They climbed out of the Root Kiln into a city that no longer trusted its own reflections. The sky above the western locks had taken on the color of old glass—greenish, imperfect, full of slow-moving depths. People moved through the streets in near silence, many of them carrying cloth-wrapped bundles that could only be mirrors or family panes they were afraid to look into. Somewhere to the east a sustained crashing sound suggested an entire workshop district had begun to break its own stock rather than let the memories inside escape on their own terms.
Sera walked half a step behind Lira, no longer leading. The silver lattice had covered Lira’s neck and the upper part of her chest; fine lines continued to spread beneath her clothing in patterns that mirrored the spiral cracks of the fragme
