The mirror's surface rippled like liquid mercury as Lily and Adrian approached. Their joined hands cast doubled shadows in the pendant's light - one set sharp and present, the other ghostly and undefined, as if reaching through time itself.
"Together?" Adrian whispered.
Lily squeezed his hand in response. The pendant blazed brighter as they touched the mirror's surface. Instead of cold glass, it felt like stepping through a warm summer rain.
The viewing room dissolved around them.
They stood in a medieval village square, though everything had a strange, ethereal quality - like a painting rendered in twilight colors. Villagers moved around them, their forms transparent and glowing with a faint inner light. In the center of the square stood a stone well, and beside it...
"That's us," Lily breathed.
Their past selves were solid compared to their surroundings - a young woman in a healer's robes, the pendant new and bright around her neck, and a man in the dark garb of the Order, his hood pushed back to reveal Adrian's familiar features.
"The first time," Adrian said softly. "But something's different. We're seeing more than just our own memories."
He was right. The scene before them held details neither could have known - conversations between villagers about strange lights in the forest, worried whispers about shadow-walkers seen at dusk. And standing in the shadows of a nearby building, watching their past selves with calculating eyes...
"The Magistrate," Lily recognized him instantly, though he looked different here - younger, but somehow more terrifying in his vitality. "He was there from the beginning."
Their past selves seemed oblivious to his presence as they talked by the well, the pendant beginning to glow as their hands touched for the first time. But now, watching from across time, they could see what really happened in that moment.
The Magistrate raised his hands, dark energy gathering around him. The shadows at his feet writhed and stretched toward the well, reaching for the pendant's light. But before they could touch it, something unexpected happened.
The pendant's glow expanded, creating a dome of pure light that encompassed their past selves. And in that light, reality itself seemed to split. Multiple versions of the scene played out simultaneously - in one, the shadows reached them; in another, they escaped; in yet another, they stood their ground and fought.
"Time fragments," Adrian breathed. "The pendant wasn't just protecting us - it was creating alternate paths, different possibilities..."
"But why?" Lily watched as the various versions faded, leaving only the path they remembered - the one where they fled to the sanctuary garden. "Why show us this now?"
Before Adrian could answer, the scene shifted. They found themselves hurtling through time, watching fragments of their past lives flash by - each meeting, each tragedy, each loss. But now they could see what had been hidden before: the Magistrate's presence in every life, manipulating events from the shadows.
"He's been orchestrating it," Lily realized, horror dawning. "All of it. Every time we found each other, every time we were torn apart... it wasn't just hunting us. He was..."
"Testing us." Adrian's voice was tight with anger. "Testing the pendant's power, seeing how it would respond to different types of interference. Learning its limits."
The visions accelerated, bringing them closer to the present. They saw Eva discovering the truth, saw her desperate race to prepare for this moment. And finally, they saw something that made their blood run cold - a possible future, crystal clear in its horror.
The Magistrate stood in the sanctuary garden, holding a corrupted version of the pendant that pulsed with shadow energy. Around him, reality cracked and splintered as he used its power to rewrite time itself. But the cost was catastrophic - the very fabric of existence beginning to unravel as past and present collided.
"That's what Eva saw," Lily whispered. "Why this time has to be different. If he succeeds..."
"Everything ends." Adrian pulled her closer as the vision faded, leaving them back in the viewing room. "Not just us, not just our timeline - everything."
The pendant had grown cold against Lily's skin, as if exhausted by what it had shown them. Above, they could hear commotion in Marcus's shop - shouts and the sound of breaking glass.
"They're here," Adrian said grimly. "But now we know why. It's not just about stopping us anymore. The Magistrate needs us to fail again, needs to study how the pendant responds to loss one final time before he tries to corrupt its power."
"Then we don't give him what he wants." Lily touched the pendant, feeling it warm again at her touch. "We break the pattern. Right here, right now."
Adrian's eyes met hers, and in them she saw the same determination she felt. "How?"
"By understanding what Eva was trying to tell us." Lily looked around at the other mirrors, each showing different fragments of possibility. "The pendant doesn't just show us the past - it shows us paths not taken, choices we could have made differently. And this time..."
"This time we can see them all." Adrian finished her thought. "We can learn from every mistake, every missed opportunity."
The sounds of fighting grew closer. The pendant's light began to pulse in a new rhythm, matching their heartbeats as they stood together in the center of time's reflections.
"We don't run," Lily said firmly. "We don't hide. We stand and fight, but we do it smart this time. We use everything the pendant is showing us."
Adrian smiled - that same smile she'd fallen in love with across centuries. "Together?"
"Together."
The pendant blazed to life just as the door at the top of the stairs burst open. But this time, its light felt different - not just protective, but awakening. This time, they weren't just remembering their past lives - they were learning from them.
This time, as the shadows descended, they were ready.
The ninth life would be different.
The pattern would break.
And the Magistrate would learn that some forces - love, destiny, the power of two souls choosing each other again and again - were stronger than all the shadows in existence.
The real battle was about to begin.