The morning light in Mirrorhaven did not so much rise as it did permeate, a slow bleed of pale silver that filtered through the perpetual haze.
Lin Yue stepped out of the rotting storage room, the memory of the warm, amber-lit reflection still clinging to the back of his mind like a phantom limb. He didn't look back at the mirror. To look back was to invite the city to offer another temptation, and he had already reached his quota for the day.
The group had gathered in the corridor, their faces etched with a level of exhaustion that sleep—if you could call their fitful, dreamless unconsciousness sleep—had failed to touch.
Lin Yue had not slept.
He had spent the hours between Madam Jing's final invitation and the arrival of this broken morning sitting with his back against the interior wall—the wall without windows, the wall without mirrors, the one surface in the apartment that reflected nothing—and he had watched the others.
