Irene blinked, taken aback by the sudden hostility in Olivier’s voice. “Did you not hear what I said?Silasgave me the mirror.” But when she looked up, it wasn’t just Olivier who seemed suddenly troubled. Emilio was also peering down at the reflection, eyes wide and mouth parted in shock.
“Okay…” she muttered. “Why do the two of you look like you’ve just seen a ghost?”
“You said youknowhim?” Emilio asked, voice wavering.
“Jesus Christ.” Irene rolled her eyes, groaning in frustration. “Are you going to make me repeat everything I say?Yes.His name is Mateo. He’s a Demien. He fucking used me to get information and then abandoned me the second I gave him what he wanted—”
“He isn’t a Demien,” interjected Olivier. His body had gone impossibly still.
“What are you talking about?” Irene scoffed, panic shooting up her throat. “He is. He showed me. He can harness shadow magic. He has all the Order information. He spoke with the generals on a daily basis.”
Olivier shook his head. “He isn’t. He can’t be.”
Irene let out a disgruntled sigh. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Olivier reached into one of his pockets. He unveiled a small, crinkled paper, a torn piece of parchment.
There was a drawing of a face on it.
A face Irene knew well.
“Why the hell do you have a drawing of Mateo?” Irene asked.
“Because this isn’t Mateo,” Olivier muttered. He held up the drawing next to Irene’s mirror, right beside the reflection of Mateo, the two identical faces side by side. “It’s the True Headmaster.”
“No.” Irene staggered backward, shaking her head.“No.”
“I don’t understand,” Masika muttered in confusion. “Are you saying…are you saying they’re the same person?”
Emilio let out a shuddering breath. “It certainly seems like it.”
“No,” Irene repeated, hand raised. “There’s no way. That’s notpossible.”
Olivier tucked the paper back into his pocket. “Irene. I know it seems impossible, but you just saw it with your own two eyes…” But Irene wasn’t listening. Panic whirled inside her as she attempted to scrounge up any possible excuse to dismiss what she had just seen.
“Mateo can’t be the True Headmaster,” she muttered. “He…he can’t. I was with him every day. He can access shadow magic. Why would the True Headmaster have given up his humanity? Whywould he have convinced me to help him destroy Blackwood’s wards so that the Demiens could storm the grounds?”
Olivier scoffed. “The better question is…how thehelldid he manage to resurrect himself?”
“Maybe he didn’t,” Emilio suggested. “Maybe someone elsedid.”
Irene shivered at the thought.
“Look.” Masika let out a calming breath. “None of that matters right now. Wherever he is—whoever he is—he’s not here. And unless one of us knows how to magically find him, he’s the least of our concerns at the present moment.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Olivier asked.
“Who is the one person who holds the key to destroying Blackwood? The one person whose presence is essential for the Demiens’ plan to work?”
Irene groaned.
“Wren fucking Loughty.”
“Then we find her,” Masika said. “We find her and stop her.”
46
AUGUST
