Page 38 of The Eternal Mirror
“She asked me to find you. To help you if I can.”
His head drops forward, his hair hiding his face again. He’s silent for what seems like an age. Then he looks up and into my face. “And can you help me?” he asks. “Can you get me out of here?”
I pause. Because honestly? I have no fucking clue. But I nod anyway. “I think so. But not today. I have to sort some things out first.” Like working out how to escape the palace. Khronus might be giving me the freedom of the place, but I suspect I’ll be stopped quicker than...something really quick if I try to leave the building. Even if it is for my own safety. Hah.
“Here. I brought you some food,” I say, rummaging in the bag slung over my shoulder. I hand him some bread and cheese, and he stuffs it in his mouth like he’s starving. Which he probably is. “Are you okay?” I ask. “I’m a healer—if you need any...healing.”
He shakes his head and stuffs more bread into his mouth.
I straighten and look around the cell, but there’s nothing I can do to make it better for him, except get us all out of here, and that’s a work in progress. He finishes eating and looks up at me.
I study him: the hollow cheeks, the bruises, the too-thin wrists. He’s definitely been hurt. But his eyes—when they meet mine again—aren’t broken. There’s hope for him if we can get him out of here. For Winter.
“I’m sorry about Winter. She was a good person. She didn’t deserve to die.”
He flinches—just slightly. “Do any of us?” he asks.
Actually, I could make a list. “I have to go. But just stay alive, and I’ll be back for you, and we’ll get out of this place.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he murmurs.
I meet his gaze one last time. There’s something too smooth about his face. Too still. Like he’s already planning his next move.
I smile anyway. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
And maybe he means it.
But I’ve learned not to trust smooth smiles and quiet voices. And maybe I shouldn’t forget that Winter betrayed us.
Maybe it runs in the family.
I head back the way I came, retracing my steps. I’m just approaching the weird place that reeked of dark magic when I turn the corner and freeze.
Movement.
Boots stamping on the stone floor. The flicker of a torch flame.
I drop instantly into the shadows, back pressed to the wall. A moment later, a pair of guards stride past. And then he steps into view.
Khronus.
Shit.
He’s walking fast, flanked by two more guards, heading straight for that corridor. The moment he nears the junction, I feel it again—that ripple in the air. Like reality is flexing to let him through.
He pauses. Says something I can’t quite hear. The guards stay behind.
And then—he moves toward the wall.
No,throughthe wall.
There’s a flash—silver, sharp, and wrong—and he vanishes into a door that wasn’t there a second ago. A slice of something on the other side flickers into view for the briefest moment. Just long enough for me to catch a glimpse of...
I don’t know. Light. Movement. Something twisted and shifting, like liquid shadow caged in glass.
An inhuman screech slices through the air, thin and hollow—like the echo of glass breaking in another world. I take a step forward, then stop as the door seals behind him with a soundless snap swallowing the scream. The wall smooths over, as though it never opened.
