Chapter 1: The Last Normal Day"Some thresholds, once crossed, allow no return journey."1 - Infiltration Preparation

  My arm clock didn't get the chance to do its job. I'd been awake since 4:37 AM, staring at the ceiling and mentally rehearsing every step of today's infiltration. Not that I needed the practice—breaking into pces was practically bullet point number three on my PI résumé, right after "coffee consumption" and "brooding in dimly lit offices while waiting for clients who are chronically te."

  Six months, six dead ends, and six false leads. This is my st shot at finding her.

  Little did I know that by sunset, the person in the mirror would be unrecognizable—not just in appearance but in fundamental nature. My st day as Derek Cross had begun, and I was walking straight into the most extreme case of my career: the complete transformation of the investigator himself.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed and silenced the arm one minute before it was set to bre. Small victories in a case that had offered nothing but defeats.

  The janitor's uniform I'd acquired hung on my closet door like a scarecrow—if scarecrows moonlighted as maintenance workers at prestigious academies with questionable architectural physics. I'd spent three days weathering it to perfection: strategic coffee stains on the pel, a worn patch on the right elbow, and just enough fading to suggest years of loyal service without veering into "health code viotion" territory.

  "Good morning, janitor Derek," I muttered to my reflection as I pulled the uniform over my shoulders. "Just another day keeping Witchlight High's floors unnaturally clean while definitely not investigating a missing person case."

  The perfect disguise is one that becomes invisible. Nobody looks at maintenance workers, and nobody remembers them. The best surveilnce is conducted by people whose existence registers as background noise.

  The ID badge clipped to my chest pocket featured a carefully doctored photo that maintained my general features while being forgettable enough to pass casual inspection. Maintenance staff were invisible in most institutions—people looked through them, not at them. I was counting on that social blind spot like I'd counted on it for a dozen previous infiltrations.

  My backstory was simple enough to remember even half-asleep: Derek Miller transferred from Westke Public School District on the first week on the job. Just enough detail to satisfy cursory questions without inviting conversation. The best covers are the ones you can maintain while concussed or sleep-deprived—a lesson from my second year as a PI that had saved my skin more than once.

  I gnced at Sam's photo on my nightstand—the real reason for all this eborate theater. Six months without a word. No calls, no messages, no breadcrumbs for a frantic older brother to follow. Just enrollment records at Witchlight High followed by a mysterious "leave of absence" that nobody seemed willing to expin.

  "I'm coming, Sam," I promised the photo. "Just hang on."

  She wouldn't have disappeared without reason. Not Sam. She's too smart, too careful. Unless someone made her disappear. Unless she found something, she wasn't supposed to find. The most dangerous cases are always the ones where someone discovers a truth that powerful people want to be buried.

  The charm the shopkeeper had given me yesterday sat on my dresser. In the morning light, it looked more ominous than it had in the dimly lit costume shop—a bronze eye pendant dangling from a leather cord, its iris cut from some dark stone that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. The bronze was intricately etched with protective sigils around the edge, reminiscent of ancient warding symbols I'd seen in museum exhibits. The old woman's mismatched eyes fshed in my memory—one blue as a gas fme, one amber as old whiskey—as she'd pressed the charm into my palm with surprising strength.

  "Protection, of a sort. For those about to step between worlds," she'd said. I'd initially refused it, my detective instincts screaming caution until she'd added: "To keep you... yourself... when forces beyond your experience attempt otherwise."

  Her warning echoed in my mind now: ?To keep you yourself.“ What had she meant by that? What exactly was I walking into that might challenge my very identity?

  Those weren't the words of a simple shopkeeper. She knew something about Witchlight—about what happens there. And she knew about Sam. Said my sister had the "same expression when determined." Present tense. As if she'd seen her recently.

  After initial reluctance, I'd taken the charm, and the moment my fingers had closed around it, a jolt of something like static electricity had raced up my arm. Looking at it on my dresser, I wondered again what I'd gotten myself into.

  I lifted the pendant by its cord, surprised again by its unnatural warmth—not the ambient warmth of an object at room temperature, but the living heat of something with its own energy source. It pulsed against my palm with a subtle vibration that mimicked a heartbeat but at a rhythm just different enough from a human to raise the hairs on my neck.

