Page 123 of The Mirror in the Mountain

She stepped toward me, the gray dress she wore torn and filthy. I kept my dagger firmly where it was—too afraid that if I moved my arm away, I wouldn’t have the strength to raise it again.

“Eva.” She said my name in two syllables, sung like a haunting melody. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Alette,” I replied, unable to dredge up a hint of surprise. “I should have known you would be hiding around here somewhere.”

She let out a dark laugh as she eyed the blade at my throat, skipping toward me like she didn’t have a care in the world. Then held her hand out, as if expecting me to hand it to her. “Come on, little bird, we don’t have time for this.”

“I have to do this to stop him.” My voice splintered despite myself, even as I tried to find it in me to simply cut my throat and be done with it.

Because I could save them. I could save this entire realm, could save my brother, could save my friends who had become my family…and I could savehim, even if I couldn’t save myself.

Bash would survive my death, the breaking of our bond. He had to.

“We won’t hold him for long,” Alette said in a singsong, breaking into my thoughts. “Already he is leeching what is ours.”

I could feel it, the steady drain on my borrowed power. Aviel bleeding away the magic used to contain him faster than I could replenish it as he grew even more powerful.

Again, Alette gestured for the dagger with an impatient flick of her wrist. “Put it down. Killing yourself won’t solve anything.”

Something about the way she said it had alarm bells ringing in the back of my head. “It’s the only way. I—why are you even here? What do you think you’re doing?”

“Fixing your fate.”

Her words made me pause, even as I knew Aviel couldn’t be contained much longer. The only reason we had been able to hold him this long was due to how much the broken stone had been able to drain him before it was destroyed.

Beads of perspiration ran down my forehead as I sank to my knees. “He took my blood. It has to be me.”

“Your life is not the cost, little bird.” Alette’s tone was casual, her eyes glowing like embers. “He trusted me to drug you, and he trusted me to drain you. But he didn’t realize then that I was no longer his. That I didn’t give him your blood for the link.” Her smile radiated pure triumph. “Instead, I gave himmine.”

My face slackened. Shock rippled through me as I gaped at her, barely managing to keep my grip on my fleeting magic. She had…shehad?—

Of course, Alette had been the one to bring him my blood. And she had the forethought to thwart Aviel’s plan to hijack the Choosing before I had even known it existed.

Changing destiny’s a weighty business. Though there is something…strange. Perhaps it is not yet set in stone.

Had the sprite seen Aviel’s intent but not the flaw in his hubris? That someone he had deemed so far beneath his notice, even after what he had done to her, would be responsible for altering our future?

A faint tremor ran through me. “Alette. You…”

“Me.” That smile turned cruel. “After what he did to me, he handed me the tools to his own destruction—myrevenge and salvation and redemption all in one little glass syringe. I’ve been waiting here for him, so I can end things before he can. Hiding in the walls after what I did to his pretty, perfect castle.” She let out a maniacal laugh. “It looks better scorched. He gave up looking for me long before I came down here. But I knew he would come to me, eventually. I wanted him to see who was responsible for his undoing: the placeholder he thought unimportant.” Her eyes flickered as she tilted her head at me in that unnerving angle. “I was hoping we’d have the chance to say goodbye first though.”

My teeth chattered at the power channeling through me, scorching through my veins as Aviel stole it nearly as quickly as I used it against him. I couldn’t sustain this much longer.

A shard of blue light escaped from the fire, its jagged bolt reflecting in the ripples of the water. Aviel’s power was starting to break through the cocoon around him, a second sharp beam of light slicing through his fiery cage.

I knew we only had moments before he broke through.

“You don’t have to do this,” I begged, suddenly bereft at the thought of Alette sacrificing herself. At taking on the task I had long since accepted as my own.

She smiled even as she shook her head. For a second, I caught a glimpse of the person she might have been before misery and madness had molded her into vengeance incarnate.

“There’s nothing he can do to undo what he’s done,” Alette said almost pityingly. “And so, there’s nothing that’ll save him.”

The cavern tremored. Alette’s eyes burned a molten, fiery red.

“I’m sorry,” I choked out.

“We don’t let him win.” Alette’s voice went hoarse as she repeated my own words back to me, the same ones I had once prayed would sway her to save me. Smoke began wafting from her hands, her bare feet, a fiery orange glowing in her throat like a dragon about to breathe flame.

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