The night was absolute. Not in darkness—Lyle had seen enough of Quinn's world to know that light and dark here followed different rules—but in weight. It pressed down on him, even as he lay still beside the gently breathing form of Juno.
The Codex floated midair in front of him, pages open but not turning, glyphs skittering across the paper like startled insects. And then one halted. A mark like a spear, split down the center. Foreign. Not written by Quinn. Not by the Codex.
Something else was writing into the book.
> [Glyph Trace: Source Unknown] Thread Signature: Unstable. Not aligned with Quinn's system. Potential Origin: Pre-Codex Rewrite.
Lyle blinked. The ring on his finger grew colder.
Juno stirred, sensing the shift.
"What now?" she asked, voice hoarse.
"There's something in the Codex," he said quietly. "Something… trying to speak."
Juno rubbed her eyes, sitting up. "The same something that left that glyph at the door?"
Lyle nodded.
She exhaled and pulled her legs to her chest. "This is above even your usual level of trouble."
He tried to smile. It didn't reach his eyes. "It's calling me again."
"Where?"
He pointed east. "Outside the city. Beyond the Veiled Ridges. It marked a path—on the page. Coordinates I don't recognize, but the Codex synced it with the map system. It's real."
Juno stood and started gathering her things.
Lyle frowned. "You're not trying to talk me out of it?"
She gave him a look. "You're going, aren't you?"
"…Yeah."
"Then you're not going alone."
---
They left the city in silence.
Quinn had not summoned them. No guards tracked their steps. But Lyle could feel it—the eyes. Or maybe just his eye. Watching. Waiting to see what Lyle would do without a leash.
The landscape outside the city was jagged and broken, canyons torn by unnatural forces. Rivers ran uphill. Trees grew roots into the sky. And beneath every step was the low thrum of power lying just under the surface.
The Codex remained half-open in his satchel, glowing faintly with every step toward the destination.
> [Location Marked: Archive Rift Site 0.] Codex Signature Match: 76%.
"Archive Rift?" Juno murmured, reading the faint projection. "Wasn't that what Quinn called the original gateway?"
Lyle nodded. "Before the Codex. Before this version of magic. Before the rules."
When they reached the coordinates, it wasn't a cave, a ruin, or even a crater.
It was a mirror.
Suspended midair, rippling with silver-black haze.
Not a gate.
A reflection.
And inside it—
A version of Lyle. Not twisted like in the Shadow Trial. Not older. Not blood-armored.
Just… different.
Calmer.
Colder.
He stepped forward and pressed his hand against the other side.
The reflection did the same.
And when they touched—
the mirror split.
---
He fell.
Into a memory that was not his own.
He stood in a circular stone room filled with floating parchments, each page etched with the earliest form of glyph magic. Symbols that pulsed with emotion, not just structure.
He saw Quinn. Younger. Bleeding into a crystal. Carving the first sigils with shadow and will.
And he saw another.
A woman.
Raven-haired. Her eyes glowing silver. She stood beside Quinn. Not his ally. Not his enemy.
His equal.
And she held the first version of the Codex.
> "We can't keep this power bound forever," she said. "Eventually, someone else will awaken it. Rewrite it."
> "Then we leave behind a map," Quinn replied. "Not to save them. To prepare them."
The memory shimmered. Collapsed. And then a voice—
Not Quinn's. Not the woman's. Not even human—
whispered into his ear:
> "You were never meant to follow Quinn." "You were meant to finish what she started."
---
Lyle gasped and hit the ground hard.
Juno knelt beside him, eyes wide. "What happened? Your mana—Lyle, your shadow was gone. It vanished."
He sat up, dizzy. "I saw it. The origin. The Codex… it's older than even Quinn admits. He didn't create it. He reconstructed it."
Juno blinked. "So who did?"
He opened the Codex. A new entry glowed at the top of the page.
> [Fragment Unlocked: The Shadow Architect] Abilities Pending Sync.
The mirror behind them had gone still.
But for a second—just a second—
a woman's silhouette remained etched in the surface.
Watching.
Waiting.