It hums.
Faint, but real. I feel it vibrate against my skin, feel the way the glass shifts slightly under my touch. Not quite solid, not quite liquid. Something between.
The warmth in my chest flares bright enough to hurt.
For just a second I see something in the reflection behind me. A shadow. A shape.
A face I recognize but shouldn’t. Dark hair. Eyes that looked at me like I mattered.
Seth.
But I killed him. Didn’t I?
The thought fractures before it finishes.
Gone.
I pull back, breathing hard. What was that?
The hunger twists tighter, and I don’t know what I’m craving anymore. His touch? His voice? Or something else entirely?
Jace’s voice cuts through sharp with worry:“We’ve got you.”
The words dissolve before they finish forming.
The warmth pulses like an answer I can’t read.
I press my palm to the mirror again, desperate to understand. I need to know why I can’t look away, why the glass feels alive under my hand, why every time the warmth flares I feel less alone.
Maybe it’s him. Maybe he’s so deep inside me now that even mirrors call with his voice.
It should terrify me. Instead, it makes me lean closer.
The temperature drops.
I spin around, jerking my hand back. The warmth flickers like a candle in wind.
He’s here.
I feel him before I see him. The air thickening. Light shifting black-blue. My body reacting before my mind catches up—fear and want colliding so hard I can’t breathe.
“Still staring at yourself, little Queen?”
His voice comes first, smooth and cold and perfect. Then he’s there, materializing from shadow, and I have to force myself not to step toward him.
He’s beautiful. That’s the worst part.
The warmth in my chest pulses sharp and sudden.
I gasp.
His eyes flicker with something that looks like satisfaction.
“There it is,” he murmurs, moving closer. Circling me like a predator studying prey. “That spark. That hunger.”
I can’t answer. Can’t think past the way my body responds. Heat pooling low even as some distant part of me screams to run.
Thane’s voice cuts through, cold and sharp:“Little queen.”
