40°23'37.1"N 49°58'48.4"E– Qara?uxur, Bak?

  29.05.2024 – 02.30 UTC +04.00

  Sand from the Sultan’s Cape, what I could muster to find at least through the pebbles, still warm from the day’s sun and exposed firsthand to the Caspian’s bells and the West breeze, scattered to form three circles. One large, lined with unlit candles at the center, and two smaller ones around Curse-deflecting standing mirrors, at the antipodal positions of the larger circle.

  The two silver mirrors, deflectors, set up across from each other, I had already procured the first chance I had gotten in the city. Before I even got into the rental hotel room, I was now. I always had them standing at the edges of the room, covered with linen, to warn me if Curses came my way.

  But the mirrors also had other uses.

  “Lots of eyes in the wind tonight,” I whispered to myself. Then I walked to the only window I had, facing the south-west. I placed some of the sand I had enchanted at the windowsill, for good measure. “Strong eyes.”

  I could sense Zephyr surveilling the city. I had taught him for years, and his Cursed mutations made him the most powerful seer of Starling’s coven. More powerful than I. But not more experienced.

  I undressed completely and let my hair flow down my shoulders. I stepped into the circle, averting my gaze from the two mirrors. At the center was a pillow, and I tried to assume a comfortable position there.

  I felt my throat dry up, and coughed. I had not done something like that in months, years maybe. Taking precautions during Farsight was advised, but only if you had other seers to fear. And that night, there were plenty. Zephyr and Starling’s Seers, sending whispers in the night. The Caspians bore Curses, too, and who knew what Shadows in Ramin’s Domain were capable of. So, full precautions.

  I picked up a small vial with olive oil that I had left by the pillow, still not looking up at the mirrors. I opened the vial, and drop by drop, whisper by whisper, I fortified my body.

  In front of me, on the cold floor, there were two pieces of paper. One was from a newspaper five days ago, showing the infamous picture of Ramin ?sg?rov climbing up the stairs of the National Assembly. The other one was a paper printed version of a web article, about the Caspian’s Vice Admiral and Republic Envoy visiting Bak?: Züleyka ?lizad? Kaspi. She was a thirty-year-old, or at least in her early thirties, from what I could tell in the photo, with long hair braided in the traditional Caspian way. She was seen and photographed leaving the Frigate late tonight, and led to the National Assembly, accompanied by Shadow militia and a convoy of Caspian soldiers.

  “Züleyka. Ramin,” I said, “What are you two planning?”

  I listened to myself for a moment. What was I doing, meddling again? Was the fact that I was Cursed really enough to justify me inviting trouble?

  I want to stay here because I care too much about this land.

  That’s what I had said to R??id earlier today. Perhaps this was justification enough.

  “Stay lit only for me,” I whispered. The candles placed symmetrically around the large circle all lit up in golden flames. I looked up to the silver mirror, its magnetism trying to capture my hexes. I gave in and looked at my infinite reflections. Body weathered and tired, bare save for my long hair. Eyes full of conviction and intuition; I was going to meddle, because I could.

  The silver mirror remained still, but the infinite reflections of the two mirrors multiplied more and more, and I saw myself going deeper into both of them, a lonely woman at the center of the circle.

  The mirrors also had other uses, beyond the simple ways mortals used them to ward us off. They echoed, they amplified, they warned. And for every echo of my eyes through their infinite realm, another pair of eyes echoed, and another.

  And somewhere into the infinite echoes of myself, I found the one walking, blind to the other echoes, and invisible to others as well. Stepping further than the mirrors and further than the streets of Qara?uxur, I walked through the city.

  The moon in the sky was crossing the meridian at its highest point, in a city so asleep, dawning on an unassuming Wednesday, nobody could guess was on the brink of war. Two breezes fought each other into a standstill: the natural northern wind and a west-bound in origin Zephyr. I could see it in the trees, shuffling leaves, and the posters plastered on walls. But none of the winds touched me, walking undressed through the streets of Bak?.

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  I had a destination. The National Assembly. The seat of the General Secretary, the one who held the Shadow Domain standing, and who was meeting with the Caspian delegation for the entire night. I walked past roads and streets empty in the middle of the night. Buildings were mostly dark, except for a few lights for the people who could not sleep quietly tonight. Maybe they sensed something was up, just as I did.

