Night had settled gently over the city, draping its stone streets in a veil of amber light.
Rows of iron streetlamps burned steadily, their flames swaying behind glass casings as if breathing with the crowd.
.The narrow roads were alive despite the hour—vendors called out from wooden stalls, their voices mingling with the clang of metal, the rustle of fabric, and the low murmur of passing conversations.
Warm light spilled from shop windows, illuminating hanging herbs, polished trinkets, baked bread, and folded cloth dyed in deep, earthly colors.
People passed one another without pause. Workers returning home. Merchants closing their shutters. Laughter drifted through the air, brief and careless, before vanishing into the night.
Among them walked a young man.
He appeared to be in his early twenties, tall and slender, his posture slightly hunched as though the weight of the world pressed down upon his shoulders. A long brown coat hung from his frame, worn at the cuffs but well-kept, its fabric swaying with each step he took. Beneath the shadow of his hooded collar, his face remained half-hidden, illuminated only when he passed beneath a lantern's glow.
His eyes were tired.
Not from lack of sleep, but from thought.
He walked slowly, weaving through the flow of people without truly seeing them, his gaze unfocused as it lingered on the cobblestones below.
Each step echoed faintly, lost among the countless footsteps surrounding him. The city moved on, indifferent, while his mind remained trapped elsewhere.
A soft sigh escaped his lips.
It was heavy. Fractured.
"What will I do…" he murmured, his voice barely audible beneath the noise of the street.
The words dissolved into the night, unanswered.
He passed by a row of street shops—one selling warm meat pies, another displaying handcrafted tools, another filled with glass bottles catching the lanternlight like frozen stars.
The scents of oil, bread, and smoke blended together, familiar yet distant, as though belonging to a life he no longer touched.
Amidst the chorus of street vendors and the soft clash of passing footsteps, the young man slowed.
It was not a shout or a sudden sound that caught his attention—but stillness.
Near the edge of the street, where lanternlight thinned and shadows gathered more densely, an old woman sat upon the stone ground.
A worn cloth lay spread before her, its edges frayed, its surface carefully arranged with a small collection of books. They were old—far older than those sold in the nearby stalls—their covers cracked, their pages yellowed, their bindings stitched and restitched by hand.
The woman herself was small and hunched, wrapped in layers of faded cloth. Her hair, thin and silver, slipped loose from beneath a dark shawl, framing a face carved deeply by time. She said nothing. She did not call out to passersby.
She simply waited.
The young man would have walked past her like all the others—had one book not drawn his eye.
It rested near the center of the cloth, separate from the rest.
Unlike the others, its cover was a deep, muted purple, the surface smooth and untouched by age, as though time had forgotten it.
Faint patterns traced along its edges, barely visible beneath the lanternlight.
A small lock sealed it shut—its metal neither iron nor gold, but something clearer, greener.
Emerald-like.
He stopped.
His gaze lingered on the book longer than he intended, his surroundings slowly dissolving into a dull blur. The noise of the street softened. The glow of the lanterns dimmed.
Then he saw the title.
It was etched cleanly across the cover, its lettering elegant and deliberate.
MYSTIQUE
His breath caught.
The word slipped from his lips before he realized he had spoken aloud.
A strange stillness settled in his chest, followed by a sudden, sharp unease. His thoughts raced, colliding with one another.
"Mystique…?
That's—
His fingers curled slightly at his side.
"Isn't that my surname?!"
The coincidence felt too precise. Too intimate.
Before he could step back or gather his thoughts, a voice rose softly from below.
"My...sti..que…"
The old woman had lifted her head.
Her eyes were pale but clear, reflecting the lanternlight with an unsettling sharpness. She studied him closely, as though he were the one on display, her gaze unblinking, patient.
"....im..poss..ible....Can you read it?..." she asked.
Her voice was filled with shock,nervous, quiet, almost gentle—but it carried through the noise of the street with unnerving clarity.
A knot formed in his chest.
The chill had not faded. Instead, it settled deeper, tightening into something closer to unease. His fingers twitched at his side, and he found himself glancing once more at the passing crowd—as if to reassure himself that the world was still moving, still normal.
Swallowing, he looked back down at the old woman.
"Umm… miss," he began, his voice low and careful, "if you don't mind… can you tell me where you got this book from?"
For a moment, the woman did not respond.
Then her lips curled.
"He… he… he…"
The sound was thin and breathy, slipping out of her like air escaping a cracked bellows.
The young man frowned slightly, unsure whether he had heard correctly.
The sound grew louder.
"Hehehe…"
His confusion deepened. The laugh was wrong—too uneven, too delayed—like it had to remember how laughter was supposed to sound.
And then—
"Hahahaha!"
The old woman threw her head back, her shoulders shaking as the laughter burst forth, sharp and grating.
A few passersby cast uneasy glances in their direction before quickening their pace. The lanternlight caught her face, stretching her smile into something unsettling, her eyes gleaming with a strange, fevered clarity.
The young man took a small step back.
"This," she said suddenly, her laughter cutting off as abruptly as it had begun, "is not a book."
Her gaze dropped to the purple cover.
"It is a grimoire."
He blinked.
"A grimoire…?" he repeated hesitantly. "You mean—like the ones in stories?"
For the first time, her smile widened without laughter.
Slowly, deliberately, she nodded.
"This," the old woman said, her voice lowering to a near whisper, "is the Grimoire."
Her finger tapped lightly against the emerald-like lock.
"The Grimoire of the Underworld."
The words settled between them, heavy and absolute.
The street noises seemed to dim once more, lanternlight flickering as though uncertain. The book lay silent upon the cloth, sealed and unmoving—yet impossibly present.
"Grimoire...of underworld?"