she detected movement, a presence before it grew more solid. A chest at her back, when there was nothing behind her. The trail of fingers down to her elbow, the breath at her ear.
It took her longer than she was proud of to finally turn.
In the reflection, Jack stood right behind her, both hands at her shoulders. The pressure of his touch so real, existing only in the mirror. “Look at you…” There was a haunted quality to his voice. As if he didn’t like what he saw, but couldn’t look away. “Exhausted.”
She swallowed back a scream. It was the first time he’d visited her in daylight, in public. Anyone could walk in, and she feared what would happen. What they would see, what he would do.
But despite his confidence, he’d come through a mirror.
Only an illusion.
Illusions, she could banish.
Kallia no longer avoided his gaze in her reflection—she met it head-on. A new fire edged around her eyes. After all, his touch was real only within the frame and a deception outside of it. His words floated back to her, the trick of illusions. They were made more real by every emotion latched onto it. Fear, desire, anger, anything, like water and sunlight to a flower. And with the unpredictability of a mirror, she had to do more than deprive.
Kallia cleared her mind, meditating the way she did before a show.
No more.
No more fear, no more anger.
No more of the yearning that lingered, regardless.
After everything, that emotion shocked her most of all. She wanted it gone.
Sweat ran down her face as her eyes blinked open, snapping her back into the room. Her ears thundered, head throbbing sharply from the effort. Magic never came easy. Even if she could fool hundreds in the audience to think it effortless, it was difficult. That was the only way she knew it was working.
Jack steadied her. “You can’t force me out of here.”
Kallia growled out a pant. “Watch me.”
“Don’t squander your energy when you’re already running on so little, firecrown. Not even I’m worth it.” He glanced toward the exit, the still curtains leading out. “Where’s your magician to save you?”
Give nothing away.
“You can’t hide it, Kallia. From everyone else, from me.” His voice dropped lower than a whisper, strained. “It could never work between you two.”
The silence within her burned, until she could no longer contain it. “Because he’s not you?”
“Because he has no power.”
He said it like he’d dropped an explosive in the room. One that would shake her world and destroy everything within it. Kallia lifted her chin higher. “I know.”
His brow tensed, he hadn’t expected that. “You know everything he’s done? What he’s been—”
“I know.” Her nostrils flared. “And I don’t care.”
That shadow of a mask he so often wore cracked for barely a second before it smoothed over once more. “Then you’re a fool,” he muttered. “If you perform with him, hell, if you even go to the ball, terrible things will happen.”
It sounded suspiciously like a promise.
Her focus cleared on a deep breath. “You’re not here,” she intoned, hollow but strong. “You’re not here, you’re not here, you’re not here…”
“Remember what I said about mirrors, firecrown?”
Shut up. She did not want him to teach her. She did not want his lessons or his tricks any longer.
“It’s much harder to stop what you see in the mirror when it’s like a world unto itself, a world so much like yours.”
“You’re not here.” Kallia began sweating once more, working through the ringing against her temple. “You’re not here.”
“Focus harder. Concentrate. You can try cutting me off all you’d like, but when do you stop believing it’s real?” he asked, that familiar challenge. Always pushing. “How can you honestly look into that mirror and not realize—”
Crack.
A split ran across the surfaces. It cut over her reflected body in a clean, thin line, the flaw providing a soothing reminder. The rest of the glass, showing her alone across all three mirrors.
“Quick thinking, Kallia.”
The whisper of wind danced across her shoulders, by her ear. She didn’t dare turn around, refusing to give him the satisfaction.
“But be prepared to be surprised, tomorrow. If you don’t heed any of my warnings, heed that one at least.”
Before she could spit a curse his way, the air around her loosened, as if freed from a poison. The whisper, the touch at her back—gone.
In the mirror, she found herself alone in the center, broken by the crack in the surface that spanned across her body.