She felt it deep inside her, the parts of her that hadn’t been the same in a long time. Her petals growing bitter and dry, falling little by little, day by day.
“It’s not gone forever.”
Jack had a way of knowing the questions that bit at her from a glance. “Around magicians like him, it might be,” he said, helping her to her feet. “But if you come back with me, it may not be too late. We can escape this.”
Two choices.
Both came with the promise of ruin, already in motion. Destruction reigned in the Court of Mirrors, crashing down all around her. People in tattered gowns and suits sprinted for the doors, birds wreaking havoc over their heads. Screams and hysterical crying in endless reels, the bursts of fire and collapsing chandeliers. And still, the creatures attacked. No end in sight.
A third choice.
“How can I stop this?”
His dark eyes flashed. “This only ends by giving them what they want, and that’s out of the question. You leave while you still can, that’s how you survive it.”
Something of a memory creeped over his face, killing the cowardice of the words. He ruled by necessity; survival from what, she didn’t know. “Tell me.” Her breath shook. “Because I’m not leaving. I can’t.”
“I’ll figure something out. Just let me…” He raked a hand through his hair, glowering at Demarco. At the mayhem all around them. “You deserve more than this, firecrown. More than him, more than this place and its people.”
She laughed, bitterly. Even when she could barely stand, he still managed to uphold her as someone with power, worthy of more. “You can always leave,” she said. “You don’t even have to watch if you don’t want to.”
“You don’t have to save them.” His scowl deepened at her suggestion. “Save yourself first, Kallia. That’s the only way out.”
And the loneliest. All too sharply, she remembered how alone she felt the night she left Hellfire House. When she’d had nothing to lose, nothing real of her own—the choice had been so easy. She’d needed no one else but herself, her power. Like she was always taught.
Then the others came.
Aaros and Canary.
The Conquering Circus and Ira.
Demarco.
Turning slowly, she glanced at him. It hurt to look at him now, at any of them. All trapped here, same as she was, but she knew cages. She’d grown up behind bars all her life, and had escaped one before.
She could escape again, with more power this time.
“No.” She spun around, facing Jack. No more running, no more hiding. “It’s not.”
Kallia clasped her hands against his jaw, bending his face so he could see her. He startled at her touch. It brought out something soft in him, the storm in his eyes quieting, trying to understand. He almost looked the way he did before, when it was just them. Before Glorian or the competition. Back when she trusted him, when a chandelier at night was all she had.
More.
There was so much more now.
With an apology on her breath, Kallia pushed him through the mirror.
Locked in his embrace, she fell with him into the dark.
* * *
Daron’s hoarse cry was drowned by the mirror’s shatter. No birds emerged from the frame. Those ravaging the ballroom had vanished altogether. And the tolling bells, silent as well. As if they had never rung. As if it had all been a trick.
One moment, both of them stood there.
Now, there was only shattered glass and an empty frame.
Impossible. He staggered over to the last broken fixture, taking in the frame. Fallen rosebuds and shards crunched beneath his shoes, but no spots of blood betrayed a pair of magicians crashing through its surface.
As if they’d simply disappeared together.
Vanished.
“No.” His heart stopped. He couldn’t move or see past the frame, the entire world around him gone still. “No, no, no.”
She couldn’t be gone, just like that.
Not like this.
“What happened to her?” Aaros had landed next to him, his hair a wreck and face a mess of small scars and cuts. He began digging through the scraps of mirror with his bare hands. “Where is she?”
“I…” It was the question his first therapist had asked after Eva disappeared, humoring him. It crushed him, the truth. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Aaros grabbed him by the collar. “You were right here.”
“They went through the mirror.” His voice faded to his own ears, so hollow it was as though someone else were talking for him. “They could be anywhere.”