A part of Two wondered if the morning’s tea had been spiked with essence. It was a new consideration brought from her exposure to the contorted mess of nobility in general and the imperials in particular.

It would certainly explain her nerves.

Two suppressed a sigh and let the more reasonable parts of her guide her gaze. Smooth slate ray walls surrounded her on all sides. Sconces held pristine white flames. She couldn’t tell whether their source was magic or chemistry. Runes lined a circular pool of water that was scarcely deep enough to wet the tip of her finger.

Rhevier stood in the room’s corner dressed in a pale suit and oozing his usual nonplussed demeanor. His crossed arms indicated a particularly sour mood. An old shaman slowly chanted before the pool. The man’s robes were a deep green. Splotches of red and brown interrupted his pale skin. He gleamed with the slick wetness typical of the amphibious lines.

And Two she knelt in the cold puddle.

Her thoughts wandered. What would the Labyrinth show her? Did the aquatic sham have anything to do with her seating arrangements? If she died what would happen to her money? Rehearsed preparations danced with idle consideration. She found a corner of her mind occupied by the chill water soaked in her clothes.

She didn’t know why but that persistent observation made things feel real. Not the indecipherable runes, nor the shaman’s steady tones or the week of preparation she’d scarcely recover from the day prior.

The cold soaking into her ragged cloak was real.

“Child,” her head jerked up at the shaman’s words. They wore a patient fatherly smile. One that would have spurred her ire any other time, but right now? It was another thing to ground her.

“Yes shaman,” sh matched his calm tone.

“It is time, are you ready.”

She drew and released a slow breath. “Yes,” with that a wight shifted off her. Idle wonders fell away replaced by focus.

There was much she didn’t know. The hows and whys of the ritual. Why the inconspicuous chamber sat in the third tower of the governor’s gaudy palace. Those were tomorrow’s considerations.

“Then you may begin.” Command filled their voice.

Two straightened her back and stared straight into her reflection’s gaze.

Amber eyes met hers

“Spirit of the lost and those never found. Icon of truths and lies bound in union. I beseech your aid and vision.” With every her reflection sharpened. From a half-visible thing to a gleaming mirror. “Give voice to my silent thoughts and form to my disparate parts. Show me my truths. Show me my lies.”

Something touched the world. Not a scent or weight. She hesitated to call it a thing at all. Rather it was a hitch in her thoughts, that slowed her words to a crawl. Like she was glimpsing a part of the world that was always there. So pervasive as to be beyond notice. It drew nearer, the feeling stronger. Until it sat on her tongue though she couldn’t taste it. Just there looking at her.

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“Continue!” the shaman commanded.

She dragged out the final words. “Show me I!.” Her words reverberated through the room with depth that was possible. Ripples shook her perfect reflection. They eased and the worlds returned to normality and quiet.

Then the shaman dropped a single black drop into the still mirror. It shattered.

Dark cracks exploded across her reflection with such terrible spontaneity she thought she might break too. Pieces of shimmering glass were thrown into the air. A dark sat beneath the shattered mirror. The pieces began to fall into it, she fell with them.

Her stomach dropped. She struck out, hand and feet scrambling for purchase. She found only glittering shards of glass. There was a void below her. Not a pit or mere darkness, but a void. Like a memory known only by the weight and contours of its absence. It was something that wasn’t.

She was sure it would break her. Perhaps it did. Touch and sound, hot and cold, the very knowledge that her fingers and legs ‘were’. They escaped her. Only sight and taste remained, consumed by the one thing that had become her world.

A shard of glass. An amber eye. The taste of ancient laughter.

She fell.

***

She flickered to awareness on the slum’s familiar street. Castles loomed in the distance, around her squat ill constructed buildings pressed into the scrawny street. She forced herself to her feet.

Her gaze darted around the crossroads she found herself in. Panic borne of old instincts and the lingering absence strained against her frayed will. She took account of herself.

She felt fine all the usual aches were present. Her senses returned from whatever had robbed them. Assured she turned to her surroundings. She was in Spes Nova at least by appearances. Whether she was here physically or metaphorically she didn’t know. Her recent education said the former was unlikely, it also said spirits followed their rules. With the Labyrinth known for its mercurial nature.

She shook the idle thoughts and tilted her head back to better taste the air. The sky was black. She blinked forgetting to breathe. It was like a blanket had been placed over the sky. It was worse than that, Spes Nova was alive even in the dead of night. Beyond the slums lights should abound at every hour. Bleeding into and polluting even a new moon’s sky with a faint glow. Even the slums used to harbour vestiges of illumination.

There was none of that here, only a quiet dark. She shouldn’t be able to see.

She closed her eyes and pushed the thought aside. She needed to be done and be gone before the sunrises turned nasty. The labyrinth didn’t make monsters, but it gave form to every part of a person.

Numerous flavors filled the air. Fresh food, joy and the commitment of want fulfilled wafted from the path before her. Her eyes snapped open. Warm light flowed down the path. The slums’ tarnished street faded for the clean stones of the city proper. Laughter tricked to her ears.

She drank the emotions and found everything she’d ever wanted. Life’s great passions, the little joys dotted throughout an inexplicably good day. Everything she’d only sampled secondhand waited down the road.

She knew what it meant to cultivate an essence. It was more than a pool of power. It was to take and foster an aspect of oneself. To grasp a fleeting feeling and carve it into the bedrock of the soul.

The essence could fade and grow like any emotion. Life could twist but never break it. It would never fade. It was to immortalize what pushed your heartbeat.

She turned from the path. The sound of joy grew. The light cast her shadow into the street where other indistinct forms joined it. A gentle warmth kissed her skin through her thick cloak. Then with the pressure of a great gate slamming shut, the glow vanished. The shadows left, even her own.

The dark street grew a fraction colder. Three more paths and three more collections of scent called to her, but she only had one aching heart.