Shuren took another drag from her cigarette, keeping the smoke inside her lungs a fraction longer than she needed to.

  As she exhaled a thin stream of smoke from the cigarette, she tilted her head slightly and used a lazy flick of her fingers to guide it into lazy spiraling shapes as she exhaled the cigarette smoke.

  It looked almost playful.

  "Zheng Yan's location might be outside the Curtain."she said at last, her voice calm, detached,

  Assad's eyes focused on her right away.

  'Outside… the Curtain?' repeated the words, carefully, as if saying this too loudly might cause someone or something to listen.

  Shuren glanced at him sideways, and the embers of her cigarette flickered softly. "That's right."

  She took another slow step forward, and her foot crushed the cigarette under her boot in deliberate motion.

  "If that's true, then this case does not stay local. It means we're taking a trip outside," she continued,

  Her eyes rose, piercing and unblinking.

  Shuren shifted slightly, already moving in advance of the idea she had just thought of.

  "Taura will come with us and you're just going to be in the support role." she said casually, as if assigning guard duty instead of stepping past a boundary most people never even learned existed.

  Taura stiffened when she heard her name, but she made no objection. She merely nodded once.

  "Assad will be coming too."

  This time, Assad did not

  He didn't blink.

  For an instant, his mind blocked out all sound. He heard the words, all right, but they didn't register. They lingered at the boundary of incredulity and rejection.

  'Me?'

  She stopped walking, not needing to explain her behavior, and simply tilted her head to look at him. Assad did not make a comment and didn't even blink. For a moment, his mind simply stopped functioning. The words reached him but didn't burrow in. They seemed suspended between incredulity and instinctive rejection.

  "…You're serious," he said finally.

  Shuren didn't respond and just stared.

  "I take that as settled," she said flatly.

  She looked away from Assad as if the matter were already closed. She addressed herself to Taura.

  "Get the car ready."

  Taura snapped upright in a flash. "Aye, ma'am."

  "We leave in fifteen minutes,the destination, Zheng Yan's mansion." Shuren continued.

  Mya's breath caught. Pixia's fingers stilled over her terminal. Taura even hesitated half a second, then nodded and went. Assad finally breathed.

  "Wait, you're telling me we're just… going there?" he said; it slipped out before he could catch it.

  Shuren didn't slow down as she walked by him.

  "Yes."

  The car left the city without any announcement. The road got smaller, and then it didn't exist anymore, with asphalt turning into packed earth and rocks. Nonetheless, Taura did not slow down. The car seemed to know its destination.

  Nobody spoke inside the car.

  Mya sat upright in the backseat, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes fixed straight ahead, as if moving her gaze might shatter something delicate. Taura's hands stayed firmly on the wheel, her posture loose, her gaze tight and unyielding, her concentration unswerving. Shuren lounged back in the passenger seat, her elbow resting on the windowsill, a cigarette forgotten between her fingers, smoke drifting lazily upwards towards the ceiling.

  Assad stood watching the darkness envelop the road forward.

  The silence pressed against his ears until it was unbearable.

  "What is the Curtain?"

  No one said a word,the car continued moving and the engine was humming. Shuren did not even bother to look around.

  "I'm not explaining it," she said calmly.

  Assad's jaw clenched tightly

  "…Then why bring it up at all? Why is it something that can't even be talked about?" he asked, irritation creeping into his tone despite his valiant efforts to prevent it.

  Shuren finally let out a breath, a slow and deliberate process. Instead of answering the question, she raised her hand and pointed behind herself.

  "Look

  Assad frowned, and then he leaned around in his seat to look out the rear window. That's not possible, as there was nothing in the rear, just the rest of the open clear green field of grass that surrounded this area. That left Assad slightly confused as to what Shuren meant by pointing him in this direction

  "There's nothing there," he said.

  "That's right," replied Shuren

  Her tone had not changed.

  "There's a massive wall surrounding Kurayamiya," she went on to say. "You can't see it. You can't touch it. You can't map it."

  She took a second puff from her cigarette.

  "It's called the Glass Curtain."

  Assad looked back at her slowly, his confusion etched on his spine.

  "A wall?" he repeated. "But—

  "That's why you couldn't see it from the inside and that's why no one outside can see Kurayamiya either."Shuren cut in.

  Finally, she looked at him.

  Her gaze was unwavering.

  "Transparent from both sides.Perfect isolation."she said.

  Mya took a soft breath. Assad looked ahead again, his pulse racing.

  The drive continued.No one spoke after that.The car moved forward in a space that was disconnected, or away, from the rest of the world, as if they were no longer going to some place, but away from all other places.

  Mya huddled in upon herself slightly, her shoulders tensed. Taura's hold on the wheel had never wavered. Shuren finished her cigarette, opened a window just enough to dispose of the ember, and let the silence return and then slowly the shape of something emerged ahead

  At first, it seemed to be a mistake in the darkness, the car slowed down. They all stared at the massive building in front of them.

  A mansion emerged out of the gloom, its silhouette jagged against the blackness of the sky. Its walls were stained black with age and humidity, and ivy crawled across the cracked stones. Some of its windows were smashed out, while others were unbroken but opaque and reflected nothing.

