The doorbell rang, and they both froze.
“Matthias? Matthias, are you home?” It was only Auntie Chen.
Her father shook his head with a resigned smile. “Bet she needs help with her computer again. You don’t have to do anything. Sit tight and rest, I’ll be right back, okay?” He’d taken on the tone he’d used on her when she was a little girl, but Rui didn’t mind.
“It’s not like I can do much anyway,” she said, sticking her hand up. It was still in a cast.
Worry lines deepened on her father’s forehead, but he managed a smile. “You got pretty banged up, kid.” He opened the front door. “By the way, something arrived from the hospital. It’s in the bedroom. Guess they sent it here instead of the Academy.”
After he left, Rui poured herself a glass of grape juice and shuffled to the bedroom. A small ziplock bag was on her father’s desk. They had given her the essentials when she was discharged—a ratty wallet and abroken cell phone. These must be the other things they’d found in her pockets. She put her juice down and fiddled with the bag with her good hand. Old receipts, a gross stick of gum, bobby pins, a jade rabbit, and some bits and bobs she didn’t care about.
Light flashed.
Nikai’s mirror.
Carefully, she slid it out of the bag. There were hairline fractures in the fragile glass.
“Nikai? Seven?” she whispered on impulse. But her heart cried out a different name.
The glass remained dull, and as she held it in her hand, it turned gray and crumbled into ash, leaving behind only a small shard.
Whatever magic the mirror had was gone.
Rui clutched the remaining piece, remembering the legend Zizi had told her at The Reverie, about the beings who were born paired, then separated by wrathful gods, doomed to live their lives apart, always seeking to find their matching half. She thought she understood the story now.
The Tenth King had kept his word. She’d asked for her vengeance, her magic, and Yiran’s life, and she’d gotten it all. Even her father was coming around. But Yiran was no longer speaking to her, and Zizi was gone, and there was a new hole inside her to fill.
Sighing, Rui slipped the shard of glass into her pocket. As she picked up her grape juice, she noticed something sticking out from the corner of her father’s desk drawer.
An old photograph, furled at the corners like it’d been stuffed somewhere, forgotten, then dug up again.
She tugged the photograph out.
A group of teenagers in their Xingshan Academy uniforms with wide grins and messy hair stared back at her. They looked young—third-years, maybe. Two boys at the back of the group stood out because of their height.
The photograph shook in Rui’s hand, and the juice spilled from its glass when she put it onto the table.
“How... what?” she breathed.
There was no mistaking who the bespectacled boy on the left was: a teenage Matthias Lin.
But as far as she knew, her father had ordinary levels of spiritual energy. He’d never told her he’d gone to Exorcist school.
Heart racing, Rui opened the drawer. There was another photograph. It was faded like the other. Her father was older in this one, in his early twenties. The photographer had caught him in deep conversation with the same tall, handsome young man he’d stood next to in the other photo, their heads bowed close together.
The longer Rui stared at the handsome young man, the clearer his features became, and in them, she recognized the face of a boy she once knew.
Song Yiran.
The penthouse lounge in Theo’s condo was getting on Yiran’s nerves. The fireplace was fake, the plush decor screamed nouveau riche, and the cloying scent from the reed diffusers was giving him a headache. He was dying to get out of here. But he said nothing, waiting patiently for Nick Cheng to draw a card.
A smile broke on Cheng’s face.
“Got a good one?” Theo nudged.
Cheng ignored him.
Theo shrugged. He and Sweets had already folded. The game was once again to be decided between Yiran and Cheng.
