Book One – Chapter 5

“What if everything I do in the mirror dimension always also affects our plane?” Eventually, it all came down to this. “What if every shard structure has a correlating counterpart in our reality?” And if that were true, what were the witch mother’s secret intentions with their arrangement? What did she really seek to gain from the mirror realm? What would the mirror world do to Yves if he dared to take in its energies again, if he dared to alter it?

He rubbed his eyes again, this time using his sleeve. He rubbed his eyes again, this time using his sleeve. He could not be bothered to take off his gloves again, but he did not yet feel suicidal enough to touch his eyes with the same fabric that had been in direct contact with the tomes.

Regardless of the witch mother’s intent, their arrangement had always seemed the only way for him to stay alive. Now, with his recent transformation, Yves was not sure whether he would even remain alive long enough for her to honour her part of the arrangement.

His transformation in the mirror dimension had caused unexpected consequences in this world. Yves had not only influenced this world from the mirror dimension. After his return, his eyes had changed.

Yet again, his fingers drifted through the weighty pages, lost in the frustrating and fruitless research from this night. For the following hours, Yves was so immersed in his own drowning, that he closed his tomes only seconds before the witching hour.

From 1:41:42 until 2:22:22 a.m., he and Midnight sat silently. Cautioned by the echoes of those countless nursery rhymes that Yves would still recall when even the last spell had long faded from his memory, they remained attuned to what may linger concealed amidst the storm-stirred world energies. Even in these most desolate expanses of the Northlands, they strained to catch the whispers of witches, a vigil shared by every other sensible wizard on the continent.