Page 127 of The Mirror in the Mountain

Her magic was nearly exhausted, I realized, either his injuries too great, or her power too depleted from the battle.

Fear engulfed me, even worse than before.

I was going to lose them both.

Yael caught my gaze. “They’re not dead yet. She’s still fighting, and so is he.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Eva…”

The mirror rippled back to life, dark and flat one second, then undulating silver the next. I shot to my feet, about to blindly leap?—

When, as if conjured by her name, myanimahurtled through it.

My cry of relief mixed with a garbled sob as I lunged forward, and she collapsed into my arms.

She was blood-smeared and wet, barely an inch of her unscathed. I took in the sight of the cuts covering her body, her shredded leathers, and the stab-wound in her stomach with a lethal calm before I even noticed the golden crown shining on her head.

Then those brilliant gold and hazel eyes rolled back, and she went limp in my arms.

“Eva!”

A sharp, all-consuming fear filled me, my shadows exploding around us. Laying her on the ground, her upper body in my lap, I checked that she was still breathing—my lungs only filling when hers did. Her warm breath against my fingertips was the one thing keeping me from losing it entirely.

Tobias was there before I could even ask, helping me as I carefully ripped her torn leathers back from the wound bleeding in her gut.

“Talk to me,” Quinn demanded from where neither she nor Yael had moved from Rivan. “Is she?—”

“Through and through,” Tobias said between clenched teeth. He lightly traced the burn marks on my anima’s wrists, and I flinched at the sight. I couldn’t feel a thing through our bond while she was wherever she had gone, but if she had a crown on her head, that must mean…

“She won.” Tobias’s voice was hoarse as he echoed the words in my head. “Whatever happened, she won. But if she’s alive, he must be too…”

His hand tightened around his sword, staring at the mirror as if expecting Aviel to jump through next. Had she somehow incapacitated him?

Eva stirred, her lashes fluttering. Alive, awake, and mine.I put my hand on her cheek, careful to avoid the tiny cuts covering her. She jolted, tensing as if readying for battle, but relaxed when she heard my voice.

“Open your eyes, Eva,” I murmured. “You’re safe now.”

Her eyelids slowly lifted, like she had to gather the strength to open them. The dual crowns around her pupils sparkled, bits of gold flecking off into her irises as if in an endless loop, an echo of the crown still firmly in place on her wild hair.

“He’s dead,” she croaked.

My eyes flew to Tobias, then Yael and Quinn, their expressions as confused as my own must be. Had the bloodbond been a lie? If so, we had nearly lost her for nothing. But with Eva alive and safe, and the False King finally dead, I could scarcely muster the worry about what might have been as I breathed a sigh of relief.

Tobias’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly before finally managing, “How?”

Eva’s eyes glistened. She shook her head tiredly, her tongue darting out to lick her lips.

Hastily, I brought my half-empty canteen to her mouth. “Don’t you ever do that again, do you hear me?”

“Save the realm, you mean?” Eva sounded exhausted, her chest rising and falling in shallow pants. She leaned heavily against me, her strength seemingly drained, wincing as Tobias prodded her stomach. But that fire, that indomitable, unyielding part of her was still there, as fierce as always.

“Save the realm without me,” I said darkly.

She smirked, that one-sided dimple gracing her cheek. “It worked, didn’t it?”

I growled low in my throat. “Yes, hellion. Though the words reckless and self-destructive come to mind…”

“Did you miss the part where it worked, ‘cause?—”

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