They’d been through the whole process several times now. No more words were needed.
Receiving the needle, Breath Introduction, Piercing Needle. The cluster of needles exploded in the fullest section of the main circuit.
Coleman grunted, then swung his left arm in two wide circles.
"It’s never felt this loose before," he said with a sigh of relief. "It’s like I just got out of a hot bath."
"What about near the break?"
"...It’s extended out a little more than the last few times."
Coleman focused on the sensation.
"At first, I thought it was just my imagination, but by the third time, I was sure."
"How far did it extend, exactly?"
"The break point used to be stiff, but now... I can feel a slight numbness in the section next to it."
Richard filed this away in his mind.
"Don’t get too excited yet. Doing this consecutively might cause problems."
"I know." Coleman rolled his sleeve back down.
After the practice session, the two of them sat on the stone steps in the backyard for a while.
Coleman suddenly spoke up. "Once I’m really healed, the first thing I’m gonna do is treat you to a meal."
"What are we Eating?"
"...I don’t know either." Coleman thought for a long time.
"All I know is my collie at home has been Eating better than me lately. You can pick whatever you want."
Richard laughed out loud.
It was nearly dusk by the time he got home.
Gaslights were already flickering on in the windows of the houses at the East of Waste Rock Lane.
The plate of "Mr. Rabbit" gingerbread cookies Evelyn had made that morning was mostly gone.
She had wrapped up the last two and hidden them on the top shelf of the cupboard, with a crookedly written note tucked beside them.
"My name’s on these. Eat them and I’ll kill you. —E.W."
Richard held the note in his hand and looked at it for a moment, then put the two gingerbread cookies back.
After dinner, he returned to his room and turned up the lamp.
Two items lay spread out on his desk.
An ebony box and a palm-sized Copper Mirror.
Richard first pushed the box into the shadows at the corner of the desk.
The Tower Card was still vivid in his mind; he had no plans to touch it for now.
The Copper Mirror remained under the lamplight.
The Priestess, upright. The Moon, upright. The two cards he had drawn last night.
Richard activated his Spiritual Vision, his focus slowly tracing the shallow relief of the "Line of Destiny" that circled the Mirror’s edge.
The Mirror Surface was black and showed no reflection, but he could read the layer of Seal on its body.
He recognized the Sealing technique. It was an early style from the Weaving Net Tradition.
’Thank goodness for the supplementary materials my aunt gave me.’
The Seal twisted two intents—’refuse to be read’ and ’refuse to be compared’—into a single strand, then embedded it within the shallow relief of the frame. The intensity wasn’t high.
Richard mentally reviewed the procedure he had used for the Sphinx Lamp.
He took a few sheets of rough paper from his drawer and placed the Mirror face down on top of them.
Underneath the paper, he placed a small pinch of coarse salt.
Salt couldn’t completely block the Ether Flow, but it could divert its direction slightly.
Richard’s Quadruple Breathing deepened into its third cycle.
Every Inscription has a starting point.
’That first stroke is the weakest link in the entire Seal.’
It took him about twenty minutes to find it.
At the fork of the third "Line of Destiny" on the back of the Mirror’s relief was a dot as fine as a strand of hair.
The artisan had made his first stroke there all those years ago.
Richard repeatedly applied pressure to that single dot.
Not too hard, and not too fast.
He would apply pressure, then pause for the duration of a few breaths before applying it again.
On the seventh attempt, the relief around the dot trembled slightly.
Just like last time, he waited for his family to fall asleep before quietly slipping out to find a secluded spot to continue breaking the Seal.
On the twelfth attempt, a faint wisp of grayish-white gas seeped out from the dot.
As soon as the grayish-white gas left the Mirror Surface, it was captured by the panel.
The [Available Points] began to climb from 0.
Richard didn’t stop.
He continued applying pressure at the same rhythm, once every few breaths.
He kept the dot from sealing itself shut again, but also prevented the crack from growing too large.
’Just as I thought. This Copper Mirror contains more than just residual Ether.’
The gray gas was mixed with something finer, so fine it was almost undetectable, yet his Inspiration Line sensed it.
Richard used his Spiritual Vision to look at these things and saw "whispers" that had been chewed over and over again.
The whispers couldn’t form complete sentences, leaving only fragmented words.
"...remember..."
"...the one in the Mirror..."
"...you also used to..."
The whispers were very faint, dissipating less than a meter away.
Richard paid them no mind.
His [Erudite] ability immediately pulled up a database on similar Fragments: one of the Low Tier Curses from the Weaving Net Tradition, called the ’Comparison Curse’.
This Curse causes the victim to look at their reflection and be filled with the doubt, "I shouldn’t look like this."
This doubt accumulates until, one day, the cursed person will grab the nearest object and smash the Mirror.
After it’s smashed, the "self" from inside the Mirror is released and possesses the Mirror’s original owner.
The old owner is replaced by the new one, and no one else can tell the difference.
’The Copper Mirror was probably designed to be used against a powerful heir of some influential family.’
The ’Comparison Curse’ inside the Mirror had already been worn down over a long time.
Judging from the few Fragments of whispers from just now, the Curse’s original target likely died of natural causes several hundred years ago.
Having lost its target, the Curse had been idling in the Mirror for centuries, its intensity wearing down a little more with each passing year.
By today, all that was left was the dregs of those whispers.
Confirming there was nothing he couldn’t currently control, Richard continued to absorb it.
The Points on the panel climbed steadily.
0.13... 0.27... 0.45...
When it reached 0.74, the rate at which the grayish-white gas seeped from the dot began to slow.
The whispers deep within the Mirror Surface also grew fainter, eventually falling silent altogether.
