just off the charts—off the grid entirely. No pattern. No rhythm. Just violence.

We sat with that for a while long. The sound of her cleaning rod whispered in and out of the silence like a lullaby.

Eventually, I stirred. Restlessness isn’t a choice in this line of work—it’s a condition. I sat up, mind chewing on the thing it couldn’t quite digest.

“That book Lorenzo died with.” I said, my eyes on something that wasn’t in the room. “The one Ryne snagged.”

“Locked up tighter than a funeral vault,” Mira said, nodding. “He called it dangerous esoterica. Said it gave him headaches just being near it.”

“Cop speak for ‘I’m scared but too proud to admit it,’” I muttered, waving it off. “There was a symbol in it. I skipped past it, but it was like a dream you can’t quite catch.”

Mira shifted, gun forgotten. She knew the signs—when my Echoborn senses stirred, it meant something was whispering from beyond.

“Familiar?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, standing now, pacing. “Too familiar. Like it’s been a thought in my damn mind longer than I’ve known.”

I dragged a hand through my hair, a nervous tic older than my scars. I hated when intuition came without instruction. “Lucien is hiding out there. Him and his parade of doppelgängers. But we are no closer to where than when Ryne first brought us in on this.”

Mira’s features creased, the kind of look that could stop a confession mid-sentence. "And… you think you are going to get cold cocked again?"

“Yeah,” I muttered. “That's just what I needed. Another round as DuskWire’s favorite supernatural punching bag.”

“So what’s the angle?” she asked sliding the conversation back.

“That symbol… Lorenzo's notes said it resonated with a place. Somewhere he used to ‘observe.’ I am sure it was the same marking I saw at Coretta's and at DuskWire Woodland. That symbol…" Tasting the word. It lingered on the tongue like copper. “I meant to check it out before Ryne pulled the cuffs and the badge routine.”

Mira gave a half-smile. “Cut Ryne some slack. He’s a by-the-book bastard, sure, but at least he respects you. Unlike Galloway.”

I grimaced. “That clown’s been gunning for us since day one. Doesn’t like our methods. Doesn’t trust what he can’t understand.”

I moved to the window. The rain had eased to a lazy patter. Like the sky was taking five. The city outside still looked sick—drenched in shadow—but at least it wasn’t screaming.

“Time to stretch our legs. This place is choking me,” I said. “How about a walk? Maybe get a bite along the way?”

Mira rose, fluid and calm, holstering her pistol as peacefully as a prayer.

“You flatter me, Malik Rune,” she said, voice purred all velvet and steel. “A walk sounds... delightful.”

Grabbing our trench coats; we left the office behind us.

Boots on wet pavement we made our way towards the park. DuskWire for it's part, after the rain had the hush of a mobster at crime scene, quiet and messy, like the city was trying to pretend it hadn’t taken lead to the gut. Puddles glimmered in the gutter, catching fractured reflections of gothic spires, damp stone, rusted rails, and the faint sweetness of resurrection lilies blooming

DuskWire Woodland waited ahead—The City's idea of a green space, which meant it was half haunted and wholly inconvenient. The trees here didn’t grow; they brooded. Gnarled old bastards with bark like scar tissue and branches that reached for the sky like they hated it. Luminous flora glowed in the underbrush, casting pale green shadows that slithered when you weren’t looking.

Midday light barely touched the place. Didn’t want to. It felt deserted, like the park knew something was coming and decided to get out early.

We swept through it slowly. Mira's eyes scanning, hands ready. I drifted, letting my senses stretch. She looked for broken branches. I felt for broken rules. But the park stayed clean. Just traces of some minor conjuration, maybe a student’s failed spell, a snack wrapper humming with residual enchantment. Harmless stuff. Not even a real distraction.

Nothing reeked of Lucien. No taste of breach magic. No blood on the air. Just empty space where danger should be.

“Dead end,” I muttered, booting a pebble into the undergrowth. My optimism died with a quiet thud. “Maybe Lorenzo was wrong about this place.”

“Perception’s a funny thing,” she said. “Focus too hard on the flame, you miss the fire.”

She was right. Again. But that didn’t make me like it.

We circled toward the park’s edge, the part locals avoided even on good days. Trees thicker here. Roots like frozen serpents. The glow of the flora dimmed, like it was afraid of what lived in its own soil.

That’s when I felt a twitch under the skin.

“Stop,” I said. My voice came out bone dry. Mira froze, followed my gaze to the forest floor.

Leaves, wet, brown, and scattered, yet not random. There was a rhythm to them, an order. Like someone had laid them out in a rush. Lines, overlaps, and angles didn't match up naturally.

