“I had to go, I —” Eric sighed. Threw himself onto the sofa, burrowed his face into a cushion. And finally, agreed, “I shouldn’t have gone.”
“I did not realize it touched you so deeply. You didn’t like him.” That was, coming from Ix, almost an apology.
“I didn’t. I thought him callous and cold after Mother died.” This was not news to Ix; he had been with Eric that whole time. It was understandable why Ix would have thought Eric wouldn’t be grieving after hearing Eric mutter nothing but complaints against the man for the last five years. “But as long as he was alive, I could hope that he would come to his senses one day. For Petra at least. And now I know with finality that he was no longer the father I remembered.”
He felt something on his head. A sensation so unfamiliar it took him a moment to realize it was Ix’s hand with a light comforting pressure on the top of his head as he ran his fingers through Eric’s curls. And then it was gone by the time Eric turned his face in astonishment to check.
Ix was back to staring at his mirror. Eric waited until he was engrossed in his spell again before hooking the chain with his finger, peering down at his nose to look at the pendant, a streaked amber stone that reminded him of Ix’s eyes. He tucked it under his shirt, and tried not to think about how he was carrying a part of Ix around with him now. He still couldn’tfeel anything but the strange swirling of the colors looked mysterious and effective, and he would have to trust Ix that it was working.
When the mirror suddenly misted over though, Eric did notice that. “Ix?” he asked nervously, rising up out of the armchair as the glass distorted even more, the reflection in the mirror undulating in the most disturbing way. Shadows that didn’t exist on this side floated across the surface.
“Do not concern yourself. It’s working,” said Ixthan, waving him back down, although he didn’t elaborate on what, exactly, was working. Probably because Eric had just asked him not to tell him, godsdamnit. He shouldn’t have said that, hedidwant to know what was going on, not least because it probably counted as some sort of diplomatic travel if Prince Ixthan decided to go for a visit in the demon realms.
Ix leaned closer into the mirror until his nose almost brushed the surface, waiting.
“Now what?” Eric asked. Mage or not he could tell when touching a mysterious magic mirror was a poor decision.
All of a sudden, a terrible thought occurred to Eric. What if Ix didn’t come back? He wouldn’t go and simply stay forever with his mother, would he? That would have been against the terms of the Demonic Accords: a pivotal part of the treaty was that the demon princes would stay in the human realm to… to… Hellsdamnit, Eric should have brushed up on his politics, why couldn’t he remember the specifics?
Lingering in the back of his mind was a small voice that tried to reassure him, that told him Ix wouldn’t go and just leave him. Surely. Surely.
Ix grinned full-force, and stepped forward. Eric shouted out but it was too late.
The mirror shattered. A deafening crack echoed through the air. A blast of multicolored wind whistled out of the mirror andthrough the room, so sharp and vicious that Eric flinched as it whipped across his face. Magic, he thought wildly, trying to keep his eyes open as it whirled around the room in streaks of rich greens and golds. So that was what it looked like. It was beautiful.
And just as suddenly, it was gone.
For one terrifying moment, Eric thought that Ix had also disappeared, stepped through the mirror. But as the colors faded like a cloud of smoke dissipating, Ix was still here. Relief swelled in Eric and was just as quickly extinguished: Ix collapsed without a sound.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE BODY HITthe carpet with a muffled thud as Ix’s considerable weight fell all at once. Eric rushed over, barely registering the eerie cold emanating from the mirror. When he rolled Ix’s body over, his eyes were open, glassy, but unblinking. There was no response when Eric shook him. “Ix. Ix. Ixthan!”
Ixthan’s skin was icy. No, worse than icy. It was so cold Eric felt the warmth leech unnaturally out of his own skin, instantly sucked away. He looked around for Petra. She wasn’t here naturally, he was just so used to going everywhere with his twin and she would have known what to do. Eric cursed and leaped toward the servant’s bell immediately, yanking it as hard as he could. It would be at least five or ten minutes before any of them got here,damnIx for not having a regular rotation of servants.
Eric dragged him – gods, Ix was heavy – towards the fireplace, his hands already chilled and gray by the time he managed to get Ix in front of the fire. It was burning low, probably because the servants hadn’t been in all day, so he tossed more wood into the fireplace, clenching his hands into fists to try and force the warmth back into them.
What else? Eric remembered the year Petra had fallen into the frozen pond when they had been ice skating, the way the servants had draped her with covers. He grabbed the blanket on the armchair, folding it over Ixthan and covering him from the neck down. He apologized, in his head, for invading Ix’s bedroom without permission as he barged in, stripping the heavy down duvet off the bed and bringing it back to the study. The first blanket was already rimmed with frost rind as he bundled the duvet on top.
Eric had no idea how long it took for the servants to get there, only that he yelled for them to fetch more blankets and to summon the mage healers. Someone arrived and stoked the fire up, much more effectively than he had, and someone else started to rub warmth into Ixthan’s hands and arms through the blankets, so Eric knelt down and followed suit. People were talking above his head, though he didn’t know who.
“Is he —”
“There’s a heartbeat. He’s still breathing.”
“Oh, thank the gods.”
At some point, the mage healers arrived, out of breath. They usually stayed within the hospitium, the dedicated healing wing of the Magisterium, a brisk eight or ten minute walk away. Mages rarely specialized in healing magic and only a handful of healer mages existed at all, a precious resource reserved for the most extreme and rare of illnesses or emergencies. The last time Eric had seen one of them in public had been that outbreak of the plague a few years ago, but the king’s own son probably counted as an emergency.
Eric stood, reluctantly, to give them room next to Ix, but stayed within touching distance. Things were a blur after that. He ended up sat on a chair in Ixthan’s room, with no recollection of having walked. They’d moved Ix onto the bed. Whatever magic had been making him unnaturally cold and turning theair to frost had faded, thankfully, so they’d rubbed him dry with towels, changed the blankets for fresh dry ones and placed heated bricks around him.
Someone had pressed a warmed mug into Eric’s hand and something wet on his forehead that made him jump.
“Eric. Eric.” The voice sounded as if it had been saying his name for a while.
“What?” Eric said, annoyed. He couldn’t stop watching Ix. What if he woke up? A shadow passed over his vision and Eric blinked, his eyes focusing. The king came into view. Oh, gods, he’d just batted the king off with a ‘what’.
“Your Majesty!” said Eric, leaping to his feet to bow and splashing lukewarm tea all down himself. He hadn’t even remembered he’d been holding onto that. He added with a wince, “I didn’t… see you…”
