It enveloped her, sucking her into a breathless nothing.
Except it wasn’t the impenetrable black of the mirror space. This was a familiar darkness. Cold and tangible and wet.
Selene’s lungs burned. Her feet scraped a bottom and she propelled herself upward, lighting the water silver-blue with bioluminescence.
And burst into the air of the cavern.
Her cloak was heavy with water, pulling her back down again. She unbuttoned it, kicking free and swimming to the stone platform where the mirror stood.
Where it used to stand.
The great beveled frame was empty, save for shards that clung to the edge. There was no backing, just jagged teeth in a gaping maw. She wished it would devour her.
Silver glittered up from the stone. She took one of the larger pieces, curved like a sickle moon. She saw only her own reflection. She was bleeding, bits of the mirror caught up in her hair.
“Dante,” she cried.
She sang his name and listened for the response. Her voice echoed around the cave and ended in soul-crushing silence. He couldn’t be gone. She could still taste the copper and wintergreen on her lips. She sang for him the song they’d written together, all the words slipping from her tongue like desperate pleas.
She waited for his voice to rise out of the darkness. All she heard was the gasping of her own breath and the shudder of things deep within the water.
He’d betrayed her and he’d saved her and it wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. He should live. He’d never gotten the chance to live.
Neither have you.
She’d wanted to watch him in the sun. She’d wanted to hear the resonance of his voice outside of the mirror. She’d wanted to set him free.
And now it was over. Dante Dumas was gone.
She still held his final gift in her hands. Her sheaf of music. She opened it up. The pages remained dry. The song was perfect. She saw all the things she had forgotten. He’d written her name at the top, as the composer. And next to it, he’d signed his own: the opera ghost.
There was something else inside. The oil slick blade he’d remade with magic caught in real light. It was even more beautiful outside the mirror. The iridescences of soap bubbles and the sweetest dreams folded into the blade. She drew it across the tip of her ring finger and let the blood drip on the sliver of mirror. Nothing happened.
The memory of his mouth on hers was as sharp as the cut on her hand. He’d broken his own rules. Traded his life for hers. He’d saved her from the dark.
And now Dante was lost to her forever.
Chapter 38
At some point, Selene’s legs crossed the ice bridge and walked her up the stairs and left her in bed. She hadn’t bothered to shake the glass out of her hair or wash the blood from her face or bandage her still-weeping hand. She burrowed into her down blanket and fell into the inexorable darkness of sleep.
“Selene?”
Gigi’s voice pulled Selene out of dreams. It felt so much like the mirror that she had forgotten what was real and what was not. But Dream Dante had been ever out of reach. A step too far into the shadow.
She forced her swollen eyes open. The piece of glass from her mirror was still clutched in her hand. The sky was white with snow outside.
Gigi swore in three different languages and dropped onto the bed. The movement pulled the fabric where it had dried on Selene’s various cuts. She winced. Gigi froze, then moved more carefully, brushing her fingers against the wounds on Selene’s face and arms.
Selene closed her eyes. She didn’t know how to put it together in a way that anyone could understand. The ghost was gone, lost to her. Shattered beyond repair.
The pain was enough to remake the whole world.
She let out a sob.
“Oh, Selene.” Gigi brushed her fingers over the bruise on Selene’s face and the deepest cut on Selene’s palm. “Let me see.”
Selene held her hand very still. Gigi sighed and went to the nightstand. The song for heat rang out in her sweet soprano. Gigi returned with a bowl of steaming water. She helped Selene out of her ruined dress and into a simple shift. Carefully, so carefully, she cleaned the blood off Selene’s face and arms and legs. With a gentle wind, she blew the glass from Selene’s hair.