  My go-bag contained the essentials: a micro-camera disguised as a pen, a voice recorder hidden in what appeared to be an asthma inhaler, lockpicks tucked into the reinforced sole of my boots, and a backup burner phone. It was a standard PI toolkit for non-standard investigations, the kind of equipment that walks the fine line between legal surveilnce and potential B&E charges.

  I've used this kit on a hundred cases. Corporate espionage. Cheating spouses. Missing persons. But never for someone who mattered this much. Never for Sam. The difference between professional detachment and personal involvement is the difference between steady hands and shaking ones.

  I caught my final reflection in the hallway mirror. The man staring back looked nothing like the coffee-fueled insomniac who'd built a modest reputation finding missing persons and cheating spouses. He looked like someone you'd call to fix a leaky faucet and then immediately forget. A perfect bnk in institutional memory.

  Looking at myself, I couldn't help but think about where I might be now if I'd finished college instead of dropping out to raise Sam after our parents died. Maybe teaching criminology somewhere or working in a crime b instead of chasing cheating spouses. Sam had always been the one with the real academic drive—the one who deserved a full education. I never regretted prioritizing her opportunities over mine, but sometimes, I wondered what completing my own studies would have been like.

  The morning air hit my face as I locked my apartment door behind me. The taxi I'd called waited at the curb, the driver scrolling mindlessly on his phone. Perfect—a disinterested driver was less likely to remember me ter.

  "Lexington and 23rd," I directed, not giving the actual address of Witchlight. No digital breadcrumbs, no direct connections. Investigation 101: maintain pusible deniability and multiple cut-outs between yourself and your target.

  Every trace can be followed. Every footprint leaves an impression. The less evidence I leave, the safer Sam will be when I find her. And if this pce is half as dangerous as her st message suggested, anonymity isn't paranoia—it's survival.

  Twenty minutes and one overpriced fare ter, I stepped onto the sidewalk three blocks from my target. Witchlight High rose in the distance, its spires and turrets shimmering slightly in the morning light as if seen through heat waves. Or that was just sleep deprivation talking.

  No, that's not sleep deprivation. That's...wrong. Buildings don't shimmer like that. Not unless there's serious heat distortion, which there shouldn't be on a cool autumn morning.

  The closer I got, the stranger the building appeared. Its Gothic architecture seemed to shift subtly when viewed from different angles. Windows that had been visible from one perspective disappeared when approached directly. The morning sunlight caught stained gss that fractured into impossible colors—not just the standard spectrum, but hues that seemed to exist in the spaces between recognized colors.

  A tendril of doubt curled in my stomach for the first time since hatching this pn. Sam's st text message echoed in my head: "There's something wrong with this school. I found something they're hiding."

  What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Sam? And what am I walking into? I’ve never seen anything like this in six years of PI work. Whatever's happening here goes beyond corporate secrets or academic scandals.

  The charm in my pocket was now distinctly, unnervingly warm. Like a small coal burning against my thigh.

  A steady stream of students and parents flowed through the main entrance, luggage, and boxes floating behind some of them—actually floating, not metaphorically. I blinked hard, but the impossible sight remained. I'd seen a lot of things in my investigation career, but levitating luggage wasn't among them.

  I'm not seeing things. That luggage is actually hovering. Those books are floating. This isn't a normal school. This isn't even a normal world. No wonder Sam's messages got increasingly frantic and cryptic. She wasn't losing her mind—she was trying to describe something that defies description.

  "Right," I muttered to myself, straightening my janitor's cap. "Because this couldn't just be embezzlement or a drug ring. It had to be... whatever this is."

  I squared my shoulders and headed for the service entrance around the side. Investigation rule number one: commit to the cover story until you have something better. Even if that means pretending floating luggage is perfectly normal.

  If Sam disappeared into this pce, I'll find her. No matter what kind of rabbit hole this turns out to be. Six months. Whatever they did with her, whoever they are, they've had her for six months too long.

  And I was very, very committed to finding my sister.