I nodded. “So… Etan kissing me was?—”
“A trap,” Raven said flatly. “A very obvious, very predictable trap.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Five days and change,” Raven said, jumping across the edge of my desk like a tiny, judgmental metronome. “Plenty of time if you’re planning to fail spectacularly.”
I swallowed. Five days. The words landed heavier than the warning.
He hopped closer to the flamingo mirror. “Rule number two, when dealing with the Mirror Realm, always have an anchor. Something from our world to pull you back if you get too close to the glass. If a creature does try to bargain with you, don’t. They don’t want money or stuff, they want sensations. Your first bite of chocolate cake, the sound of your favorite song live, the feeling of your hand in someone else’s for the first time.” He gave me a flat look. “They’ll buy it, steal it, trick it out of you and once it’s gone, you can still remember the event, but the joy’s gone. Like chewing gum after the flavor’s dead.”
“What type of anchor?”
“Your crow necklace, for example. It has family magic in it, whether you realize it or not. It can also be a person you have a deep connection with.”
“Cool,” I said, fiddling with the pendant. “So, what’s the actual training part?”
Raven gave the mirror a tap with his beak. The glass shimmered like a fish had disturbed the surface water. A faint image appeared; my bedroom, but wrong. The colors were washed out, and the light was dimmer, like an old photograph.
“That’s the Mirror Realm version of your room,” Raven said. “Now, try to hold the connection steady.”
Even through the glass, I could feel it. The air on the other side looked heavy, the way a room feels after someone’s been crying in it for hours. The light had weight, like it had to think about where to fall before it settled. Shadows didn’t stretch naturally; they bent at odd angles, some curling toward the ceiling instead of the floor. There was no breeze, yet a strand of my mirrored hair moved as though something unseen had passed by. A low, distant hum pressed against my ears, not loud but constant, the way silence feels just before a storm. Colors bled into each other like wet paint, dull and tired.
A faint chill seeped out, the damp, stale cold of a room shut up for years. The silence was so deep it seemed to press on my ears, except every now and then, I thought I heard something move, similar to a breath drawn too close behind me.
The whole place smelled of old coins or blood left in the rain. Even the light felt wrong, shifting in ways it shouldn’t. It was as though it had to think twice before deciding where to fall.
I shivered, and it wasn’t just from the cold.
“It’s like it’s hungry,” I said before I could stop myself.
Raven’s beak clicked. “It is.”
I leaned in, focusing hard. The image wavered, blurred, then sharpened again. I could see my bed, though in that version, the comforter was folded perfectly, which was how I knew it wasn’t real.
“Not bad,” Raven said. “But?—”
A shadow moved in the mirror.
Tall. Human-shaped.
Smiling.
Etan.
“Miss me?” his voice slid through the air, even though his lips didn’t move.
I jerked back so hard I nearly knocked the flamingo mirror onto the floor. “Nope. Absolutely not. Training over.”
“Unfortunately,” Raven said, “training has just begun.”
By Tuesday, it was official. Everyone loved Etan.
Not just liked him. Loved him. Teachers, students, the janitor who’d once yelled at me for aggressively walking in the hallway, they all had nothing but glowing things to say about how Nate had really come out of his shell lately.
“He’s finally fun,” I overheard someone say at lunch.
“Yeah, he’s actually worth hanging out with now,” their friend agreed.
