Chapter One
The Blindfolded Specter
The basement of The Velvet Hook smelled of damp limestone and the kind of cheap
tobacco that stuck to the back of a man's throat for days. It was a room designed for secrets,
tucked three levels below the rain-soaked streets of London's East End. The lighting contrasted
sharply. A single, harsh amber glow of the spotlight fighting against the ink-black shadows of the corners.
Kasra sat on a splintered wooden chair in the centre of a small, raised stage. He looked like
a man who had been carved out of old leather and regret. His skin was the color of dark tea,
his beard was a thick mass of salt-and-pepper, and his hands resting heavily on his knees were
calloused from a life lived on the edges. Though he was only in his early forties, the frequent
Unlatching had accelerated the physical erosion of his frame.
They were looking for a trick.
They didn't know they were watching a man leave the world.
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Every time his soul decoupled, it left his cells in a state of low-power stasis — a
recurring brownout that had weathered his face and silvered his hair long before his time.
Across his eyes, he wore a strip of heavy black silk.
"Silence," Kasra said. His voice was a low, gravelly rasp that cut through the
low-frequency hum of the air conditioner. In the dim light of the single yellow
spotlight, he looked like a statue. The audience — barely twenty people sitting in
the shadows — held their breath.
Kasra took a slow, measured breath. He visualized the "door" at the base of his skull.
To him, the transition felt like a sudden drop in a fast elevator. Snap.
He initiated the Unlatching.
Suddenly, the basement was no longer dark. In his spirit form, the world was rendered
in shades of silver and electric blue. He was hovering five feet above the stage, looking
down at his own slumped body. In this realm, Kasra was a shimmering, blue-tinted blueprint
of himself, vibrating at a frequency higher than the room could hold. Pulsing from his
chest was the Silver Cord — a rhythmic line of mercury light that acted as his data link
to the physical world.
