The Mirror Realm had no taste, no heat, no noise except the ones you made yourself. It was a hollow echo of life. Here, everything hummed. The thud of footsteps, the scrape of a chair, the murmur of someone breathing just behind you. Even now, with magic tearing the room apart, I could smell the faint citrus shampoo in Jess’s hair. I could hear the way her heartbeat stuttered when our eyes met in the glass.
I let my reflection multiply in the shards, stepping through one, then another, until I was everywhere she turned. “Why fight me?” I asked, my voice slipping into her left ear from one shard, her right from another. “You’ve seen what I can do. You’ve felt what it’s like to have someone choose you, without hesitation.”
She gritted her teeth, tightening her grip on that ridiculous flamingo mirror like it was a weapon.
“You think you’re protecting Nate,” I said, circling her in a hundred perfect copies. “But I am Nate now. Better. I’m not awkward, I’m not afraid, and I’m not going to waste years working up the courage to ask you out. I want you now.”
The magic surged, pulling at the edges of my form, tugging me toward the thin, cold place between worlds. My grin faltered for a heartbeat. I hated the way it felt, that emptiness trying to swallow me.
I slammed a hand against the nearest shard. It rippled under my palm.
“I’m not going back,” I said, the words vibrating through every reflection. “Not when this world tastes like fire and salt and you.”
One of my reflections leaned closer to her through the glass, so close our foreheads almost touched. “You can’t send me back if you’re not sure you want to.”
Then I could see it, that flash of doubt in her eyes.
The storm spun faster, but I wasn’t letting go. I wasn’t ready to lose her.
Chapter 20
Jess
We regrouped again in my room. My legs felt like they were made of wet cardboard. I shut the door and leaned against it, staring at the flamingo mirror propped in the corner. Its crack was dull now, the faint hum gone.
I’d been so close. I’d seen him, the real Nate. His eyes had found mine through the glass, his hands pressed against the same spot as mine. For a second, it had felt like pulling him through was possible. Like maybe the nightmare was about to be over. And then, gone. Ripped away before I could even say his name.
The hollow ache in my chest didn’t feel like just missing him, it was worse. Like I’d been holding my breath for hours, waiting for something that never came.
Somewhere down the hall, I heard my mother moving around, the clink of dishes, and the faint hiss of running water. She had no idea what had just happened in the auditorium. She couldn’t. If she even suspected I’d been messing with unstable magic again, I’d be grounded until I was thirty and the flamingo mirror would be ‘accidentally’ donated to the thrift store.
Another sound drifted up; a dull click followed by a muttered curse. I didn’t have to see it to know she was still fighting with the coffee maker. The one I’d blown up yesterday in a glitter-coffee disaster. The one that almost gave me what I wanted before backfiring spectacularly. Just like tonight.
I clenched my fists. That stupid machine was a perfect metaphor for my entire week — so close to working, then ending in a mess I had to clean up. But I wasn’t tossing Nate’s life in the trash with the broken appliance. Not when I had another shot.
Bianca flopped into my desk chair, kicking at a pile of laundry like it had personally offended her. “Well, that sucked.”
“Thanks for the recap,” I muttered, peeling a streamer off my jacket. The peach-gold gloss sat on my desk, looking way too innocent for the trouble it had caused.
Raven hopped onto the windowsill, feathers puffed up like he’d been caught in the windstorm with us, which, he had. “It was a strong plan,” he said. “Wrong place.”
Bianca spun the chair to face him. “You told us the auditorium was the strongest seam.”
“It is,” Raven said. “Strength isn’t everything. The pull was unstable, the warding lines in the floor are old. That’s why it snapped before you could finish.”
I dropped onto the bed. The mattress dipped under my weight, and for a second, I let myself imagine staying there, letting the whole fight wash past me. But the image of Nate fading out, for real, forever burned through the temptation—I wasn’t done. Not even close.
“So, what, we just wait for Nate to send me a postcard from the Mirror Realm?” I said.
“No,” Raven said. “We try again. But somewhere that doesn’t tear itself apart halfway through.”
Bianca started ticking options off on her fingers. “What about the library mirror?”
“Too many protections,” Raven said. “You’d be lucky to get a ripple in the glass.”
“The one in the gym?”
“Too weak. You’d drag him halfway through and he’d stick there like bad taffy.”
