different, the parts of the dance that were off. Yet she’d ignored them, falling right into Jack’s hands. And now he was here, looking at her with Demarco’s face, and a smile that was pure Jack.
“Look at you, going to her like a guard dog.” He blew out an amused whistle. “You couldn’t even protect yourself when I swooped in.”
Demarco glared, unblinking. “Who are you?”
Jack chuckled, and bile crept up Kallia’s throat. She didn’t want the memory of Jack as Demarco, of his body and face and voice used like this. “Kallia’s not quite fond of talking about me to others. Isn’t that right, firecrown?”
With the quick wave of his hands, the lights over their heads dissolved, and with it, the rest of his disguise. “I guess you could call me an old friend.”
Still shaking, she looked away as he transformed. The sudden murmurs of bewilderment rippling across the room were enough to know he was here.
Jack, in Glorian.
Here, at last.
“Excuse me, sir, but who do you think you are?” the mayor bellowed, furiously making his way through the guests. “We’ve bent the rules quite enough for this contestant, and it clearly states the final act can only be performed with—”
“Ah, the toad who’s been giving her so much trouble,” Jack muttered by way of greeting. “What I would give if they’d just take you.”
Kallia knew his tone, the murder it promised. “Jack, please.”
“They’re still looking for one more.” He shrugged dispassionately. “If he’s their pick, I won’t stop them.”
Mayor Eilin scoffed, unafraid. “Who are you?”
In one blink, Jack was at the center of the mirrors—and the next, right in front of the mayor. He raised his knuckles out to the old man, the first time Kallia had ever seen them stripped of their rings in all the time she’d known him. “Go on, take a closer look.”
Black symbols branded Jack’s fingers, ones he’d kept hidden all this time. She’d never once imagined anything lay beneath, but there they were in a menacing row.
Black triangles, inked across his knuckles.
The man’s righteous anger died. “No…” He shook his head, panicked. “No, it can’t be. The Alastors—they’re gone. Long gone.”
“You think so, Mister Mayor?”
The booming toll of bells began, each chime more thunderous than the last. Every familiar toll shook in Kallia’s bones with their promise.
Darkness.
Chaos.
“My mercy was wasted on you and this place,” Jack said over the ominous bells, sneering. “You brought this upon yourselves.”
A crack sounded as he punched the old man square in the face. At the sickening thud to the ground, a high-pitched scream pierced the air. Janette scrambled over and knelt by her father, desperately checking his neck for a pulse. A heartbeat.
“You all wanted a show?” Jack stepped away from the body, already forgotten. “Looks like you’ve got it.”
The lights dimmed. Kallia caught a flicker of movement before facing the mirror nearest to her. Black fog flooded all the frames, swarms of smoke and cloud pressing out from the other side of the glass.
In the distance, dark figures emerged in little specks.
Walking closer, growing larger.
Kallia swallowed hard, shivering as she remembered. The figures she’d seen in Juno’s head. The ones Jack had shown her. Shadows she didn’t even know the names of, coming for this world.
“What are those?” Demarco’s mouth hung in horror.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, her breath cold. “But whatever happens, we can’t let them come through those mirrors.”
Kallia was relieved she didn’t have to explain. Demarco knew all too well the sinister nature of mirrors, the doors they could be. With a swift nod, he took off for the frame across from them, using his elbow to fracture the surface.
Five more.
They stumbled as Jack reappeared between them with a force that quaked into the ground. Two of the mirrors toppled over from the impact, shattering instantly. Rather than glass, a flock of black birds surged through the empty frame. Their screeches feral, flapping wings violent.
Same as those that had plagued the theater from her disastrous second act.
Screams filled the room as the birds flew above the guests, pecking and diving their beaks into fabric and flesh. A blur of gowns and tables overturned, people rushing for cover. Kallia spotted a wave of fire burning the birds from below—Canary, warding the creatures off with her flames. In various spaces of the ballroom, other Conquerors and contestants conjured the elements they could to fight back. Even Aaros fought nearby, on a table swinging the broken leg of a chair at the birds alongside the Starling