gear, including some very tight chaps; Tracy patting her enormously pregnant belly.
I finally know what those crazy people who walk on spikes feel, I thought, trying to make light of the fact I was in absolute agony. And I’m only halfway there.
A few more feet and it didn’t feel like knives on my feet anymore. Instead, it felt like fire—a burning sensation that compounded with my already sore feet to make walking murder. I tried everything to mitigate the pain in my feet: I bit my tongue and clenched my fists so tightly my nails bit into my skin, all in an attempt to use differently placed pain to distract the foot pain. But every step I took just made it worse.
Another picture flashed on the mirrored surface in front of me. This time, it was Miss Carrol. Then she was replaced by the Tanners, who owned our local bakery.
I screwed my courage to my sticking place and took one huge step forward… only to land in a crumpled heap. I’d heard of crippling pain but had no idea what it meant till now.
“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” I gibbered, collapsed in a heap over my aching feet. While I was down there, I pulled off my shoe and then pulled up my pant leg to check my flesh. But it was totally unmarred. And yet, any part of my body that touched that floor eventually began to prickle, and soon enough I was standing again. There still stood a huge gulf between me and the end of the oval.
You have to do this, Jane. Suck it up and go.
And with that, I strode forward. Unfortunately, the bigger my strides, the more the pain hit. But smaller steps meant only a constant, nattering pain. I did my best impression of Lamaze breaths as I strode forward, only to nearly pass out before I realized I was only ever inhaling. As I learned later in life at yoga, it hurt more on the exhale.
When I was about a third of the way to the mirror I stopped, panting. Sweat had broken out over my whole body, drenching my skin. I felt like I’d had a bucket of mucky water thrown on me. My long-sleeved tee clung uncomfortably, and my comfy old camo pants were stiff with mud.
Feeling tired and gross and beaten down, I looked to the mirror for inspiration. Only to be met with Graeme’s leering expression.
“What the fuck?” I asked, very rhetorically, to the empty room.
The incubus only smiled with more malice, reaching into his pants to pull out his already engorged penis. Only biologically correct terms worked to describe what he did; there was nothing sexy about the way he stroked himself, watching me. His masturbating was less like a sex act and more like to a militant feeling up his gun before shooting a civilian in the head.
Soon enough, however, Graeme disappeared, only to be replaced by Ryu’s cousin, Nyx. While I didn’t think Nyx was as evil as Graeme, I couldn’t actually be sure. She had, after all, brought a human—her “sack lunch”—to her supernatural compound, only to ignore him when a huge battle took place. She didn’t even notice when he was killed.
I took a hesitant step forward, not exactly liking what I saw before me. It was one thing to think that my friends’ safety waited for me behind that glossy surface, but to think about all the people I loathed in the same context…
Fugwat flashed across the mirror, and then Kaya and Kaori. Together, of course, since I didn’t think they could actually exist apart. When Morrigan appeared on the mirror, and then Jarl, I’d already ground to a halt. The mirror lingered, then, on the oafish, bullying face of Stuart Gray.
And therein lies the test, I realized. It was one thing to walk over hot coals—quite literally—for the people you loved. But another thing entirely to endure such torture for enemies and idiots.
But I don’t get to judge, I realized. Not in that way. If someone attacks me, I have the right to fight back. But I don’t get to allow some force to wipe out everyone—good and bad—as if I’m a god.
I’d never liked Job’s whirlwind. And that’s what would happen if I allowed Phaedra to win. She’d rouse the creature, destroying the East Coast. And then she’d destroy even more with the power she won.
So I walked forward. The pain was brutal, but I gritted my teeth and I endured. I knew it wasn’t