The rain had stopped by nightfall, leaving the city washed and gleaming under the streetlights. Lyos Lever stood at his apartment window, watching the reflections of neon signs ripple across the wet pavement far below. He pressed his forehead to the glass, feeling the coolness seep into his skin, grounding him in the present.

  Behind him, Liora and Soren spoke in low voices, poring over the Architect’s journal and the stack of old case files. The apartment felt crowded, but Lyos didn’t mind. Their presence was a thin shield against the emptiness that threatened to swallow him whenever he was alone.

  He turned away from the window, rubbing his eyes. “I keep thinking about what the Architect wrote,” he said quietly. “‘The shadow can be starved. It feeds on fear, isolation, and secrets.’ What if it’s too late for me?”

  Liora looked up, her expression fierce. “It’s not too late. You’re still here. You’re still fighting.”

  Soren nodded. “We’ve seen what happens when people try to face this thing alone. You’re not alone, Lyos. Not anymore.”

  Lyos managed a weak smile, but doubt gnawed at him. He remembered the other Lyos’s smile in the window, the cold certainty in those eyes. Was he really strong enough to resist?

  They spent the evening mapping out the timeline of the previous cases, looking for anything the victims had in common. Patterns emerged: each had suffered some trauma, each had isolated themselves before the end, and each had tried, in vain, to warn someone before vanishing.

  “There’s something else,” Soren said, tapping a faded memo. “The Architect’s notes mention a place-a room in the old foundation building. He called it ‘the cradle.’ It’s where he conducted his earliest experiments.”

  Liora’s eyes narrowed. “If there are answers, they’ll be there.”

  Lyos felt a surge of dread. The old foundation building had been abandoned for years, its windows boarded up, its halls left to dust and memory. But if that’s where the shadow had first taken root, maybe it was the only place to end this.

  A sudden, sharp knock at the door made all three of them jump. Lyos’s heart hammered as he crossed the room and peered through the peephole.

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  A woman stood in the hallway, her hair slick with rain, eyes wide and frantic. She looked familiar, but it took Lyos a moment to place her-the mother of the child who’d been found catatonic days before.

  He opened the door cautiously. “Can I help you?”

  The woman’s voice trembled. “Please-you have to help her. She woke up screaming your name. She says you’re the only one who can stop it.”

  Lyos felt the blood drain from his face. Liora and Soren joined him at the door, their expressions wary.

  “Where is she now?” Liora asked gently.

  “At the hospital. She won’t talk to anyone but you.”

  Lyos hesitated, fear warring with guilt. He looked to Liora and Soren, searching for reassurance.

  “You don’t have to go alone,” Soren said. “We’ll go with you.”

  Lyos nodded, steeling himself. “Let’s go.”

  The hospital was quiet, the halls echoing with the soft hum of fluorescent lights. The girl sat on her bed, knees drawn to her chest, eyes fixed on the window. When Lyos entered, she flinched, then relaxed, as if she’d been expecting him.

  He sat in the chair beside her, Liora and Soren hovering nearby.

  The girl’s voice was barely a whisper. “It’s in the mirrors. It’s hungry. It wants you.”

  Lyos swallowed hard. “I know. But I’m not going to let it win.”

  She looked at him, her gaze unnervingly steady. “It’s getting stronger. It’s not just in the glass anymore. It’s in the shadows. In the corners of the room. Sometimes I hear it laughing.”

  Lyos reached out, gently taking her hand. “You’re safe now. I promise.”

  The girl shook her head. “No one’s safe. Not until you finish it.”

  A shiver ran through Lyos. He glanced at Liora, who nodded in silent support.

  “We’re going to the old foundation building,” Lyos said. “We think that’s where it started.”

  The girl squeezed his hand, her grip surprisingly strong. “Be careful. It knows you’re coming.”

  Back at the apartment, Lyos sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the covered mirror. The girl’s words echoed in his mind: It’s not just in the glass anymore. It’s in the shadows.

  He felt the weight of exhaustion, but sleep would not come. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the other Lyos waiting for him, smiling with patient malice.

  He opened the Architect’s journal one last time before dawn. In the margin of a nearly illegible page, he found a new note he hadn’t noticed before:

  The shadow cannot create-it can only reflect. To defeat it, you must show it something it cannot mirror. Something only you possess.

  Lyos stared at the words, hope flickering in his chest. He didn’t know what that meant yet, but for the first time in days, he felt a glimmer of possibility.

  As the first light of morning crept through the blinds, Lyos made a silent promise:

  He would face the shadow.

  He would not do it alone.

  And he would find the part of himself that no reflection-no darkness-could ever take away.