Page 40 of The Other Side of the Mirror

“Don’t get soft without us,” Rivan said, his deep voice more solemn than usual. He gathered me into a tight hug, and I found myself surprisingly choked up at the thought of missing our morning training tomorrow.

Rivan stepped through the mirror first, then Yael, who gave me a cocky wink before following. The glass undulated in their wake. Bash stood uncomfortably by where they left, looking around the otherwise empty room. He lowered his chin, turning to follow.

Before he could go, before he could leave me, I said, a little too quickly, “Wait.”

He glanced back right before I collided with him.

Bash caught me as I wrapped my arms around his neck, stretching my body up against him before burying my face into his shirt. Despite my unwillingness for him to go, what worried me more was the squeeze in my chest, the pricking behind my eyes. He held me against him tightly, as though he was as loathe to leave me as much as I was to let him. One hand gently stroked my hair, the other gripping me so tightly around my waist my heels left the floor, so I was barely on my tiptoes.

The embrace was over before I was ready. Bash gently pushed me away before turning back to the mirror.

“I guess this is goodbye,” I said to his back, my heart catching in my throat.

A familiar fear started to tighten around my heart. The fear of losing him…even if he was only a step through the mirror away. And the fear of what would happen when he was gone.

“For now.”

When his eyes met mine, they were startlingly dark. I couldn’t stop myself from staring into the storm brewing there.

“This was certainly a once in a lifetime experience,” I added, if only to break the tension.

“Only if you want it to be.” Bash gave me a small smirk I hadn’t seen all day. But his voice was full of the shadows now flitting from his hands up the arms of his jacket.

“Bash…”

I hadn’t known he realized I had been calling him ‘freckles’ to keep him at arm’s length, until his eyes widened slightly, as he took in his name on my lips. There was something about the way he looked at me in response that made me feel far too vulnerable.

‘I’ll miss you’was on the tip of my tongue. I swallowed the words down, but they stuck there, adding to the lump in my throat. His eyes flickered as I stood there, my mouth half-open, wrapping my arms around myself as if to hold myself together.

Don’t be stupid, I told myself.He’s not dead, he’s just leaving you.

Somehow, that didn’t help.

“This is what you wanted, right?”

The words were out before I could stop them.

For the first time since I met him, Bash seemed unsteady, unsure of himself. His hands hung loosely at his sides as though he didn’t know what to do with them, before tightening into fists. Looking conflicted, he dug into an inner pocket of his jacket, taking out two small, silver quills. He grabbed my hand so suddenly I flinched as that strange current passed between us.

“Humor me.”

Before I could ask him what he was doing, he poked the sharp point of the quill into the flesh of my scarless right palm. I sucked in a breath but didn’t move my hand away as I watched him do the same to himself with the other quill. Immediately, they disappeared. I gasped aloud; the sound echoing in the room as warmth spread from my palm to my pointer finger.

Bash lifted my hand, and I gawked at the iridescent, shimmering quill wrapped along my finger. The point started at the edge of my nail; the feather extending across my palm. It glimmered strangely, as if tattooed onto my skin. I stared at Bash with wide eyes, waiting for an explanation.

I trusted him, I realized. Somehow our time in the woods had made me trust Bash so implicitly he had literally stabbed me and left an indelible mark, and here I was, calmly waiting to hear why.

“Write to me,” he said roughly, staring at the quill on my hand. “On the opposite palm. My mother gave me these after my father passed away and they could no longer use them together…Write on the palm of your hand, and I’ll see it, just as you’ll see my response. I—” His voice faltered, those devastating eyes finally meeting mine. “I need to know if you’re okay.”

His hand lingered, as if he needed to hold me a moment longer.

“Of course, I’ll be okay,” I said, though the tremble in my voice gave away my nerves. “Aviel is…how couldn’t I be safe with my so-called soulmate?”

His mouth tightened. Then he let go of my hand, turning away.

“Of course,” Bash repeated dully. “But if you do need anything, you’ll have an easy way to reach me. I don’t like the thought of leaving you…of leaving you here alone.”

I could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his shadows flew from his hands as if trying to reach me when their master wouldn’t. Something knotted in my gut. I didn’t bother to correct the fact that I wouldn’t be alone…just not with him. Not with our friends who had so quickly started to feel like family.

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