by Sara Ella
Sweat beads. Stomach knots. “Joshua is still at the Haven.” I fidget with the strap on my pack. “But your—Makai . . .” A glance at the boy beside me. “. . . went to the castle in an attempt to rescue my mom.” Breathe. “He never came out.”
“That boy . . .” He shakes his head, mumbling under his breath.
Straining to hear, I lean closer.
“. . . has loved your mother since the day he helped her escape this Reflection eighteen years ago.” His fingers twiddle against his cracked lips. “But with Elizabeth free, Makai should be able to use his Calling, become invisible. He shouldn’t have trouble escaping once he knows she is safe.”
Thank the Verity Nathaniel doesn’t continue. Could he possibly know who Ky is? What Tiernan did to him?
I don’t have time to ponder because Ky blurts out, “It’s too dangerous.” He brushes my arm with his fingers, traces all the way down to my hand. He takes it in earnest, turning me toward him. “As your Guardian, I cannot allow you to go into the castle alone.”
“No.” Nausea rears. “I can only bring one person through at a time. Getting Mom out will be tricky enough. I’m not risking leaving you behind.” My protectiveness of him raises an alarm. Was it only last week I wanted nothing to do with him? “I’ll be okay.”
“What if you get caught?” He moves between me and the mirror, as if I might leave without him otherwise. “What then?”
“Jasyn won’t hurt me. You have to let me do this. I need to make my life count for something.” And to make up for all the times it didn’t.
His lips press. Eyes narrow. Five droning beats. And then, “Not returning is a risk I’m willing to take. Either I go with you, or you don’t go at all.” His arms cross, his stance widens. Final answer.
I sigh. No time for arguing. “Fine.”
“I knew you’d see it my way.” He squeezes my hand.
Operation Save Mom has finally begun.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Never Looked
So how does it work?” I flatten my palm on the mirror. Solid. Cold.
Nathaniel steps away, giving us room. “As I said, your desire will become your strength. Let the love you have for your mother empower you.”
Without an utterance Ky unsnaps the sheath at his belt, offers it to me. “We should each carry a weapon.”
“Ky, I can’t take your mirrorglass knife.”
“You can and you will.”
“No. Give me the steel one—”
“Absolutely not. You’ve never stabbed anyone before.” He grabs my hand, closes my fingers around the knife’s hilt. “If you need to defend yourself, I will not have you second-guessing. The mirrorglass will ensure you follow through. Any wound you inflict will heal as long as you withdraw the blade. Don’t hesitate.”
“But your vow to never kill again—you can’t use the steel blade.”
“I’ll be fine.” He rolls his shoulders and faces the mirror. Conversation over.
“Thank you.” I hook it at my side. The weighty addition is confidence and security. Next I pull my hair off my face, secure it with the leather tie around my wrist.
Now I’m ready.
“Don’t thank me yet. We may be walking to our executions.”
Uncertainty keeps my feet glued in place. If things don’t go our way, I may not have a chance to explain about Tiernan. I want to say I’m sorry on my father’s behalf. But I also want to know more about him. To ask if there was ever any good in him. From Mom’s journal entries, it seems so. Could Ky have any positive memories of the man who raised him? No one can be all bad. Right?
But the questions expire before they reach my throat. With a deep exhale I face the soon-to-be Threshold. Close my eyes. Love is my strength.
My palm levels with the glass. I picture Mom, inhale through my nose. Let the notes flow free. Press.
Nothing.
Teeth clenched, I try again. Imagining the castle, its windows and doors. The courtyard and stables. The scent and the night and Jasyn’s pitiful rose garden. The fountain frozen in time.
The mirror remains a mirror.
My song dies. “It’s not working.” Frustration bubbles. I let my hand fall, clenching it against my thigh.
“You must dig deep inside,” Nathaniel instructs, waving his hand as if he’s the conductor of this little experiment. “You cannot simply think it. You have to feel the music inside you.” His fist covers his heart.
Feel it? “I am feeling it.” Aren’t I?
