Lou’s bedroom door was open, and she dragged Evie inside. The gown was spread over the bed, as if Lou had been planning that Evie should try it on as soon as they got home. It was beautiful. Trix had sewn a silver and gold icicle pattern along the hem of the skirt. Silver snowflakes glinted from all over the rest of the dress. It was perfect for a Snow Queen. Looking at it actually made Evie eager to try it on.
Lou walked around to the far side of the bed and gathered the dress, untying the ribbons at the back. “Take your clothes off, and I’ll get it over your head. You’re going to love it when you see yourself in my mirror.”
She emphasised that it was her mirror. Evie noticed it was the second time she had said it.
She glanced at the mirror as she pulled off her top. It felt wrong to take off her clothes in front of it. Like someone was watching her. Auran had never said what happened to the Faerie King trapped inside it by his wife. She shuddered, turning her back to it as she slid off her jeans.
Lou threw the gown over her head and twisted it down to her hips. Evie slipped her arms into it, and Lou pushed her forward towards the mirror.
As Lou fastened the ribbons up Evie contemplated her reflection. She was expecting someone exhausted, who had been through more in the last forty-eight hours than in the first seventeen years of her entire life put together. Instead she looked like a Winter Queen.
Her hair didn’t seem as straggled as it should have been, falling in a long mass of curls to her lower back. Ebony hair, like the winter night sky. Her pale skin looked even whiter than usual, as pure as the snow outside. Her dark eyes were the death at the heart of winter. In the mirror they twinkled coldly, throwing back the glowing lamplight. She almost looked like a faerie.
For a moment she allowed herself to imagine going to the Yule Ball, entering as the Queen of Winter, with Bran beside her as her King. The girls would stare at her, and think she was beautiful. They would twist their skirts with sweaty palms, mad with jealousy. And, of course, they’d stare at Bran and wish they were on his arm, and not the arm of some stupid, schoolboy jock.
Her ridiculous thoughts turned back to reality with a sudden stabbing pain in her chest. Lou was still pulling the ribbons. It was clear Evie had lost no weight since she’d tried the gown on in the shop. Hourglass, Trix always said. Hourglass looks good in a corset.
Hourglass can’t breathe in a corset.
“Lou it’s too tight already. Loosen it a little.”
Lou kept tugging, tighter and tighter. Evie pulled away from her, taking a step towards the mirror, trying to turn her back away from Lou, but she held on. Evie gasped for air, another stab, right into her heart this time.
“Lou!” Her voice was a sob, fear rising up to choke her. “Stop it, Lou.” Her voice trembled.
Her legs folded under her, and she fell onto her knees. Lou let go of the ribbons. Evie took a frightened breath as the corset loosened a little. She stared at Lou’s reflection, only to see the face of her mother, the blonde hair Evie had prayed for and prayed for, the green-blue eyes she’d spent hours studying in photographs, and the pale skin, the only thing she’d inherited.
“I’m just trying to help. Mother’s do that Evie; they get your ready for the school dance. They talk to you about your first kiss, about boyfriends. Why don’t you let me in?” Tears trickled down her perfect, pretty face. “Why won’t you let me?”
Evie screamed. It tore from her insides, bursting from her throat like a flock of startled crows. And she couldn’t stop. The sound was something separate from her. She wasn’t making it; it came from another world, a world inside a mirror, or down a darkened alley, inside a faerie dungeon.
A world that wasn’t real.
She buried her face in her hands, feeling her body shake. Hearing her voice saying ‘mum’ over and over again. Wanting to ask why mothers died, and made fathers hate their children. Wondering how she could have let her mother in when she wasn’t there to be let in.
Oh, but she had been there.
Every single day she’d been there.
She was there every time Evie’s father turned his face away. She was never forgotten, and never dead. But she’d never ever been alive to Evie, never once.
“Evie!” It was Lou’s voice. Arms came around her. Hands pressed against her head, drawing her into a hug. “Evie, you fainted honey. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Lou rocked her back and forth, lulling her, soothing her. Evie pulled away, looking up to see that Lou was Lou. That her mother was nowhere to be seen.
