the sudden trill of trumpets and drums and lively strings joining in a wild tune. As though a club had opened its doors right outside.
Her heart beat loudly in her ears as she moved toward the figure beyond the leaves. Tall and broad-shouldered, familiar in a way she couldn’t quite say. She reached out to him—
Only to find a tall, ornate mirror.
Her form, in its reflection.
There was no one else, if there ever had been. She checked all around her, knocked on the glass before her fist froze against the surface. Darkness like smoke misted her surroundings in the mirror. No fiery flowers or jewel-toned bursts. Kallia glanced over her shoulder—still the greenhouse, fragrant and full of life.
But her reflection showed another scene, another world.
The surrounding windows that scaled the walls in the dark were gilded bars in the mirror.
I didn’t throw you in a cage.
The air around her tightened; the music rang louder, faster. Her pulse beat heavily as she stepped back, poised to run.
Until a cold hand burst from the mirror and pulled her by the neck.
Kallia shot up from her bed, sweating.
Her gaze tore across the room; dark, even as light filtered in through cracks in the curtains. She was all alone, and all was silent, yet she could still hear that music. A song that would never leave her.
She massaged her ears to coax it away before hugging her arms around her knees. It wasn’t the first dream she’d had like it, and whenever it came, it was like dying. Each time, more violent.
Her rose cloth lay on the bedside table, next to a candle that had burned itself out in the night. She’d spent the better half staring at the design, willing it to be what it once was.
All that remained was a ruined rose, petals still falling along the fabric.
Kallia wrenched the blankets off. She made for the window, flinging open the curtains to a punishing brightness. Baring herself to the light chased the dreams away faster, and the Glorian sky was a blinding gray white in the morning. It always looked like it was close to raining—eyes a breath away from crying, though tears never came.
Kallia had grown used to it. It was no longer a marvel to see the pointed spires of buildings from her window view. But some mornings, she feared it would all be gone. That one day they would turn back into the tall, shadowy treetops of the Dire Woods. And she’d find herself in her room at the House, as if she’d been there all along. Simply waking from a dream.
Daron,
I wish you would respond, so I know these are reaching you. Mail by courier case is not exactly inexpensive, you know. I only have so much sway with the post.
My messages may be more sparse than usual. We’ve taken in a few magicians affected by the case on the eastern border, and think we might be on the brink of a new magical classification. That’s all I can say for now.
Please write back when you can, and remember to eat something green and fresh once in a while.
—Aunt Cata
Daron liked to skim her brief letters the first time—fondly looking for the scolding note at the end—before reading slower the next. Again and again, until he had the thing memorized.
He ought to write back.
Just once.
Eva had always been better at correspondences; Daron tended to let them fall to the wayside, hopeless at keeping up with others with hardly the time to do so.
Now, he had no excuse. With all the time in the world, locked in a city where everything seemed to go wrong, he had every reason to pen a letter to his aunt. Yet … if he finally did send word, she would come. Be it the middle of the night or in the heat of battle, she would drop everything at the slightest indication that something was wrong.
He sipped at his coffee, glancing up from the letter once more. The chair across from him, still empty.
She was late. He’d watched guests come and go, ignored the majority of letters received just to reread his aunt’s, and even pored through the Soltair Source for old time’s sake before finally, a little while later, he heard the imperious, “Ahem.”
Daron tilted the paper away while Kallia straightened her hair testily without the least bit of shame. “What right do you have to be so put out? You’re late.”
“I’m here, at least.” A wooden screech sounded before she plopped