I blinked as the words came into focus. My heart raced and I suddenly felt awake and alert. The words bled and then sharpened into focus. I licked my parched lips and read:

  To the Seeker Who Opens These Pages,

  Know this: power is never given freely. What you take from this book, it will take from you in turn. Each word you learn will carve itself into the marrow of your being. Each spell you master will tether you closer to forces that do not forgive ignorance.

  I was once as you are, a wanderer, a seeker of answers in a world that offered none. This book was my lantern in the darkness, and its light burned away everything I thought I knew.

  Take heed of the lines you trace with your thoughts, for they are threads binding you to something vast, something unalive. Knowledge is its own cage, and freedom lies only in the depths of understanding. Turn back if you wish, but know this: the moment you bled, you were seen, Alex.

  - Hollow Tongue -

  I leapt back from the book and slammed it shut. My heart thudded and sweat trickled down my temple. My chest was heaving. Whispers. Whispers had gathered around me. I twitched and looked over both shoulders, but there was only darkness. The whispers grew more frantic. I felt something shift in the darkness behind me. I fell from my chair, backing away desperately until I hit the corner of my room. I sat there, breathless, my eyes wide. I stared around the room, my eyes flicking back and forth frantically. The room was silent. Had there been whispers? I listened carefully but the only thing I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears.

  The book knew my name. It said I had been seen. Where had I heard that phrase before? I thought back to the creepy cinema. That thing with no eyes and that white, grinning mouth. It had said the same thing. I shivered as fear and panic chewed up my spine.

  It took me some time to calm myself. I was sitting, knees hugged to my chest, staring at the book. It had finally revealed itself to me. That meant I could start learning some real magic, right? I could start learning actual spells and gain the power and knowledge I needed to take down the Syndicate. But what was I getting myself into? I didn’t know the origins of the book. I had stumbled across it in a charity shop with my Grandad and brought it on a whim. But what if it wasn’t a whim? What if it wasn’t even my own choice? The Pigeon King even seemed to be frightened of the Codex, so what could I do against it?

  I scrubbed a hand over my face and growled in frustration. Fear still ate at my nerves. I pulled myself to my feet and looked down at the book. I felt sick even being this close to it. It felt like the thing was sucking me towards it. My body quivered as I fought against a sudden wild lust for the book. I wanted to tear it open again and let it... I snarled and slapped the book to the floor. It another moment of petulant rage I kicked the Codex across the room and it skidding into the darkness under my bed. I then threw my journals after it. The room fell silent again. My chest heaved and my fists were clenched so tightly that they shook. I don't know how long I stood there, staring in the darkness under my bed, waiting for something to lunge out and grab me, but eventually I calmed enough to think. Whatever the Codex was, and whatever it meant to be seen by it would have to be another problem for future Alex. Present day Alex didn't need to worry about it. I looked up out the window and saw that night had fully descended. It was time to get to work. When I got back and the sun was up I would deal with the Codex then. Yeah… that was a good idea. It could wait. I’d figure out what to do with it when I got back.

  I geared up carefully, bandaging my damaged ribs and cinching the Tank Beetle armour carrier as tightly as I could to try and keep my broken body together. After that, I pulled on a fresh black hoodie. I was quickly running out of those as well. I put on my leather coat, checked my Wrist Rocket was still in the inside pocket, put a handful of Bang Rocks into my other pocket and strapped Grandad’s bat to my back. I threw one furtive glance at the darkness under my bed, before I crawled out of the window. I was flitting across the rooftops within minutes. I made my way around the usual Syndicate haunts and picked up some activity, but again it was muted. The gangs weren't flaunting what they were doing now, and paranoia and tension were thick in the air. I scaled around the rooftops, moving gingerly, wincing with almost every step and breath, but I gritted my teeth and got on with it.

  First, I went back to the same dilapidated row of houses where I had tracked Goldilocks and his crew when they picked up their drugs. I hung around on the rooftop of the building opposite, peering down at the house. I watched the street, the garages, and the industrial unit for over an hour, and there was no sign of life. There were no cars anywhere, no one going in or out, and no lights. I cursed myself for being naive, how likely was it that they'd still be using the same stash house? They probably had dozens of them all over the Estate and the surrounding area, and they would switch it up frequently. That meant I had to start right from street level and follow the rats back to their hole.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Eventually, I found a group of likely drug dealers in an abandoned children's park. They had set up in the shadows around the jungle gym and the swings. There were four of them. As usual, one was on lookout, one was taking money, one was dealing drugs, and the fourth stood in the darkness, hands inside his jacket, and I was certain, gripping a weapon. That was fine; I wasn't here looking for a fight. Tonight, I needed information.