“Evie, I should have listened when you were tired. I’m sorry.” She ran her hand through Evie’s curls, teasing them away from her tear soaked face. “I’m going to call the doctor tomorrow. You need to see someone.” She stood up. “I’m going to get you a drink of water. Just you wait here.”
She left the room. Evie gazed around, afraid to look in the mirror. Afraid to move. She felt like she was a pane of glass about to shatter into seven pieces and she was afraid that there would be no one to put her together again.
Then Lou was pressing a cold glass to her lips, tipping her head back so that she would drink. Evie gulped it, soothing the pain in her throat where the scream had cut its way out. The water tasted chemical, tingling on Evie’s tongue. But Lou held her head until she finished it and then let go.
A cold wind came from nowhere. She felt frozen fingers on her face, tilting her chin up so that she was looking in the mirror. Lou was standing a few paces behind her.
Evie thought she heard the sound of someone breathing heavily, and a mist clouded the mirror. Then an unseen finger moved through it, writing a word on the white steam in a curling archaic script.
Poison.
Evie’s eyes snapped back to Lou, at the glass in her hand. It slipped from her shaking fingers, and smashed on the wooden floor, just as Evie’s stomach cramped. She cried out, clutching her abdomen, gritting her teeth against the pain. It was unbearable.
“W…what have you done?”
“It’s my mirror. You can’t just take it away. It’s all I’ve got. It’s mine and I can’t be anyone without it.” Her voice was a frantic whisper, her eyes blood shot, staring at Evie with love and disgust, both at once, neither greater than the other. “You’re trying to ruin everything, Evie. You’ve driven Richard out, and now you want my mirror.”
Evie retched. She crammed her fingers down her throat, trying to bring up the water. Tears streamed from her eyes, her limbs felt numb, everything dim and insubstantial against the cramps. Her throat burned. She heaved; water and acid curry pouring out of her mouth and onto the wooden floor.
“I’m sorry. Evie. Oh God, I’m sorry.”
Another gust of wind drew her eyes to the mirror. She could barely read the word written there beside poison, tears obscured her vision. She blinked hard, the salt stinging her cheeks.
Apple.
She forced herself to stand, tripping on the hem of her gown. She heard it tear. Lou walked towards her, boots crunching the broken glass on the floor.
Evie ran, clutching her stomach. As her legs pounded down the stairs, it felt like a bag full of needles burst inside her stomach, shredding her insides to pieces.
She kept running. Lou was screaming behind her. She heard footsteps collapsing down the stairs. Then the sound of Lou falling, her hands slapping the tiles in the hall as she landed. And silence. Evie didn’t look back. She couldn’t. It was too messed up. She ran towards the main street.
The old woman would heal her. The old woman in the Antique shop had sold them the damn mirror in the first place. She had to help. She was bound to it.
Evie stumbled. Material tore again. She lifted the skirts as she ran, freeing her legs to go faster. The streets were completely deserted. Not even a car went on the roads, and the snow was falling fast, rapidly turning to a blizzard.
She found the street, and fell upon the door of the old woman’s shop, hammering wildly. She called out, making sounds more than words.
Apple.
The woman didn’t answer. Evie pounded harder, retching again as the poison burned in her stomach. Her muscles ached. She felt like her bones might dissolve.
An image of the faerie apples came into her head.
Apples.
Maybe she needed the apples to dispel the poison. The mirror wanted her to live. She turned away from the shop doorstep and ran into the alley. Clandestine loomed ahead. She prayed Bran would hear her knocking, and wondered if the spells on the windows prevented mortals from breaking in.
She reached the door, and began to pound her fists against it. She called Bran’s name at the top of her voice. Her lungs felt like bursting in the cold air. Snow and icy wind blew into her mouth and she couldn’t take another breath to call again. She choked.
