An Isle of Mirrors (A Shade of Vampire #88) - Bella Forrest Page 0,3
to be.”
Deep down, I was nervous—not about the glamoring, really, but about the prospect of failure. I didn’t want to go into the clone’s interrogation room and walk back out empty handed. What if I simply wasn’t able to bend a fake soul? But there was something in Astra’s intensely dark eyes that made me relax, if only for a second. She’d taken after Phoenix with the dark eye color, though they did turn pink when she used her Daughter abilities. I felt reassured by her faith in my power. Her confidence in my ability meant a lot.
“Okay. I’ll give it as many shots as I can,” I said, bracing myself for what would come next. Placing my palm on the door, I waited for the spells to recognize me. I gave the hallway one last glance and found myself feeling safe and trusted. Rose and Caleb watched quietly as the door opened with a delicate click, and I went in.
I took a moment to breathe. The air inside the doppelganger’s room was slightly adjusted—infused with a mixture of aerosol medication and therapeutic oil vapors to help keep her calm. It was one of Kailani’s many tricks to keep prisoners subdued. It seemed to be working, since the girl barely acknowledged me until I reached her table, the door automatically closing behind me.
She raised her gaze, steely gray eyes drilling holes into my head. I didn’t see any hate in them, only a chilling determination to kill and get away with it. That had been her only goal from the very beginning, from what I could see. And now her target was right outside while she was trapped in here, secured with the heaviest spells our witches could devise.
“Okay, Thayen. Now… remember what I told you,” Soul said, his voice echoing through a telepathic connection. “Focus on her soul. Well, on that exquisite forgery that’s passing as a soul. It can mimic emotions, and she was responsive to someone’s orders when it came to killing Astra. There’s a good chance you might be able to reach her with your glamoring.”
“I just need to dig deep enough.” I nodded slowly as I looked at Isabelle’s clone.
A cold grin spread over her face. “What? You want to try poking through my head again? Your previous failure wasn’t enough, so you’re here to embarrass yourself further?”
“Something tells me that by the time I’m done with you, that smile will be long gone,” I shot back, narrowing my eyes as I tried to latch on to whatever tendril of energy I could pick up. This was a matter of opening myself up more. It required focus.
I felt the power inside me. The shard was alive, making my heart hurt a little whenever I tapped into it. I followed that sensation and allowed it to expand and take over my body, then my spirit. A flame brewed in my throat as the shard became an incandescent presence within, its influence spreading out like wildfire.
“You can’t twist me around,” the clone said. “I’m not designed for this stuff.”
I needed to get the inferno under control, focusing the heat onto my target and increasing its strength until she could no longer resist it. Something between us connected, and my heart tightened a little as I made contact. This felt different than the first time. Either I was finally doing something right, or the shard had learned to follow my lead a little better. Sometimes I thought of it as a sentient entity of its own.
The clone’s grin vanished, and her nostrils flared.
“There we go,” I whispered, pushing myself and digging deeper into what I’d found. She was definitely there in spirit, though it wasn’t a real spirit. She was animated by something, and I’d managed to tap into it. Describing it in terms that made sense would’ve been a titanic feat, so I chose to concentrate on what I could understand—the electrifying layer that surrounded her core, through which my glamoring had just pierced. Isabelle’s clone was fighting back, rejecting me, but I wasn’t done yet.
Slowly raising a hand, I reached out toward her. As if that force inside her might respond. As if it might come out to touch me so I could grab it and squeeze it into submission. My fingertips pricked, and I closed my fist, breathing heavily as the doppelganger gasped.
Her eyes widened as she realized what was happening.