The room smelled faintly of ozone and wet copper, like a storm bottled for study. The mirrors still didn't show him --- not really. One caught the slope of his shoulder but put it on someone else's frame. Another offered the back of a child's head he didn't recognize.
Lumi Arden stood with her sleeves rolled, not to be casual but because cloth between her and her work was unthinkable.
"You held it wrong," she said, not unkindly.
Kade still had the saucer-sized cold-mirror in his palm. "It showed me exactly what I thought about," he said. "That's wrong?"
"It showed you what wanted to be seen," she said, stepping closer. "Intent is a rope, Reclaimer. The first knot belongs to you. The rest..." She tapped the mirror's edge. "...belong to the thing you're pulling."
She held out her hand. He gave her the mirror without ceremony. Her fingers brushed his glove just long enough to confirm they both noticed.
"Sit," she said.
He sat on a stool that looked stolen from a chapel. Lumi tilted the cold-mirror so it caught light from no visible source. "This is the only device in Eidolon that reflects without burning lumen," she said. "The Halo would call it heresy. The Mercies would call it theft."
"And you?" Kade asked.
"I call it medicine." She gestured for his left hand again. "Most people bleed when they see themselves too clearly. The trick is to aim at the truth's shoulder, not its eye."
He almost said he didn't believe in tricks, but she had the kind of focus that made interruptions feel like vandalism.
"Think of your sister," she said.
He didn't want to. That made it easier. He set Mira's face in his mind --- not the sickroom version, but her eight-year-old grin when she stole figs from the minister's basket.
Lumi turned the mirror toward him. This time, he didn't see the grin. He saw Mira standing in a narrow sunlit street, older, her hair loose, holding a candle that never dripped. She was laughing at someone out of view. Her cheeks were full, her balance easy.
The sight hurt. Not the way lumen hurt --- sharp, searing --- but like pressing a bruise you'd forgotten was there.
Lumi turned the mirror away. "Pulse stayed steady," she said. "No burn on the skin. You can hold that image without paying for it in days."
Kade flexed his fingers. They didn't tremble, but the ache lingered somewhere higher, behind the eyes. "What did you do to it?"
"I didn't," she said. "The mirror did. It filtered the part of the memory the Halo taxes. That's what makes it dangerous."
He leaned back. "Dangerous to who?"
"To anyone who profits from forgetting," she said, her voice soft but pointed. "If people remember without paying, the Halo's teeth dull. And dull teeth make a desperate beast."
He thought of the Archon's voice over the convoy speakers: Pain ends in light. He wondered if the man had ever seen a light that didn't eat.
Lumi set the mirror down. "You came here for her, but I'm telling you this for you. If you keep carrying your knot---" she nodded at the mnemonic seal on his arm "---you'll rot from the inside before the Archives let you near it. The cold-mirror can hold it for you until we find the right cut."
"You talk like we're already working together," he said.
She met his eyes. "You talk like you're not going to say yes."
The truth was, he'd already decided. Somewhere between Nyx's stall and the way Mira said true things keep, he'd known. But yes was a currency, and you didn't spend it without tasting the weight.
"What's your price?" he asked.
"A morning," she said. "Yours, not hers. Bring it here. We'll use it to anchor the knot. After that, you can pay in work."
"What kind of work?"
Her mouth tilted in the faintest echo of mischief. "The kind that teaches you how to steal something so large, it convinces the sky to give it up."
The line could have been metaphor, but in Eidolon, metaphors were just blueprints without ink.
Kade stood. "She can't walk far right now," he said.
"Then I'll come to her," Lumi replied, as if that settled it. She wrapped the cold-mirror in a length of black cloth, tied it with three quick knots. "This stays here until you're ready. I don't give medicine to people who still enjoy their sickness."
He hesitated at the curtain of plastic strips. "You always this trusting with strangers?"
"I'm not trusting," she said, already turning back to her table. "I'm patient. Trust is just patience without clocks."
Outside, the Lowlight smelled of wet stone and oranges again. He felt the ghost-weight of the cold-mirror in his palm, even though it wasn't there. Somewhere in the rain, a bellless chime marked an hour no one counted.
Kade started walking. He had a morning to give, and in this city, mornings were rarer than mercy.