The world was white, and black and white, and blacker than black.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bran heard screaming, waking his from a shallow slumber. He threw his tunic over his head and dashed out into the hallway. The screaming stopped, and he sped up, leaping down the stairs and out into the shop.
Someone was lying outside. He unlocked the doors to see a girl lying on his step, her silver gown blending into the snow. The spill of her black curls was like a stain on a blank canvas.
“Evie,” he said, surprised at the quiver in his voice.
He knelt down, gathering her into his arms and bringing her inside, away from the blizzard. Where was Auran?
He shouldn’t be alone with her, with three of his faces yet to be destroyed. It was past the stroke of midnight. Today was the final day to break the curse. He already could feel Wrath stirring inside him. It wasn’t helped by his anger at the Unseelie Prince, who was supposed to be looking after her.
He carried her out of the cold shop and into his living room, laying her down on the couch. She was freezing, her lips turning a light shade of blue. Her skin was almost grey.
He shook her by the shoulders. “Evie!”
She stirred, groaning, her lips cracked like ice on a frozen lake. “Poison,” she croaked. Tears leaked from her eyes, leaving silver trails down her cheeks.
“Poison?”
“Apples. Please.”
Bran stood up, pacing into the kitchen and grabbing an apple from the basket. Poison. She’d been poisoned? Anger surged through him, mixing with a keen panic that dried his mouth like a roll of parchment.
He brought the apple to her lips so that she could take a bite. She sank her teeth into it, and it bled crimson juice into her mouth. He could see it warm her cheeks as soon as she swallowed, see the pain that creased her brow relax, changing her expression to lax desire.
She ate more, ate like every mortal who touched the food of faerie, with a ravenous appetite that would never quite be satisfied. His own mouth ached, watering with longing. But he had taken enough for one day. Enough to make him able. And he was strong enough to resist its call.
He had been tempted one too many times by illusion and glamour.
Colour returned to Evie’s cheek, as though the apple had rekindled an inner furnace. She opened her eyes, now over-bright, and gazed about the room, searching for more. She licked her lips, leaving them plump and glistening. Bran looked away and stood up.
“What happened, Evie?”
She laid her head back against the arm of the sofa, and stretched out long like a cat. “Call me Snow White now. My stepmother just tried to kill me. Because of the damned mirror we bought. It’s in your frame, isn’t it?”
Bran rubbed his forehead, feeling dread in the pit of his stomach, hard and heavy. “It’s dangerous. The King should still be bound in the frame. He must be manipulating her.”
Evie nodded, it was a drawn out, slow motion. As though she was trying to do it in a bowl of syrup. “But he can’t get out of the frame, can he? Auran would have said if he knew any of this.”
Bran raised an eyebrow, unwilling to get on to the topic of his trust for Auran. His non-existent trust. “You can’t stay, Evie. It’s too dangerous. You aren’t supposed to come here alone.”
Evie closed her eyes, her head rolling back. “I don’t know where he is. It’s the middle of the night, Bran. This was the only place I could think of coming to.”
“I understand. But really, you must go. Right now.” He reached down to shake her. “You absolutely cannot fall asleep here, Evie.”
“Bran, are we supposed to be in love?”
He froze. Supposed to be in love. There could be no supposing for him. She could not know that when he looked at her face he travelled decades in an instant. She could not know that they belonged together the same way that the stars belonged to the sky.
Her wide hazel eyes were beautiful, mysterious, and passionate. They were older than sixteen years, and they erased six hundred years of misery from Bran’s mind when they looked into them. He knew her, craved her, to say he loved her was miserably inadequate. But he had never deserved her, and never would.
She looked away, freeing himself from her gaze. The apples made her giddy, but they also increased her intensity. “We are not supposed to be anything,” he said, his voice as indifferent as he could manage.
He saw her face fall from the corner of his eye, and regretted that he hurt her. It was possible she loved him, just as she had before. That would explain her illogical willingness to help him, to put herself in danger.
“I will let you stay here until morning Evie, if you promise me you will not wander about the house again.”