Mira’s one hand slid to her pistol, the other brushed the orb at her hip. “Fire and flame.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “There's a subtle ward here also. Meant to hide, not repel.”

"How'd I miss it?" She asked.

I shook my head and knelt, tracing a shape with my finger. There it was again, a frequency only I could hear, like a memory half-recalled.

I pushed into the brush. The thorns weren’t decorative, they bit. But behind them was a slit in the green, narrow and hidden. A trail, barely visible. Lit only by moss that glowed like it there to light my way.

The sounds of the city didn’t follow us  as we stepped through. It was like we’d stepped outside of time, into the part of DuskWire that still remembered the old ones.

Mira was right behind me, gun in hand. “You think Lorenzo found something then?”

“Yeah,” I said finally. “I think he found something for sure. And maybe he didn’t walk out the same.”

Mira nodded once and then we moved on.

We slipped down that narrow path like shifting in to a bad dream. The air grew colder, damp and sour, with the stink of rot and wet leaves. Then came that bite—a chemical sting clawing at my throat. The trail barely let us squeeze through, but it finally spilled into a dank tunnel. Timbers groaned with age, soaked and rotten, holding up walls slick with glowing moss that bled an eerie green light.

“Yeah, this ain’t city hall,” Mira said, gun tight in her hands, eyes darting like a hawk. The place screamed “off the books,” no permits, no witnesses. 

My senses kicked in, an itch settled in in my chest. Then came a twisted voice I could barely hear, cracked, like a bad record skipping on the same scratch. Once again I heard it, but broken, ragged, like a life cut short.

“Mira,” I hissed, cold creeping through my veins. “Someone else is down here. Another Echoborn.”

“You sure?”

“Yes…well, not quite,” I muttered, squinting into the darkness. “this one’s not like me. Like a scream when there should be silence. A wound in the Veil.”

We slowed, carefully moving like skaters on a thin ice sheet. The moss glowed brighter as the tunnel opened into a cavernous lab. It was rough-cut and ugly. The air stank of chemicals and magic gone sideways. Tables bowed under bubbling beakers glowing like trapped fireflies, crystals pulsing with menace, machines ticking secrets.

To me it was a madman’s playground, to Vex it would have been an afternoon playtime.

My eyes stopped on a man, slumped at the bench, skin pale and clammy, thin like smoke about to vanish. That sick shimmer of displaced life energy clung to him like a bad scent. That same off-key resonance thrummed in the pit of my gut.

Another doppelgänger, weakened already perhaps.

Before we could pull triggers, his voice cracked the silence, it was weak.

“Relax, Malik.”

I froze, gun raised, eyes hard as flint. The man raised his head slow, eyes clouded.

“Kieran?” I said, surprise slicing through me. He looked just like he did in the picture hanging on Coretta's wall.

A tremor of a smile played on his lips. “In the flesh… or what's left.”

Each word scraped past cracked lungs. “And you must be Mira. A mutual friend spoke highly of you and Malik.”

Mira’s eyes stayed cold steel, fixated on him. “Mutual friend…ah huh… What are you doing down here?”

His hand trembled, exhaustion dragging him down. “Echo shock. I’m a mess. My shift was smoother than Lucien's but I still get the affects like I assume you do, correct Malik?"

"Yeah, I feel for you, but it seems your brother overcomes that somehow."

"I don’t siphon off others. But Lucien does and in doing so he’s tearing the Veil apart. Ripples you and I can’t dodge.”

I lowered my gun, unease gnawing deeper. A chill slithered down my spine. “He's breaking the Veil? Has he completely lost it, that would bring…”

His eyes begged me to truly understand. “The end. Not just you, Malik. Everyone. You straddle life and death. But if he wins, the dead don’t stay dead. Revenants, nightmares walking the streets. Chaos swallowing the city whole.”

He coughed—rough, ragged, painful. “He’s hunting… the ÆtherCore CEO had an anchor. A key to ripping the Veil wide open. He figures if he can't be human again, no one should.”

Mira and I shared a hard look. The energy at the murder scene, the breachwork—it all clicked. Now I truly knew the why… Lucien wasn’t just a murderer. He was the apocalypse knocking at our door.

“What do you know?” My voice was stripped of irony.

Kieran forced himself up, voice sharper despite the pain. “You need to stop him, make him human again. I think our mutual friend, Vex, is right, you might be the only one who can weave a sigil powerful enough, I can see your pure Echo energy, bound with your soul—but, well—I know using the sigil, it will end you in the process.”

His eyes locked on mine, raw hope bleeding through his exhaustion.