Glass Souls (Reflection Book 1)

by Clairisa Campbell

  Loic didn't say a word. Instead, Chase spoke up.

  "Maybe she thought you were able to do something she couldn't do.” He rubbed his chin and stared into his unlit pipe for a moment. “I'll look into it, but Rayne, we’ve kept you here long enough. You can go home if you'd like."

  Everything inside of me began to feel warm and a smile formed on my face.

  "Really?"

  He chuckled. "Yes. As I said, you weren't a prisoner. Loic, I do want you to stay by her. I’d do it, but I can’t leave this place as you know.”

  He couldn’t leave? Why not?

  Loic shrugged. "Right, fine. I did say I'd protect you.” He put his hands in his pockets. “So, what shall we tell your friend?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "How are you going to explain me to her? Will I pretend to be a relative?” Loic scratched his head. “No, there’s no resemblance.” Then he gave a sly smile. “Hmmm, maybe I could pretend to be your 'by the hour gentleman of the evening'."

  "No!" I turned red.

  No way I was going to say he was…that…no. I had issues paying for someone to make me coffee, feeling like I was being demanding. No one would believe that I would pay to have some guy to hang out with me, or anything else. Juliet would see right through it, or worse she would believe it and somehow encourage it more. Anything to get me into a relationship of some kind.

  Chase laughed behind us. "Can't we just say you're dating and call it a night? That way if you mysteriously vanish, we can say you did something wrong."

  Loic chucked. "Yeah, you mess up, I promise I'll keep your nose clean princess."

  Chase shoved him. " ho s’taht ynnuf yllis yob. I was talking about you Loic."

  I started to laugh as Loic's face became perplexed.

  "What?"

  "You have a talent for causing chaos, so to speak. Rayne, feel free to punish him if the occasion arises."

  I smiled despite myself. Loic scowled.

  "Not cool, old man. So not cool."

  Chase raised his hand to shoo us away as he turned his chair around.

  "Now, you kids be careful. As far as your concerned Loic she is essentially the princess so protect her like so. Be appropriate, Loic. Just get her home and we can figure out where to go from there."

  Be appropriate? My face flushed further. Would Loic even be tempted to try anything else with me?

  "You have no faith in me do you, Chase?"

  "Not a single ounce of it."

  "Well, that's nice. I hate you; you know that old man?"

  "I'm well aware of it. That is why I love sharpening my wit on that rock-hard skull of yours." Chase laughed as he waved to shoo us away again.

  Loic turned away from Chase's desk and pushed me out of the room. He shifted his hair out of his eyes and looked at me.

  "All right. Stick close then. I’ll call the ferryman. Formless are more likely to attack us outside of the shield. The moment we get to the city we go to the nearest café."

  "Why?"

  He grimaced. "Cause if I don't get some coffee to preoccupy me, I might go back and strangle Chase."

  I grinned. So exactly like Juliet, except replace Chase with a teacher or random cat caller monster of the week.

  Loic picked up his pace and I followed him, seeing how tense he was.

  "Oh, he was just having fun," I said.

  "Some fun. Saying you'll really...” He paused and scratched his nose, breaking eye contact with me. “Never mind."

  "Hmm?" I glared at him wanting him to finish. He met my eyes again, and his shoulders shifted as he turned to fully face me, putting his hands in his pockets. He continued to talk while walking backward.

  "Like you could really punish me," He laughed like it was a joke.

  I fidgeted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Come on, you couldn't get the better of me." He shrugged and smirked.

  I looked down. "Maybe you're right..."

  He seemed confused. He stopped and looked at me, tilting his head. "No comeback? You had the perfect shot."

  Could I take down Loic? I was really powerful. What did that even mean?

  "I-I don't know.”

  “Okay.” He said with a slide in his voice. “I was only joking. You know that right?”

  “Sorry.” I coughed. “It’s just that, finding everything out there is kind of hitting me now.”

  Not long ago, I was just some American nobody with no clue on how to pass my art program. Let alone have any idea that another world existed where her life was linked to a princess. Thinking about it made it sound more farfetched than it really was, but there was no way I could deny it now.

  I had just been shot, woke up as another girl in a strange world, rode on the back of a fiber optic dragon horse, and had been nearly eaten by a monster born from human sin. Not to mention, also being saved by an otherworldly warrior.

  Looking at Loic, you wouldn't be able to see anything really otherworldly about him. Maybe his eyes at most, because the mismatched brown and gold colors were strange and rather hypnotic in a way.

  “Princess stop staring. You might walk into the sea and drown.”

  I jolted. “Was I staring?”

  “Yes, and before you ask, I was born with brown eyes. Sometimes when magic users get to a certain mastery of the art physical changes appear. My eyes changed colors, and Luna’s hair turned white. When she unlocked her Light Weaver potential, one of her eyes turned red. That simple. Now let’s get going.”

  He kept moving, and I returned to my thoughts.

  Loic looked normal otherwise. So, I guess magic did explain it. Even his build, while being really fit, a term from my anatomy textbook popped in my head, Mesomorph? Athletic, rectangular-shaped, well defined, he fit the type. yeah wasn't strange in any way. It was just right.

