Chapter 3
Aurea
The memory hit like ice water through my veins.
Seven winters old, maybe eight. The shop windows gleamed under my cloth, each pass revealing more of the world beyond the glass.
I pressed harder, making the pane sing. The afternoon sun caught the surface just right, and there, my own face stared back, clearer than any pond or polished pot had ever shown.
My braids hung crooked. I reached up to fix the left one, watching my reflection copy the movement perfectly.
The other me moved when I moved, smiled when I smiled.
I pressed my nose to the glass until my breath fogged it, then drew a spiral in the condensation.
The reflection's finger traced the same pattern from the other side.
"Step away from there."
Melora's voice was a knife in the quiet shop. Fingers dug into my shoulder, yanking me back so hard the cleaning cloth slipped from my hand and hit the floor.
"I was just—"
"I know what you were doing." Melora's face was pale as old parchment, her mouth a thin line. She pulled me behind her, blocking the window with her own body. "How many times have I told you not to linger at reflections?"
My lower lip trembled. "Everyone else looks at themselves. The baker's wife has a hand mirror. She showed me yesterday how pretty my eyes are."
"The baker's wife is a fool." Melora's hands shook as she pulled the curtains closed, plunging the shop into shadow. "And she has no business showing you anything."
"But why?" I reached for my braid again, twisting it around my finger. "What's wrong with seeing myself?"
Melora knelt, bringing herself to my eye level. The lines around her mouth deepened, and she smelled of bitter herbs and old smoke. "They remember what we choose to forget, child. Mirrors don't just show what is. They show what was. What might be. What should never be."
"I don't understand."
"Good." Melora stood, moving through the shop with purpose now. She threw old curtains and tablecloths over the few remaining exposed surfaces, the copper pot, the glass vials, even the water basin. "Understanding is the first step toward danger."
I followed, my bare feet silent on the worn wooden floor. "But I want to remember everything. Every story you tell me, every herb you teach me about, every—"
"Then you're a fool." The words came out harsh, and Melora's shoulders tensed. She turned, and her expression softened just a fraction. "Some things are better left buried, little one. Some doors, once opened, swallow both key and keeper."
"Doors?" I looked around the shop. "But we're talking about mirrors."
Melora's laugh held no humor. "Same thing, in the end.
" She moved to her workbench, pulling items from drawers with trembling fingers.
Silver thread. Soft grey wool. Needles that caught no light.
"Mirrors are doors, child. And something waits on the other side.
Something that calls to certain people. People who shouldn't answer. "
"Am I one of those people?"
The question hung in the air like incense smoke. Melora's hands stilled over her work. When she finally spoke, her voice was thick. "Yes."
My chest tightened. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No, child. You were born. That's all. Sometimes that's enough." Melora's fingers flew, a blur of motion as she wove the silver thread through grey fabric. The needle dipped and rose, leaving a trail of light in its wake. "But I can help. I can keep you safe."
"From mirrors?"
"From yourself." The first glove took shape, small enough for a child's hand. "From the parts of you that don't belong in this world."
I watched the silver thread catch the dim light filtering through the curtains. It looked alive somehow, writhing even as Melora wove it tight. "Is there something wrong with me?"
Melora's fingers paused for just a heartbeat. "There's something powerful in you. Power and wrongness... sometimes they're the same thing."
The second glove formed beneath those skilled hands. Melora held them out, and they seemed to pulse with their own dim light. "Put these on."
I took them, the fabric softer than anything I'd ever touched. The moment my hands slid inside, the world went quiet. Not the sounds, but everything else. The buzzing feeling under my skin that was always there, like a trapped bee, went still. The sharp edges of the room seemed to soften.
"They feel strange."
"They'll keep you safe." Melora's shoulders sagged. Her breath came out in a long, slow sigh. "The silver is special. Mixed with herbs that..." She paused, choosing her words. "That help you see less clearly."
"But I want to see clearly."
"No." Melora gripped my gloved hands, squeezing tight. "You want to see normally. There's a difference. What you'd see without these... it would hurt you. Hurt others."
I looked down at the gloves. They fit perfectly, like they'd been waiting for my hands specifically. "Will I always have to wear them?"
"Yes."
"Even when I sleep?"
"Especially then." Melora stood, pulling me toward the covered window. "Dreams and mirrors are cousins. Both show things that shouldn't be seen."
"What would I see?" I reached toward the curtain, but my hand stopped inches away. Something in the gloves wouldn't let me touch it. "If I looked without the gloves, what would happen?"
Melora was quiet for so long that I thought she wouldn't answer. Then, so soft it might have been the wind, "Yourself. Your real self. And that's the most dangerous thing of all."
"Why?"
"Because you're not meant for this world alone." Melora's voice cracked. "Part of you belongs... elsewhere. And if you ever saw that part clearly, it would call you home. Away from here. Away from me."
My eyes burned with tears I didn't understand. "I don't want to go away."
"Then keep the gloves on." Melora pulled me into a fierce hug, and I could feel her trembling. "Promise me. No matter what you hear, what you dream, what calls to you…Keep them on."
"I promise." The words came out muffled against Melora's robes. "I'll be careful."
"Careful isn't enough." Melora pulled back, cupping my face in her weathered hands. "Be afraid. Fear will keep you safe longer than courage ever could."
Outside, clouds passed over the sun, and the shop grew darker still. I flexed my fingers in the new gloves, watching the silver threads catch what little light remained. They were beautiful, I supposed. Beautiful prisons for whatever lived in my hands.
"Can I at least know why I'm different?"
Melora turned away, busying herself with reorganizing already perfect shelves. "Some children are born under strange stars. You were born under no stars at all, just a sky full of mirrors, each one reflecting something that shouldn't exist."
"That doesn't make sense."
Melora's voice dropped, flat and final. "It will. When you're older, when the calls grow stronger, when the gloves aren't enough anymore…It will make horrible, perfect sense."
I wanted to ask more, but Melora had that closed-door look that meant the conversation was over. So I sat by the covered window, gloved hands folded in my lap, and tried not to think about the reflection I'd seen before Melora pulled me away.
For just a moment, just a breath, I could have sworn my reflection had silver eyes.
But that was impossible. My eyes were grey. Normal grey with maybe a hint of violet when the light hit just right. Everyone said so.
Everyone except the mirrors.
The memory fractured like ice under pressure, and I was twenty-seven again, stumbling through snow with silver petals still melting on my skin.
My gloves, those same gloves, remade larger over the years but always with the same silver thread, burned with cold fire that had nothing to do with the blizzard.
Melora had known. All these years, all these careful lies, and she'd known exactly what waited on the other side of the glass.
Some doors, once opened, swallow both key and keeper.
The serpent's words echoed in the space between heartbeats: You can't run from yourself forever.
But Melora had made sure I could try. Had woven the running into my very skin with silver thread and protective herbs, had taught me to fear my own reflection more than death itself.
The question that burned now, as I fled through the white night toward a shop full of covered mirrors and careful lies, was simple, had Melora been protecting me from the serpent?
Or protecting the serpent from me?