"Antique shop on 76th," Sophia said, sliding into the booth across from him. Her expression carried that specific look Adrian had learned to associate with weird trouble. "Guy named Osei runs the place. He buys estate lots from families clearing out after the invasion."
She leaned in slightly. "One of my delivery guys says something in the back room has been acting up for three days. Cold spots. Objects shifting on their own when nobody's looking so he refuses to go near one specific crate."
Adrian raised an eyebrow. Cold spots? Unexplained movement? Sounds like a low-grade Curse.
"Did Reyes catch a Cursed Energy signature on his sensors?"
Sophia's eyes sharpened. "That's the kicker. Reyes checked. Zero Cursed Energy readings. Nothing from the entire building."
Adrian paused. Zero Cursed Energy?
A sudden spark ignited in his chest. Four months since the invasion, and he had been strictly suppressing certain names, certain concepts, and certain doors he half-expected this universe to open.
Could it be?
Osei let him in after hours, visibly relieved to hand the situation over to a "specialist" without pressing for credentials.
The moment Adrian stepped into the back room, his Six Eyes flared.
There's nothing. No familiar, violet static of Cursed Energy anywhere in the room.
Yet something was definitely there. A heavy, foreign pressure weighed against his perception, completely unclassifiable by anything he had encountered over the past four months.
In the center of the room sat a small wooden crate with its lid slightly ajar. The air surrounding it vibrated—not with thermal heat, but with a strange spatial distortion that made his enhanced vision blur and refocus, struggling to parse what it was seeing.
That shimmer. That orange-tinged distortion at the edges.
Adrian's pulse spiked. He knew that distortion. He had seen it dozens of times in another life, watching a screen from his couch.
That's a Mystic Arts signature.
Real, honest-to-god magic, sitting in a crate inside a Queens antique shop.
He forced his face to stay emotionless. Play it cool, Hayes. Nobody needs to know what's going through your head right now.
He approached the crate with genuine caution, gathering a thread of Cursed Energy at his fingertips purely out of instinct. Nestled inside aged, moth-eaten cloth lay a tarnished bronze amulet. Ancient geometric symbols were carved into its surface—symbols that made his Six Eyes ache just trying to decode them.
Pulse.
The amulet flared. The wooden shelves around the room bowed as gravity briefly glitched out.
Adrian reached down and touched the metal.
The distortion surged straight into his hand.
In a split-second flash of sensory overload, visions ripped through his mind: fiery, orange-tinged portals tearing open across impossible landscapes, and robed figures moving through them with practiced precision.
Sling rings. Those are sling rings.
The vision snapped shut. Adrian stumbled back, gasping for air, forcing a wild grin back into a serious scowl.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: UNKNOWN PHENOMENON DETECTED.]
[ERROR: DOES NOT MATCH ANY KNOWN CURSED TECHNIQUE CLASSIFICATION.]
Yeah, no kidding, Adrian thought, wiping sweat from his forehead. Not your department, system.
Before his heart rate could settle, the shop's front bell chimed softly.
Ding.
The front door was locked.
Adrian turned, Cursed Energy instantly coiling along his forearms.
A figure stepped out of the shadows. Hooded, draped in heavy robes, moving with quiet, unhurried authority.
The Six Eyes swept over the intruder. Same alien energy signature. Same non-curse resonance—except this time, it belonged to a living person.
A sorcerer. An actual Master of the Mystic Arts.
Adrian dropped into a guarded stance, locking down his surprise behind a neutral, cold mask.
"You shouldn't have touched that," the figure said. His voice was calm, faintly accented, as he walked toward the crate. "Sanctum-warded artifacts react poorly to untrained hands."
Sanctum.
"Noted," Adrian replied, keeping his voice deadpan. "Figured that out about half a second too late."
The sorcerer picked up the amulet with practiced ease. The moment his fingers grazed the bronze, the space-warping distortion vanished instantly. He turned, studying Adrian with an intense, analytical gaze.
"Your energy signature is strange," the sorcerer observed softly. "It doesn't belong to this world's natural currents, nor does it align with any known martial reinforcement. I have encountered many anomalies in this line of work, but never a flavor quite like yours."
"I get that a lot," Adrian said casually. "It's a long story. Not one I share with strangers."
The sorcerer didn't push. "Fair enough. Secrets are not mine to demand." He slipped the amulet deep into his robes. "This belonged to a sorcerer who fell during the invasion. His estate should have been secured weeks ago. A clerical error."
A sorcerer died during the invasion. Yeah Kamar-Taj really i s active here.
"So there are more of you?" Adrian asked, testing the waters.
"More than you would guess. Considerably fewer than we'd prefer." The sorcerer glanced toward the exit. "Cursed Energy—as you call it—is not the only current flowing through reality. Remember that."
"Is there a way to find you again?" Adrian asked. "If I ever need to?"
The sorcerer paused at the doorway. Beneath the shadow of his hood, the corner of his mouth twitched into a subtle smile.
"When you are ready, the right door tends to find you. Be careful, Mr. Hayes. Some powers are far older—and far less forgiving—than the ones you've grown accustomed to."
Before Adrian could even ask how the man knew his name, the sorcerer stepped through the threshold and vanished into thin air.
He left behind only the lingering, static hum of magic—and the chilling, exhilarating confirmation that this universe was vastly bigger than he had prepared for.
Later that night, Adrian relayed the encounter to Sophia at the diner.
"So there's an entirely separate magic system?" she asked, digesting the news. "Not Cursed Energy. Real sorcerers leaving dangerous heirlooms behind in random antique shops?"
"Pretty much." Adrian rubbed his temples, adrenaline and exhaustion fighting for control. "Four months of fighting Curses, and I thought I finally understood the rules of this world. Turns out I've just been looking at one small corner of the board."
Sophia reached out, placing her hand over his. Her grip was warm and grounding.
"It's overwhelming," she said softly. "But if there are others out there, maybe someone actually understands what's happening to you better than we do."
"Maybe," Adrian murmured, staring out the window at the dark New York skyline.
He knew far more than he was letting on. Way more.
Somewhere across the city, hidden behind illusion wards, a Sanctum stood watch over the dark. And for the first time since arriving in this universe, Adrian knew the real game had only just begun.