Richard waited until the Points stopped at around 0.78, then ceased the absorption.
He planned to keep this Copper Mirror for future research; he might even be able to restore the Curse.
Back home, Richard resealed the Mirror Surface.
After all was said and done, he took a breath at his desk.
The [Available Points] finally stopped at 0.78.
He was 0.22 short of the next full Point.
Richard put the Copper Mirror in his drawer, locked it, and then looked at the ebony box in the shadows of the desk corner.
The box sat there quietly.
The terrifying thing about the Tower Card was its "irreversibility." It didn’t need to be "fully released" for its effects to fall upon him.
’If the thing inside the box is the type that will come pouring back through even the slightest leak it finds...’
’...then I can’t even risk opening a crack the size of a pinhole.’
That box required someone of a High Tier to inspect it before he could do anything with it.
Richard wrapped the box in a layer of oil paper, then another of coarse salt, and placed it in the hidden compartment under his bed, locking it in the same place as the Gargoyle.
......
On Sunday morning, he arrived at the Branch Office.
The reception area was quieter than usual today.
The clerk on duty was a young man he hadn’t interacted with much, not much older than Richard himself.
"Is Old Big not in today?"
"He’s in." The young clerk flipped back a page in the registry. "In the underground morgue."
Richard thanked him and headed downstairs.
The corridor was quieter than usual.
The heavy wooden door to the morgue was ajar. He knocked three times.
"Come in," Old Big’s voice came from inside.
Richard pushed the door open and went in.
There were no bodies on the worktable today, only tall stacks of file folders.
Old Big sat at the worktable wearing reading glasses, a document in his hand and his brow furrowed.
He looked up, saw Richard, and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"You’re here."
"Yeah."
"Your senior left a few days ago." Old Big put the document down. "She had other business to attend to."
"She told me to tell you to practice on your own for a while."
Old Big rummaged through a pile of things at the other end of the worktable and pulled out an old leather case.
He pushed the leather case in front of Richard.
"She left this for you."
Richard opened the case.
Inside was a thick book. The words on the cover had been traced by fingertips countless times.
*Divination and Spiritual Vision: From Novice to Master*
The author’s name was listed as: Mary Viktorova.
"...This is?"
"Your senior borrowed it from our master years ago. It’s a copy our master transcribed by hand."
"Almost every problem your senior ever encountered in the field, she found a solution for in this book."
Old Big’s gaze fell upon the book.
"She’s lending it to you. She wants you to practice on your own first."
"Practice until you go to the Imperial Capital in June."
"Once you’re in the Imperial Capital, our master will make time to teach you for a while."
Richard’s shoulders tensed.
"Lady Mary has time?"
"Yes."
’To be taught by a Grand Mastery Spirit Medium... an opportunity like this is incredibly rare.’
He quickly did the math in his head.
It was almost the end of February. That left a little over three months until the summer seminar in June.
’In these three-odd months, I have to absorb as much as I can from this book.’
’When I get to the Imperial Capital, even if Lady Mary only spares an hour or two to speak with me, how much I understand in that time will depend entirely on the foundation I build in these three months.’
"...I’ll study it well." Richard placed the book back in the leather case and carefully closed it.
"I know you will," Old Big said with a wave of his hand.
He took off his reading glasses, rubbed the corners of his eyes, and stood up from behind the worktable to pour himself a cup of tea.
"Have a seat. I’ll be busy for a while longer."
"Was there anything else you came for today?"
"I need to request a few things from Group Leader Winterworth."
"Oh, that’s not my department." Old Big waved his hand again. "He’s on the third floor."
Richard put the book into his shoulder bag and was about to stand up when Old Big suddenly set down his teacup.
"...Don’t be in such a hurry to leave."
"Hm?"
"I want to talk to you about something."
Old Big picked up his teacup again, cradling it in his hands.
"About that business from a few days ago... I’ve been going through the death registries..."
"You finished?"
"Finished."
Old Big slowly swirled the tea in his cup.
"I went through the last five years of registries for the North District, cover to cover."
The man’s brow furrowed once more.
"Based on the average from previous years, the North District usually sees about one hundred and ten-something deaths a year."
"Last year, there were one hundred and forty-two."
"The year before, one hundred and thirty-one."
"And the year before that, one hundred and twenty-six."
"...It’s more each year," Richard said softly.
"Yes."
Old Big set down his teacup.
"I took the excess numbers and broke them down by cause of death."
"Workplace accidents account for some of it, and that part is real. The machines in the factories have been getting faster these past few years, and workers can’t keep up. There are a few more of those every year."
"Deaths in the Poorhouse account for another part, and that’s real too. They started cutting the food budget at the Poorhouse this year. With poor nutrition, the elderly can’t make it through the winter."
"But the part that’s truly extra, the part that can’t be explained..."
Old Big tapped a finger on the tabletop.
"It’s about a dozen or so each year."
"Of this dozen, half are middle-aged men or women. No significant medical history. When the families came to identify the bodies, they all said the person was fine just the day before."
"The other half are vagrants, Pier workers, the kind of people with no family to come and identify them."
"...That fits the profile of who the Echo Society would pick."
"Yes." Old Big nodded. "I pulled the old files for these bodies and cross-referenced them with the thirteen points on the Canal Map."
"More than eighty percent of the bodies died no more than three hundred yards from the nearest point."
As Richard listened, he felt things were spiraling further and further out of control.
Old Big took a sip of tea.
"I’ve already submitted a collated report on this."
"The Branch Office will report it to Manchester City according to procedure, and Manchester City will then report it to the Imperial Capital."

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