Yeah that’s what qualified him as a catch for sure.
“I’m happy for you. He seems to really like you.”
“Yeah.” I followed the leads she gave me and turned my head accordingly.
“So…” She tightened the grip she had on my hair pulling it back. “Have you kissed yet?”
I jumped and my heart sank to the pit of my stomach, and I swallowed my breath. I heard her laugh behind me.
“Oh, you did? Tell me, spill it.” She dropped my hair against my back.
“He took me to a fountain. I felt like we were the only people there.” My voice almost drifted to where it was just mumbles as I recalled the memory happily.
She snorted a small laugh. “Hold onto him.” She spoke as she resumed working on my hair.
“I plan to.”
“He’s been good for you. You seem bolder, more confident in yourself.” She admitted.
“He said he’d help me face my fears.”
“And how’s that going?” She asked with a few more tugs to my hair.
“Not...perfectly.”
She messed with my hair more. I felt her pinning things up. Then she reached for the new hair clip and stopped.
“Would you want to put it in?”
I got what she was suggesting. To look in a mirror and put the clip in my hair. My heart already raced thinking about it. Juliet continued to reach for the clip, but I put my hand on it first. I wanted to try. I took the clip in my shaking hands and Juliet pulled a vanity mirror from her makeup tote. It was turned backwards so the mirror itself wasn’t showing.
“It’s up to you, Rayne.”
“I. I’ll try...”
She flipped the mirror to me. I looked for just a moment and saw my hair. Two braids sat above my bangs pinned up, and the remainder of my hair was curled and styled framing my face. Juliet had given me some makeup as well. Blue eyeshadow and some rose blush. Or was that just me turning red?
I processed the image and tried to place the clip in my hair, locking eyes with my reflection. After just a few seconds I saw the mirror crack and my shadow turned dark. Panic set in. I began to hyperventilate. I clenched my eyes shut but the images were still in my head. Shattered images of Formless invaded my thoughts. I heard the mirror squeak away, and Juliet hugged me from behind.
“It’s okay Rayne. I put it away. It’s okay...”
I tried to calm down and the visions lessened a bit. The spot where I was going to put the clip came back to my memory. I took the clip, hands still shaking, and put it into place. My heart rate slowed, and a familiar warmth came over me. I felt the similar effect as Lunas’ tiara, a calming enchantment. Had Loic put a spell on this clip, one similar to that?
Eventually, the panic faded. I turned back to Juliet.
“Are you okay?”
“Y…yeah I’m sorry...”
“That’s fine. Here it’s crooked but it looks good. I’ll fix it for you.”
“Thanks, Juliet.”
I smiled at her and she smiled back. Then I heard a knock at the door.
“Your roguish thief has returned, milady.” Loic proclaimed as dramatic as he could muster, even putting in an accent that didn’t suit him. He was just as bad as Juliet.
How did I end up in this theater troupe?
“In a moment,” Juliet answered for me. “Hey Rayne. Have a good time okay and spill all the romantic details later.”
“Sure...”
What did Loic have planned? All of this fancy stuff? I couldn’t even imagine what was running through his head.
Juliet walked out first and held the door open for me.
Loic turned. His expression shifted into an awestruck gaze. I fidgeted with the collar of the dress. What had Juli done? Surely it wasn’t anything I did that got that reaction.
“Rayne. You look beautiful.”
The red in my face surely got brighter, because I felt hotter. He looked handsome as well. A full suit in a similar color to the dress, the gradient of blue was the reverse of the dress going from dark navy at his collar to light blue at his sleeves. The color almost looked similar to his flame aura. His hair rested back against his head, not tied back like it normally was and quaffed in the front, leaving his eyes clear and visible. Those eyes once again captivated me. His left eye the soft brown and his right the golden yellow became the only thing in my focus. The moments our eyes were locked the colors seemed lighter than before. I noticed a few times, but his eyes seemed to shift tones with his emotions, become pastel when he was happy and darker when he was angry. It was cute. This was the brightest I think they had ever been.
He held a single flower in his hand. A white single stem rose that had a bit of a reflective shine to it. I looked at Juliet to see a reaction. She didn’t focus on the rose, I bet he did something so that only I could see the magic glow it had.
“Are you ready, milady?”
“Yeah, I am.”
He took my hand, giving me another look. He brushed his hands along my hair and stopped on the hair comb.
“I knew it would suit you.” He smiled.
“It’s nice.” I broke my gaze from him trying not to look embarrassed.
“I’m glad you like it. It was Mom’s.”
I jumped. Something of his mothers.
“It has a bit more of a glow to it now. That’s new.” He inspected it by poking at it settling it more in place in my hair.
“I put it on myself. I tried to see it in the mirror.”
His eyes widened and he held my shoulders, studying my face. “Are you okay?” His thumb lightly rubbed under my eye. He relaxed a little. “And tell me the truth, don’t you shut down now.”
“Once I put it on, I felt better. Almost like Luna’s tiara.” I dodged the question almost on instinct not giving him a solid yes or no. frankly I still wasn’t sure.
“Hm not really surprising. Mom made both of them.” He smiled.
