Page 117 of The Mirror in the Mountain

And I wasn’t going to get there in time.

“No.”

The whisper was lost to the din of the battle before it even got past my lips.

Tobias was shouting something as his light flared over and over. Then a blast of air knocked the soldiers in front of me to the side, forcing an open path down the middle.

“GO,” Yael yelled from behind me, her gaze fixed on the darkening mirror. “I’ll cover you.”

I was racing forward before she finished speaking, my heart lodging in my throat as the mirror closed in on itself.

My muscles screamed as I flew forward, faint shadows streaking past as though they could reach her without me. I would make it—there was no other alternative. Just because I knew she could, didn’t mean I would leave her to face him alone.

Not again.

Notwhen I was so close.

With my bloody hand outstretched, I leapt?—

And crashed into the enchanted glass a second before Tobias did. The entire mirror shuddered as we ricocheted back onto the stone floor, even the glowing blue glints surrounding it fading away. I was back on my feet in an instant, my shadows already searching for a way through.

Because there had to be. I wouldn’t lose her again.

There was a ringing in my ears. Tobias’s magic was barely holding the soldiers behind us back even as Yael fought her way through them. Quinn was nowhere to be seen. I could only pray she had heard the urgency in my voice when I yelled Rivan’s name, and deciphered the danger he was in.

Tobias swore loudly next to me, splaying his bleeding hand wide against the closed gate. Light streamed underneath his fingertips like he could force the glass to open.

His arms dropped to his sides, his shoulders slumping, even as his light kept the soldiers surrounding us away. As he took one step back, then another, he looked at me with those anguished eyes so like Eva’s.

Eva who was now trapped on the other side of the mirror. Alone with Aviel.

My own terror seemed to reflect back at me as I stared at him. My own helplessness.

I didn’t recognize my own voice as I rasped, “We’re too late.”

Chapter 51

Eva

It felt like I was trapped between worlds. Like when I passed through the fake castle wall back in Morehaven; the shifting stones pressing in against me and yet not. The same blue glow from that horrible night flashed all around me in sporadic bursts like the fading brilliance of dying stars, its presence oddly comforting.

My breath crystallized in front of my face, the frozen fractals gleaming strangely in the thick, fractured darkness. It wasn’t air, exactly. It was something untenable, pulsing with power. Something that felt foreign and familiar all at once. It silently burrowed under my skin, sweeping through me like an invisible wave as if it were parsing out all my secrets. A blinding force pushed against my magic, overwhelming me as I prayed to pass through.

It was everywhere, until it wasn’t. And as it retreated, two figures appeared in the endless darkness, softly glowing with a blue aura I barely noticed.

Because the sight of my parents’ faces struck me like a dagger to the heart. Greedily, I took in all the small details I had nearly forgotten. The way my mother’s eyes crinkled before she gave in to a smile, the perennial lavender scent of her waftingtoward me as her simple black dress swayed in a non-existent breeze. The devilish glint in my father’s golden-brown gaze, the one-sided dimple forming that matched mine. Or would, if my mouth wasn’t hanging open in unadulterated shock.

They didn’t look like they had the last time I saw them on the day they died. They looked like the painting in Solara—young and almost painfully vibrant.

I couldn’t seem to make a sound. Tears slid down my cheeks as I stared at them, trembling from the violence of a grief that had never fully abated.

“You’ve been so brave, Evangeline,” my mother whispered, pride filling her tone. Her lips curved in that soft, devastatingly familiar smile. “But you won’t need to be much longer.”

“So brave, sweetheart,”my father said, and I wiped away more tears at the moniker I hadn’t heard from his lips in far too long. He reached out as if to stroke my face but seemed to think better of it, his hand dropping to his side.

My voice was hoarse as I asked, “Is this…magic? Or is this real?”

I found myself almost afraid of how badly I wanted it to be the latter.

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