I haven’t touched the mirror yet. I don’t need to.
The air changes—sharpening, thickening—like the room is holding its breath. The mirror, smooth and dark as polished obsidian, begins to hum. Just faintly. Just enough.
That’s when the light hits.
It explodes through the surface like molten silver, so bright I have to shield my eyes. The mirrorscreams, and the stones in the walls begin to sing—high, aching, ancient.
I stagger backward, breath caught.
No.
It can’t be.
But it is.
She’s here.
The light fades, leaving me gasping in the sudden dark. I stumble, catch myself on a fallen pillar, heart pounding hard enough to echo in my ribs.
Slowly, I step forward again—toward the mirror. Toward the thing I didn’t summon.
The surface is already dark. Cold. Dead again.
But the air still hums. And from the shattered edges of the obsidian frame, silver mist curls—threading up like smoke from a lightning strike. It brushes across my skin, and I flinch.
Ether.
Not ambient. Not wild.Hers.
It pulls against me like gravity, like instinct, like recognition carved into bone.
The pull isn’t just magical. It’scellular. Like some part of me I thought long-dead just remembered how to want.
I hate how easy it would be to give in to it. To follow.
"Well. That was dramatic."
I don’t turn at the voice—can’t. I’m still too stunned to summon the composure I usually wear like armor.
Stellan steps from the shadows, his gray cloak dust-covered from the journey here. One of the few contacts I trust. One of the fewer still who knows what I’ve been watching for.
"She’s crossing through the fold," I say, voice rough with awe and something like grief. "The five lights, the tethering, the surge—everything fits. She’s finally coming home."
Stellan snorts. Actuallysnorts.
"It didn’t come from the fold," he says, dragging a hand through his dust-coated hair. "You idiot."
I blink, thrown. "What?"
"The surge," he says, gesturing vaguely at the humming stones. "That wasn’t transplanar. It originated in the mortal realm. That city you refuse to set foot in."
My breath catches. If she didn’t cross over... then she wasalready there. Hidden. Suppressed. Forgotten.
And I missed her.
"That’s not possible," I whisper.
"Apparently it is." He shrugs, but the edge in his voice is real now. "And if the Council felt it too—"