  I HAVE FINALLY RETURNED!

  Ramin’s declaration upon arrival had stuck, and posters in the plaza around the Assembly had coined the motto. I closed in on the building, and for a brief second, I felt the western breeze again, Zephyr frantically trying to spy into the building, doing his bidding for Starling. I held my temptation to call to him, and instead looked for a way to pass the gates of the National Assembly.

  I rubbed my hands, slathered in olive oil, and slithered my fingers through the main door’s keyhole. And then the rest of me followed, flowing through inside it.

  And once inside, there was no breeze. Poor Zephyr; for all the talent he had, he still lacked the tricks of a seasoned witch.

  I looked around at the imposing first hall of the building. Carpets lined the floor, and even the walls at certain corners, where large paintings were hung, mostly modern depictions of historical milestones of the city. Doors and corridors, and even stairs, gave one too many options for next steps.

  Getting in was but the first challenge. I tilted my head left and right, trying to find a part of my infinite reflections that had heard or could have heard Ramin nearby.

  “…make thoughts of the calamity she…” words of a woman, not a man, carried by echoes. One of the Caspians? Züleyka herself, maybe. But that was enough, I had a direction.

  I walked carefully through the first hall, heading to the right. Second door to the right, I thought, and slithered through the keyhole there as well. There was a set of stairs going up.

  “…this really breach the domain?” words of a man, whose voice I recognized. Ramin.

  Climbing up the stairs, I was surrounded by small framed pictures of past commanders and generals of the country’s army. And then, another door. I could simply open it and pass through. More stairs, and more pictures.

  “…Second considers beyond Domains. It can cross anything…” a man’s voice echoed, whom I did not recognize. But I was getting closer, with every step.

  I got to the third floor. I opened the next door, and then… trouble. A large marble corridor, bare of any pictures or paintings, but lined with curtains and carpets on the walls and windows. Deflecting silver mirrors were enwalled everywhere on the walls and the ceiling. I could immediately sense them, even though they were hidden behind curtains.

  Windows shook as the west wind tried to open them and get inside the marble corridor. Zephyr was also seeking his way in, and for the moment, I had beaten him to it, but I could not get closer.

  “…our soldiers serve to nobody, but the Second must be…” the same woman’s voice echoed, louder than before. That must have been Züleyka. What was this second she was speaking of? The Caspians tended to have some idioms or weird syntax, their Republic being isolated for centuries, but this word stood out. I had to go closer and figure it out.

  I closed my eyes, trying to find another of my infinite reflections, one of the many that must have found a way to go past the mirrors here. I saw the reflections all trapped in the mirrors. All halted, failing to find a hole through the well-catered defenses. The reflections all projected in front of me as I opened my eyes, and I saw myself cracking like glass into different points in the corridor, caught by a different mirror every time. I saw my naked reflection struggling and dissipating, leaving only a piece of light where it had stood before.

  That was it. That piece of light, these were holes in the defenses, momentarily, only after I failed. This was a two-person job, or at least a two-very-capable-person job, and I was all alone. If only I had known how right R??id was when he had said we both were needed to find Ramin.

  But I was not here to find Ramin, nor did I need a willing ally. I just needed someone to fail first.

  I walked to the closest window on the left side of the corridor, the closest I could reach without stepping further into the room and triggering a deflector. I looked behind the curtain: a view of the center of Bak?, buildings and roads illuminated by the waning gibbous of the moon, on a cloudless sky.

  The window shook slightly. I lifted the window’s handle, opening it slowly, and I stepped back.

  I held my breath, knowing I had invited Zephyr in. The only question was whether he would…

  Glass cracked. Eager as he was, he must have taken the bait, and he was imperceptibly trapped somewhere in one of the mirrors. It was almost unnoticeable. Looking around, my senses painted a new route to the other side of the corridor.

  There was a crack in the system of mirrors, a crack created by Zephyr’s failure, and my reflections could exploit that. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, I had crossed the corridor safely. I looked back at its emptiness, knowing my old friend was trapped somewhere in one of those mirrors, begging to be freed.

  His breeze had warned me to spy tonight, but I had lured him into this corridor. I felt a tinge of guilt before I slithered past the door to finally spy on Ramin and the Envoy of the Caspians.