Bianca stepped closer, her voice low so it wouldn’t echo. “You’re going to get him back, Jess. I know you are.”
I shook my head. “What if I’m too late? What if?—”
“You won’t be,” she said, cutting me off. “Because you love him, and because you’re too damn stubborn to let some mirror creep win.”
My throat tightened. “Bianca…”
She grinned. “Think of the man you love, Jess. Hold onto that. It’s stronger than you think.”
Before I could answer, Raven swooped back through the window, clutching a tiny vial between his claws. The liquid inside shimmered gold and green. “Sunroot and stardew. Old family recipe. Drink, and you’ll have enough magic to get through the night without burning yourself out.”
I took it, the glass warm against my fingers, and Bianca’s words even warmer in my chest.
Something in her tone hit deeper than the potion’s warmth, steadying my hands before I even uncorked the vial.
The liquid burned sweet and sharp on my tongue, like cinnamon chased with lightning. Heat spread from my chest to my fingertips, untangling the ache in my muscles and clearing the fog from my head. The tingling in my hands eased, replaced by a steady thrum of magic, like my veins were carrying sunlight instead of blood.
Raven tilted his head, watching me. “Don’t get cocky. It’s a quick fix, not a miracle. You’ve got maybe an hour before the boost burns off, so make it count.”
Bianca jiggled the key she’d borrowed from the janitor’s closet. “You ready?”
“No,” I said, but I pushed the storeroom door open anyway.
The room was smaller than I’d imagined, more like a walk-in closet than a proper storage space. Metal shelves lined the walls, sagging under boxes of cracked beakers, dented Bunsen burners, and mysterious jars with labels that had faded to nothing. In the back, leaning against the far wall, was the mirror Raven had described.
It was oval, the kind with an ornate metal frame, but the surface was cloudy, like frost had formed on the inside. Even from the doorway, I could feel the seam humming behind it, a steady, patient thrum, like a heart waiting for a reason to beat faster.
“This,” Raven said from his perch on a shelf, “is where we win.”
Bianca looked around the cramped space and grinned. “Or die in a very creative way.”
I set the flamingo mirror down on an empty shelf and pulled the peach-gold gloss from my pocket. The last time we’d tried this, Etan had pulled Nate back in before the seam collapsed. I could still feel the ghost of his sleeve slipping out of my grip, the hollow ache when the mirror went still.
Not this time.
“Feels like we’re summoning Bloody Mary,” Bianca said crossing her arms over her chest and hugging herself.
“We’re not,” I said. “She’d be safer company.”
Bianca helped me to add double salt lines around us, and I hoped they would help to keep us safe. The last thing I added was the peach lip gloss, opening it and adding a small dab to my lips before smacking them together.
A shape took form. Shoulders, jawline, hair I’d memorized without trying.
“Nate?” Bianca’s voice was small.
I kept my tone level. “Stay back.”
The shadow sharpened and then his face came into view.
Except it wasn’t Nate.
The smile was wrong. Too still, too deliberate. The eyes glittered like mercury, catching every scrap of light.
Etan.
He didn’t speak at first, just watched us with the patience of a spider. Then, in a voice muffled like it came from underwater, he said, “You came back to see me. How thoughtful.”
The chalk under my hands prickled, faint static rising from it like heat off asphalt. I tightened my grip on the flamingo mirror, feeling the frame vibrate.
