Page 32 of The Other Side of the Mirror

I was lying on something warm and hard. A broad hand cupped my face. For a moment, I let myself be lost in the comforting feeling of Bash’s thumb stroking my cheek. Did he even know he was doing it?

“What did you do to her?” Bash growled.

I realized I was sprawled on his lap yet again. My head was cradled in the crook of his arm, my legs draped onto the velvet couch.

“I didn’t think her reaction would be so violent,” Marin said indignantly. “But I think it worked. She must’ve?—”

I groaned at the pounding in my head, forcing my bleary eyes open.

“Eva.” Bash’s thumb stopped moving. “Are you alright?”

“Just great,” I croaked. “Never better. Could you and your family please stop doing that to me now?”

Marin checked my pulse with two fingers on my inner wrist, her other hand on my forehead. “You were right,” she said to Bash. “There was something left that was blocking her, even with her pendant off. It’s gone now though.” Her gaze shot to me. “Did you see anything?”

The obvious question brought me back to earth with a rush of bittersweet sorrow.

“There was a castle. A river. A house on a mountain. They were…familiar.” I swallowed. “And then I was back at the fire. I saw my dad?—”

My throat closed. I could barely think through the words he had said—still shaken from the sound of his voice.

Everyone was staring at me. Bash’s thumb started moving again, tracing my cheekbone in gentle, wordless reassurance. When I looked at him, I was trapped by the look in his eyes. Storm clouds of worry brewed there, and in the clench of his jaw, the furrow of his brows. I wondered if he knew his every emotion lived right there on his face.

Before I could think about the group of people staring at me, I reached up and touched his cheek, attempting to smooth that tension away.

“I’m okay,” I said softly, still staring into those stormy eyes.

His breath caught, then his hand found my own. His larger one completely covered mine, holding it in place on his cheek. For an endless moment, I took solace in the warmth of his touch. Then Rivan cleared his throat and the spell between us was broken.

Bash let go of my hand as if burned, and I let it drop to my chest in the same movement. He looked down at it, blinking, breaking that searing gaze.

Marin looked curiously between the two of us. “Did you see anything else?” Her tone was casual, as if nothing unusual had just occurred between me and her brother.

I sat up slowly, moving so I was no longer in Bash’s lap. My hands curled against the soft velvet of the couch. “I remembered…before we left Agadot. Or at least, fragments. We were young. I couldn’t have been older than six when they took us to the human realm. But I saw my parents, their pointed ears, watching my brother and I play.” I shook my head. “I mean, I knew they were fae, but to see it…” I swallowed, and Yael wordlessly handed me a glass of water. The glass trembled as I gulped it down. “Tobias was already showing signs of magic. Pure light. I saw the concern on my parents’ faces as they watched us. They…they must have known we were in danger.”

My fingers dug into the couch so hard, my knuckles had gone white. “Then it was my seventeenth birthday again. I forgot how mad we were that they didn’t let us invite friends over to celebrate, but they said they had something important to tell us. But then it was too late. I remember the voices…I almost forgot how the police scoffed at me when I said I heard people outside my house, when all they found was evidence of a gas leak…”

Closing my eyes, I steeled myself for my next words. “My dad died first.” My nails pressed into the scar on my palm before I could stop myself. “I saw him begging my mom to go. He fought against whoever was outside the house. Bought us time to run. But instead of taking us to the back door, my mom brought Tobias and I straight to the mirror.” My chest ached as that buried hope came back to me. “If my brother managed to go through the mirror after me…Is there a chance he’s…here? That he made it to Agadot?”

I caught their pitying looks and stiffened. “I know it’s not likely. But if he went through the mirror, he could have shown up in the Faewilds. Right?”

“It’s possible,” Rivan murmured. “The Faewilds is a sort of catchall for those without a destination…Or the fire starters took him with them. But perhaps he found his way here and hid.”

I already knew it was a fool’s hope. “He would’ve found me by now.” I blew out a breath, then frowned in concentration. “But the castle I saw…bronze, with a river flowing in front. And a mountain…”

They all exchanged perplexed looks, and my heart sank.

“Just because none of us have seen it doesn’t mean it isn’t real,” Bash said quickly.

I knew he must have seen my mounting frustration, my disappointment at the answers I still lacked.

“Wait…” Marin said, and I turned to her. “Did you say your parents were killed on your Seventeenth?”

“On our birthday, yes,” I confirmed. Even after Tobias died, I hadn’t gotten out of the habit of using the plural word for the day that belonged to both of us.

Yael frowned. “You think they found them then because that’s when they came into their magic?”

Marin nodded slowly. “Even with wards and your magic blocked…that’s a powerful magical signature. That moment of bestowal is a very ancient magic. Something they may have waited to track.”

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