“You tried to warn people about the fae?” She arched an eyebrow at her. “How’d that go?”
“About as well as you can imagine. Turns out people have been warned forgenerationsand nobody cares.” She threw up her hands. As Nos and Ava caught up, they all resumed walking together. “But that didn’t keep Queen Abigail from setting before me a three-strikes-and-you’re-out clause. Which I broke about sixteen times before she sent me here.”
“Your turn, Nos.” Ava smiled.
“No.” Nos didn’t look at them.
“Come on.” Ibin nudged his shoulder. “It might help her understand your cheery disposition.”
With a disgruntled sigh, he relented. “I was a loyal servant of King Valroy. But he thought me a spy. He tortured me, seeking information I did not have. When his work was finished and my tongue spilled no secrets, he realized his mistake. For where a traitorous poison had not seeped in my veins before, it certainly did then.” Nos grimaced, barely visible from under the veil of his dark hair. “Yet I could not be executed for a crime for which I had only just been discovered innocent.”
“So…life imprisonment. For a treasonous act you didn’t, nor would ever, commit.” The circular logic made Ava’s head hurt.
“Indeed.”
“And you look like—I’m sorry, you resemble a character from a famous novel because?”
Nos stared straight ahead and kept his tone flat. “King Valroy collects human works as a matter of morbid curiosity. Mary Shelley’s fictional piece had recently become popular. It served as a work of inspiration.”
Ava felt her face go cold. “Fuck. Nos—I—I’m sorry.”
He nodded once, as if accepting her condolences, but said nothing.
Yeah.
Fuck the fae.
Maybe they did all deserve to die. “And you both still want to go on living? You still want the fae to keep existing?”
“Of course we do!” Ibin laughed. “The fae can beamazing.And wonderful. And create such beauty. And thesex”—she grunted—“oh mygods,Ava, thesex.”
Ava couldn’t help but laugh as well.
“You’ve simply met the dregs, I’m afraid.” Ibin sighed wistfully. “Just because you’ve been stuck in here with us bastards doesn’t mean an entire race that has existed since the first tree bloomed to life and the first wolf howled in the darkness all deserve oblivion over it.”
“Right.” She hugged Book to her chest, frowning thoughtfully. The debate raged in her head. And she got the feeling it was going to keep raging for a while.
They walked in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. Ava found herself glancing at Nos with new understanding. His bitterness made a lot more sense now. She’d been dragged into this mess unwillingly, sure, but at least she hadn’t been turned into a Frankenstein cosplay by some vindictive fae king with a literary obsession.
“It’s just ahead.” Ibin stopped at the edge of a new archway. “Beyond this point, we reach the mirror chamber.”
The archway in front of them was different from the others they’d passed. Its edges were lined with tiny fragments of reflective glass, each one showing a different angle of their faces as they approached.
“Is anything around here fun? Like,anything?Or is everything a horror show?”
Nos moved to stand beside her, his expression grim. “This place was designed to punish and torture, Ava. The mirror chamber shows reflections of possibilities—things that might have been. Things that could still be. It is designed to disorient. It is designed to turn away all those who might seek to reach themirror you seek. It will test your resolve—and ifweare lucky, it will break it.”
“Yuh-huh.” Ava sighed. “More supernatural mind games.”
“One shard won’t free him, Nos. We have two more attempts to change her mind. I’m more concerned she’ll fall into one of those possibilities and never come back out,” Ibin warned, her normally cheerful tone now serious. “The mirrors will try to confuse you. To make you doubt. Remember why we’re here.”
“To find the door.” Ava clutched Book tighter.
Ibin nodded. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
They stepped through the archway.
