Sleep refused to find her.
Amara sat by the window long after midnight, knees drawn to her chest, eyes tracing the slow descent of raindrops on the glass. The city beyond shimmered faintly through the storm — Manhattan, her father's kingdom, a sprawl of ambition and light. But from where she sat, it looked fractured. Distorted. As though the whole world was being seen through the surface of a trembling mirror.
Her phone lay useless beside her — black screen, dead signal. She'd tried again and again to reach Chuka, to reach anyone, but all she got was static and that faint, unnerving hum that seemed to follow her now wherever she went.
Every clock in the house ticked out of sync. The air vents whispered like voices trapped in the walls. And beneath the steady rhythm of the rain, she could swear she heard something else — a low, pulsing sound, like a heartbeat buried deep below the floor.
The mansion was alive.
She rose, moving quietly to the corner of the room where the mirror stood. The shawl she had thrown over it earlier lay crumpled on the floor, wet somehow — though no rain had touched it. When she lifted it, the fabric was warm to the touch, as though it had been resting on something that breathed.
The mirror itself looked ordinary now, reflecting her slender frame and the restless gleam in her eyes. But when she leaned closer, she noticed the faintest pulse of light deep within the glass, like a flicker beneath a frozen pond.
"Stop it," she whispered to herself. "You're seeing things."
But as she turned to leave, her reflection did not.
It lingered — a heartbeat late. Then, as though waking from sleep, it smiled.
Amara stumbled backward, slamming into the desk. Her reflection remained still for a moment, then whispered — though no sound came from its lips. The words wrote themselves across the mirror in a thin golden glow:
"He knows."
Amara froze. "Who?" she breathed.
The light pulsed once. Then the reflection's mouth moved again — forming the name before the glow faded.
"Roman."
She stared, trembling, until the words vanished completely. The mirror returned to silence, reflecting only her own wide eyes.
For a long time, she stood motionless, her mind spinning. The name — her father's name — still hung in the air like smoke. What did it mean? Did he know what?
She turned toward the door, listening. The house had gone still again, but faint noises carried from below — mechanical clanks, the echo of an elevator. Her father often worked late into the night, but the sound wasn't coming from his study. It was deeper. Beneath the mansion.
Something in her stirred — the same restless curiosity that had once driven her into ancient tombs with Chuka, chasing truths hidden in stone. She had promised herself she'd never again let that urge lead her into danger, but this was different. This was personal.
She wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders and crept out into the corridor.
The hallway stretched ahead like a tunnel of reflections — glass panels, black marble, and faint golden lighting that made her skin look ghostly. The mansion's design was flawless, symmetrical — but tonight, that perfection felt wrong. Too controlled. Too still.
As she descended the stairs, motion sensors flickered to life, lighting the way one step at a time. Somewhere far below, a door hissed open.
Amara reached the main hall and paused. The massive glass wall that faced the Hudson glowed with the storm's afterlight, but in the reflection, she saw something strange — movement that didn't belong. A shadow standing where no one was.
She turned sharply. Nothing.
But when she looked back into the reflection, the shadow was still there, closer now — as if the thing existed only inside the glass.
A whisper crawled through the air.
"Amara…"
She backed away, heart hammering, until her hand brushed against a hidden panel near the staircase. It was subtle — a fingerprint pad, barely visible in the dim light. Her father had told her never to touch the secured sections of the house. But she remembered the mirror's words: He knows.
Taking a shaky breath, she pressed her hand to the scanner.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a soft hiss, the panel slid open, revealing a narrow elevator behind it. The air inside smelled faintly of ozone and metal — sterile, cold. She stepped in before fear could talk her out of it.
The elevator began its descent.
Soft lights glowed along the walls, pulsing faintly — the same rhythm as the relic's energy readings had once displayed in Jos. Her stomach turned. Whatever her father was hiding beneath this house wasn't new. It was connected to that.
When the doors opened, she found herself in a corridor that didn't belong to a home at all. Stainless steel walls. Cables running through the ceiling. The faint hum of generators. It felt more like a research facility than a basement.
At the end of the hall, a heavy glass door stood half-open. Pale blue light spilled from within.
Amara crept forward, every step cautious.
Inside, the room pulsed with soft energy. Rows of monitors lined the walls, each showing data streams — heart rates, energy levels, ancient symbols flashing in patterns she recognized from the Nok tablet. And in the center, suspended behind reinforced glass, was something that made her blood run cold.
The Amour.
It floated above a containment pedestal, rotating slowly, its surface alive with golden veins that crawled and pulsed like liquid fire. It shouldn't have been there. It should have been sealed in the lab overseas. But somehow, her father had it here, beneath their home.
She pressed her hand to the glass, her breath fogging the surface.
And then — a voice.
Soft. Familiar.
"Amara…"
It wasn't her father's. It was Chuka's.
She turned sharply, scanning the room. His voice came again — but this time, from the containment unit itself. The Amour's surface shimmered, forming faint images that twisted and reassembled until they became a face — his face — distorted, pained, trapped within the swirling gold.
"Chuka?" she gasped.
His lips moved, though his voice was fractured, broken by static.
"Don't… let it… open…"
The lights flickered violently. Alarms beeped once, then silenced themselves, as if the house had been muted by an unseen hand. The reflection in the glass split — Chuka's face fading, replaced by another.
Her father.
Only, his reflection wasn't human anymore. The eyes glowed gold.
Amara stumbled backward, heart pounding. The reflection of Chief Roman smiled faintly, even though the real one was nowhere near.
Then came the whisper — deep, resonant, inhuman:
"The vessel remembers."
Every light in the room went dark. The Amour flared gold, and for a moment, Amara saw visions — flashes of ancient Nok priests sealing something inside the relic, their faces twisted in fear. Blood. Fire. The sound of chanting.
And then — silence.
The room returned to normal. The hum steadied. The lights flickered back to life.
Amara collapsed against the wall, trembling. Her breath came in sharp gasps. The Amour floated silently again, calm, innocent, as though nothing had happened.
But she knew.
Something inside it had recognized her.
Something that had been waiting.
And as she turned toward the elevator, the faintest echo followed her — a whisper curling through the corridor like smoke:
"The blood of the maker returns…"