Amid Wind and Stone

by Nicole Luiken

  Behind the mirror lies your otherself…

  There is one True World, and then there are the four Mirror Worlds: Fire, Water, Air, and Stone.

  Audrey and Dorotea are “otherselves”—twin copies of each other who live on different Mirror Worlds.

  On Air, Audrey has the ability to communicate with wind spirits. As war looms, she’s torn between loyalty to her country and her feelings for a roguish phantom who may be a dangerous spy.

  Blackouts and earthquakes threaten the few remaining humans on Stone, who have been forced to live underground. To save her injured sister, Dorotea breaks taboo and releases an imprisoned gargoyle. Brooding, sensitive Jasper makes her wonder if gargoyles are truly traitors, as she’s always been told.

  Unbeknownst to them, they both face the same enemy—an evil sorceress bent on shattering all the Mirror Worlds.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Discover the Otherselves series… Through Fire & Sea

  Discover more of Entangled Teen’s digital-first books… The Winter People

  Thief of Lies

  Scintillate

  Salt

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Nicole Luiken Humphrey. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 109

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Ember is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Tracy Montoya

  Cover design by Louisa Maggio

  Cover art from iStock

  ISBN 978-1-63375-554-3

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition March 2016

  Dedicated to my son, Luke. I look forward to reading your books someday.

  Prologue

  In the Mirrorhall

  Fire World

  By the light of a red sun, on a dying world, in the tower of an evil sorceress, Leah stood alone before the Four Worlds mirror and tried to Call her otherself.

  Tried and failed.

  Tears of frustration burned in eyes already red-rimmed from fatigue and too little water to drink. A gust of wind blew through the long, horizontal window in the Mirrorhall, swirling up more ash from the belching Volcano Lords and leaving a fine black coating on her skin and the mirror.

  Taller and wider than herself, the Four Worlds mirror hung a foot off the floor, its sides seamlessly melding into the stone alcove. A magic far beyond her own abilities had wrought four mirrors together. Each one represented a different Mirror World: gleaming black obsidian for Fire, cold ice for Water, transparent glass for Air, and yellow gold for Stone.

  Mechanically, Leah used the sleeve of her once fine dress to wipe the ash from the beaten panel of gold. Her reflection looked gaunt: her dress hung on her like a flour sack, her chin even pointier than usual. Her long, dark hair was tangled and filthy.

  The reflection ought to have shown Dorotea.

  Leah had been trying to Call her Stone World otherself in the gold mirror for four hours now with no success.

  The four Mirror Worlds were imperfect copies of the True World. The original copies had even included their inhabitants, with the Mirror versions known as “otherselves.” Centuries had passed since the Mirror Worlds’ creation, and much of the population had diverged, through accidental death and marrying different people than their otherselves on other worlds had, but an elite few still possessed otherselves on some or all of the Mirror Worlds. Leah was such a one.

  She’d Called Stone World before, but it had been difficult. Hadn’t the sorceress Qeturah said that Stone World had a dearth of reflective surfaces? Although Qeturah had been born on the True World, she was very knowledgeable about all of them.

  Of course, Qeturah was also a liar.

  Thinking about the lies Leah had swallowed in the belief that she was helping Qeturah’s son Gideon—the young man Leah had loved—made her stomach twist.

  Qeturah’s power-mad drive to rule Fire World had led to war and Gideon’s death, and the deaths of thousands when the Volcano Lords had erupted in fury. Instead of being appalled at what she’d done, Qeturah had been triumphant. She’d immediately started draining magical energy from the dying world and schemed to do the same to Water. Leah and her Water otherself, Holly, had stopped her. Barely.

  Leah did not doubt that Qeturah and her mysterious True World allies would try again with either Stone or Air.

  Leah had sworn to stop her.

  She’d meant it—at the time.

  Leah sagged against the wall and faced the truth. The white-hot anger that had sustained her after Gideon’s death had burned out. Right now, all she felt was exhaustion and a soul-sucking grief that made her want to curl up under the blankets and sleep the week away.

  Except she kept having nightmares of Gideon dying over and over.

  What Qeturah was doing was terrible, and Leah ought to care, but the fate of another world she’d never seen meant little to her. How could she scrape together concern for other realms when her own personal world had collapsed into ruin?

  Rebellion rumbled through her. Why was this her responsibility anyway?

  Maybe she could send a message to Holly and dump the problem on her shoulders. Her Water self could warn their otherselves on Stone and Air. The three of them could fight Qeturah without Leah’s help.

  The relief that came with that thought made Leah sway. She turned away from the mirror and took a step toward the door. Bed. Rest. Hopefully, this time she wouldn’t dream, or would dream of being with Gideon.

  She halted, head bowed.