  Even though he caught me staring, Loic continued, turning back around so he walked forward. He only glanced back to me a few times with a small smile on his face and continued to talk about the topic at hand.

  “You know, it is odd. I didn't know that Luna was keeping secrets. I had known her all her life. To think she didn't even tell me that she was protecting you?"

  "Are you okay, now? I mean, talking about it seems to hurt you."

  Loic stopped in his tracks again. "Yeah, I’m all right. I know I miss her, and I regret what happened, but it's not like I'm that upset about her hiding this from me. I'm more upset that it came down to that at all.”

  "What do you mean?"

  He sighed. “I should have realized something was wrong. We…me, Chase, and Isha…the king as well. We should have looked into her having a connection to start with. We should have been protecting both of you sooner. We never even looked for Lunas' Original. It wasn't important at the time. Now, because of that, Luna took it upon herself to protect you and look where it got her."

  He was silent for a while. His eyes darkened. Something inside of me was telling me to do something, to say something, anything. I reached out to try and comfort him. He gently took my hand, the connection warm and sure.

  "Come on, let's drop it. I'll buy us both coffee. Besides, I still owe you that extra special one for saving my ass." He held on to my hand and kept walking. I thought about everything and I blinked, seeing flashes of something in my mind.

  I saw an old page of a journal where I wrote the ghost girl. Is that what I saw in a mirror?

  I stopped, letting my swirling thoughts settle into a manageable stream. Loic stopped too. I focused on the memories. Were they from my childhood?

  One memory was very clear. The shape of a figure in fog with a peach and white color. I trembled at seeing this shape, then I heard crying and words appeared backwards through the fog. I wasn't sure what it said. The memory faded before I could read it.

  "Hey, why did you stop?" Loic jostled my hand. “Are you okay?”

  I snapped back to reality. I didn't want to add any more to
his burden, so I just looked at him and smiled.

  "I’m fine. Just thinking about our next stop and the coffee”

  “Ah.” He smiled. “What’ll it be?”

  “Could mine be a café Miel?"

  Loic smiled and rolled his eyes, "Sure, whatever you want, Princess.

  SEVEN

  ♦

  Together

  I FOLLOWED LOIC DOWN through the museum lobby. He opened the large double doors near the base of the stairs. Opening the doors. We were greeted with a blast of the warm Italian summer air. The salt from the lagoon was in the air as well. The clear summer day was a welcome sight from dusty old buildings and dark forests of death, I had never been one for outdoor activities, but this was a welcome sight. Feeling the warmth on my skin after what felt like so long felt wonderful. I spun taking not only the sunlight but the view around me as well. From the outside, the building was old and run down. A long stone building stretched far passed the size of the lobby, or even all of the rooms I had seen for that matter, the difference from the inside was striking. The building itself was intimidating. Considering the history this island, Lazzaretto nuovo, had as a military base and quarantine island it would be expected that this place had an eerie vibe to it. I could only imagine how many were laid to rest here, even before Chase and Loic got here. Outside of that was a huge stone wall that surrounded what looked like most of the dry land of the island, everything outside of it look soggy and flat. There were a few other small buildings along the front of the wall, but they looked like they had been beaten and scarred with the same black scratches that the houses of Mirror image suffered. Formless marks. Inside the shield, down a dirt path marked with stones at the edges, there were also plants surrounding a small pond with lily pads and larger white lotus flowers. Other blackened and scarred bushes and trees also stood out around the building, dried and nearly dead looking.

  Around us, there was a slight dome shape. It covered the entire building, similar to the one around Isha’s home. A nearly invisible outline that created the blurred boundary between us and the rest of the world.

  Loic stopped and placed his hand on part of the dome like it was a solid wall floating ahead of him. Then he opened a door in the shield.

  “Come now Rayne! This ferry won’t wait long.”

  I hurried behind him through the opening. It closed behind us, making the museum look blurred and obscured. I wondered if the building was completely invisible to other people.

  We kept going down the dirt path and we got to the old wall, that after looking in the distance seemed to cover a main majority of the island, not fully a square with the museum building in the center, remains of when it was a fort perhaps. The wall itself looked like it wasn’t made from all the same stone, some newer bricks patched holes in a few areas and the old stone around those was burnt slightly. Figures that a structure that was in place since medieval times could be so easily damaged by those things.

  Not far passed that, there was a dock with a few boats secure. But they looked like they hadn’t been used in a very long time.

  “So, did people come here once?” I asked.

  “Once yeah, but the place has gotten a reputation for mysterious deaths. You can thank Formless for that.”

  “If there are no people here normally, why would the Formless come here? Don’t they feed on humans?”

  “I would guess for us.” He spat. “Chase and me. The Formless have been here longer than I have.”

  “So, when did you two get here?”

  “Not long after the attack.” The pained expression and bent posture returned.

  “Sorry…” I rubbed my arms and looked away from him. “I didn’t mean to bring it up again.”

  “It’s fine. Just an honest question. To be honest its almost easier to talk about now.”

  “How so?”

  “Because I finally have an answer. The Light Weavers made it clear.”

