Way to be a Beyonder

Eren wondered this not how Klein got his power in novel. "Are you sure I have do this first?" Eren asked. He couldn't remember this part.

Dunn raised an eyebrow. "This is a test we give to all potential Nighthawks. This is a tradition for Seers. A simple, controlled exercise to see if you have the innate spark for the pathway. It's not about how you get the information, only that you do."

Eren nodded slowly. He understood now. It wasn't just a test of power, but of character.

Would he cheat? Would he use some unfair advantage? But what was unfair in a world like this? He was a walking cheat code.

The walk to Weaver Street was a blur. The cold air sharpened his senses, the fog swirling around him like a living thing. He found the pawn shop easily. It was a narrow, dusty storefront, its window crammed with tarnished silver, old clocks, and the sad, glass-eyed stares of taxidermied animals. A small bell chimed as he pushed the door open.

The smell inside was overwhelming—a cocktail of decay, brass polish, and stale tobacco smoke. Behind a counter littered with watches and keys sat Old Neil. He was a bird-like man with a nest of white hair and spectacles perched precariously on the end of his nose. He didn't look up from the pocket watch he was meticulously dissecting with a pair of tiny tweezers.

"Just browsing," Eren mumbled, moving along the counter. His eyes scanned the clutter. There were dozens of lockets. He needed a way to find the right one without arousing suspicion. He couldn't just stand there, staring. He had to act like a normal customer. He pretended to examine a silver cigarette case, his gaze drifting back toward the displays.

Then he saw it. Tucked behind a pile of tarnished forks was a glint of silver. It was a locket, plain and unadorned, and he could just make out the faint shape of a star on its front.

This was it. But how to see the back?

He couldn't ask to see it. That would be too direct. So he resorted to the only tool he had: the memory of a reader. He remembered this scene. It wasn't in the main story, but in a side chapter, a detail about Klein's early days. The locket was a minor artifact, one that caused faint, auditory hallucinations. The engraving on the back wasn't in the text. The author had left it a mystery.

So knowing the story wasn't enough. He had to use the power they thought he had. He closed his eyes for a second, forcing himself to calm down. He pictured the locket in his mind. He focused, not on what he knew, but on what he *might* see. He let the ambient noise of the shop—the ticking of clocks, the distant rumble of a carriage, the old man's faint breathing—wash over him. He was trying to force an epiphany, to conjure a vision out of sheer desperation.

It was useless. He was just a man from Canada with a good memory. He felt a surge of panic. He was about to fail. He would be exposed as a fraud.

Just then, Old Neil sneezed. A violent, shuddering sneeze that made him drop his tweezers. As he bent down to retrieve them, his spectacles tumbled from his nose and clattered onto the floor. With a sigh of irritation, he fumbled for them, his head disappearing below the counter. In that brief, unguarded moment, the entire display was laid bare.

And Eren saw it. The back of the locket. It was flipped over, leaning against a music box. There, engraved in a delicate, flowing script, was a single word: *Anton.* Then, just as quickly, Neil's head reappeared, and the view was blocked.

It was luck. Pure, dumb, narrative luck. But it was all he had. He put the cigarette case down with a quiet click. "Thank you for your time," he said, his voice surprisingly steady.

Neil grunted, not even looking up. Eren walked out of the shop, the bell chiming his departure, and back into the fog-wreathed street. He leaned against the cold brick of the building, his heart pounding. He had the answer.

When he returned to the office, Klein and Dunn were waiting. "Well?" Dunn asked.

"The word," Eren said, looking directly at Klein. "The word on the back is 'Anton'."

He saw it then—a flicker of surprise in Klein's eyes. It wasn't shock, but a subtle shift, a moment of recalibration. Dunn simply nodded, as if he'd expected nothing less.

"You saw it?" Klein asked, his tone neutral.

"I saw," Eren confirmed. He didn't elaborate. Let them wonder how.

Dunn rose and retrieved the velvet box from his desk. He placed it on the polished wood in front of Eren. "Then welcome to the Nighthawks, Eren. This is your key, and your cage. Use it wisely."

The potion sat in the center of the box, a drop of captured night. Eren picked up the vial. The glass was cool to the touch. He uncorked it. The scent was impossible to describe. It was like crushed starlight and the dust of forgotten libraries, like the silence between a lightning flash and the thunder.

Without another word, he tilted his head back and drank. The taste was metallic and bitter, like old blood and liquid regret. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the world dissolved. He wasn't in the office anymore. He was adrift in an endless, starless void. He felt a pull, the same colossal pull from the City of Silver, but now it was inside him. He heard whispers in a language he didn't know but somehow understood, a language of cosmic geometry and dying gods. He saw a symbol, the ouroboros, glowing with a terrifying, internal light.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. He was back in the chair, gasping for air. The office was just an office. Dunn and Klein were just men. But everything had changed. He could feel it, a new hum beneath the surface of reality. He could see the faint, almost invisible aura of spiritual energy around Klein, a shimmer of dark brown and deep grey.

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