  I hunkered down on the rooftop, ensuring I was secreted deep within the shadows, away from any prying eyes or cameras, and settled down to watch and wait. I'd been hunched in the shadows so long that my body seemed to reshape and reform itself into a gargoyle. I couldn't even imagine the mental fortitude that would be needed to uncurl my body after this. But fortunately, the cold had numbed me enough that most of my pains were just dull aches in the background. My stomach grumbled continuously at me, reminding me that I hadn't eaten since breakfast with Marilyn, but again I put that out of my mind and focused on the men in front of me. Being hungry wasn't anything new.

  The drug dealing went on all night long and into the early hours of the morning. Fiend after fiend, addict after addict, none of them stopped for long. They were all hurried off quickly. There were no hoods or hats allowed. A few with long coats were patted down and searched. I could hear them protest their innocence, that they weren't "the mage" that seemed to be a name that kept getting repeated. Only once the goons were satisfied that the addicts were clean would they take their money and let them approach. The handoff was quick, with little to no words exchanged, and then the addict shambled off into the night with their fix.

  I saw all sorts of people, every colour, every size, gender, and description you could imagine. They all had one thing in common: pain. Whether it was physical, emotional, or mental, they all carried wounds that they hoped the drugs would dull for one more night. I could relate to that. I watched them approach, scratching and hugging themselves, twitchy and nervous, and then, once they received their drugs, there was almost an elation to their movements as they scurried off into the night. It was a simple life, the life of a drug addict, with only one goal: to get high as often as possible.

  I also paid attention to the dealers themselves. They were older, more serious-looking than the local hoodlums I'd been handling so far. They had that constantly twitchy and uneasy way of being that involved little physical movement but a constant edge of agitation, as if they were ready to run or fight at any given moment. They were dressed far more demure than the local hoodlums. They wore dark clothes, hoods, long jackets, and gloves. These were career criminals, not just bored teens. For them being a criminal was a vocation not just a hobby. They all had the same scowl, the same suspicion in their eyes, the same naked hostility in the way they spoke, and the way they moved. They were somehow predatory and afraid at the same time.

  The man in the shadows was definitely the most dangerous of them, and he seemed to be the one in charge. Every time a decision needed to be made, whether to give a bundled deal to an addict with a bit of cash or whether to give out drugs on tick, the dealer always looked to the man in the shadows. He never verbally gave a response, but he always answered him. He kept his hand tucked in his jacket the entire time, and his eyes were never still. They roamed left and right, up and down, constantly. I noticed, worryingly, that he kept glancing at the rooftops, I’m guessing searching for me. It was no coincidence that they were set up in a spot with open sight lines on approach and no fire escapes in sight. These thugs were learning my strategies and my movements. You had to give it to them, they weren't as stupid as they looked.

  Finally, just as I felt like rigor mortis was setting in, the dealer held up a rucksack and shook it. I couldn't hear what was said between them, but I was sure he was signalling that they were running low. The man in the shadows nodded and then I saw him raise a phone to his ear. It was one of those old-school handheld phones made of plastic. They were so outdated that I'd only ever seen them in old TV shows. He spoke into it quickly, then hung it up and put it back in his pocket. I guess he had called whoever the main stash was.

  “You have been seen,” a disembodied voice whispered in my ear, startling me.

  I lurched backwards, slipping on the gravel on the roof and landing hard. I spun to where the voice had come from, but there was nothing there. I pulled off my hood and looked left and right. There it was again, that disembodied whispering, right on the very edge of my perception. I was unable to understand anything that was being said or where it was coming from, but it was there, wasn't it?

  I sat on the floor, breathing hard, trying to force my heart rate down, craning my head left and right, trying to catch the sound again. But the only sound was the whooshing of the breeze. Is that what I'd heard? I swallowed and quickly pulled my hood back up.

  "I swear I'm losing my mind," I muttered through gritted teeth.

  That's when I saw the blacked-out car pull up. It was a saloon and looked like it was worth more than my entire flat. The driver's side passenger window rolled down, and the man in the shadows walked towards the car. There was a quick conversation. The man in the shadows handed something into the car and was given another backpack. There were one or two final words exchanged, then the window rolled up, and the car began to move off. Damn it, I was in no condition to chase down a car on foot. I took a deep breath and dispelled the ominous feeling weighing on my chest. I sprinted off after the car, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, pursuing it through the spidery lanes of the Mulberry Estate unable to shake the eerie feeling that something was stalking me in the night...