He left the tower carrying the coin and a decision. He could sell the Eye: some collectors, especially those with more money than conscience, paid well for artifacts that bent causality and could be used to nudges fortunes. He could bury it, or he could become someone else’s puppeteer. But beneath the practical calculations, beneath the weight of purse and pawn, something else had lodged in him: curiosity sharpened by the mirror’s view of the world’s small architecture. He wanted to know the pattern.

After a season, a new pattern emerged. The Eye, it seemed, had a blind spot. It liked to show the junctions — the places where chances turned — but it could be misread. Humans, impatient, demanded crisp causal lines: fix this and that will not happen. But most living things were not gears in a clock but rivers with sediment and seasonal quirks. The Eye offered direction; it did not provide guarantees.