Alina didn't tell Elina where she was going.
Some instincts were too sharp to share. They demanded action, not discussion.
The library sat at the edge of the old quarter, a building people passed without seeing. Alina had walked by it dozens of times without ever stepping inside. Now, it felt inevitable—like the city itself had nudged her here.
Inside, the air smelled of dust and paper and time. The kind of place where forgotten things went to wait.
She approached the front desk, trying to steady her voice. "I'm looking for records. Folklore. Local legends."
The man behind the desk looked up slowly. His hair was white, his eyes unsettlingly alert.
"Specific legends?" he asked.
Alina hesitated. Then, "Curses. Objects that bind people across lifetimes."
That did it.
The man studied her for a long moment, his gaze flicking briefly to her hands, then back to her face. "You shouldn't be here," he said quietly.
Her pulse jumped. "That's not an answer."
"It's a warning."
He rose and gestured for her to follow. They moved through narrow aisles into a back room where the lights were dimmer and the shelves older. He pulled out a thin file and placed it on the table between them.
"Tales like these don't survive because they're fiction," he said. "They survive because someone remembers."
Alina opened the file.
Drawings. Symbols. A ring.
Her breath caught.
"This object appears in multiple accounts," the man continued. "Always tied to pairs—siblings, twins, mirrored lives. The curse doesn't strike randomly. It waits."
"How does it end?" Alina asked.
The man's jaw tightened. "It doesn't. Not cleanly."
She slammed the file shut. "There has to be a way."
"There is," he said. "But people don't like the answer."
Alina stood abruptly. "Then I'll find a better one."
Outside, the sky had darkened, clouds rolling in heavy and low. As she walked, the word soon echoed faintly in her mind, colder than before.
That night, the dream returned—but it was different again.
She stood before a mirror. Her reflection smiled back—too slowly, too deliberately. Behind her reflection, someone stood.
The witch.
"You're searching in the wrong places," the witch said calmly.
Alina spun—
—and woke gasping, heart hammering.
She sat up, fists clenched.
"No," she whispered into the dark. "I'm not playing by your rules."
Somewhere nearby, unseen, the countdown continued.