Or both?
I closed my eyes briefly, letting the cottage settle around us, letting the warmth of the fire and the echo of his kiss linger just a second longer before whatever waited below demanded my full attention.
I needed to remind myself that patience wasn’t a weakness. It was what would hold our world together when we needed it most.
Chapter Eleven
The cellar air was cooler than the cottage should’ve allowed.
The wooden hatch groaned softly as it settled closed behind me, the sound swallowed almost immediately by the thick, waiting quiet below.
My boots found the first step by memory more than by sight.
The stairs dipped down at a gentle angle, worn at the center from years of careful feet, and the walls on either side, and the mirror’s pull was there again.
At the bottom of the stairs, the cellar opened into that strange, cold space. The cottage above was cozy and lived-in and stubbornly domestic, with thick rugs, worn armchairs, and a chipped vase that had survived at least three of my emotional spirals. The cellar was something else entirely.
The air carried a faint scent of minerals and wax.
At first glance, the pedestal looked the same as the first time I’d ever stepped down here.
The mirror sat at the center of it all, planted into the pedestal like an eye that never closed.
The pedestal was carved from dark stone veined with silver that caught the lantern-light and held it.
The mirror’s surface looked like glass until you got too close. Then it felt like looking into water, and if you narrowed your eyes and kept looking, it changed into a door.
I stepped toward it anyway and lifted my hands, my fingers hovering just over the surface.
The mirror brightened, and my pulse quickened.
“Just a quick look. In and out. No… dramatics. No massive revelations, please.”
The mirror didn’t respond in words. Instead, the surface shimmered beneath the air, and I felt the tiniest ripple of pressure against my fingertips.
I pressed my palms flat to the glass, and warmth spread through my hands, slow and deliberate, like a heartbeat syncing itself to mine.
The cellar dissolved, and the library sharpened into reality.
It was as if I were in a real library.
There were higher ceilings and darker wood than in the Academy…or was it the same? The shelves were carved with ornate edges and inlaid with symbols that made my birthmark throb in recognition. The lanterns were different, too. Cold-blue flames were trapped in glass globes, lighting the aisles with a clinical calm that made my stomach drop before I even understood why. But yet, I couldn’t shake knowing this space.
Book sprites flitted between shelves, but these weren’t the polite little caretakers I’d grown accustomed to. They moved like startled birds. They were quick and wary, carrying stacks that looked too heavy for their small bodies as if they couldn’t stop for any breaks without consequences. One of them bumped aspine on the edge of a shelf and stilled, frozen. I could taste their fear.
Because someone was behind it.
A woman’s voice cut through the room like a blade drawn slowly, and my blood turned to ice.
“Careful.”
I didn’t need to see her face to know the sound of that tone. It was the kind of voice that didn’t rise to shout because it didn’t have to. It was the tone that assumed obedience, the way a queen assumed her crown would remain on her head.
The Priestess stepped into view.
Mariselle, my grandmother, was inside the mirror.
She moved down the aisle with elegant ease, as if every stone beneath her feet belonged to her personally. Her gown was made out of dark, heavy red fabric with a faint sheen. The hem brushed the floor in a whisper. Her hair was pinned up in a careful twist, silver threaded through black like frost in the night. It occurred to me that I’d seen her with both dark hair in visions and silver in person… yet I still couldn’t decipher timelines. She didn’t look rushed. She didn’t look harried.