Ky puts his mouth close to my ear.
Can’t. Breathe.
“Remember what you told me at the Village?” he whispers. “How lyrics are your way of expressing emotions?”
Since when did Ky begin to know me better than I know myself?
I swallow. Can he hear my heart rate switch cadence? “Yes.”
“So sing your heart out.” He returns my personal space.
My lungs expand. He’s right. The perfect lyrics are everything.
With one palm kissing the mirror and the other linked with Ky’s, I gaze into the reflection I’ve never truly looked at until now. Mom lives there. And Joshua. Ky, by my side now, found a place too. I’d do anything for them. How did I miss it? This entire time I’ve been closing myself off from love, but it’s been the solution all along. I’ve built walls at every turn. No more. As with Queen Ember, drawn to her king from another Reflection, it isn’t song alone that ignites my Calling, but love. True, unblemished love.
Now I sing for them. The words tumble forth as I pair them with my melody.
“Ashamed of the outside, I’ve never belonged.
Hidden in shadows, I locked my heart away.
But inside I was fading. Breaking. Dying.
Now I’m a flame. My soul is igniting.
Love is a fire. Burning. Refining.
Its blaze lights the way. I am no longer afraid.”
The mirror shimmers. More than a song, these lyrics are a confession. I’ve changed. I’m not the girl who left Manhattan. No more hiding. No more fear. I am the rose beyond the thorns.
On the final line, the glass melts to liquid beneath my touch.
And then I step through.
A cold burst of air pelts my skin as I drop to a hard floor. Hailstone-like tingles shoot through my hands, pinging my arms, my neck and shoulders. I flex my fingers. Look to the ceiling, spring to my feet, and whirl. Hyperventilated breaths labor my abs and lighten my head. To my right, an arched window no wider than my arm from elbow to wrist.
Oh my soul, I did it. I turned the mirror into a Threshold.
Ky rises beside me. “That was weird.” He brushes off his pants, checks for the blade at his ankle, tightens his bootlaces. “Like being sucked through a vortex or down a drain.”
Impossible to suppress my grin. It really was. What a rush.
Beyond the window night capes a villainous sky. I press my face to the glass. It’s the castle all right. There’s the Forest of Night. But where in the castle are we, exactly? This tower is similar to the dungeon stairwell, stone curving along spiral steps. We’re high, at least three stories aboveground. A maze of thorny hedges twists and turns directly below—Jasyn’s rose garden. “Which way?”
“Let me see.”
I move aside, allowing Ky to glimpse the view. “We’re in the eastern wing, but this tower doesn’t open onto her floor. She isn’t far. We just need to move deeper into the main part of the wing.” Gripping my hand, he leads me down the stairwell. At once this feels familiar and yet far removed from the night he rescued me. So much has changed since then.
With reserved breath I trail him, our hastened footsteps echoing off the walls. At the stairwell’s end, a door blocks our path. Breathe in, breathe out. One thing at a time.
He presses his ear against the wood.
I hear nothing aside from my intensified pulse. No hint as to what waits on the other side.
Ky nods, touches a finger to his lips. Three. Two. One. He turns t
he knob, pulls.
An empty hall stretches before us, ends in a T at a balcony overlooking a magnificent throne room with arched windows and marble columns. The path splits right, then left, forming a rectangle all the way around and joining at the other end where a grand staircase fans to a shiny hardwood floor. A set of double doors waits adjacent to the staircase, probably leading outside. I look up, down. Two floors above and two below.
“This way.” Ky tugs me left. “Stay close. It’s late. Aside from the night-shift guards, everyone will be asleep.”
Doors and windows deck the balconies framing the throne room below. We pass door after door. I keep one hand on the weapon at my hip and an eye on the periphery the entire time. When Ky opens a door leading to a new set of serpentine stairs, we duck inside and climb to the next floor.
The moment we exit onto the new level, Ky shoves me into an alcove, presses me against the wall. He ducks his head, shielding me with his black-clad self. Our breaths become one. His thigh presses against my hip.
