Chapter 13 – — Unsigned Entry, Ashwell Archives
Chapter Thirteen
“No one knows who made the mirror. The prevailing theory is that no one did. It formed at the site of the first cycle, where Veilguard and creature died together in such numbers that their bones became one. That site is now the core of Ashwell. The school was built because of the mirror, not the other way around.”
— Unsigned Entry, Ashwell Archives
Jace places his hand on the mirror.
His arm pushes right through like it’s made of water. Liquid silver ripples around his wrist, swallowing him to the elbow, and several bone years gasp. I hold my breath.
His hand is only in there for a few seconds. His face stays calm and focused. I don’t see any visible signs of pain.
When he pulls it back out, there’s a little brown furry bat nestled in his palm. It blinks up at him with wide, dark eyes then crawls up his arm to perch on his shoulder.
That’s it?
That was easier than I thought it would be.
He crosses the room to where the other years are gathered.
His eyes find mine through the crowd, and he gives me a soft smile.
A nod. He’s trying to tell me it’s going to be okay.
I want to believe him. But the next girl that gets called doesn’t simply touch the mirror.
She steps forward, and the liquid surface parts for her like a curtain.
She walks straight through and disappears.
“What is happening?” I whisper.
Lux stares straight ahead, her jaw tight. She’s getting nervous too. I can see it in the way her fingers twist together.
“The school decides what it wants from you before you get your eidolon.” Ellavee leans in from Lux’s other side. “It’s different for everyone.”
We wait.
The cavern is silent except for the faint drip of water somewhere in the dark. I count the seconds. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
The mirror ripples, and the girl stumbles back out, gasping, a serpent clutched tight in her trembling hands.
Everyone lets out a breath. A few nervous laughs scatter through the crowd.
The professors don’t look worried. They’ve been watching this for years.
I shouldn’t be worried either but I can’t help it.
The ceremony picks up speed after that. Names called one after another.
Some people step fully into the mirror and vanish for seconds or minutes.
Some press their palm to the surface and pull back their eidolon like reaching into a bag.
I want to know what they feel when they touch it or what happens to the ones who enter the mirror, but I’m not able to talk to anyone on the other side of the room.
Lux gets called. She walks up with her chin high, but I can see her hands shaking at her sides. She stops in front of the mirror and waits.
The liquid surface reaches out to her. A silvery translucent hand emerges from the glass and presses against her chest, right over her heart. Lux’s eyes go wide. Her breath catches.
A solid white wolf steps out of the mirror. It sits at her feet and looks up at her like it’s been waiting for her all along.
A huge smile breaks across her face. She looks back at me and gapes before crossing to the other side with her wolf padding beside her.
Ellavee goes next and gets a serpent. The thing coils around her wrist like a bracelet, and she smirks like she expected nothing less.
I watch the eidolons emerge one by one. All the wolves are white or gray, thick-furred and watchful. All except Draven’s, which is solid black and noticeably larger than the rest.
The serpents come in every shade. Yellow, green, brown, and black. Some small enough to curl in your palm. Others thick as my arm, long enough to loop around your body twice.
The bats are shades of black and brown, leathery wings folded against soft fur. When I first saw Elizabeth’s, I thought it was creepy, but the more I watch them emerge, the more I realize they’re sort of cute. Big dark eyes. Tiny clawed feet.
None of this eases my anxiety.
“Nyra Fenwick.”
I watch the girl from my autopsy team walk toward the mirror. Violet eyes and black wings. The one who shoved the scalpel in my hand because she didn’t want to touch the crawler.
There’s only a handful of us left now, and I don’t know how I haven’t let my anxiety get the better of me yet.
The headmaster probably put my name last on purpose to torture me. Or maybe he won’t call me at all. Maybe humans don’t get to participate. Maybe I’ll stand here until everyone leaves, and then someone will escort me back to my room and tell me it was all a mistake.
Nyra steps into the mirror. The liquid swallows her whole, and the waiting begins. Silence presses against my ears. I count the seconds again.
This is taking too long.
Nestor shifts his weight. Bale’s jaw ticks, and they exchange a grim look. A full minute passes.
The mirror starts to vibrate.
I take a step back. My eyes stay locked on the rippling surface. Something is wrong.
Nyra Fenwick falls out of the mirror, hitting the stone floor with a crack that echoes through the cavern like a bone snapping.
