Seventeen-year-old Jacob finds an old mirror in the attic of a tenement on Wilenska Street and is pulled into a silent parallel city where every shadow seems to be watching him.
The attic of the tenement on Wilenska Street had its own mood, separate from the rest of the building. Down below, the hallways groaned, doors slammed, neighbours shouted through thin walls. Up here, everything went still. Dust hung in the air. Old beams pressed low over Jacob’s head. The place smelled of wood, damp plaster, and something older, like a locked room no one had opened in years.
He had gone up there only to escape the noise, but then he saw the mirror.
It stood in the far corner, half-hidden under a sheet of grey cobwebs, its frame dark with age. Jacob frowned. He was certain it had not been there the last time he’d climbed up to avoid the building’s chaos. He stepped closer anyway, brushing away the dust with his sleeve.
The glass was cold. Not just cold, but strangely damp, as if it had been left out in winter fog. When he touched it, a faint shiver ran through the surface beneath his palm. Jacob pulled his hand back at once, then looked again, harder this time.
His reflection was there, but not quite right. His face seemed to blur at the edges, like someone was dragging ink through water. Behind him, shapes moved that did not belong in the attic: long vertical shadows, arches where there should have been beams, a flicker of pale blue light.
Jacob’s breath caught.
He should have stepped away. Instead, he leaned in, drawn forward by the impossible pull of it. The glass darkened, then opened with a cold, silent rush that struck through his clothes and straight to his bones.
One blink later, the attic was gone.
He stood in the middle of a wide avenue paved with black stone that reflected the sky like still water. Above him, bridges twisted between buildings in looping spirals, too high and too thin to trust. Lanterns floated along the streets, glowing with a pale blue light that made every wall look washed out and unreal. People moved in the distance, but they moved like shadows given shape, their silver clothing catching the light in brief flashes. No one spoke. Even their footsteps seemed muted, as if the whole city were holding its breath.
Jacob turned in a slow circle, his pulse hammering so hard it hurt.
Then a girl in a dark cloak stepped out from the mouth of a narrow alley. She looked about his age, maybe older, with a sharp face and eyes that missed nothing. She gave the mirror behind him one quick glance, then fixed her attention on Jacob.
If you’re here, she said, her voice low and urgent, then you only have one chance to get back. Come with me if you want to live.
Jacob stared at her. Something about the way she said it made his skin tighten. Across the street, one of the tall gates stood half-open, and from inside it came the soft scrape of something moving in the dark.
He took a step toward the girl.
The ground gave a sudden, almost breathing tremor under his feet, and behind him a low voice rose from the shadows, deep enough to seem older than the city itself.