Mirror
Darkness pools in every corner, thick and suffocating. The curtains are drawn tight, blocking out the last traces of daylight. Dust motes dance in the dim glow of a single candle, their movements slow and hypnotic.
And there, on the far wall, Blake’s portrait looms.
He looks so different from the ghost who haunts my nights. His hair in the painting is short and dark, not the wild silver mane that spills past his shoulders. His eyes are ocean blue, not violet ringed with crimson. He looks younger. Alive. Full of a vitality that the curse has leached away.
Yet his face is the same. That cruel, beautiful mouth. That sharp jaw. Those cheekbones that could cut glass.
I can see it now—the portrait retains all his power. His essence. The mirror reflection holds him prisoner while his true self wanders as a ghost.
I cross to it, my heart hammering against my ribs. The book I found in the library is tucked into my bodice, its pages worn and familiar now. I pull it free, flipping to the marked passage.
The words swim before my eyes. I blink hard, forcing them into focus.
My hand moves to my skirt. The blade I hid there—a small dagger, its edge sharp enough to draw blood—slides free. I grip the handle, my palm slick with nervous sweat.
I don’t hesitate. The blade slices across my left palm. Pain flares, sharp and immediate. Blood wells from the wound, dark and viscous, dripping onto the floor.
I lift my bleeding hand and press my palm against the cold glass of the portrait.
The surface ripples.
Like water disturbed by a stone. The glass shimmers, shifts, accepts my touch.
I close my eyes.
“I love you.” The words tremble on my lips. “I love you. I love you.”
Three times. The truth of my heart spoken before the glass.
I force my eyes open. Nothing.
The portrait remains still. The violet-blue eyes don’t blink. The surface of the glass is solid and cold beneath my hand.
I sag against the frame, the book slipping from my fingers. It hits the floor with a soft thud.
It didn’t work. Of course it did not work. Love is not a magic spell. It can’t break a curse that has held a demon for two centuries.
I was a fool. I press my forehead against the glass, my tears sliding down my cheeks in hot, silent tracks. The cold seeps into my skin, into my bones.
“I will find another way,” I whisper.
The shadows in the corners stir.
“Lucille.”
His voice. I know it.
I lift my head, my eyes searching the darkness. “Blake.”
“What did you just do?”
The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere. From the shadows, from the glass, from the very air around me.
I turn back to the portrait, and my breath catches.
The surface has changed. It is no longer solid glass. It has become like gel—translucent, viscous, yielding to the touch. I press my fingers against it, and they sink in.
A magnetic pull tugs at my core, deep and insistent. It calls to me from inside the frame. From the world beyond the glass.
I should hesitate, consider the consequences, weigh the risks.
I don’t. I step forward.
The gel swallows me whole.
Cold envelops my body. Darkness presses in from all sides. I can’t see. Can’t breathe. Can’t feel anything but the pull, the inexorable drag toward something I can’t name. Light.
I stumble forward, gasping, my hands braced against—
Nothing.
I’m standing in a vast, empty space. The floor beneath my feet is black marble, polished to a mirror shine. The ceiling arches overhead, impossibly high, painted with stars that seem to move and shift. And the walls—The walls are mirrors.
Every surface reflects my image back at me. I see myself from a thousand angles—my crimson uniform, my bleeding palm, my wild red hair and flushed cheeks.
Blake stands before me.
Not the ghost. The real Blake. The one from the portrait. His hair is short and dark. His eyes are ocean blue. He looks younger, healthier, more alive than I have ever seen him.
But his eyes—
They are not the eyes of the man I love. They are flat. Cold. Empty.
“Lucille.” His voice is strange. Hollow. “You should not have come here.”
I step toward him. “Blake, I—”
“Do not.” He holds up a hand, and I stop. “You do not understand what you have done.”
“Then explain it to me.” My voice shakes. “Tell me what is happening. Tell me how to save you.”
He stares at me for a long moment. Then he laughs—a broken, bitter sound.
“Save me?” He shakes his head. “You cannot save me, Lucille. You can only damn yourself.”