Page 126 of The Mirror in the Mountain

Blood leaked sluggishly from a particularly deep cut on Tobias’s chest as he paced in front of me, a bruise purpling half his face. His eyes were bleak as he stared unblinkingly at the mirror.

I knew I didn’t look much better. An Elemental had burned through the leathers covering my back and shoulder, fusing the leather to my skin before I killed him. The smell of burnt flesh only added to the stench of this purgatory. But it would heal, eventually.

At my attention, Tobias glanced at me, one eyebrow raised. “Can you sense anything?”

“Still nothing,” I grunted. Our bond was as silent as when Eva had been collared, a thought that made my stomach plummet.

“I think at least one of us would be able to tell if she were…If she—” His voice broke, and I was selfishly glad he hadn’t been able to finish his thought.

Because what if she was already dead? If she had given her own life to stop him, and neither of them would ever return.

No. I would feel it. She couldn’t be, and I wouldn’t even allow myself to entertain the possibility. Because if she was…

“She’s stronger than that,” Yael said firmly, her voice still hoarse from the battle. “She’s stronger than him.”

I nodded. “She is. She?—”

But I lost my words completely, my heart lodging in my throat, as three words appeared on the palm I had barely stopped staring at. Three words that felt frighteningly like goodbye.

Fear like I had never felt flooded down my spine until I was drowning in it, dragging me under as my world narrowed to theI love youhastily penned in Eva’s looping scrawl.

Yael and Tobias were saying my name, concern and panic coloring their voices. Wordlessly, I held out my shaking hand before the iridescent letters faded away—and watched as their faces went as bloodless as I knew mine must be.

I couldn’t lose her. Not now—not like this. Not helplessly sitting by as I had done with my mother, waiting to feel my heart break along with our bond. Not when we were so close to this war finally being over, so achingly close to being able to have the life we dreamed of together.

She had to survive this. I had plans for us—a future that seemed to dim, perilously close to disappearing.

Please, hellion. Don’t let this be the end.

Her message faded, only the ghostly shiver of her handwriting still on my palm.

“What is it?” Quinn demanded. “What’s wrong?”

Rivan’s head lolled to the side in her lap. He was unconscious, unmoving, but still clinging to life. Another person I loved that I couldn’t help, couldn’t save. Even from here, I could hear the labored cadence of his breathing, could see the panic in Quinn’s eyes as she fought to keep him here.

“She wrote ‘I love you’,” Tobias rasped.

Quinn’s lower lip trembled as she looked at him. “Then she’s still alive. Still fighting him.”

Tobias let out a hollow-sounding laugh, closing his eyes like he couldn’t bear to look at her. “That wasn’t the update of someone winning that fight.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Then Quinn let out a quiet, shuddering sob.

Tobias’s eyes flew open, his gaze immediately zeroing in on the tear tracking down her cheek before storming up to the dark mirror, his magic flashing from his fingertips like bolts of lightning. “This can’t be it. Waiting for her to win or to die. This can’t be?—”

His voice choked off as he leaned his forehead against the mirror, his shoulders shaking.

I exchanged a look with Yael. For decades, we had fought the war against the False King, had lost and grieved together. We had battled only to end up here—utterly useless. It wasn’t a feeling I was used to, nor one I could easily accept.

But just because I wouldn’t accept it didn’t mean I could change anything.

The minutes felt like hours as we waited in silence. My eyes never left the mirror, like I could will her back through.

A flash of parchment broke my focus. Yael plucked it from the air.

“Marin said they’re still trying,” she whispered, staring down at Rivan’s prone form.

“Tell her to hurry,” Quinn said tiredly. She wiped a hand across her forehead before placing it back on Rivan’s chest.

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