Chapter 3: Whispers and Wards

Chapter 3: Whispers and Wards

The silence in Alistair’s mind was a blank canvas, and Agent Elara Vance was painting a target squarely on its center. Her sharp, intelligent eyes missed nothing: the hastily closed grimoires on his workbench, the faint smell of ozone from his discharged wards, the oppressive stillness that had replaced the shop’s usual hum of subtle magic.

His desire was to be a ghost, an unremarkable man in a forgotten shop. The obstacle was the woman in front of him, an agent of the very organization he had spent a century hiding from. She was a living embodiment of the past he had tried to bury.

"A temporal disturbance," she repeated, her voice cutting through the quiet. "They aren't subtle. It's like a cannon blast in a silent world, Mr. Finch. And the epicenter is right here."

Alistair leaned back against his counter, forcing a mask of weary exasperation onto his face. He had to weave a lie that was just plausible enough to muddy the waters. The truth was a supernova; all he needed was a sputtering candle.

"Agent Vance," he began, his voice a gravelly monotone he had perfected over decades of dealing with tiresome customers. "I am an antique dealer. Sometimes, the things I acquire have… attachments." He gestured vaguely at the abandoned rosewood music box from the frantic woman. "This piece came in not an hour ago. It had a particularly nasty Echo Curse woven into its gears. Nasty and, as it turns out, clumsily made. When I unraveled it, it… backfired. A bit of a magical pop. My apologies if it rattled the Concord’s teacups."

It was a weak lie, but it was the only one he had.

Elara took a step closer, her gaze drifting to the silent, monolithic Fae Clock. "A 'pop' doesn't cause time to stutter three blocks away. I saw a man pour his coffee, only for it to flow back up into the pot. That's not an Echo Curse, that's high-level Chronomancy." She tapped a finger on her chin. "Something only a registered Arch-Mage should be capable of. And there are none registered to this address."

Her eyes locked back onto his. "Show me your hands, Mr. Finch."

Alistair’s blood ran cold. The faded tattoos on his forearms, runes of power and pacts long-since sealed, were usually hidden by his sleeves. He had been careless in his panic. He kept his hands below the counter, gripping the worn wood. "I don't see the relevance."

"The relevance is that I am an officer of the Aetherium Concord investigating a Class-Three temporal event, and you are my only suspect," she said, her voice turning to steel. "Hands. Now."

This was a tipping point. Refusal was an admission of guilt. Compliance was exposure. He chose a third path: deflection.

With a long-suffering sigh, he slowly raised his hands, but kept them turned so his palms faced her, concealing the faint markings on his forearms. "As you can see, I am just a humble shopkeeper. No master of the arts here. I deal in silver polish and wood varnish, not temporal mechanics."

Elara’s eyes narrowed. She wasn't convinced, not for a second, but she lacked definitive proof. Her gaze swept the room again. "I'll need to place monitoring wards on this establishment. Any further magical discharge above a Class-One will alert my office directly. And I'll be back, Mr. Finch. With auditors. We will be looking into your acquisitions, your ledgers, everything."

"Feel free," Alistair said with a dismissive wave, praying she would take the bait and leave. "You'll find my business practices are dreadfully boring."

She held his gaze for a moment longer, a silent promise of future scrutiny, then turned and walked out, the bell chiming her departure.

The moment the door clicked shut, Alistair’s facade crumbled. He leaned heavily on the counter, his knuckles white. He had bought himself time, but only moments. The clock was still silent. The city was still unraveling. And the Concord was now watching.

He needed a spark. A fire. Something absolute.

In the terrifying quiet of his mind, the Fae stirred, their weakened essences reaching out to him not in words, but in pure, unfiltered impulse.

BURN! ACT! A sun to swallow the shadow! Ignis screamed in his soul, a frantic, desperate urge for overwhelming power, for a fire that could cauterize the void’s wound.

Patience, Custodian. The web is woven. The spider waits. To leap is to be caught. Terra’s warning was a deep, grounding tremor of dread, a feeling of immense weight and terrible gravity. Caution. This was a trap.

The ember slumbers in the serpent’s den, whispered Umbra, a cryptic, chilling premonition. To claim it is to pay the shadow’s price.

Alistair sifted through the conflicting counsel, his own vast knowledge clicking into place. Ignis was right about the what. A fire to fight the void. But not just any fire. It needed to be a source of pure creation, of life and rebirth. A Phoenix Ember. A legendary artifact, the crystallized heart of a dying phoenix, containing a power so potent it was said to be able to reignite a dead star. It was the perfect, and perhaps only, antithesis to the Void Shard.

But Terra and Umbra were right about the how. Such an item would not be sitting on a shelf. To find one, he would have to reach into the one place he had sworn never to return: the city’s magical black market, the Shadow Bazaar.

He moved to a small, unassuming mirror with a tarnished silver frame hanging near his desk. Ignoring his own weary reflection, he tapped a sequence on the frame—a code from a life he thought he’d left behind. The glass swirled like smoke for a moment, and he whispered a single, dangerous question into its depths. "Source of rebirth. Highest order. Immediate acquisition."

He expected to wait for days, to receive cryptic refusals. Instead, the smoke in the mirror coalesced almost instantly into elegant, silver script.

The Midnight Auction. Tonight. One Phoenix Ember. Entry by invitation only.

Alistair stared, his blood turning to ice. The turning point. The surprise.

It was too fast. Too perfect. An artifact of that magnitude, appearing on the market the very same day he desperately needed it? The odds were astronomical. Impossible.

He sank into his chair, the web of lies he’d spun for Elara seeming like a child's game compared to the intricate net now closing around him. The Void Shard wasn't a random attack. It was the bait. And now, the true hunter, the person who had sent the shard, was dangling the cure. They knew he would need it. They knew he would come for it. The Midnight Auction wasn't an opportunity; it was an execution chamber.

He was being herded, manipulated by an unseen enemy who knew his secrets. But what choice did he have? Let the city’s timeline collapse? Allow the Concord to tear his life apart and discover the Fae? Risk the clock, and the ancient spirits within it, being extinguished forever?

No.

He looked at the silent, dead clock. He felt the phantom echo of its missing heartbeat in his chest. The trap was set. The hunter was waiting. And Alistair Finch, the disgraced Arch-Mage, the reluctant custodian, had no choice but to walk right into its jaws.