The distortion. The shimmer of somethingwrong.
Her eyes are too empty. Her edges blur slightly, like she’s not quite solid. And when I focus on the space around her, I can see the seams—the way reality bends to hold her shape.
Not her. An illusion. A trap.
“No,” Seth gasps from beside me. He’s on his knees now, staring at the mirror with devastation carved into every line of his face. “It’s not her. It’snot her.”
The chamber trembles. Every mirror rattles in its frame, glass singing with stress.
My flame flares hotter in my hand, begging to be unleashed. To burn this lie away. To tear through the Void until I find the real Bree and drag her back myself.
But I force it down. Bank the heat. Breathe through the rage.
Control through love, not destruction.
“Theo?” I say, voice rough. “What do you see?”
He’s clutching Stellan’s arm for support, silver tears still streaming down his face. “A test,” he whispers. “The Void is testing him. Testing all of us.”
The illusion of Bree begins to fade, her form dissolving like smoke. Seth makes a broken sound, reaching for her even as she disappears.
Then—silence.
The mirrors go dark. The warmth vanishes. We’re left standing in the chamber with nothing but our ragged breathing and the terrible weight of knowing she’s still out there. Still trapped.
Seth’s familiar coils tight around his wrist, pulsing with anxious light.
“I have to go,” he says quietly. “The bond—it’s pulling me. She’s through there somewhere. I canfeelit.”
“Then we go with you,” I say, stepping forward to grip his shoulder.
He looks up at me, eyes wide. “You don’t have to—”
“You’re one of us now,” I cut him off. “We go where you go.”
Gray moves to Seth’s other side, steady and certain. “All of us.”
Jace nods, spinning a blade between his fingers. “Not letting you have all the fun.”
Wes’s voice is quiet but absolute: “Together.”
Theo just reaches out, touching Seth’s arm. The gesture says everything.
Thane steps forward, silver eyes locked on Seth. “The bond you carry leads to her. We follow that thread.”
Stellan adds from beside him, “You’re not walking into the dark alone.”
Zira watches from the edge of the chamber, arms crossed. “This is what the Oath meant. Shared risk. Shared blood.” She meets my eyes. “Bring her home.”
Seth stares at each of us in turn, something breaking and reforming in his expression. He swallows hard, then pushes to his feet.
“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”
He faces the central mirror—the one that showed us the illusion. It’s dark now, just polished glass reflecting our faces back at us.
But when Seth lifts his hand toward it, the surface ripples.
His familiar slides off his wrist, transforming into pure light that snakes across the glass. The runes carved into the frame ignite one by one, silver fire racing along stone.
