Noah pressed his hand against the surface of the mirror. It didn’t so much as budge. There may as well have been no magic within it at all. That, of course, wasn’t the case. He could still feel the intricate imbuements running within the golden metal trimming the massive mirror.

They simply weren’t working.

“Goddamn it,” Noah said.

Prayer peered at him from the other side of the mirror, confusion evident within the monster’s eyes. Its mandibles chittered, but no noise passed through the magical barrier separating the two realms.

All Noah could do was watch.

“This place is rapidly becoming a royal pain in my ass,” Noah said. His brow furrowed in thought as he raced through the reasons why the mirror portal had suddenly stopped working. There were a number of different explanations that quickly came to mind.

The first was that this whole thing was a giant trap meant to bait idiotic thieves into killing themselves. But that thought was quickly dismissed. It made no sense to have a ton of resources and supplies just randomly sitting in such a trap.

Then again, the guy died in the room rather than trying to enter the mirror. There’s a chance this actually is a trap. But if it was, why would you fill it up with survival materials? That makes no sense at all.

Noah pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a slow sigh. Then he set the books and the key down on the ground. Perhaps the room was meant to keep him from bringing anything outside of it.

He turned his back to the mirror a second time and stepped into it.

A hard surface met him.

The portal still wasn’t working.

Noah’s lips pressed thin. He turned back to the mirror and cocked his head to the side, touching it again to see if he could try and find some kind of hidden mechanism. Several minutes passed as he examined it.

Nothing came to light.

“Well, this is just great,” Noah said. He glanced down at the food at his side and reached for it.

Then he paused.

Wait. Is this like that old Greek myth? The one with Hades and Persephone? Is the mirror counting the fact that I have food inside myself and stopping me from leaving because I technically have some part of its belongings or some shit like that?

Noah crossed his arms in front of his chest and tapped a foot on the ground. Even if that was why he was trapped here… it didn’t help him at all. The documents and papers — not to mention the key — did him absolutely no good trapped within the mirror world.

He had to bring the key to the Heart room. That was the only way he’d be able to get it to answer his questions and show him how to get out of here. Noah couldn’t afford to just find a way out of here. The only way he was leaving was if he had the key in his hands.

Noah sat down on the ground before the mirror. Something told him he was going to be here a little while.

***

Noah was there more than a little while.

He wasn’t sure how many hours passed or how many different ways he tried to escape through the mirror. Noah tried running at it. Backing into it. Suspending himself upside down and putting the mirror on the ground so he could fall down on top of it.

Noah rifled through the entire room in search of something that might reactivate the mirror and force it to grant him passage out into the real world. He flipped through every book and scoured each surface.

He found nothing. If there was a secret, it was written within the strange, unreadable script and completely useless to him. His impatience built with every passing minute. There was absolutely no way he was going to let himself sit around in some shitty trap while time slipped through his fingers.

There were too many things he needed to do. Too many preparations that had to be accomplished so he could welcome Moxie, Lee, and everyone else to this Citadel. He couldn’t let himself get defeated by such a stupid trap.

Noah exhausted pretty much every option he could think of to find a way out of the room. Not a single one of them worked. But there was one difference between getting into the room and getting out of it.

Before, he couldn’t afford to damage anything. Breaking the connection within the mirror was too likely to destroy his only pathway to the key that would identify him as a lead researcher for the Heart Room.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

No, Noah needed the key.

The very key that was now in his possession.

And now that he had it, his motivation to avoid breaking anything was considerably less than it had been a few hours ago. It wasn’t that Noah wanted to lose all this information. But the most important thing was already in his possession. Everything else was just a bonus.

“Whelp,” Noah said. He clapped his hands against his knees and rose to his feet, tucking the key into his pocket and cracking his neck. “Can’t say I didn’t try.”

He’d escaped the Line. He’d escaped the Beyond. Noah would be damned if a shitty little mirror was what managed to keep him down.

There were a number of different powers he could try calling on here. He could try to use Unraveling Disruption in a Formation together with Hollow Symphony to destroy the mirror’s connection.

That, unfortunately, had an equal chance of trapping him even worse.

The next option was using Sunder or calling upon the flashes of the Line that still taunted him at the edges of his vision. But Noah still wasn’t eager to use that any more than he had to — and he had another option at his disposal.

