30. Chapter 30
Chapter 30
I t takes us the rest of the day to get back, and we do it all in silence, so once we finally land at the top of Graf Hill, the image of Farryn waiting for us on the terrace in her pristine little gown feels like a dream.
She springs from the chair as soon as she sees us coming to a stop in front of her. It makes her delicate eyebrows tug together, when her eyes sweep over the three of us, all dusty, weary and bloodied. “What happened to all of you, where have you been?” she demands a little breathlessly.
The question makes a series of images flash through my mind — of the giantess breaking free of her chains, of the humans I’d bought running for their lives once I threw the keys to them, of the angry mob moving to chase after us.
“What are you doing here, Farryn?” her brother asks her.
The coldness in his voice makes me snap out of it and shoot him a disapproving look. He clears his throat and opens his mouth to say something, but his sister beats him to it.
There’s hurt in her voice as she says, “I just wanted to invite you to the recital tomorrow evening.” The next bit she says so quietly, I barely hear her. “I’ll be playing the harp.”
Despite the anger, sadness and fatigue, I force myself to put on my warmest smile and come to place a comforting palm on her upper arm. “It’s good to see you, sweetie, and we’ll do our best to make it, but we’re tired right now.”
She hesitates for a moment, clearly wanting to ask questions. But she only smiles and says, “Alright. I bid you good night then.”
And with that, she disappears.
In silence, the three of us get inside, where Raven is waiting for us, evidently at her wit’s end, at least judging by the frantic way she starts circling us.
As soon as we get settled around the kitchen table, she comes to land on it and asks, “It didn’t go very well, did it?”
“Depends on how you look at it,” Lorcan grits out.
I let out a sigh and explain, “We did learn how to find the Order, but before we do that, we still have one more task ahead of us.”
It makes my eyebrows shoot up, when Orpheus jumps in with a determined, “No, we don’t.” He runs a hand down his tired, dusty face and places his forearms on the table, fixing his eyes on me. There is this strange hesitation in them, as well as questions about what it is that I did back at the market. But he doesn’t voice them. “We’ve been told that, to contact the Order, we’d need to find a way to get between dimensions.”
I frown, having no idea where he’s going with this.
My frown only grows deeper when he keeps hesitating with an increasingly indecipherable look on his face. “The Mirror of House Olarel is one such way,” he finally says. “Between the folds is where it exists.”
Ah. “And… you’d let us use it?” His hesitation is making me feel unsure.
“Of course,” he snaps a little. “That’s why I’m telling you.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. Is he still mad at me? We haven’t even mentioned what happened at the inn.
Aware of two other pairs of eyes on us, I choose to ignore the fact that there’s obviously something going on here. “That’s… well, that’s amazing, Orpheus. Thank you.”
He gives a somber, somewhat disgruntled nod. “I’m assuming you’d like to do it this very night?”
I glance at the clock, which is currently showing ten to midnight.
What I really want to do is say no. This is all so confusing and I’d give my left tit for a good night’s sleep before I have to make the most inconsequential decision, but then my eyes sweep over Lorcan and Raven, who are both waiting with bated breaths.
I turn my gaze back onto Orpheus and nod. “I would, yes.” Then I press my lips tight, forcing myself to address it. “Though, considering everything we know about them… They won’t help me willingly.”
He gets up. “Then we’ll make them,” he says with this resigned determination in his voice.
And now Lorcan and Raven are getting a move on as well. But I remain where I am, my eyes fixed on Orpheus with one more worrying thing on my mind. “Chances are they’ll prove to be hostile.”
With the look in my eyes, I’m trying to communicate how much I don’t want to keep involving him in all this crap.
He just looks at me for a moment. “I can be hostile as well,” he finally says. Then he jerks his head in the direction of the corridor. “Come on, there’s not much time to lose.”
He leads us out of the kitchen, down the corridor, up the stairs and into the Mirror room. There, he stops in front of the empty wall across from the door and motions at it, locking eyes with me. “If you wish to be the one getting in touch with them, it needs to be you who will summon it.”
I nod and turn to Lorcan. “The pendant, Lorcan.”
He raises his eyebrows at me. “Right,” he says, takes it off and hands it to me.
I put it around my neck, take a step closer, and open and close my eyes, Sight allowing me to see the shimmer on the stone in front of me. Feeling somewhat stupid with all of their eyes on me, I still clear my throat and say, “Mirror mirror on the wall.”
The next thing I know, there’s a gilded mirror materializing in front of me. With my eyebrows raised, I just keep standing there in confusion.
“You only need to step inside,” I hear Orpheus tell me.
I move to do as he says, when an unbearable thought makes me stop midstep and crane my neck to look at him. What if something happens and this turns out to be the last time I see him?
“We’ll follow you,” he says softly.
I just nod, only then feeling the lump in my throat and the tears pricking my eyes. Shrug it off, Anna, I tell myself, and I turn back ahead and I step through the Mirror.