  Because while Stone and Air were abstracts, Gideon wasn’t. And Qeturah’s plan for shattering the Mirror Worlds hinged on the death of Gideon’s otherselves. Each boy had an elemental for a father, the element associated with that particular Mirror World. Just as Gideon’s murder had sent his Volcano Lord father into a paroxysm of grief that resulted in a chain of devastating volcanic eruptions, so would Gideon’s otherselves’ murders spark worldwide disasters.

  A spike of grief pierced her at the thought of Gideon. Dead and cold, his diamond eyes shut forever.

  The only thing that made his death even slightly bearable was the knowledge that part of him still lived on in his otherselves. Leah had saved Ryan, his Water self.

&nb
sp; She couldn’t leave the survival of his Stone and Air otherselves to chance. She had to save them, too.

  Resolve tasting like iron on her tongue, Leah put her hand on the golden panel and Called yet again: “Dorotea, find a mirror.”

  Chapter One

  Blackout

  Stone World

  The lights went out, plunging the cave into absolute darkness.

  Dorotea froze on her hands and knees in the tunnel. Behind her, Marta wailed. Dorotea reached back and found her little sister’s hand. “It’s all right. The lights will come back in a moment.” Despite her reassuring words, worry wormed its way into her stomach. It wasn’t unusual for one or two of the light squares embedded in the walls to burn out and stay black for a few weeks before being replaced, but every light in the whole tunnel had winked out at the same instant as if it were False Night instead of an hour short of noon.

  Instinct prodded at her. Something’s wrong.

  Marta squeezed her hand with six-year-old strength. “I’m scared! Make the lights come back.”

  As if being eleven years older conferred magic powers. “The Elect will fix it. All we have to do is wait.”

  “I’m so scared,” Marta whined.

  “Crawl up closer to me,” Dorotea said. “The tunnel’s wide enough here.”

  Marta squirmed up. Dorotea lay on her side and cuddled her sister’s small body. The contact comforted Dorotea, too. Marta’s presence meant Dorotea couldn’t panic.

  Her eyes remained open, uselessly straining to see in the utter darkness. She’d never experienced anything like it. During False Night, each cavern had a few lights that remained on so people could find their way to the privy. This darkness was blacker than the inside of a coal seam.

  Maybe only the tunnel’s lights had gone out. Maybe there was still light in the main caverns.

  “I’m scared of the dark.” Marta whimpered again. “What if the gargoyles get us?”

  Dorotea’s heart jumped into her throat at the thought of hands reaching up through solid stone, but she made her voice calm. “Don’t be silly. All the gargoyles are safely locked up in the Cavern of Traitors.”

  “But what if they tunneled through the floor?”

  “They can’t,” Dorotea said shortly. “They’re frozen in place. Why are you scared of gargoyles? You’ve never even seen one. They were imprisoned before you were born.” They didn’t kill your father, like they did mine. Marta’s father, Martin, was annoyingly alive.

  Dorotea had been younger than Marta when the gargoyles rebelled. She barely remembered them except for fuzzy images of her father’s gargoyle: a very tall, silent man made of gray stone with a craggy, rough-hewn face.

  The gargoyles couldn’t have caused the blackout. Could they? Surely not, but anxiety still twisted inside her, keying her nerves to a higher pitch. She shivered in the clammy embrace of the stone tunnels. The rough trousers and tunic she’d donned for weeding were better suited for crawling than her usual robes, but the material was also thinner.

  Something’s wrong. Something more than a Tech malfunction.

  She made her voice cheerful for Marta’s sake. “While we wait for the lights to come back on, why don’t we keep going?” The lights had been off for at least five minutes now. They couldn’t stay here forever. Her throat already felt sand-dry, and soon the chill of the rock walls would seep into their bones. Or Marta was sure to need the privy.

  Why, oh why, had she decided to take the tunnel today instead of the stairs?

  Oh, right. Laziness. After three hours of weeding, the idea of a shortcut had appealed to her greatly.

  The small natural passage connecting Vegetable Cavern with Artisan Cavern was seldom used except by children. It was big enough for an adult to squeeze through but hard on the knees. Dorotea could still crawl through it in fifteen minutes instead of the near hour it took to climb the stairs from Vegetable up to Elect Cavern, go over the mill bridge at the top of the falls, down the ladder to Stone Heart Cavern, and then along the narrow, winding passage beside the river to Artisan Cavern.

  She was scheduled to take her weekly turn powering the treadmill that stored energy for the looms this afternoon. The task was both back-breaking and mind-numbingly boring. Taking the shortcut would give her a longer break.

  Silently, she admitted the real reason she’d taken the tunnel: she liked it. Even though the tunnel was usually well lit and was dead easy to navigate with no side tunnels, crawling through it always made her feel like an explorer, a Stone Heart Clan member. It made her feel closer to her father.

  Taking the tunnel on a day when she had Marta with her was her real mistake.

  Though at least in the tunnel she didn’t have to worry about Marta making a misstep and falling in the swift-flowing underground river. She shuddered at the thought.