Noah extended his senses toward the strange lines of fractalized cubical energy that swayed at his shoulders. Within them was the power of the Beyond. He still wasn’t entirely sure exactly what that magic did… but he did know that it was how he’d gotten to the Lost Citadel in the first place.

And if it could get him here, he was pretty damn sure the power could find him a way to escape a mirror.

Here’s to hoping I don’t break anything too important.

Noah approached the mirror, his eyes narrowing in concentration. The strange tendrils of white magic moved according to his will, brushing across its golden surface. A small frown crossed his lips.

He could feel the magic within the mirror. Even though he couldn’t tell exactly how the imbuements worked or how they’d been made, he still knew what their purpose was. He’d passed through the mirror once before.

And, now that he had the key, he didn’t have to worry too much about breaking things on his way back.

It’s just a door.

Noah pressed his hands against the surface of the mirror. Then he sent the strands of Beyond magic into the mirror. This whole place had something to do with the Beyond. Even though the Devourer wouldn’t tell him what, Noah knew that much.

And that meant he could find a way. If he just dug around, broke something here and there, there would be—

Something gave way within the mirror. It was almost like the lid of a paint can that had been tightly pressed into place. A grin split Noah’s lips. He directed the magic even deeper, latching onto the sensation and pushing as hard as he could. The tendrils of power crackled and hissed, the cubical formations within them twisting and churning like 8-bit boiling water.

Come on! Get out of my—

There was a sharp pop. A ripple of white magic tore through the air around Noah, blowing his hair back. The mirror warped, then rippled like a stone had been dropped into the surface of a lake.

A crack echoed in the back of Noahs mind.

And then he fell straight through the mirror.

Noah’s foot met solid ground an instant later. He took several stumbling steps forward, nearly plowing straight into Prayer, who let out a terrified chitter and lurched back.

“Ha!” Noah exclaimed, spinning back to the mirror. “I did it!”

Buzzing coils of white magic slithered along the edges of the mirror’s gold trimming. They faded away, crackling to nothing. The books within the alternate dimension remained exactly where he’d left them.

Noah reached into his pocket and pulled out the key. He then let his domain brush across the surface of the mirror. The imbuements covering it were still there. It didn’t look like they’d been damaged by his little escape act.

His grin grew wider. Not only had he gotten the key, but he had a way to get back into the room to pull the books out of it.

“Well, that was mildly annoying, but certainly a bit easier than expected. This Beyond stuff sure is convenient,” Noah said. Then he turned on his heel and gestured for Prayer to follow after him as he headed back toward the main hall. The books could wait. It was time to finally get some answers from the Heart.

***

Vivian, Prophet of Renewal, went stiff midway through a rather important political meeting that she really had no interest whatsoever in attending.

The back of her scalp prickled and the hair along her arms stood on end as a disturbance rolled through her domain. She nearly let the glass of fine wine pinched gingerly between her fingers slip and fall to the white tablecloth before her.

But, by the time her senses recovered and she sent her mind darting outward in search of the source, the ripple was gone. All traces of its passing had evaporated, and all that remained were memories.

Something — someone — had just shifted the Beyond.

There was no concept of space within the infinity of non-existence. A change to a part of it was a change to it all. This wasn’t just an intruder breaking in and out of the realm beyond existence.

Someone was using it.

Impossible. This is my domain. Not even Renewal has ever tried to influence the Beyond, and Decras never had interest in such things. Could one of the other—

“Vivian?” a cold, snake-like voice hissed, yanking her attention back to the room she sat in. “You seem… distracted. Letting your guard down so easily is ill-advised. It would be a waste if you threw your life away. Does something draw your attention?”

Vivian’s lips thinned.

This was the one place in the entirety of Obsidia where she could least afford to show weakness. The other faction heads would eat her alive if they discovered even the slightest bit of distraction.

Whoever or whatever was messing with the Beyond… they were trying to get her attention. There was no doubt about it. This was a challenge. From someone equally as powerful as her.

Perhaps more.

An ally? An enemy? I don’t know.

It was something she would have to deal with later. Right now, there was a rapidly approaching tournament that she had to prepare for. And if someone wanted to get her to notice them, they would be making an appearance there — and one way or another, she would be ready for them.

“No,” Vivian said with a thin, tight-lipped smile. “Nothing at all. Don’t waste your concern on me, Imperator of Man. There is still much to accomplish if we wish to ensure this century’s Tournament of Heaven’s Path is a success.”