Noah stumbled to a stop in the same room he’d been standing in before — but it wasn’t the same room at all.

In fact, the only similarities the two rooms had at all were the walls and furniture. Where years of disuse had once taken their toll were now rows and rows of books and papers stacked high, arranged by a careful, meticulous hand.

There wasn’t a single open space on the shelves. Not one speck of dust dared disgrace the surfaces of this new room. Age itself seemed to have absconded from the mirror dimension. No wear had ravaged the soft, flawless padding on the chair in the center of the room, nor did a corpse disgrace it with its rotted presence.

Noah glanced over his shoulder at the mirror he’d just stepped through. He nearly jumped in surprise.

Prayer’s rather disfigured face was pressed up against the other side of the mirror like a dog trying to lick through a plane of glass. The centipede seemed to be doing its best to follow him into the mirror but hadn’t quite managed to comprehend how he’d passed through it.

Noah couldn’t keep himself from letting out a laugh. He shook his head and turned back to the room before him. It was probably for the best if Prayer stayed back for the time being. The last thing he needed was something important in here getting damaged by the clumsy monster.

“This is a hell of a lot of effort just to store your books somewhere else,” Noah muttered to himself as he examined the room carefully. If someone had gone through the effort to put a secret entrance to their fancy mirror world, there was a decent chance there could be more defenses.

It would have been a massive shame if he’d gone through all the effort to get here only to mindlessly grab a book and trigger a trap that burned the entire place to the ground. That would be just his luck.

He spent several minutes in the exact same spot, not even daring to take a step forward. His domain swept the room from top to bottom, examining every single surface as closely as he could.

But Noah couldn’t pick up on anything that particularly stood out. The entire world around him seemed to be steeped in magic, aged over the years like a fine wine. Power permeated every surface. It was difficult to tell if one thing was more magical than another— but he was pretty sure there weren’t any hidden traps.

He was also pretty sure there weren’t any other pathways or exits. If this mirror world was somehow connected to the rest of the Citadel, it had been sealed in a way that he couldn’t tell. It seemed completely isolated.

Hell of a lot of effort just for one room. And the fact these imbuements are still active is insane. Basic imbuements require constant power from the rune that made them… which means these were done in the more advanced style that draws power from the environment.

It’s been hundreds of years since anyone was last in the citadel. So has this thing just been active this whole time, waiting for a master that would never return?

Noah carefully made his way toward the desk. He wasn’t going to find any answers just sitting around and wondering. The only thing he knew for certain was that the researchers that had made this place were absolutely off their rockers.

There was no more dangerous combination than a competent fanatic. And nobody could say that the researchers that had created the citadel didn’t fit that bill. Nobody in their right mind would make the Devourer and then proceed to let it eat them.

Well, let’s see what we’ve got to work with. There has to be so much information here. What could this place hold? Records? Ancient rune combinations? Hell, actual runes? Screw all that — the key must be here too somewhere, right?

Noah arrived at the desk, excitement and trepidation mixing through him like some questionably sparkly cocktail at a seedy bar. He peered down at the papers — and then he froze.

His eye twitched.

You have to be fucking kidding me.

Row upon row of scrawling text covered the paper on the desk, still dark and as fresh as the day they’d been put there. Everything was perfectly preserved.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to NovelBin for the genuine story.

And Noah couldn’t read a single word of it.

Noah tossed all caution to the wind, grabbing the papers and rifling through them. It was pointless. The strange, sharp lines that covered every single one of them was clearly a language. There was a pattern evident within them.

Enough of a pattern for him to be absolutely certain that this wasn’t some strange magic concealing the words. This was an entirely different language.

Now that he thought about it, it kind of made sense. Vermil had grown up in Arbalest. The Citadel existed somewhere in Obsidia, a place far, far greater than the empire. It would have been odd if literally everyone spoke the same language.

“Goddamn it,” Noah said. “This is a crock of shit, isn’t it?”

He spun to the books on the shelf and grabbed one of them, pulling it down and flipping it open. The very same scrawling script met his expectant gaze. There was all this knowledge in the room, and it was all completely useless.

Noah’s eye twitched.

And then a thought struck him.

Wait. Couldn’t the Devourer read this? Or the Heart? Surely one of those would understand their own script.

Noah blew out a relieved sigh. Everything wasn’t completely screwed. He had a way to decipher this new language. All he had to do was bring the books and papers back out. That, of course, was going to be a bit of a pain in the ass.

There were a lot of books.

But that could wait. If he couldn’t read anything here, then the least he could do was try to find the key. It had to be here somewhere. He crouched beside the many shelves in the desk and pulled one of them open.

It was stuffed full of bundles of brown paper, ranging in size from a baby’s fist to a volleyball. There was a faint smell to them, like something between salt and blood.

Please don’t tell me I just found the murder-box.

Noah grabbed one of them and unfolded the brown paper. The mass within it was firm but supple enough to give slightly beneath his fingers as he pulled at the wrappings. It took him several moments to manage to peel all the paper away.

And then Noah’s eyes went wide. He nearly lost his grip on the bundle.

What? That can’t be right.

Noah’s stomach grumbled.

Wrapped within the paper was a piece of cured meat. A perfectly fresh piece of cured meat. And if every single wrapped bundle were the same thing… there must have been weeks of rations sitting inside the drawer.

That made no sense at all.

Noah grabbed another one of the drawers and pulled it open. This one rattled loudly, revealing dozens of large flasks sitting in it. He grabbed one and yanked the stopper off, bringing it to his nose and taking a sniff of the liquid within.

Water.

At least, it had no smell. It seemed like water. The liquid didn’t even smell stale.

This makes no sense at all. The guy in the room was just sitting in his chair. I thought he starved to death. But why would he have let himself die when there was food and water just through the mirror?

Noah gingerly brought the chunk of cured meat up to his tongue and gave it a lick. Then he took a bite out of it. It tasted like salt and pork. He wouldn’t have said it was the best thing he’d ever put in his mouth, but it certainly tasted like food.

Confusion twisted in Noah’s mind. He took a ginger swig from the flask. It definitely seemed like water.

Then he grabbed another one of the drawers and yanked it open. This one contained a dozen bottles of ink and ten times as many quills. He hurriedly made his way through the desk, pulling open every cabinet open to examine its contents.

Food. Water. Empty books and what seemed to be some kind of daily journal. There were even toiletries.

And then, tucked into a small drawer and buried within a pile of scrap papers on the top side of the huge desk like it was nothing more than a paperweight, Noah found a key. He stared at it for a long second before grabbing it by the thin chain looped through a hole at its back. It was bronze, similar to the one that Sebastian had given to Noah, but with dim golden inlays running throughout its body.

It was just sitting here? Like a piece of trash? Seriously?

Noah held the key up before him, squinting at it as if it were about to vanish. Then he shrugged. There was no reason to look a gift horse in the mouth — and the past few minutes had somehow given him even more questions than he’d had before.

He grabbed several books at random, tucking them under his arm before striding back over to the mirror with an excited grin on his lips.

I’ll just run these by the Devourer. I’m sure it can help me translate what they say. Then, with the key, I should be able to activate the Heart Room properly and find out how to start rearing some things — as well as information on those hidden ways out of here.

Noah turned away from the mirror and backed into it.

His back bumped against its cold surface.

Nothing happened.

Noah turned around, a sense of dread settling in around his shoulders like a weighted cape. Prayer still waited on the other side of the mirror, watching him curiously. The way back was there…

But he couldn’t pass through it.

You have got to be kidding me.