What is it with guys always smelling good no matter the circumstance? Why can’t he smell like garbage or sewer or leftover Chinese food? Why am I inhaling so deeply, attempting to memorize—?
Footsteps. Whistling. Click. Someone’s coming.
Five seconds, ten. I’m just tall enough to see over Ky’s shoulder. A beam of light bounces over the floor and balcony railing, getting smaller, closer.
I hold my breath. Will my pulse to quiet.
The guard walks right by.
One, one thousand, two, one thousand, three . . . A full minute passes before Ky’s rigid stance relaxes. He leans over me, propping his forearm against the wall over my head. “Listen, Elizabeth’s door is just around the corner, situated in another alcove like this one. She will have at least two guards at this hour, maybe three. I’ll lure them away, then you sneak in and transport her out. I’ll circle back in time for you to take me through too.”
Sounds like a decent plan. The only plan. But what if it doesn’t work? What if Ky gets left behind?
No. Think happy thoughts. Find Mom.
“Wait for my signal.” He leans away, cranes his neck, gaze focused beyond our shadowed refuge. “When I whistle, it means the door is clear.”
“And if you don’t whistle?”
He fixes mismatched eyes to mine. “Then find the nearest window and get out of here. Do not come back for me, understand?”
I nod, though my emotions stage a protest. I’ll scale that obstacle when I come to it.
“Don’t die.” Ky draws the knife at my hip and thrusts it into my palm. Then he’s gone.
Alone I wait, heart hammering, temples throbbing. The knife slips in my sweaty hand. I wipe my palm, clutch the hilt until I’m sure a blister will form. Feels like hours before I hear it. A distant, high-pitched whistle.
“This way,” someone calls.
I peer around the wall. Two guards jog across the balcony on the other side. I watch them turn a corner, delay until I hear nothing but the sound of my pulse in my ears.
I exit the alcove and creep against the wall. Five yards. Ten. When I reach the next alcove, I freeze at its edge. It isn’t vacant. Someone is breathing only a few feet away.
Double-crud, what now?
I back up a few feet, reach into my pack, withdraw my cracked phone. Good-bye, old girl, you’ve been good to me. Then I chuck it. Hard. It bounces off the railing, descends to the throne room floor.
Wait for it . . .
Smack!
If it wasn’t broken before, it sure as crowe is now.
The lone guard does just as I’d hoped. I shrink against the wall as he abandons his post and walks in the opposite direction, back turned toward me.
Here’s my chance. I jet into the alcove, open the door, and click it closed behind me.
“Eliyana?”
TWENTY-NINE
Could Be
Mom is a yard away, sitting at a small table in a replica of the room Jasyn duped me into seeing. Except no windows. No mirror. A four-poster bed at the center, a fireplace, Persian rugs, silver and silk.
Mom’s forehead pleats. Her chin tips up. Again, she appears older. Warier. The pigment of her cheeks is no longer dawn pink, but overcast gray. And . . . has she gained weight? I count a full minute before her expression turns silken. She sits, resumes her previous activity—drinking tea. Wearing an emerald-green mermaid-style gown, she’s drinking her regularly scheduled cup as if all is right with the Reflections.
A consternating chill wraps around me. I flip the lock. “Mom.”
What’s the matter? Why is she just sitting there?
She doesn’t look up, though her temple muscles tremor the way they always do when something irks her. “Go away, Father.”
My breath escapes in a whoosh. She thinks I’m Jasyn come to toy with her sanity. I can’t blame her. This might be harder than I anticipated.
“It’s really me. Eliyana.”
“Nice try. Next time you should have your assistant conduct her research more thoroughly. If you knew anything about my Eliyana, you’d know she doesn’t wear her hair off her face. You might as well advertise your farce right there.” Mom stares into her teacup, steam moistening her cheeks. Or are those tears?
