“We don’t have much time.” Jack pulled at her, unfazed by the chaos. “Come with me.”
Kallia was acutely aware of his feet crunching over broken glass, no longer trails of smoke. His touch was solid and whole. Desperate. “Let go of me.” She shook him off. “I’m not leaving.”
“It’s not safe here, Kallia,” he murmured. “This city is going to destroy itself, we must go now.”
In earnest, he reached for her and managed to half-vanish into nothing—before ripping out a frustrated snarl as he materialized a second later, again and again. Realizing she wouldn’t follow. She couldn’t.
“It looks like this magic is beyond even yours, Jack. I’m bound here.” For once, it was a relief. “You can’t just take me away.”
Whether it was fear for her or the inability of his own magic to get him what he wanted, dread ravaged his face. “I’m not leaving without you. Not here. Not with—”
A bolt of light flew over Kallia’s shoulder, knocking Jack back into a mirror. Turning, Kallia spotted Demarco on the ground, propped up on one hand. His other hand, outstretched and scarred, glowing toward them as he bore the most rage she’d ever seen.
The mirror crashed back, emptying the frame instantly. Releasing a wave of birds in its wake.
Kallia’s heart gripped painfully, and she staggered to her knees.
What was happening?
Her pulse raced in her ears, her vision dimmed.
“You feel it, now?” Jack faltered onto one knee beside her, jaw clenched. “You finally see?”
She ignored him. He would never stop trying to trick her. On an angry breath, Kallia used his back as leverage to push herself up and force him back down to the ground.
Only two mirrors left. The darkened figures behind them were already pressing their shadowy fingers against the surface.
“Stay with him, Kallia, and he will destroy you and everything you could be,” Jack seethed. “That weakness, blooming inside you—you know where that came from, don’t you? Who started it?”
Lies
Truths
Come to us
We’ll show you the difference
“Shut up!” Kallia screamed, the voices swirling around her. Her vision, purpling at the edges. “What … what did you do to me?”
“I would never steal magic from you. Not like him.”
The screams of the ballroom fell to silence. No hint of trickery on Jack’s face, only pity. A whisper of it.
Her thoughts blurred, chest tightening with each pained pant. “No.” Her voice broke. “No, you’re wrong. You’re lying.”
He must be.
He had to be.
Tears burned in her eyes as Demarco shouted her name, and she could no longer make sense of anything. Only the exhaustion, sweeping through her so suddenly she found herself sliding against the empty mirror frame to the floor.
“Kallia!”
She barely touched the ground, pulled quickly against a chest, a familiar scent. Demarco’s arm was riddled in scars, bleeding lightly, but he held out his hand protectively before them. A bright light emanated from his open palm, aimed at Jack.
Jack.
“Wait.” Kallia didn’t know what she was saying, as she tried pulling Demarco’s arm away. Do not prove him right. Please. “No, stop—”
The light flew from his palm and Jack ducked away from its collision with the mirror.
At the shattering impact, Kallia cried out.
A breathless scream, locked in her throat.
Pain, eating her heart from the inside.
Pain she’d sensed time and again, only to realize it now, stripping her away.
“What’s wrong?” Demarco whispered, fear bending to rage. “What did you do to her?”
Kallia edged back, cradling herself tightly. His brow crinkled in hurt as he went to her—only to find he could no longer move.
Steps ahead, Jack kept his hand lifted. “Ask yourself the same question, magician. You’ve done quite enough. You gave her a chance in this inane competition, had the nerve to pose as a mentor…” Through a grimace, he kept Demarco in place. “When you’re nothing more than a fraud.”
Demarco faltered as the words struck him. Arrows stabbing their targets. She didn’t want to look at his face, watch the truth ripple across him as it burned away inside her.
She’d known.
She’d known that he’d had no magic, until he came to Glorian.
Until he’d met her.
“No.” Kallia’s mouth trembled. The same man she’d seen every day since she got here. A stranger now, like he once was. “Your magic, and mine…”
Demarco continued pushing against the force staying him, but he blinked long and hard in confusion as if he didn’t know.
What if he didn’t? a voice teased, from the mirror shards or simply from the back of her mind. She could not tell anymore, but