“Come.” She turned her back on me and began walking toward the bathroom.
I sat back on my heels, my heart beating furiously as I tried to move, only to realize I was incapable of moving, as if she was asking me to walk myself to the gallows.
Turning with a slight scowl, she assessed me for a moment before her features softened and she retraced her steps back to me. “What is it?”
My head tilted down and focused on my hands as they fidgetedwith my nightshirt.
“Nyleeria?”
“I’m… afraid,” I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper, and I lifted my eyes to hers, braced for admonishment.
Her head tilted in confusion. “Of a mirror?”
“Of it all being… real,” I whispered.
“I see.” She paused, assessing me, before she nodded once as if making a decision. “My mother always said denial is a fool’s gambit. For denying yourself the truth only imprisons you in an illusion that no one else can see; while sacrificing your only chance at freedom.”
They were heavy words that could’ve only been spoken from someone who’d made that sacrifice one too many times themselves. “Your mother sounds like a wise woman.”
“She was.”
My heart ached from the truth those simple words revealed: that her mother had been claimed by Father Death.
She held out her hand to me. “Come, let’s shatter your illusion together.”
Tentatively, I slipped my hand in hers as I stepped off the bed, feeling every bony facet as she wrapped it around mine, and let her lead me forward.
Despite myself, my eyelids locked so tight when I was finally positioned in front of the mirror that my face scrunched from the effort.
With every moment that passed, my heartbeat got louder in my ears as I worked up the courage to look.
Just open your eyes. You’ve faced a na’li and survived. You’re the spark, for gods’ sake.
I sensed Kai’s firm presence behind me a pace or so off while I tried desperately to step off the edge until finally, I dredged up enough courage and opened my eyes.
A small gasp slipped past my lips as I beheld the reflection in the mirror.
I took a small step forward.
It was me, to be sure, but it looked as if the mirror had placedsome sort of glamor on me that took away every imperfection I’d once had. My hand fluttered up to my face, feeling it as I reconciled what I saw.
My facial features were what drew my attention first and the ones that shocked me the most. I was me, but not—as if I’d matured into a woman overnight. At twenty-one I wasn’t a child anymore, but the soft roundness of lingering adolescence was now replaced with the feminine elegance of a woman in her late twenties or early thirties at most. I wasn’t frozen in time as a human; I was frozen in time as a fully mature High Fae female.
Next, my focus landed on my eyes, which had always been a topic of conversation, but as fae… they were breathtaking. Green and blue interlaced as if the ocean and grassy planes could be separate no more.
I stepped back, taking in all of me. Again, I was the same as before but matured. All awkwardness gone as if I’d come into myself.
Even my hair was a richer color. I twisted to the side and noticed that my breasts weren’t necessarily larger, but fuller, adding to my overall figure. But of all the things I noticed, my ears were the last, as if human ears wouldn’t have belonged.
“I’m…” The words caught in my throat.
“Stunning. Even by High Fae standards,” Kai supplied in a sharp, matter-of-fact tone.
“I was going to say fae.” I chuckled.
As I continued to stare at my reflection, I realized she was right. The familiar stranger looking back at me was devastatingly beautiful.
Shortly after Kai left, a sense of deep contentment radiated from me as I visited Fenyte before making my way to the dining room in a half-hearted search of breakfast with my nose in a book.