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  Mya leaned in closer to the seat, breathing shallowly.

  Assad felt it then, a cold, crawling sensation at the base of his spine. A feeling that told him this wasn't merely a dangerous location.

  Taura came to a stop just outside the gates. The engine was running in neutral, the hum of it echoing through the silence as it seemed far too loud.

  Shuren went out first, looking up at the mansion as she stepped out, and breathed out slowly.

  "So, we're here." she said quietly, as if to the building itself.

  Assad got out of the car next, wanting to get a closer look at the very weird mansion that was before them. He then looked behind him, the setting is good for an abandoned mansion.

  The forest looked dead itself but the strange part was the annoying feeling that he was getting.

  "This place isn't abandoned," Assad said softly.

  Shuren moved forward without hesitation. Her boots crunched softly on gravel unused for years. Her head cocked to one side, she considered the structure with the same detached interest she reserved for battlefields and the dead.

  "Who knows, maybe it's trying to make you believe that it isn't." Shuren said.

  Taura switched off the engine.

  The ensuing silence was immediate, total, and profound, so thick with stillness that Mya became intensely aware of her own breathing. She tried to control her breathing, her fingers digging into her sleeves.

  "Eveyone be on your guard, we do not have a clue on what we are dealing with here."

  Taura immediately nodded, preparing herself for whatever is about to come rushing at her. Mya was behind the shaking because the atmosphere was too much for her, wanting to run away.

  Assad, still confused, didn't answer and only watched. Shuren was the first to enter the yard, her gun was in hand and ready to fire whenever danger erupts. Taura entered next and was followed by Assad. Mya was too scared to move so she just stood there.

  "This is very creepy if you ask me." Taura randomly blared out.

  "Are you seriously stating the obvious right now?" Assad asked.

  "Shut up!"

  Shuren took three steps forward before noticing. She shifted slightly and gazed back over her shoulder. Taura was stationed by the driver's side, her hand close to her blaster, her stance tense and ready.

  Assad stood near the rear of the vehicle, his eyes tracing the tops of the upper windows, his jaw resolute. Mya, however, hadn't moved at all. She was still standing next to the open door, her hand gripping the frame with such force that her knuckles turned pale.

  Her eyes were focused on the mansion, her gaze wide and glassy, her breathing shallow and irregular, as if the mansion had reached into her chest, its hands closing around her lungs.

  Shuren looked at her for a moment.

  "…Mya," she said.

  Shuren clicked her tongue lightly and blew out through her nose. The bridge of her nose was pinched, and irritation flared across her face before being buried beneath her composure.

  "So that's how it is."

  She fully turned back towards the car.

  Mya flinched, as if the word itself had struck her.

  Shuren's eyes moved on to Taura. "You're on the perimeter. Watch the windows and the tree line. If anything moves that shouldn't, you act."

  Taura nodded once. "Understood."

  Her gaze then fell upon Assad.

  "You do not follow me inside."" Shuren continued, already walking again,

  Assad stiffened. "What? You can't be serious—"

  "That wasn't a suggestion,you guard the outside. Both of you. If I don't come back out you leave."Shuren cut in without slowing.

  She stood still at the threshold of the door.

  Assad's lips drew in. "You expect us to simply—"

  "Yes."

  Shuren's foot had hardly touched the floor before she froze.

  Her eyes widened.

  She saw the interior of the mansion in its quiet and overwhelming splendor. She saw polished marble floors stretching out before her, uncracked and gleaming in the soft light of the recessed lighting.

  There were tall pillars at the entrance hall, carved with detailed and archaic designs, and these were pristine, untainted by the passage of time. There were also crystal chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling, each one refracting light as if breaking into a kaleidoscope on the walls.

  It was… beautiful.

  Not in an overdone and gaudy way, but rather in a way that a mansion ought to have.

  Shuren blinked once, then twice.

  "…

  Her boots rang out clearly as she moved forward, the sound crisp in the perfect silence. Even the air seemed changed, warm and aromatic, scented with wood and a light floral bouquet.

  Her eyes darted back to the doors she had just passed through.

  Ugly on the outside. Rotting stone. Broken windows. Crawling ivy. A corpse of a building.

  And this?

  This was a palace.

  'So that's the trick'

  "Luxury behind a corpse. Figures," she muttered under her breath.

  His voice was quiet, but it cut through the air-threaded through the mansion like some kind of summons sewn into the very walls.

  A moment later, the door behind him swung silently open.

  Mischa came in with her steps neat and measured, stopping well away from them. She bowed to her waist, one hand over her chest, her face composed and inscrutable.

  "You called, Young Master?"

  Smiling, Zheng Yan leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled loosely in front of him.

  "We have a guest," he said lightly.

  Mischa's eyes flickered—just

  "A guest… here?" She said this, although her voice was still steady.

  "Yes." His eyes have sharpened, sparkling with intereset. "And not an ordinary one."

  He was cocking his head on one side to listen with something far more finely tuned than his ears.

  "Make sure she feels… welcome."

  Mischa understood immediately. Again, she bowed, slightly lower this time.

  "Naturally, Young Master. I will treat our guest very well."

  Zheng Yan's smile grew even wider.

  "Good. After all…It would be rude to let her wander my home alone."