I twirl a loose strand around my finger. It hadn’t even crossed my mind how different I might appear. And not just my ponytail, but my clothes, the way I’ve begun to carry myself lately. I go to her, kneel by her side. “Mom.” I circle my arms around her waist, savoring her warmth and forever-fabric-softener scent. Haman didn’t get to her. Jasyn hasn’t hurt her.
She peels my arms off one by one as if they’re leeches. Rising, Mom turns, lifts her rustling skirt, and moves toward the room’s opposite end. An unfinished painting of a black-and-white Second Reflection rests on an easel in one corner. She lifts a brush, dabs it in a puddle of gray on her palette. “Just go,” she says, her tone bitter.
“Mom, I—”
She twirls, her French-twisted hair loosening, cascading past her symmetrical shoulders. “Enough, Father! I have already agreed to your terms. What more do you want from me?”
The bottom-dwelling cockroach. Jasyn’s messed with her mind so much, she doesn’t even recognize her own daughter. Mom’s back turns to me again. How can I prove my authenticity?
I inspect the area, scouring for an idea. My Aéropostale sweatshirt, the one Mom took at the Pond, is folded on a nightstand. I slip my pack off, shrug out of my jacket, and don the fleece-lined hoodie. Zip. Fits like a glove.
Mom peeks over her shoulder. “What are you doing? Please, don’t touch that.”
Shouldering my pack, I ask, “Why not? It’s mine, and I want it back.” Could this work? Any other time I wouldn’t be so snarky, but it’s imperative to convince her I’m really me.
“No.”
“Remember when you bought this for me? Right after I spilled red slushy all over my old one, two summers ago at Coney Island? It was my favorite sweatshirt. I think you called every Aéropostale in the Tri-State Area trying to find this exact one.” I only meant the memory to show her I’m not a mirage, but it invites a sense of nostalgia anyway.
Her cheeks perk, brows pucker. “Eliyana?” She hurries to me, snatches my shoulders. “Is it really you?”
“The one and only.”
Mom hugs me a little too snugly, then draws back, her eyes alight. “How did you—?”
“I’ll explain everything, but once we’re safe.” Now I sound like Joshua. “Is Makai here?” I don’t know why, but somehow I sense my uncle’s presence. As if I’m being watched. It’s a feeling I’ve always had.
She sighs. “You can come out now.”
Makai appears beside the bed. He’s been here all long, invisible but never leaving Mom’s side. My uncle joins us and drapes his good arm around her, the other still residing in a sling. His bow and quiver are slung over his back. When will his arm heal enough to use them again? “I thought I’d give you two a m
oment.”
Pink tints Mom’s cheeks. She’s never looked happier.
I give them the abridged recap of the last days. Haman at the Haven. Robyn’s murder. The Soulless on the beach. Queen Ember’s—my—Calling. Nathaniel and the mirrors and Ky.
“And Joshua?” Makai and Mom ask in unison.
Oh. Right. Joshua. Like a little brother to Makai. Mom took a while to warm up to him, but eventually she got used to the idea he wasn’t going anywhere. Of course they want to know if he’s okay. “He was at the Haven last time I saw him.” I look to Makai. “Haman and the Soulless infiltrated the wall.” I cross to the door. “Come on. He gave Wren twenty-four hours to find me before he kills again. We have to get you both to safety so I can go back and help them. If the king won’t intervene, I will.” The words escape without warning, igniting my fury, energizing my bones. I’m a part of this now. No turning back.
They look at each other, at me again.
Makai’s peppery brows furrow. “Joshua isn’t with you?”
Why would he be?
Oh.
So much has happened since I last saw these two. “Ky—er, Kyaphus is my Guardian now.” I relay Gage’s betrayal, how Joshua stepped up as acting commander. I know they want the full monty, but the longer we stay here, the smaller our window of escape becomes. Maybe it’s already gone.
Their expressions shift from puzzled to disbelieving.
“You’re here alone?” Mom’s question borders on reproachful.
“Ky’s with me, but I’m only able to take one person through my reflection at a time. Makai can slip out unseen, but we have to get you to a window or a mirror so I can come back for Ky.”