Agastya followed the officer down the dimly lit passage. It was bathed in the cold glow of the Aether-tubes running along the upper stonework, and at the very end of the claustrophobic corridor stood a door.
It was made of solid metal and surprisingly unremarkable—bereft of any ornate carvings or excess. It looked like any other standard office door, save for one distinct detail: two words were etched into the steel in an ancient script.
Agastya's sharp eyes analysed the text. He recognised the alphabet; the letters matched the present language, but the arrangement of the words belonged to a dead tongue. It tugged at his memory, carrying a strange, elusive familiarity, though he could not decipher its meaning.
They paused before the threshold. The officer raised a fist and rapped his knuckles against the metal. Oddly, the impact produced absolutely no sound, as though the heavy door had swallowed the kinetic energy entirely. A moment later, it slowly creaked open on its own.
Inside, the room was dominated by a large window on the opposite wall, spilling pale winter sunlight into the space. A massive mahogany desk sat before the glass, meticulously organised with a few official papers. A polished brass pen stand and two dormant candles resting near the edge.
Between the desk and the window sat a man. His chair was turned away from the door, facing the winter light. He possessed stark black hair and was dressed in immaculate, aristocratic attire—a crisp white shirt beneath a tailored black coat and dark trousers.
"Ah, I see you have brought him," the noble said calmly, his voice a smooth, cultured drawl.
The officer bowed deeply to the man. "Yes, sir," he replied respectfully. "Just as you instructed, I secured him before they could take him."
‘Why am I being treated like an object here?’ Agastya thought.
"Good." The noble stood from his chair and turned to face them. He gazed at Agastya for a long, silent moment, his dark eyes analytically tracing the baker's facial structure.
He raised one eyebrow in deep thought, then relaxed his features.
"You know," the noble drawled smoothly, "if a person looked at you for long enough, they might say you bear a striking resemblance to the infamous Agastya."
Agastya laughed inwardly. ‘Well, I am him, after all.’
"Though," the noble continued, stepping around the desk to stand directly in front of him, "I think you merely possess his likeness. You are not him."
The man started murmuring softly to himself, raising his arm. Agastya saw the hand reaching for him. His assassin's instincts flared, and he tried to step back, but before he could react, the noble's hand shot forward with blinding speed. The man's middle finger tapped sharply directly between Agastya’s eyebrows.
Agastya's eyes widened in shock.
Instantly, his entire consciousness seemed to fly backwards. A tremendous, unseen force ripped him from his physical form. As he tumbled through the air, he looked forward. Standing right where he had just been was his stolen body, frozen completely still like a corpse, trapped mid-flinch.
As he drifted further back, he could see trailing, transparent afterimages of his own trajectory—the physical manifestation of his soul being forcefully evicted.
He turned his spectral head, realising that everything around him had plunged into extreme slow motion. Time itself had ground to a halt.
But the noble was completely unaffected. He looked at the frozen, empty vessel and calmly walked a slow circle around the body, observing it like a normal man inspecting a statue. After completing his circuit, the noble stepped back to the front and, with the same casual precision, tapped the space between the body's eyebrows once more.
Just as the finger made contact, Agastya was violently pulled forward, slamming back into his flesh.
Agastya’s eyes snapped open the second his soul slammed back into his physical flesh.
He fixed a cold, unwavering glare on the nobleman standing before him. "What did you do?" he demanded, entirely devoid of hesitation.
"Nothing of consequence," the noble replied, his tone infuriatingly calm.
He turned his attention away from the baker and looked at the officer. "It appears he underwent an Awakening late last evening. That explains the peculiar Aetheric resonance I detected bleeding from his shop."
"He can sense the Aether. And since you have successfully brought him here..." The noble stepped forward, tapping a single, authoritative finger against the officer’s chest. He leaned in close, bringing his lips near the officer's ear, and murmured a phrase completely inaudible to the assassin.
The officer’s eyes widened in sudden realisation, and he gave a stiff, immediate nod.
Stepping back to adjust his immaculate cuffs, the nobleman added, "I leave his integration entirely in the hands of your team."
"Understood, sir," the officer replied. "That makes two of them."
Agastya narrowed his eyes, his lethal instincts tracking the exchange. "What exactly are you talking about?"
"Is that any way for a humble baker to speak to his patrons?" the officer said. "We are simply offering you employment."
"You are going to join our organisation," the noble stated.
Agastya opened his mouth to refuse. His instincts as a killer screamed that pledging loyalty to an unknown faction was a fatal error.
"Ah—do not bother refusing," the noble interrupted, raising a dismissive hand. He let the heavy silence stretch for a few excruciating moments. "Because, as a newly forged Awakener, you no longer possess the luxury of choice."
The noble looked down at him, his dark eyes entirely devoid of mercy. "You shall join our ranks... or you shall die silently in this room."
Agastya’s gaze hardened, his mind racing through calculations of survival.
The noble's stern expression softened just a fraction, replaced by a smooth, diplomatic mask. "Please, do not think of us as the villains of this narrative," he said easily. "There are certain... anomalies in this world. Things that began happening a few centuries ago."
He waved his hand dismissively. "It is far too long a tale to detail now." He gestured gracefully toward the officer. "He will brief you on the particulars. For now, simply think of us as a clandestine organisation that protects the world from unwanted, unnatural threats."
The noble began to pace slowly across the polished floor. "To put it plainly, you may have heard the rumours. Whispers of people witnessing individuals with supernatural abilities, or inexplicable, violent occurrences—events that are always quickly covered up, dismissed by the press as hoaxes or fabrications."
He stopped, locking his piercing gaze onto Agastya. "These threats are so deeply classified that even the empire's greatest assassin and spy networks are entirely unaware of our existence," he stated, unaware of the bitter irony of his words.
"So, the choice is simple," the nobleman concluded, his voice dropping to a persuasive murmur. "If you join us, you will secure a comfortable, lucrative living for your family in the Upper Ward. You will help save this world... and you will discover truths you never knew existed."
Agastya thought back to the intelligence he had gathered during his previous life as an assassin. He had heard rumours flying around about anomalies like this. They were rare, but they existed.
Furthermore, infiltrating this organisation might give him the answers he desperately needed: the true reason his master had killed him.
He didn't care about saving the world, but he did care about protecting this physical space and the people he had started to call home since the previous night.
He allowed his hardened expression to soften into one of working-class relief.
"Well, I think it is a pretty good deal if I get enough to earn a living for my family and myself in the Upper Ward," he said, perfectly playing the part of a simple, naive baker accepting a lucrative new job.
The man smiled. "A wise decision," he said.
Then, he disappeared as if he had never existed—vanishing without a single sound or a shift in the air.
Agastya's eyes widened in shock. He snapped his gaze toward the officer, who was already watching him with a grim, knowing expression.
"Well," the officer said, his voice cutting through the sudden, heavy silence of the office. "You are going to see a lot more of this type of thing from now on."
He crossed his arms over his chest. "So, prepare yourself."