Wyrmere never stopped moving. The factories never slept, the trains never slowed, and the city never ceased to bleed its mechanical heartbeat into the bones of its people.
But beneath Wyrmere... there was silence.
Alec had searched for hours, following the faintest whispers—rumors passed between drunks and street urchins, scratched into alley walls, spoken in the dead of night by men who refused to name their sources.
They all spoke of a place beneath the slums, reachable only during certain hours.
The Hollow Market.
No one claimed to have seen it.
No one sane, at least.
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He found the entrance in a forgotten part of the city's underbelly, behind a rusted gate at the end of a dried-out canal. The stone arch above was cracked, and old glyphs had been chiseled away.
A single line remained, barely legible:
"Where the world forgets, the Veil remembers."
He stepped through.
Instantly, the air changed.
The light dimmed, as though something behind him had closed a curtain over reality.
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The tunnel stretched long and crooked. As he walked, he noticed lanterns along the walls—dim blue flames, suspended in glass orbs, flickering without smoke or heat.
He turned a corner.
And the world changed.
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The Hollow Market was alive.
It was not a market in the traditional sense. There were no signs. No stalls.
Instead, shadowed figures drifted between drifting platforms, shrouded booths, and bridges made of bone and brass. The air smelled of candle wax, ink, old blood, and something faintly floral.
Time didn't seem to exist here. The sky overhead was black and infinite, scattered with pale stars that shifted when you weren't looking.
No one looked human.
Not entirely.
Some wore masks. Others wore faces that flickered like candle flames. One figure had too many eyes. Another moved like water, limbs liquid and flowing.
Alec tried not to stare.
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A voice whispered behind him.
"First time?"
He turned.
A short woman stood beside him, wrapped in a cloak made of patchwork pages. Her face was hidden behind a mask shaped like an open book. Her voice was smooth, unnaturally calm.
"You've crossed the Threshold," she said. "You're not dead, so you must be Veilbound."
"I'm looking for the First Mask," Alec replied cautiously.
She tilted her head.
"Ah. A dangerous path."
She reached into her cloak and pulled out a slip of parchment. It curled in the air like a living thing, folding itself into an origami mask with seven slits.
"Take this. You'll need it."
Alec took it.
The moment his fingers touched the mask, a cold presence entered his mind.
"You are marked," the woman whispered. "The Shroud will feel you now. Every step forward is a step into the storm."
"Then I'll walk with my eyes open."
She laughed, quietly.
"Spoken like a fool. Or a hero. Hard to tell them apart here."
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The paper mask settled against his palm, still warm.
It had no eye holes. No mouth.
Just a thin veil of script running along its surface—words written in a language his waking mind didn't know.
But his blood did.
He felt the truth press in around him.
This was no ordinary marketplace.
This was a crossroad.
And somewhere within this hidden world… answers waited.