Inside, the air was thick with incense and something older — beeswax, velvet, the ghost of perfume. A corridor led him past mirrors draped in black cloth. He caught his own reflection in a gap: still himself, but already less.
He whispered it. The slot closed. Bolts turned. eye wide shut
The taxi dropped him at the edge of the old quarter, where the streetlights gave up. He walked the last block alone, over cobbles slick with recent rain, past shuttered windows that seemed to breathe. Inside, the air was thick with incense and