Three mirrors stretch before me. The enormous, wide-view panels reflect every angle, every trembling line of my body. Lace and satin cling to my curves, and the virginal white fabric turns my stomach.
I should not have put on a wedding dress today.
When I chose it, I was drunk on champagne and easily influenced. I picked the one my mother-in-law and bridesmaids liked best—the most expensive, the flashiest.
A blush spreads on my neck at how steep the cut is over my cleavage. I look like somebody else. Maxine the witch always dreamed of getting married on some mountain in a bohemian cotton gown with her hair in the wind.
“Let me adjust your veil,” the attendant offers.
She doesn’t wait for an answer, her hands gentle but insistent as she sweeps my curls away from my face and twists them into a bun, using the comb of the veil to secure it in place. “Here. That’s better.”
The tulle skirt slides through my fingers like rubble slipping from a cliff, and I meet her gaze in one of the mirrors. “Thank you. I need a moment alone.”
With a polite incline of her head, she slips away beyond the drapes.
A hundred images of the perfect bride appear in the reflection. She’s pale and trembling, her hair slicked back and pinned modestly behind her head, her veil fallingjust so. My eyes stare back with an intensity that feels foreign, burning in hues of gold and orange.
Tears wet my cheeks. What color will stare back at me in the mirror tomorrow if I don’t start drinking the Angelica tea again? What kind of beast lurks under the hide of the mortal I’ve been impersonating? Because I can hear it howling, and I can’t hold it in forever.
The claustrophobic boutique closes in from all sides, and I clutch the skirt of the dress.
E crossed a line, but the awful truth is, he was right about me. I was so desperate for him to touch me, I almost broke.
He’s gone now. Maybe for good.
And when I end this farce of a wedding once and for all, I’ll be utterly and completely alone, with a throng of monsters hunting me by nightfall.
The mark of the Bloodraven coven mars the underside of my lower arm, masquerading as a birthmark, and I rub the burgundy brand back and forth. For better or worse, I’m not a bride. I’m a freak.
I wrap a hand around the v-line of the dress, the corset tight around my ribcage. “Enough falsehoods,” I tell my reflection.“You’re a Bloodraven witch, and you’ll probably spend the rest of your life alone, but you can’t escape that.”
I snap off the veil and dump it to the ground, my curls tumbling freely over my shoulders. This isn’t a choice between two men, because E is gone, and Lachlan only loves the persona I fabricated—the work hard, work harder young doctor. I plied myself to fit into a little box to please him, to find a place, a family, but that box, however safe, can’t contain me.
Tears fall in fat droplets over my cheeks, but they are not tears of anger, or sadness. They’re tears of grief, for the imaginary life I coveted, for the woman I wish I could have been. There will be no wedding. No career. No kids. My decision is made.
I stand here in the ruins of my so-called mortal life, ready to join my brother in his quest to avenge our mother. To leave everything that felt safe or familiar, and delve further into darkness.
“Don’t cry, little fox.”
E’s voice echoes in the enclosed fitting area, and his presence warms the air.
He’s still here. I failed the cleansing ritual and didn’t banish him to the ether. Relief floods me, bitter and strange. I am glad. And broken.
“I thought you might be gone forever. Why didn’t you tell me this morning?” I croak.
“I was hurt. You wanted me gone,” he breathes.
“I was angry with you. And terrified.” As much as I want to defend my split-second decision to try and cast him out of my life, I regretted it instantly.
“And now?”
“Still terrified.”
The world shrinks to this single room. His presence wraps around me like sunlight through gauze. I shouldn’t feel at homewith a ghost, shouldn’t crave the way his voice steadies the restless parts of me. Whatever bound us—some cruel twist of fate, dark magic, or bad luck—can’t last. I can’t keep forsaking life in favor of death. No matter how much he feels like the missing piece I didn’t know I’d lost, I have to turn away.
A blazing light spears through the room, turning the white walls, pedestal, intimacy drapes, and the ivory tulle of my dress to gold.
By the Darkness and all its whispers, the mirrors…
