Chapter 6
Jess
“All right, apprentice,” Raven said the next afternoon, pacing across my desk like a tiny, winged drill sergeant. “If we’re going to get Nate back, you need to understand how to work with mirror magic. And more importantly, how not to get yourself devoured by it.”
I eyed the object in his claws. “That’s a hand mirror shaped like a flamingo.”
“Yes. You can thank Bianca for donating it to the cause.”
I squinted. “Did she say why she had it?”
“No, and frankly, I’m afraid to know.”
Raven set the mirror on the desk between us. The flamingo’s rhinestone eyes caught the light, sending little prisms onto my walls.
“Rule number one, never trust what you see in a mirror during a spell. Reflections lie. They tell you what you want to see, or what you’re afraid to see.”
Raven was mid-lecture when a squirrel launched itself onto my windowsill, holding what looked like a hot dog.
It froze, eyes wide like it had just walked into the wrong class.
Then, it started eating while maintaining eye contact with both of us.
Once it was done, it chittered at us like we’d done something wrong, then darted off.
Raven muttered, “I don’t trust mammals with hands.”
I nodded. “So… Etan kissing me was—”
“A trap,” Raven said flatly. “A very obvious, very predictable trap.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Five days and change,” Raven said, jumping across the edge of my desk like a tiny, judgmental metronome. “Plenty of time if you’re planning to fail spectacularly.”
I swallowed. Five days. The words landed heavier than the warning.
He hopped closer to the flamingo mirror.
“Rule number two, when dealing with the Mirror Realm, always have an anchor. Something from our world to pull you back if you get too close to the glass. If a creature does try to bargain with you, don’t.
They don’t want money or stuff, they want sensations.
Your first bite of chocolate cake, the sound of your favorite song live, the feeling of your hand in someone else’s for the first time.
” He gave me a flat look. “They’ll buy it, steal it, trick it out of you and once it’s gone, you can still remember the event, but the joy’s gone.
Like chewing gum after the flavor’s dead. ”
“What type of anchor?”
“Your crow necklace, for example. It has family magic in it, whether you realize it or not. It can also be a person you have a deep connection with.”
“Cool,” I said, fiddling with the pendant. “So, what’s the actual training part?”
Raven gave the mirror a tap with his beak. The glass shimmered like a fish had disturbed the surface water. A faint image appeared; my bedroom, but wrong. The colors were washed out, and the light was dimmer, like an old photograph.
“That’s the Mirror Realm version of your room,” Raven said. “Now, try to hold the connection steady.”
Even through the glass, I could feel it.
The air on the other side looked heavy, the way a room feels after someone’s been crying in it for hours.
The light had weight, like it had to think about where to fall before it settled.
Shadows didn’t stretch naturally; they bent at odd angles, some curling toward the ceiling instead of the floor.
There was no breeze, yet a strand of my mirrored hair moved as though something unseen had passed by.
A low, distant hum pressed against my ears, not loud but constant, the way silence feels just before a storm.
Colors bled into each other like wet paint, dull and tired.
A faint chill seeped out, the damp, stale cold of a room shut up for years. The silence was so deep it seemed to press on my ears, except every now and then, I thought I heard something move, similar to a breath drawn too close behind me.
The whole place smelled of old coins or blood left in the rain. Even the light felt wrong, shifting in ways it shouldn’t. It was as though it had to think twice before deciding where to fall.
I shivered, and it wasn’t just from the cold.
“It’s like it’s hungry,” I said before I could stop myself.
Raven’s beak clicked. “It is.”
I leaned in, focusing hard. The image wavered, blurred, then sharpened again. I could see my bed, though in that version, the comforter was folded perfectly, which was how I knew it wasn’t real.
“Not bad,” Raven said. “But—”
A shadow moved in the mirror.
Tall. Human-shaped.
Smiling.
Etan.
“Miss me?” his voice slid through the air, even though his lips didn’t move.
I jerked back so hard I nearly knocked the flamingo mirror onto the floor. “Nope. Absolutely not. Training over.”
“Unfortunately,” Raven said, “training has just begun.”
* * *
By Tuesday, it was official. Everyone loved Etan.
Not just liked him. Loved him. Teachers, students, the janitor who’d once yelled at me for aggressively walking in the hallway, they all had nothing but glowing things to say about how Nate had really come out of his shell lately.
“He’s finally fun,” I overheard someone say at lunch.
“Yeah, he’s actually worth hanging out with now,” their friend agreed.
I stabbed my fork into my salad. The real Nate was already worth hanging out with. He just didn’t perform like some overconfident teen movie lead with a soundtrack playing behind him.
Etan, of course, was holding court at the next table. He was telling a story, about skateboarding down the pier, if the dramatic hand gestures were anything to go by, and everyone around him was laughing. Even Bianca.
She caught my eye and mouthed, ‘what?’
I mouthed back, ‘traitor.’
She rolled her eyes and went back to listening to Etan like he was revealing the secret of life.
The worst part? Every time I caught his gaze, and yes, he definitely knew I was looking, he gave me a small, private smile that made my stomach do the cha-cha.
* * *
The following morning in the hall between classes, I caught him slipping a hand into his locker.
Only, it wasn’t his locker. It was Emily Crawford’s, the head cheerleader.
He pulled out a little silver makeup compact, glanced into the mirror inside, and for the tiniest fraction of a second, his reflection moved differently than he did.
My blood went cold.
When he noticed me watching, he snapped it shut, grinned, and said, “Want to hang out later?”
“No,” I blurted. Then, softer: “I’m busy.”
“With what?” he asked, leaning on the locker like he had all the time in the world.
“Homework. Chores. Avoiding you.”
“Honesty. I like it,” he said, as if that was charming instead of deeply unsettling.
* * *
I left school early after I told the nurse I felt nauseous, which wasn’t a lie. By the time I got home, I was pacing my room like a caged tiger.
“He’s doing something,” I told Raven. “I saw his reflection move on its own. That’s not normal.”
“Of course it’s not normal,” Raven said, perched on my lamp. “Neither is Etan being here in the first place. The question is, what is he doing with those mirrors?”
“Whatever it is, I think he’s getting stronger.”
The flamingo mirror on my desk shimmered, and I froze. Just for a heartbeat, Etan’s silver-eyed reflection stood there, smiling at me like we were in on some private joke. Then, the glass went still.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that he hadn’t actually gone anywhere. The air in my room felt heavier, like the moment before a storm breaks, and the hair on my arms prickled as if someone was standing just behind me.
Raven hopped closer to the mirror and muttered, “We’re running out of time. You need more training.”
Somewhere, in some sliver of silver, Etan was watching.
If I’d seen him once, maybe he’d been standing in every mirror I’d passed, just waiting for me to look back.