She nodded silently, her eyes swept his face, scrutinising him. He broke her concentration, sweeping her off the sofa, and carrying her up to the guest room. She laughed gently, her giddiness making it sound like a stream bubbling quietly over rocks and stones, a pleasant natural sound.
“I can walk you know. Women nowadays are legged creatures.”
He rolled his eyes. “Your collapsing at my front door was an incredibly independent and modern action.”
She poked him in the chest. “At least I waited until I was somewhat safe before swooning.”
He smiled. She was making an effort to forget what he had said. He wondered what she had wanted him to say. He didn’t know modern words for a modern girl, so he was silent.
He set her on the bed. The room was dark save for the soft orange glow of the streetlight filtering through a crack in the curtains. Her dark waves spread out on the white pillow, like black ink spilling on a new sheet of parchment. The urge to touch it took him by surprise and he jerked his hand back just in time. He felt the blood rush to his face, even though she couldn’t possibly guess what he was thinking.
She sat up on the bed, supporting herself on her slim white arms. Her eyes were wider than ever, drowning him. She parted her lips, two petals of red on snow. Soft, expectant.
* * *
Evie could feel her heart beating, a wild thing in a cage. Bran was still leaning over her, frozen in time. She felt if she didn’t break contact with his eyes he would have to tell her the truth. She could feel the sugar of the apples fizzing in her veins, carrying her up into another world. She was Evie, and not Evie. She could dare to ask herself what she truly wanted. She could dare to reach for it.
Bran’s soft breathing tickled her skin, it was sweet and fast, and she realised he was nervous.
He licked his lips, blinked as though it took an army to force down his eyelids. Before he could break away from her completely she pressed her lips to his. He tasted of apples, and she closed her eyes and drifted away on it. He leaned over her, his body tense at first, and then relaxing as if with defeat.
It was her first kiss, but the bliss was broken when she lay back and felt something sharp sink into her lower back, accompanied by the sound of tearing fabric.
She shifted, too embarrassed to break the kiss. She slid her hand down to grasp the object and pulled it out from under her. She opened her eyes and glanced down. A glass rose lay on her palm. A nasty looking thorn near the cup of petals was stain
ed with a drop of her blood. The glass caught the streetlight, giving the rose an infernal glow from within.
The room had not changed, nor had Bran’s crumpled clothes, but his lips now lacked the sweet taste of apples, and the kiss itself was more confident. Her lips tingled, as he pressed harder. Evie gasped, trying to sit up, remembering what the glass rose signified. She wasn’t kissing Bran, only Lust.
“What is it, Evie? Things getting a little too heated?” He laughed, his hand sliding down and taking hold of the rose. “Isn’t the modern girl all about free love?”
Evie wriggled out from under him, their hands touching as they both grasped the glass rose. It was then that Evie noticed the ring of glass on his finger. He smiled when he saw her looking.
“Oh I see she’s noticed me too. Yes, idiot, seems like she has.” He looked from side to side as he spoke, as if he was miming a conversation by two different people. Two different sins.
“Why can’t you leave me alone?” one of them asked.
He turned his head to look to the right. “Because we are very similar, brother. We like similar things.” He smirked horribly.
Evie released her grip on the rose and tried to slide of the bed as silent as she could manage but the skirts of the winter gown rustled, and the twin sins both looked in her direction, cutting their debate short. She stumbled towards the door, her feet sliding on small piles of golden coins that had sprung up out of nowhere.
He was behind her in an instant, grasping her wrist and spinning her so she slammed up against the bare wall beside the door. “Don’t leave now, my dear. It’s only just beginning to get interesting.” His features were Bran’s, and yet the way his smile crawled on his face made her want to retch.
“Such an immoral world this is. I mean who’d have thought of young men and women alone together in a big empty house? Such things dear Bran could never have imagined back before the curse. Unless of course he was in a brothel.” He laughed. “ In a world lie this, crime is just fated to happen.”
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