  Although the passageway itself might twist and turn, when traveling through the tunnel, there was only forward and back. Right now there was only forward because Dorotea didn’t think there was space enough for her to turn around without getting stuck. Marta could manage it, but not her.

  “Will the lights be on at home?” Marta asked.

  “I should think so,” Dorotea lied. “Do you want to go first or should I?”

  “Can’t we go together?” Marta clung to her neck.

  “There isn’t enough room to go side by side. Why don’t I go first, and you hold onto my foot?” Dorotea suggested. The exit into Artisan Cavern was a bit steep. Dorotea didn’t want to risk Marta falling. Besides, if Marta went first, she’d go slowly. Dorotea wanted out of here with an urgency that grew every moment.

  The closeness of the tunnel had never bothered her before. Indeed, she’d prided herself on her caving ability, part of her Stone Heart Clan heritage, but it was different in the dark. The cave walls seemed to press in on her.

  Dorotea gently disentangled herself from Marta and started down the sloping passage. She shuffled on her knees, taking care not to accidentally kick Marta.

  Her sister clutched her ankle. “What if a gargoyle grabs me?”

  “There are no gargoyles here, I promise,” Dorotea said. She needed to get Marta to think about something else. “Let’s sing a song, shall we?” She launched into the first song she could think of: “Inchworm, inchworm, crawling through the underground.”

  Marta joined her on the chorus, and they kept crawling through the irregular tunnel. Dorotea bumped her head once and her shoulders repeatedly. Goddess, it was dark. She tried to remember how far down the tunnel she and Marta had gone before the lights went out. Over halfway, maybe as far as three quarters the distance needed.

  Nothing to do but keep crawling and singing. She’d run out of verses, so she started making them up: “Inchworm, inchworm, bumping his something something.”

  Marta giggled. “That’s not right!”

  “Oh? How does it go then? Inchworm, inchworm, crawling behind his sister—”

  A tremor shook the tunnel walls.

  Marta shrieked. “Gargoyles! Help!”

  Dorotea broke out in a sweat, and dread iced her blood. That had been something far, far more dangerous than gargoyles: an earthquake. They’d been occurring all too frequently of late as the Goddess’s sleep grew restless. And one tremor was often followed by a bigger quake. Dorotea swallowed, her throat painfully dry. “Keep going!” she yelled.

  But Marta had let go of her ankle, crying.

  “Come on, Marta, grab my foot. Please, we’re almost out,” she lied, nearly frantic.

  But Marta just kept wailing, too young to understand how precarious their situation was in this narrow tunnel. One rockfall could trap them. Or bring the roof down on their heads.

  Dorotea ground her teeth, annoyance spiking her fear. It drove her crazy when Marta did this: decide she was tired, sit down, and cry to be picked up. Her father, Martin, always gave in and picked her up as if Marta were still three instead of six.

  Dorotea couldn’t carry her, even if she wanted to.


  “Marta!” she barked. “Move now, or I’ll leave you behind.” To make the threat believable, Dorotea crawled forward two feet. “I mean it! I’m leaving!”

  Dorotea listened hard, hoping to hear her sister following, but Marta just bawled louder. Great. Now the kid was hysterical.

  Dorotea resisted the urge to bang her head against the wall. Grudgingly, she admitted that this time Marta wasn’t being willful. She was genuinely terrified. Which meant her sister wasn’t going to budge.

  Dorotea had two choices: go on without her and return with help or drag her along.

  No choice really.

  “Stop crying,” Dorotea said without much hope that Marta would listen. With cold fingers, she measured the width of the tunnel. Her fingers came away gritty. When the lights were on, the tunnel had seemed generously wide. In the dark, she was constantly bruising herself on the walls.

  She moved a little farther down the tunnel, away from her crying sister, and explored again. Was it wider here? Maybe. Taking a deep breath, she laboriously began to turn around. Rock scraped against her spine, and for a horrid moment, she thought she was stuck in that folded-up position, but by pushing with her feet, she squirmed past the sticking point.

  Only to ram her forehead into an unseen rock. Tears stung her eyes. Sandstorms, that hurt. Had she broken the skin? She found a lump, but no blood.

  “Mom, Mom, Mom, Momma,” Marta blubbered.

  “I’m coming, Marta.”

  Dorotea was facing away from the direction they needed to go, but her head and hands were aligned with her sister. In this position, she could talk to Marta—and drag her along by force if she had to.

  Creeping forward, she located her sister’s head in the dark and brushed at her fine hair. “Marta, it’s all right. I’m here.” She hugged her little sister. “Shhh, I’m here.” She rubbed a circle on Marta’s back and tried not to dwell on the looming possibility of another quake.

  Gradually, Marta’s sobs quieted.

  She kissed her sister’s forehead. “Come on, let’s crawl together.” On her hands and knees, she backed down the tunnel, coaxing Marta into following. It was slow and awkward, and Dorotea’s nerves screamed at the delay, but at least they were making progress.