Amelia blinked—and she was elsewhere.
A hallway, lined with glass. Children floated in tanks. Some with closed eyes. Some… with no eyes at all.
She knew this place.
The root still curled around her wrist, linking her to the vision. Alexis stood beside her, breath shallow, hand reaching for a wall that felt far too alive.
And then—it happened.
> A mirror appeared in the air.
Not hung. Not mounted. It grew, like frost on breath. The spiral bloomed across its surface like a wound remembering how to bleed.
Amelia's reflection blinked.
But she hadn't.
Alexis stared. "That's not us anymore, is it?"
"No," Amelia said softly. "It's what we were. Or what they made us into."
Then the mirror cracked—from inside. A single black vine reached out, splitting the reflection in half. A whisper followed it, ancient and feminine:
> "Return my name."
Amelia stepped forward.
"Whose name?"
The mirror shattered. All sound stopped.
And somewhere far above the roots, in the city's upper levels, a clock struck 303.
Not three-oh-three.
Three hundred and three chimes.