Page 52 of Bone Year

I turn back to the front and walk toward the mirror.

My legs shake, and my heart pounds in my chest. It feels like time slows to a crawl, and it takes me entirely too long to reach the thing.

The liquid surface ripples as I approach like it senses me coming. I want to recoil but force one foot in front of the other. I don’t look for Jace. I can’t look at anyone else or I might lose my nerve. I finally reach it, and I’m not ready to look into the surface, too afraid of what I’ll see. I let my eyes trail the frame.

Hundreds and hundreds of bones are fused together. Ribcages arch along the sides, curving inward like hands reaching to pull you closer. Femurs and tibias stack on top of each other, bleached white and yellow with age. Skulls are embedded in the corners. Some human. Some twisted creatures. Their hollow eye sockets stare at nothing and everything all at once.

I see vertebrae twisted into spirals. A full set of antlers crowns the top, jagged and reaching toward the darkness above. At the base, a pile of smaller bones. Delicate ones. The kind that come from children’s hands.

The death mirror, that’s what this should be called.

I close my eyes, exhale, raise my chin, and look into the mirror.

My reflection stares back at me, only something’s wrong.

I take a step closer. The copper hair. The freckles. The same lips. All of it’s the same except for the eyes.

Those are not my brown eyes.

They’re amber. Bright and molten like honey held up to firelight, and there’s red bleeding into the edges of the irises, creeping in like ink dropped in water.

I blink a few times, but my reflection doesn’t change.

My body fades, but the eyes remain, glowing at the center of the mirror and pulling me in.

Everything around me darkens and disappears all at once. I don’t recall moving, but suddenly I’m no longer in the cavern at all.

I’m swallowed by complete darkness. Complete silence. Not even the dripping water can be heard anymore, but I feel something.

A presence surrounds me, pressing in from every direction. Not touching but there. There’s no floor beneath my feet, and yet I’m standing. No walls and yet I feel enclosed. No light and yet somehow I can see my own hands when I lift them in front of my face.

And beneath me, beneath everything, I feel a pulse.

A heartbeat.

Slow and deep and rhythmic. Like the earth itself is breathing. Like I’m standing inside something alive.

The core of Ashwell. The heart of the school. Is it possible I’m inside it?

Then the voice comes.

It doesn’t come from anywhere. It comes from everywhere. Inside my head. Inside my chest. Echoing in the darkness all around me.

“Maelissss Rosssse.”

Not a question. It already knows.

“Yes.”

“You have come to receive your eidolon, to be judged worthy of the bond.”

“Yes.”

“Then we will see what you are made of.”

The darkness presses closer, and a coldness spreads across my skin as a tingle creeps up my spine.

“What do you fear mossst?”