Chapter 5
Thorne
Pain doesn’t wake you here.
You just… surface.
Like something half-dead dragging itself out of black water.
The Mirror Room was quiet today. Was it today? Tomorrow?
I didn’t know. What was time?
It was too quiet.
I couldn’t feel my heartbeat anymore. Couldn’t remember if I still had one. Was I alive? Was I dead?
The reflections stirred, as they always did. Sometimes they showed me as I was. Sometimes as I used to be. And sometimes they lied.
But this time…
This time I saw her.
Elira.
She stood in a hall I didn’t recognize. Dressed in silver, blue, and shadow. Pale and silent and so achingly real.
I staggered toward the glass, hands shaking.
“Elle,” I breathed.
She turned. Not toward me—but the mirror. Her fingers lifted. She reached out—
And for a single heartbeat, I could feel it.
Like her touch passed through the glass and landed in my chest.
I pressed my hand to the mirror. The cold bit into me. But I didn’t care.
“She’s alive,” I whispered. “Elle…”
Then her image flickered—once.
Twice.
Gone.
The mirror blackened. Smoke spilled across the surface like ink in water. The room twisted again, pulling me back into the dark.
I stayed standing.
Even as my legs screamed.
Even as my mind frayed.
Because for the first time in weeks… I remembered something that wasn’t pain.
Her.
And the way she looked back.