“He’ll tear you apart,”whispered a third, showing marks like golden claws raked across her face.“After he takes everything.”
Ibin put a hand on Ava’s shoulder. “Almost there. I can feel it.”
And suddenly, there it was. A wall where there hadn’t been a wall a moment prior. It was a massive mirror, easily fifteen feet tall and half as wide, that dominated the surface of the wall. Unlike the other broken mirrors, this shattered one had all its pieces of glass removed.
The only problem? It was next to two other, nearly identical versions of itself. Only the trim on the frame was justslightlyoff. Or the shape of the center of the hourglass was justslightlya different ratio.
“Which one is it?” Ibin frowned.
“Choose wrong, and you all die.”A reflection of Nos laughed.“I do hope you choose wrong…”
“Wait.” Ava dug into the back pocket of her jeans, and pulled out a folded piece of paper. That was why Serrik had given her a drawing of it! Unfolding it, she held it up in front of her and compared the image to the three versions in front of her. Pointing to the one on the left, she smiled. “It’s this one. But even if I didn’t have the drawing, the acanthus leaves on the molding on this one are the right shape. The other ones are too small and all out of proportion. Get your shit together, evil mirrors, at least get your rip-offs historically accurate.”
The other two shimmered and vanished like they were never there.
Folding the piece of paper back up, she stuffed it back into her pocket. “Yay, architecture nerdiness, finally coming inhandy.” Stepping up to the one remaining, enormous mirror, she let out a breath.
It was a door. Or had been, before something had broken it.
Someone.
The Morrigan. When she’d sealed away her son.
Putting down her bag, she shut Book and set it down on the ground. Taking the glass shard from the bag, she looked down at it, and then back to Nos and Ibin. “So I just…put it back?”
Ibin shrugged. Nos looked like he was either going to throw up or shout at her.
It felt like the mirror shard in Ava’s hand was pulling toward the door like a magnet to metal.
Taking a breath, she held it, and let it out. Well, she still had two more chances to make up her mind. Two more to change it. Cracking her neck from the left side to the right side with apop, she headed over to the huge mirror and looked up at it. “Whelp.”
“Don’t!”The collective shriek of all her reflections behind her made Ava wince.“He will destroy everything!”
“I know that, thanks.” She kept staring up at the huge mirror. “And I really hope you guys aren’t going to do this routine two more times, it’s going to get really boring.”
“Betrayer!”the voices screamed.“You’ll doom us all! We’re you! All the paths that might be! All the paths that will be if you do this!”
Every option before her if she didn’t do this, wound up with her being cursed or destroyed by some megalomaniacal fae monster in the Web. If shediddo this, it was going to get…messy. But at least she’d have more magic to defend herself with. And she’d maybe,just maybe,be one step closer to freeing herself. Or herandSerrik. Or killing Serrik.
Or whatever.
“This sucks. Well, here goes everything.” Before the reflections could scream again, she pressed the shard against the door, fitting it into an empty space near the top.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the shard melted into the door, seamlessly joining with the broken mirror. It expanded, filling a third of the space, answering her question from before. A pulse of golden light spread from the point of contact, racing along the edges of it.
The reflections fell silent.
Nothing happened.
She threw up her hands.
“Well that was anti-climacti?—”
Something that resembled an enormous, shadowy hand—or perhaps the legs of a gigantic spider—reached out through the darkness of the broken mirror, and dragged her through the surface.
Ava screamed.