She doesn’t move.
Whispers break out. Someone gasps. Someone else makes a sound like a sob.
Professor Nestor rushes forward and drops to his knees beside her. His hands move over her chest, her throat, her face.
Then he stops, looks up at the headmaster, and shakes his head.
Two professors I don’t recognize step forward.
A woman and a man wearing belts filled with medical supplies.
They lift Nyra’s body between them and carry her toward a door I hadn’t noticed before guarded by Felix, the demon assistant of the headmaster.
He pulls the door open as they approach with her body.
She’s limp, pale, empty-handed. No eidolon.
She’s dead.
The door closes behind them, and the cavern goes silent. The headmaster doesn’t address it. Nestor doesn’t explain. They stand there, waiting for the ceremony to continue like a girl didn’t just die in front of us.
I knew they said bone years would die, but I thought it was a scare tactic, something to keep us working hard and staying sharp.
I didn’t think it would happen like this or that I would see it.
“Maelis Rose.”
Professor Bale’s voice startles me.
I can’t move. My feet are frozen to the stone. My lungs won’t fill.
She just died. She walked into that mirror and died, a fucking angel, and whatever happened inside that mirror killed her. And now they want me, the human, the one everyone says doesn’t belong here, to go stand in front of that same fucking thing.
No way. There is no fucking way.
I turn away from the mirror. My eyes find the stairs. The way out. I could run. I could leave right now, and no one would stop me. No one would blame me.
Then I see Draven.
He’s standing at the bottom of the stairwell, his black wolf sitting beside him like a shadow with teeth. His arms are crossed, and his face gives nothing away.
But his eyes are locked on mine.
I remember what he said in the alley. That I don’t belong here. That I’ll freeze when it matters. That I won’t make it out. He’s waiting for me to prove him right.
Something shifts in my chest. Something hot and stubborn and angry.
Fuck no. Draven Alucard, you absolute asshole. You don’t get to be right about me.
I will not show fear. I will not run. This mirror can’t give me any more pain than I’ve already endured in this life. It can’t show me anything worse than what I’ve already done.
I turn back to the front and walk toward the mirror.
My legs shake, and my heart pounds in my chest. It feels like time slows to a crawl, and it takes me entirely too long to reach the thing.
The liquid surface ripples as I approach like it senses me coming.
I want to recoil but force one foot in front of the other.
I don’t look for Jace. I can’t look at anyone else or I might lose my nerve.
I finally reach it, and I’m not ready to look into the surface, too afraid of what I’ll see. I let my eyes trail the frame.
Hundreds and hundreds of bones are fused together.
Ribcages arch along the sides, curving inward like hands reaching to pull you closer.
Femurs and tibias stack on top of each other, bleached white and yellow with age.
Skulls are embedded in the corners. Some human.
Some twisted creatures. Their hollow eye sockets stare at nothing and everything all at once.
I see vertebrae twisted into spirals. A full set of antlers crowns the top, jagged and reaching toward the darkness above. At the base, a pile of smaller bones. Delicate ones. The kind that come from children’s hands.
The death mirror, that’s what this should be called.
I close my eyes, exhale, raise my chin, and look into the mirror.
My reflection stares back at me, only something’s wrong.
I take a step closer. The copper hair. The freckles. The same lips. All of it’s the same except for the eyes.
Those are not my brown eyes.
They’re amber. Bright and molten like honey held up to firelight, and there’s red bleeding into the edges of the irises, creeping in like ink dropped in water.
I blink a few times, but my reflection doesn’t change.
My body fades, but the eyes remain, glowing at the center of the mirror and pulling me in.
Everything around me darkens and disappears all at once. I don’t recall moving, but suddenly I’m no longer in the cavern at all.
I’m swallowed by complete darkness. Complete silence. Not even the dripping water can be heard anymore, but I feel something.
A presence surrounds me, pressing in from every direction. Not touching but there. There’s no floor beneath my feet, and yet I’m standing. No walls and yet I feel enclosed. No light and yet somehow I can see my own hands when I lift them in front of my face.
And beneath me, beneath everything, I feel a pulse.
A heartbeat.
Slow and deep and rhythmic. Like the earth itself is breathing. Like I’m standing inside something alive.
The core of Ashwell. The heart of the school. Is it possible I’m inside it?
Then the voice comes.