The Mirror’s visuals faded out, leaving The Sorcerer staring into his own reflection again. Time was up.

For a minute, he contemplated on grabbing another vial of her hair and activating the Mirror again. He had multiple vials of the girl’s stray hair and flakes of old skin, however he was careful not to waste them.

He’d collected them on a day when the household was sparse. The father and brother were away; the mother was at the opposite end of the house. The girl had snuck off to the woods with an old book. The Sorcerer picked the lock on the gates and quietly made his way into the house.

It was quite old, and a traditional Prian style. The structure was a mix of wood and clay, and the floors were sealed wax stone. There were four bedrooms upstairs, and a parlor, dining room, kitchen, and a washroom downstairs. The spacious parlor’s wooden sliding door led out to the courtyard and gardens. Paintings on the pillars, walls, and doorways were inspired by the country’s natural environment and its religious symbols.

The girl’s bedroom was on the second floor, furthest down the hall. It had been easy to identify; the arrangements were what he expected of a young woman her age: off-white knit curtains at the window, an assortment of flowers on her desk—picked fresh from the courtyard— floral patterned furniture, floral patterned bedspread, a full-length mirror in the corner by the hearth, and an engraved jewelry box on top of the dresser. Though what he hadn’t expected were the crumpled slips of pages, books, clothes, accessories, and little plates of half-eaten snacks littered everywhere.

As a young boy, if even a single slipper or handkerchief was out of its place, his foster mother would beat him into sweeping their whole house clean.

At least it hadn’t been a very large house.

And thankfully, his foster mother had been dead for over a century now, too.

The Sorcerer had taken a cloth and swept the surface areas of her furniture, the door handles, sheets and pillows. He collected stray hairs from the bed and the floor. There was so much hair on the floor. It made him almost impulsively want to grab a broom and sweep it up himself.

Back at his rented home, he cut the hairs into pieces along with the cloths. The Mirror required two pinches of the person’s body sample in order to see their image, so that is what The Sorcerer had divided into each vial, and he ended up with over thirty. Some of the cloths had been a failure, for they contained nothing more than collected dust. The hairs had been the most reliable.

But careful as he was, some of the vials still went to waste, embarrassingly enough. The Sorcerer had activated The Mirror during times that were inappropriate to watch over a young woman.

Such when she bathed.

Or took her time to change out of her clothes.

Or when she was in the outhouse.

Even when she….touched herself. For pleasure.

And at those times, The Sorcerer had regretfully deactivated The Mirror, disgusted, and angry at his own negligence.

He set the Mirror face down on his desk and stretched his back out on the chair. He had seen enough for tonight, maybe even in the last month. He felt he knew her life well by now. Uneventful, mostly pitiful. Not that this was going to be an issue for him. The more helpless a person was, the more likely they would resort to desperate measures.

And Miss Zara Anvar was beyond desperate at this point.

The poor girl, he thought. She cared about that little boy—Yohid, was it?—and wanted to protect him. And she was right to worry. That boy was in serious danger. It went to show that the world had not changed since The Sorcerer was Yohid’s age. In fact, it was even worse now than it was back then.

Zara’s father was nothing more than an overbearing government tool, and her mother a clueless nag. The younger brother was a foolish child going through the pains of adolescence. There was also an aunt that came by often to teach Zara her lessons, and also to be the biggest contribution to Zara’s spiraling depression.

A hateful wretch of a woman, really.

The Sorcerer had yet to see the family’s eldest son. The parents and the aunt always spoke about how proud he made them. But these were the conversations Zara and the youngest son participated in the least, so The Sorcerer didn’t know much about him other than that he married a well-to-do woman and had a successful career as an architect.

The Sorcerer left his desk, checked his moneybag, and grabbed his coat. Seeing that bottle in the Anvar’s dining room had him craving for a drink or two himself.

It was unfortunate how Zara hadn’t poured herself a glass of that. She had needed it tonight. She was so…lacking. Lacking in every aspect of experience, bravery, and sociability. He assumed it to be natural, given her life situation. It wasn’t as though he didn’t sympathize with her, because he did. He had played a role similar to hers before awakening his full potential and breaking free. And that is simply what this girl needed.

Power.

The Sorcerer buttoned up his black coat, wrapped a scarf around his neck, and left the house. It was a modest two-story home, about three neighborhoods away from the Anvars. Securing the property had been all about luck in timing, as homes in Pria were typically hard to snag. The expenses were high, for good reason. The view was appealing, surrounded by a mountain, a forest, and the gorgeous river paths beyond it.

Zara liked to sneak into the forest sometimes when the weather was right. It was convenient with her house being on the remote side and so close to it. Perhaps she would be there tonight…?

The cold wind blew into his face and he shivered. The bar would be so much warmer, he knew, but it was going to be a pain in the ass to ride his horse there now. Nevertheless, he went to retrieve it from the stable, careful not to slip on the sheets of ice on the ground.

It amazed him that people would be so used to this sort of climate during winters. Nights were usually cool—or to him, downright cold—but right now, they were in what was considered to be the “warming” LightSpring season.

Horseshit.

It still felt like a “Light Winter” more than anything else. He had lived through the entirety of Pria’s viscous snowstorms of DeepWinter and the practically impenetrable fogs of the MidWinter season, and both had been brutal. But he was from the south, and the weather was more reasonable there. Further north of Pria was even worse in terms of chill. At least late summers here were fine. In the highest north though, the cold was never ending.

The Sorcerer rode the horse into town’s red light district and straight to his favorite bar. It was rowdy tonight, and the whores were out scouring the men for their coin. Trash littered the street. Horses waited patiently for their owners, their necks tethered to nearby posts. A stray dog nibbled on some leftover food thrown outside the bar by drunk patrons. The area was mostly dark, lit by only a few rusty old lanterns—one of which the fire was dying out. A woman eyed him from across the street. For once he didn’t mind. It had been a while, and he could use some intimacy.

After some thought, The Sorcerer was certain that Zara would not be dancing among the trees in her shiny new anklets tonight. It wasn’t because of the cold, because that certainly wasn’t the problem here. She had the demeanor of someone who wanted to give up her life. In the past two weeks, she had barely done a thing outside of her forced routines. She would be in bed now, wallowing as she usually did, instead of working to try and make the best of a bad situation. Such as honing her magical energy, for instance.

Unfortunate. What a waste.

The Sorcerer smiled at the barmaid, and kindly ordered a bottle of the wine he craved. The quality was smooth and flavorful. Pria’s local wine was as good as its coffee. He was in a fantastic mood now, not only for the wine and the woman that had sauntered in with him, but because he knew enough of Zara to finally approach her.

He had the bait, now he just needed to reel her in.