Lucas Harper lived for the quiet. The old house on the outskirts of Prague was his sanctuary, a creaking relic he'd bought cheap five years ago from a nobleman's estate sale. It smelled of mildew and forgotten summers, but he didn't mind. The solitude suited him. At thirty-two, he was a clockmaker by trade, a man who found comfort in the steady tick of gears and the rhythm of springs. Time was his language, predictable and precise—until that Thursday evening, March 6, 2025, when he climbed into the attic.

He'd been meaning to clear it out for months. The space was a graveyard of junk: rusted candelabras, moth-eaten curtains, a cracked violin missing its strings. He maneuvered through the clutter, his boots kicking up dust that danced in the slanted light of a single bulb. Then he saw it—a mirror, propped against the far wall, half-buried under a tarp. It was tall, nearly six feet, framed in black ebony carved with twisting patterns that looked like vines, or maybe runes. He couldn't tell. The glass was clouded with grime, dulling its surface to a smoky haze.