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He pressed his hand to the surface and closed his eyes, mumbling something dark and ancient. Nothing happened. Sirus didn’t stop. At the edges, Gwen saw something dark flick over the silver beneath. A shadow began to seep across the surface of the mirror, clouding it. A skitter of hope swept over her.
“It’s working,” she breathed to encourage him. Sirus kept mumbling.
“You can’t escape!” Aldor screamed with manic laughter from the far end of the hall. A jolt of pure panic shot through her. Sirus might heal, but right now he was badly injured. They needed to make it work. Now.
Sirus’s face dripped with sweat as he continued his chant. Like tentacles, the darkness slithered beneath the mirror, consuming it. Gwen glanced back down the hall and saw Aldor coming toward them, covered in blood but moving fast. Terrified, she spun back around to the mirror. Even if it was working, it was going to be too slow. The voices knew it too.
Desperate, she reached out and touched the surface of the mirror, pressing her hand next to Sirus’s so that their skin touched. With every last ounce of energy Gwen had, she willed it to work. Begged for the magick inside her to help him.
Her hand tingled with energy, and a dark blue haze fell in with the darkness. Sirus’s shadow and her magick blurred together. Gwen’s entire body vibrated as she focused. The taste of blood grew stronger, and her head throbbed with pain. Their blend of magick spread over the last inch of the mirror, and the solid surface vanished. Their hands fell into the dark, shadowed void that remained. Gwen didn’t know where it led, but she knew it had to be better than here.
Aldor slammed into the wall of mirrors several yards behind them with a snarl of fury. Gwen startled and spun around with horror. He looked feral and desperate, soaked entirely with blood. Sirus dropped Aldor’s sword with a clatter and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her into him. Gwen twisted, wrapping herself tightly around him just before he plunged them both into the slithering, cold embrace of the shadow, Aldor’s roars of fury and the spectral voices falling away as they slipped deeper into the abyss together.
Chapter Seventeen
Sirus twisted his body, shielding her from the brunt of the fall as they slammed into the floor and slid. Gwen looked back over her shoulder and found a matching, warped, gem-encrusted standing mirror just behind them. The shadow within the mirror dissipated into dark blue shimmering dust, until nothing remained but an empty silver frame.
“We—” she breathed, the words getting caught in her throat. Gwen couldn’t believe it. They’d escaped. The mirror was destroyed. They were safe. She hauled in a raspy laugh of relief.
Sirus shifted beneath her, and Gwen realized she was sprawled over him. More so, he was holding her close to him. His eyes shot open, no longer black but their regular icy blue. His piercing gaze found hers.
“We did it,” she told him with a reassuring smile.
There was a flicker of something in his eyes for the briefest moment before he threw his head back and coughed. Blood sprayed over his face and hers. Gwen’s relief evaporated in an instant.
She scrambled up off of him, overcome with horror. No, no, no. They were safe.
Gwen gasped a small sob. The gaping wound in his stomach was foul and dark. He was bleeding so much, she knew if he were human, he would already be dead.
Frantically, she looked around to get her bearings. They were in a large bedroom with stone walls and antique furniture. The light was only faint thanks to the bright moonlight. Sirus coughed again, sending blood pouring out of the edges of his mouth. Gwen snatched a blanket off the chair next to them and met his eyes. “H-hold on. Just hold on,” she stammered as she pressed it hard against his wound.
Sirus winced. “No,” he murmured, grabbing her blood-smeared hands in his.
“It’ll be okay,” she told him as he tried to pull her hands away. “W-we just have to stop the bleeding, so you can heal.”
He forced one of her hands up and covered it with his own on his chest. He looked over to her, and that look tore through her heart like a blade through paper. “You’re safe,” he managed to say.
“You’ll be okay,” she swore to him as tears welled in her eyes. “I promise.”
Sirus squeezed her hand, and she stilled. It was plainly written on his blood-smeared face. He wouldn’t be okay, and he knew it.
“Sirus,” Gwen pleaded. He couldn’t give up. Not now.
There was a flash of something in his cool gaze. A raw emotion laced with utter calm. A sadness, almost. He pressed her hand harder against his chest, and unbridled fear took hold of Gwen like nothing she’d ever felt before. When his eyes fluttered shut, she screamed.
The door smashed open not even a second after she’d yelled. Gwen gasped through her tears. Not just from the commotion, but because of who’d come through the door. Niah looked down at her for the briefest moment before she shifted to Sirus.
“Help,” Gwen begged, not caring how it was possible that she was here. Niah was already across the room, knocking aside the furniture in her way. She knelt by Sirus, taking over applying pressure to his wound. “I can’t stop the bleeding,” Gwen said as she fell backward. That’s when she noticed the others.
After Niah came a creature she could only describe as a demon. He was remarkably tall, dressed in a pair of slacks and a long-sleeved sweater. His skin was so dark purple it was almost black. Wide, ridged horns stuck out through his shoulder-length black hair and curled behind his tall, pointed ears. His crimson eyes scanned the scene before him. Barith and Levian followed right behind him, a haze of ethereal light surrounding them.
“Goddess above,” Levian gasped as she caught sight of Sirus. Barith snarled several swears.
“How bad?” the demonic creature asked Niah.
“Bad,” she said, glancing at Gwen. Barith and Levian both looked at her too.
Gwen didn’t have time to explain. “You can save him, can’t you?” she asked desperately, half plea and half command, her eyes darting between each one of them.