“She made tiaras?”
“Well from what I remember grandma did. Mom made them with her as a kid. She made this clip first and made that tiara for Isha as a teen. Then it became Luna’s.”
“Are you sure it’s okay I have it.?”
“Yeah, I’m sure she’d want you to have it. She would have liked you.”
He turned to Juliet and bowed.
“Thank you for the aid fair maiden but alas this is where we part. For I have an evening planned for a princess.” Juliet just watched, bemused by Loic’s actions.
“Do you, by chance, have a twin for me?”
“I’m afraid not lass.”
“Loic...Juliet…” I shook my head.
“Sorry. Thanks again, Juliet. I’ll have her back by midnight.”
“You had better! Wouldn’t want that fancy tux of yours to turn back into rags, now would we?”
She laughed and showed herself out.
I raised my eyebrows. “Okay, so what’s with the extra cheese tonight?”
Loic shrugged. “Isha made me. That was the condition for her making a matching tux for me. I had to give you the loving knight treatment.”
“Shakespeare himself is cringing.”
“Oh, really now. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black there.”
“So, what do we have planned tonight?”
“You'll see. It does involve dancing. There’s a lake from my childhood that would be perfect.
It sounded like he had a plan. A lake from his...childhood? Wait, his home was in Mirror Image. He turned to lead me out. I stopped him, refusing to move.
“Loic....I can’t go to Mirror Image... I’m...me. Wouldn’t that cause problems?”
He turned to face me again.
“I’ve taken that into account. Thankfully we have hidden my childhood farm from Rakesh.”
“Are you sure? How do you know it will be okay?”
He brushed his fingers along my cheek. “I’ll protect you. Trust me,
Rayne.”
“I-I do.”
“Then follow me.”
Loic took me to the fire escape, helping me with the dress. Then he hugged me close to his chest, blocking my vision.
“Hold on tight Rayne. Close your eyes if you need to. But whatever you do, don’t let go.”
He held me tight, and I closed my eyes. I felt weightless for a moment then we fell backward. The falling feeling seemed to last only a second. The next thing I knew was feeling pressure around me. I opened my eyes. We were in the in-between. Loic held me tighter and kicked his feet to swim up. It wasn’t long until I saw a starlit sky over me. He pulled me up. I looked down and saw a large pool of silver liquid. We were both dry as a bone.
“There, no harm done.” He smiled.
I looked around, searching for any signs of trouble. Around us was flat grassland with a one-story farmhouse. The walls looked like it was made from polished stones that looked almost like river rocks with a beige wood roof. The door looked like it was made from a similar wood and had six small windows in the arch. To one side surrounded with a wooden fence. What looked like 30 feet from the opposite side of the house was a large clear lake. The space between the water was a bright green well-kept meadow with a few white, blue and purple flowers scattered around. The lake itself was dark, reflecting the sky above us, dark and filled with stars. You didn’t see these stars in the city. The water was still and dark, only showing the specks of light from the stars. I was surprised to be able to see as much as I could, but the moon had decided to peek out from behind the trees of a forest barely visible in the distance. So far, the only light was the outline of the tree line. Within maybe ten minutes the moon might have been over head. It was silent around us. Peaceful. I was still nervous but Loic looked at me and sighed.
“You’re safe here princess. That I can promise.”
“Can you? I thought my home was safe, and then a Formless showed up.”
“Your home doesn’t have a barrier like this. It hasn’t changed since Mom put it up. She did something to make it last after her death. I’m pretty sure it’s even the same air.” He inhaled a big breath and I glared at him poking a huge hole in his statement. He scratched his head and chuckled brushing off the sarcasm in his tone. “Don’t worry Rayne, this is safe.”
“Okay. If you say so.”
“Now on to our dance. Come.”
He led me along to the water’s edge
“Remember what I told you about channeling aura to a point on your body?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, watch this.” He concentrated, and the souls of his dress shoes began to glow with his aura. Loic stepped into the water and a large lily pad rose from its surface and rested under his feet. He followed with his other foot. The two leaves held him up above the water’s surface.
“What? How?” How was he walking on water? This was a new level of magical shock to me. How of all things did he expect me to do that!?
“These plants were brought here by some glass wing butterflies. They are attracted to magic and very strong. I used to do this as a kid all the time.”
“Is it safe?”
He rolled his eyes. “Rayne, I’m heavier than you are. You’ll be fine. Just focus your aura to your feet like I showed you. Here I’ll start you off.”
He took both of my hands and pull me to him. I stood on his lily pads and he held me steady. I focused my aura and stepped back off of the lily pad. Another one appeared to catch me.
“See? Great, isn’t it?”
Loic stood with one hand behind his back and another extended out to me. He tapped a small music player that was in his breast pocket. It played a slow song. The song sounded like a ballad that was played only by a harp and violin.
“May I have this dance, miss?”
“Of course.” I smiled putting as many of my nerves aside as I could. How was I going to do this? How, how?
I sighed, I needed to erase this from my head. Erase how from my mind and just do it.
I watched him and followed his feet. Eventually, there were no distractions just us and our dance.
