He refused the bargain, but the house was already shifting. Hallways bent in on themselves, and reflections lagged a second too long.
One mirror in his room began to speak at night:
"She's already here, waiting. You just don't remember her name."
He smashed it with the shard Varma gave him, but the voice didn't stop—it simply moved to the next pane.
Varma cornered him the next morning.
"You can't fight a house with fists," Varma said, pacing like a predator. "Choose your ally—me, or her. One will chain you. The other will cost you everything."
Arun's mind flickered—he remembered a name, then lost it. It was happening.
He saw three paths in the mirror: one to Varma's tower, one to the Witch's realm, and a third… blank, yet somehow calling.
He stepped toward the blank path. The mirrors screamed.
The house convulsed—walls bending into spirals, windows turning into teeth.
As he crossed the threshold, the whisper became a roar:
"You walk where no name survives."
And then, silence. Only the sound of his own breath, and a road paved with broken reflections stretching into endless dusk.