The mirror was cracked.
Not from the battle — it had been cracked when he'd found it, propped against the wall of what had once been a magistrate's office in Central's administrative district, abandoned in the evacuation chaos like every other object that couldn't run. He'd kept it specifically because of the crack. It bisected his reflection neatly, left side slightly lower than the right, and he found the effect aesthetically appropriate. Most people, when they looked in mirrors, wanted the unbroken version of themselves. He had never understood that impulse.
"What do you think is going on?"
He addressed his reflection with the patience of a man conducting a seminar for an audience he respected. His voice was conversational, unhurried, carrying the particular quality of someone who had spent decades thinking out loud and found the practice clarifying.