One two three. One two three.
His gold and brown eyes stared at me as if I was made of gold. One hand rested on my hip and the other laced in my hand. I closed my eyes and laid my head on his chest, the bass of the music thumping through my head. Then the speed picked up, and I was able to match him step for step. Happiness and warmth grew from my core throughout my whole body. Specks of light surrounded us. The firefly lights from Isha’s lesson a while back. Was I making these or was Loic?
I looked back at him, and his smile grew brighter. The song picked up again, I still followed, not letting my gaze release his eyes. He spun me around him, and the lilies followed perfectly. I spun around him completely. He pulled me close to him again and dipped me, giving me a big kiss that stole the last of my breath. As he righted me, I stared up at the moon, breaking free from the few clouds that covered the stars. I was mesmerized by it.
Soon that mesmerized feeling shifted to a compulsion to stare at the light. My body heated up from the core, and I suddenly felt sick. The firefly lights died, falling into the water like falling stars before going out. Something was wrong.
I stood back up and backed away from Loic, taking a few steps to breathe. The lilies still held me up. I froze facing him and I tried to focus on something. He seemed surprised at first, then concerned.
“Rayne?”
The feeling lingered over me and I turned upwards to look at the sky.
The full moon filled the lake with light. My body went numb. The lilies at my feet shifted, and the large leaves wrapped around my ankles. My body was a furnace, but I couldn’t do anything about it. The moon held me. More lilies rose from the lake and wrapped around me, pulling me under.
“Rayne!” Loic yelled.
The water consumed me. I reached up trying to break the waters hold on me. Terror strangled me, cutting off any attempts to call out to Loic again. I needed to swim I needed to get back up. Despite all of my struggling I was pulled down into the dark water. My energy felt like it was being drained and I could hardly struggle any further. I mustered the energy to open my eyes and see what was happening around me. I was in a place similar to the in-between, but this felt different. The feeling was different, and it was darker, there was now only one point of light under me, everything else was pitch black where the in-between looked more like blue ocean water. The atmosphere was lighter. I saw something getting closer to me.
At first, it was an amorphous red and gold. Then the shape became clear. It was a mirror with a blood red surface.
A blood red mirror.
The pulse returned accompanied by the voice. Instead of being calm, like it usually was, the voice was frantic.
‘no, no cant destroy, it’ll destroy!’ the voice started the pulse got stronger almost like a physical punch to my chest. ‘paradox no we can’t! We can’t!’ the voice screamed inside my head.
Paradox? I looked at the mirror below me again and with one more warning pulse my heart sank into my gut. I opened my mouth taking in water as I panicked.
I now knew what that was.
The Night Mirror!
I couldn’t be here. Anywhere but here! If the mirror stone inside me met with that mirror the worlds would paradox into each other. I struggled trying to pull the lily pads off my legs as they dragged me down and looked again. This time I saw someone standing in front of the mirror. I didn’t recognize this man, yet I felt fear in my heart.
I had to get out of here. I opened my mouth to call for help, but all I got was a mouthful of water. I felt a tug from above me and looked to see Loic cutting the plants off of me. He swam around me cutting from new angles and trying to pull me back up as he did. I tried to help him, using my arms to continually swim upwards as he cut. After a few passes, he got me free and grabbed me, swimming back up to the surface.
H
e pulled me up to the shore and sat me on my side as I spat out water. He looked at my face as he caught his own breath. He didn’t take his eyes off of me, his eyebrows downturned and his hair stuck against his face.
“Rayne, Are you okay.”
I gagged and looked at him. My heart raced nonstop. I couldn’t breathe, think or even cry. I was at a loss of how to process anything that just happened.
“I... no...no…this isn’t good.” I wanted to say I was fine but lying to either of us wasn’t going to help anything.
I moved my hands over me double checking that I was still intact. I was surprisingly still put together, the dress held strong and even his mother’s hairclip was still attached to me, although it had fallen further from where it was originally placed. The only thing that was missing was the necklace Loic had given me. My panic overwrote my feeling for the necklace. I figured I’d be upset about it later. The feelings about what happened kept buzzing around my head.
What happened? I didn’t know what had happened, but I knew I had to talk to the Light Weavers.
“Loic I have to talk to the Light Weavers.”
“Let’s get you dried off and—” He took off his jacket and seemed lighter and faster, as if the jacket took on most of the water weight.
“No Loic. I need to talk to them now.” I looked at him and he froze.
I caught him looking over to the farmhouse and back to me, maybe hoping he could convince me to follow him. A part of me wanted to but the other half screamed that I needed to do this. I couldn’t hide from what had just happened.
“Rayne you’re safe in this bubble from Rakesh, but to take you to the Light Weavers in your own body? That’s risky. Come on.” He held onto my arm.
He went to stand, and I stopped him. Our eyes met and I felt tears filling my eyes, but I held my gaze on him, trying to remain determined. Tears ran down my face and I tasted the salt as a few drops hit my mouth. I held my expression firm, begging him to listen and, in turn, he held his expression as well begging me with just as much to follow him instead.
Glass Souls (Reflection Book 1) Page 40