  “About me being me?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know why, but it lifted the weight just a little. Yeah, it hurts but I can start to move on. I’ve held the loss in longer then Isha in a way. She’ll never get over the grief, but she’s accepted it in a way. I never understood how.”

  “Did Chase tell her what the Light Weavers said?”

  “Yeah. I went with him when he told her.” He chuckled. “When we get on the ferry remind me to show you something.”

  “Um, okay.” I’d had enough surprises for a lifetime.

  He turned back to me and stopped me by lightly grasping my good shoulder.

  “This trip back is going to take about an hour or so. Why don’t you call your friend and after that I can try to answer any questions you still have left.”

  I tilted my head. “Any restrictions?”

  “Well there are some personal matters I won’t address but anything about Mirror Image would be okay. Like it or not, you’re a part of that world now so you might as well learn more about it.” He smiled and patted my head before turning around.

  Any questions I had… But I had so many!

  The interactions from the in between came to mind, but should I ask about them yet?

  “Thgin Rorrim.” I whispered, Loic stopped dead in his tracks.

  He heard me.

  “Now where did you hear that, Princess?” His tone seemed like a warning.

  “The…the in-between.” I blurted. “I’ve heard it a few times now.”

  “Do you know where it came from?” He didn’t turn my way when he spoke.

  I was planning to say the shadow but a pulse in my chest stole my words. That pulse evolved into a feeling like a warm set of arms wrapping around me. Like a woman holding me back and covering my mouth, a woman I couldn’t see but I could feel.

  “I. I’m not sure.” I managed to say, and the pulse vanished.

  Was I not supposed to mention that after all? What was happening to me?

  “Well, that is an interesting topic to just hear about at random.” He brushed his hair back like he seemed to do when he was feeling overwhelmed.

  I bit my lip. “What does it mean at least?”

  He turned and drew close to me his eyebrows squeezed together, and his eyes narrowed slightly. He bit the edge of his bottom lip as he watched me. I felt the heat from his gaze and with him standing so close to me now I could feel the heat coming off of him as well. I felt Loic’s breath as he whispered the answer to me. “Night Mirror.”

  Night Mirror? I wondered what that was. Loic backed away and studied me.

  “That might be something to ask Chase about.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “Only that it’s tied to our curse.”

  The Light Weavers’ warning came back to mind. Rakesh was looking for something I apparently had. The shadow was looking for this Night Mirror. Was all of this connected?

  “You’re right. I’ll ask Chase later.”

  He turned and kept walking without saying anything else on the subject.

  We approached the dock. A man waited for us with a ferry docked behind him.

  “oy nellav, uoy tnevah dellac em ni a elihw.” The man spoke backwards.

  “haey, haey, siht eno tanc levart hguorht srorrim.” Loic mentioned pointing back to me.

  “If you’re going to mention me at least speak English.” I barked, trying not to growl at him.

  “Woah, calm your heels there, Princess.” Loic raised his hands. “I only mentioned you can’t travel through mirrors. The ferryman doesn’t get called often so he was wondering why the sudden change.”

  The man came up to me and bowed his head. He was a larger man, almost looking like you’d expect a sea captain to look like. Trying to think of a reference the only thing that came to mind was a pudgy captain Ahab, dark hair with matching goatee and muttonchops that rose against his cheekbones slightly as he smiled at us.

  “He speaks the truth lass; he didn’t say anyth
ing bad…”

  He took my hand and kissed the top of it. “Well not yet anyway.” He added, following his statement with a hearty almost Santa-like laugh.

  Loic’s face tightened and he gritted his teeth. “tuhs ruoy htuom uoy dratsab.”

  “Ai, I meant no ill will child.” He backed up, giving Loic a pat on his head. “Well let’s get a move on then. Chasey told me you’ve been cooped up here long enough, lass.”

  “Chasey?” I couldn’t imagine referring to Chase like that.

  “I’m the one that called you.” Loic spat.

  The man tapped himself on the head, seeing that he had made a mistake. “Yeah that’s right, you did boy. You’re starting to sound like him these days.”

  Loic rolled his eyes and turned away. I saw Chase and Loic as different people, but I could see that father and son vibe. What the man was saying made a little sense to me.

  “Let’s just go.” Loic exhaled and looked to me.

  We boarded the ferry, it looked like a small privately-owned boat. Just enough space for a few people and the captain up front in the enclosed white and blue cabin. Nothing like the commercial ferries I had seen before. We found spots near the rails and started on our journey. I knew the island was a good distance away from Venice, about an hour or so, but I didn’t stress about it too much after all I’d get to see more of the Venetian lagoon, that would be peaceful until we stopped at the terminal. I wasn’t entirely familiar with the far eastern part of the city. My apartment and school were conveniently in the similar area at the west side, so I had gotten to know that area the best.

  Settling near the railing, I pulled out my phone to call Juliet. Within two rings she answered.

  “Rayne, how are you feeling?” she chimed without missing a beat or even saying Hi.

  “Better. I’m actually on my way back.”

  “Wait, really? Where are you?”

  “On a ferry.”

  “Hmmm. You’re not, alone are you? Do you know where it’s taking you?”

  “I’m not alone, and I’ll find my way.”