It makes me draw in a breath, when I find myself in this strangely shadowy yet seemingly boundless space. I look around and I see the three of them follow me inside, but there’s no one else here with us.
Frowning, I turn back ahead and call out, “Hello?”
The only response I get is a strangely distorted echo of my own voice.
“Hello?” I repeat.
All of a sudden, as if a connection snapped in place, I hear a confused male voice clear his throat and rush to say, “Yes, who is this?”
“Um…” My eyebrows shoot up, then my eyes narrow. “The Aurora,” I say.
There’s a moment of loud silence before I feel myself nudged to ask, “Does that mean anything to you?”
The next thing I know, I’m being flung backwards, coming crashing on the floor of the Mirror room with the rest of them.
I don’t allow myself to linger on the pain. I rush to pick myself up, only managing to exchange a single confused glance with Raven, Lorcan and Orpheus before the surface of the Mirror shimmers, stretches and spits out a dozen of seemingly incorporeal people.
I take a step back and then let Orpheus come to stand in front of me, my heart hammering against my ribcage.
Because these people all look dangerous, especially the woman at the front.
For one long moment, we all just keep staring each other down, the pounding of my heart only dying down a little once I realize they’re not really here. These are just reflections of them.
“Was it you who talked to Aurelius?” the woman at the front finally breaks the silence, her eyes finding mine.
Inhaling deeply so as to muster all my courage — because I can’t be sure they couldn’t hurt me despite not really being here, I get out of the cover of Orpheus’s broad frame and come to face the woman. Right now, I can’t use my powers willingly, but she doesn’t know that.
“It was,” I reply in a strong, determined voice. “Who are you ?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “My name is Myrrh.” She waves her arm in the general direction of the people standing behind her. “I am the Head of the Order of the Dawn.”
“What happened to Heldin?” I demand. “I’m assuming he didn’t resign before he was killed, but after .”
For a moment, she just looks at me. Then she lets out a scoff and says, “Yes, we did kill him. You might judge us for that…” She pauses to exchange a knowing smile with the rest of her group. “Then again, you dared call yourself the Aurora…”
She appears in front of me, getting in my face to grit out, “You little blasphemer.”
I double back, sensing Orpheus move to defend me, but then there’s the blinding light coming from my tattoos and my closing my eyes shut, my heart pounding.
When I open them, the sight before me makes me want to rub my eyes. There they are, all dozen of them, on their knees in front of me, their forearms on the floor and their heads resting on their hands as if they’re begging for mercy.
I throw a look over my shoulder only to see Lorcan and Orpheus staring at them with frowns on their faces.
I turn back ahead, I clear my throat and I say, “Why don’t you get up, please.”
“Apologies, Aurora,” the woman who called herself Myrrh mutters as she gets off the floor, the rest of them following suit. She keeps her eyes fixed on the floor, though. “We are here to serve however you see fit.”
For a moment, I just look at them. Then I let out a laugh. “Do you seriously expect me to believe this?”
At this, they all look up at me. Myrrh says, “I’m afraid I don’t follow. Haven’t you summoned us?”
I throw her an incredulous look. Then all the suppressed emotions start rising to the surface. “I’ve just come back from a flesh market ,” I start angrily, “where I talked to an enslaved former member of yours.” I let out a scoff. “At least that’s what I assume she was, and the reason she was there in the first place is probably the fact your former Head sold her,” I keep ranting, “because you all seem to have turned into one of the vilest organizations around, only spreading injustice and misery, and now you expect me to believe you’ll drop all your scheming for power and simply help me?”
Once I’m done, for a second, there’s only silence. Then Myrrh explains, her tone all apologetic, “It was to set the Order back on the right track, Aurora, that we executed a coup on Heldin in the first place.”
One of the other members steps to the front. “And it seems that the gods have decided to reward us much sooner than we thought.”
Myrrh nods. “Tell us,” she pleads, “what is it that you need?”
I look over my shoulder, where I find Orpheus giving me a nod. Then I turn back to Myrrh. “I need to find a way to travel through time.”
“How will that help you defeat Baldur?” that other member of the Order demands with a frown. “Need we remind you that that is your primary concern right now?”
I catch a disapproving glance that Myrrh throws him.
But I don’t let her come to my defense. “Eventually,” I reply, “this will lead me to defeat him.” I pause to make sure the words sink in. “I’ve seen it.”
A murmur sounds in the room as the members of the Order take a moment to discuss this amongst each other.
“Very well,” Myrrh finally turns to tell me. “As the Order of the Dawn, we’re in possession of the ancient knowledge of the—”
“Portals, I know,” I cut her off. “I’ll just need you to help me find a way to utilize one, as soon as possible.”
She nods pensively. “We will need some time to calculate the time and the location of the next appearance. We will let you know as soon as we do.”
And with that, they all disappear back into the Mirror.