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“Mom, the darkness is free,” I say. “I screwed up. I set it loose. Now I’ve got to fix it.”
She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath. Her chest expands as she holds it then lets it out in a long slow exhale.
“I didn’t want this for you,” she whispers, then opens her eyes. She stares as if seeing me for the first time, then shakes her head. “Right.”
The image shimmers once more and she looks haggard. Her eyes are sunken, and her skin is ashen colored. The view behind her is no longer a reflection of this room but shifts to a barren emptiness, not unlike the world outside the tower.
“I get it, Mom,” I say. “And I love you for it, but fate has her ways, doesn’t she?”
“Aye,” Mom says, nodding, then she jerks as if startled and spins around.
“Mom?” Something blurs across the mirror and my mom disappears. I scream for her and Dugald tries to reach through the glass, but his hand strikes it hard enough I’m sure it will break. Fortunately, it doesn’t. “How do we help her?”
“She’s in a mirror realm,” Dugald says.
“No shit?” I ask, shaking my head at the obviousness of the statement.
“I am not being facetious,” he says. “Nor am I blind to the obviousness, on the surface, of the statement.”
“How do we help her?” Duncan asks.
He’s pressing his palms against the glass, feeling the sides of the mirror, and then he tries to pry it from the wall.
“We can’t,” Dugald says. “Only Quinn can.”
“What do I do?” Dugald doesn’t answer. I stare at him, frustration growing, and then throw my hands up. “What?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Do what feels right.”
What feels right at this moment is to punch him in the face, which is not the most productive thing in the world to do. In the mirror I see flashes of combat. My mom is fighting shadow demons and while she’s holding her own, I don’t know how long she can.
“Not helpful,” I mutter.
I put my palms on the mirror because I don’t have any other ideas. The glass is so cold I jerk my hands away and look at them, expecting to see frost burns but there’s nothing. I press my palms to my face, and they don’t feel cold at all.
Weird.
I press them back onto the mirror, and while it’s still freezing cold, I’m no longer surprised by it, and I know it’s not burning my skin. I close my eyes and focus on breathing. I can hear the battle on the other side. My mom yelps in pain and my stomach clenches tight. I push. The cold moves up my arms and when I open my eyes my arms are through the mirror.
“Mom!” I yell.
Soft skin grips my hands. I assume it’s my mom. I hope it is, but I can’t see. I have my head turned to the side, my cheek pressing against the cold chill of the glass. I tighten my grip on the hands in mine and pull back.
Nothing happens. I strain but then I’m jerked forward. My face penetrates the glass and it’s so shockingly cold I scream in pain. I can’t focus my thoughts; they’re disbursed by the extreme chill. Like when you step into a freezing shower, and it forces you into that singular moment.
“Quinn,” Duncan yells, and he grabs my waist. “Help, you damnable Fae!”
The forward momentum stops but it still feels like I’m being torn in half. I’m stuck between two immovable forces, whatever is trying to pull me through and the two men in my life pulling me towards them. The irony isn’t lost on me, despite the direness of the situation.
“Quinn. Use. Magic.” Dugald huffs each word.
“Trying.”
And I am. The tingle in my core is there. I’m trying to focus it and do something useful but the cold keeps blasting my focus. I can’t hold on to a single idea for more than a moment and that’s making it impossible to use magic.
My feet slip on the stone floor, and I’m pulled further into the mirror universe. My face pops through to the other side. The cold is miserable, cutting through my head like its slicing my brain in half.
The air on this side has a cloying smell to it that makes it feel thick in my sinuses and hard to breathe. I cough, trying to breathe.
