“You guys, it’s?—”
I stopped again. Didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, didn’t move, only strained my ears to listen for the footsteps. Notmine,but those of Silas and Cook. The footsteps that I’d been listening to for the past…how long exactly had we been walking down this corridor?
Or rather, how long hadI?
Because there was no other footsteps anywhere near me. There were no shadows, no silhouettes, no sound at all.
“Cook?” I breathed, suddenly terrified. “Silas?”
No answer.
I was all alone.
It made no sense. I’d had the sound of all three of our footsteps in my ears as I walked.Whenhad it changed and how had I not noticed?
What in the Everstill was this place doing to me?!
“Shit, shit, shit,”I chanted under my breath, and with my hands fisted tightly around the axes, I shot forward as fast as I could without running. This game was most definitely not done with us yet, butIwas done withit.So done.
Finally, light.
Lanterns on the stone walls every few feet, the fires in them small but there were plenty, so I saweverythingaround me. Mainly the three structures standing in the middle of the round room.
From here, they just looked like doors carved out of gray stone, massive, the top of them rounded.
But from the other side, they were mirrors.
“Holy Hour,” I said, a fist over my chest when I caught my reflection on them.
Allthreeof my reflections, even though I wasn’t standing in front of any of them. I was still far to the side, slowly making my way around when I caught a glimpse of the glass.
The three mirrors stood side by side in the middle of the room, each with a different Ora reflecting in them, and each with a word engraved in big bold letters at the top:
BREAK - AND - FORSAKE
I took another look around just to make sure that I was all alone, that the boys weren’t coming through the tunnel behind me. Maybe I’d walked too fast without realizing it, or maybe they’d just gotten lost and they’d find their way soon—but no. These mirrors only showed me a reflection ofme.
Swallowing hard, I moved closer, stepped right in front of them. Time’s Teeth, they were sobig.I felt tiny in comparison, and even though my reflections looked likeme,they weren’t. They were…differentmes.
Break and forsake.That part was clear, I thought. I needed to break a mirror to get through, because there was no other doorway here. No other place to go.
But the second part…forsake what?
Sweat beads lined my forehead. I stepped closer, the axes in my hands still.
“Forsake what?” I said, and my voice seemed to bounce off the walls as it echoed, and the reflections on the mirrorsdidn’t move their mouths at all.
I raised a hand—they stood still. I leaned to the side—they didn’t move a single inch.
Definitely not my reflections.
I forced myself to step even closer, to analyze them. Theone in the middle looked…angry, somehow. It wasmyface—same blonde hair, same wide blue eyes, same nose, same lips, same height, same suit, which had the same blood stains on the right side from the timewraith, too. She wasmebut she wasn’t.
Then she raised her chin, looked down at me from the mirror. Gritted her teeth and raised her brow as if to taunt me.
A miracle I didn’t scream.
Words popped in my head in my own voice—you wouldn’t survive without me.
