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We work. Cass turns out to be alarmingly good at merchandising and terrible at pricing, and by ten I've got the sidewalk racks out, the mask table under the awning, and a hand-lettered sign for the masquerade because the town committee talked me into renting masks for it.

Soon, half this town will be standing in the old Hollis mansion in something I sold them.

Gage carries the heavy table out with one arm and I make a comment about push-ups, and he says, without turning around, "Still cheating."

The string lights along the whole block flare bright at once.

Every jack-o'-lantern on the sidewalk brightens with them, ten, twenty of them, all the way down to the bakery, and the candles in them stand up straight and burn white for about two seconds.

Then they settle.

A tourist says something about a power surge.

Cass looks at me. Gage looks at me.

"Yes. That one was me too," I chuckle.

The mirror waits until the shop is empty.

I've been avoiding that end of the counter all morning. It's been dark since Tuesday, and I moved out on Wednesday, and there's a childish part of me that hoped it would take the hint.

But, the fog crawls in from the edges the way it always does.

SIX DAYS.

"Yeah," I say. "I can count."

The letters are clear. New ones start, slow, one stroke at a time, like a fingertip dragging on the wrong side of the glass.

HE WILL TELL YOU IT WAS YOUR CHOICE.

I stand there with a price gun in my hand.

Because that's the thing about the mirror. It reaches into me, finds the one hairline crack, and taps.

Sid pours himself up onto the counter and sits down between me and the glass, tail curled over his feet.

Consider not reading it. It's a mirror. It's very hard to have a conversation with.

I laugh. It comes out wrong.

Then I go find Gage in the stockroom and tell him exactly what it said, word for word, because at four o'clock this morning I decided to quit being the only person in my life holding things.

He listens without moving.

"It's not wrong," he says finally.

"Excuse me?"

"That's why it works." He sets down the box. "Everyone's been telling you what you are. Me included. If someone hands you a choice now, you're going to check it for any strings attached and you should."

"That's a terrible pep talk."

"I know."

He's got a burn stripe across four fingers from my door and a healing rip up his forearm from last night, and he's standing in my stockroom telling me to doubt him.

I want to kiss him so badly my teeth hurt.