“We can break out of the cage together if you want.”
She frowned, her brow wrinkling. “And what would that look like? I’m supposedly dead. If my sociopathic father knows I’m alive, he’ll do everything he can to kill me. I have one brother left who can . . . If he dies, I die. And you . . .”
“Me?” The boy gave the smile that pretended he didn’t care what someone was going to say when he really did.
The woman shrugged. “You frighten people.”
“And I frighten you.”
“Not anymore.”
The boy stared at the woman. Into her. Then he smiled.
Her cheeks turned the color of a pink-tinged sunrise. “And . . . y-y-you . . .”
The boy’s eyes widened. The woman had never stuttered. Not once in her life.
“You’re the Ward now.”
“And someday, you’ll be the Bard.”
She nodded. “If I live that long.”
The wind sighed. That settled it. Principals never married each other. It confused the line of power.
The boy watched her for a moment longer, then he said, “The offer remains. Whenever you need me.” He gestured to the necklace.
“You’ll take me to the sea?”
He nodded. “Or help you. Or find you. Or . . . anything.”
She stepped closer, the scent of her wrapping itself around the boy. She placed her hands on his shoulders and stood on her tiptoes.
The wind shrieked.
The thing was back.
The boy yanked the darkest eclipse around them, burying them in night.
“What—?” The woman broke off at the inhuman growl.
The boy swung her around and thrust his mirror out. The woman held hers high. Her mirror trembled, and the boy grabbed her free hand and held it tight. They stood side by side as the darkness cloaked them.
The first thing to pierce the darkness was the pungent, bonfire scent of rotting flesh. The woman stiffened, and the boy squeezed her hand.
“It’s all right,” he whispered.
“It kills with a touch,” she said.
“It won’t touch you.”
“But—”
“You have to look at it.” The boy’s voice was firm, a solid thing for the woman to hold onto. “Look it in the eyes and don’t look away. No matter what happens, don’t look away.”
“But if it touches us. If it?—”
“Lia. Listen.” The black smoke crept along the edges of the mirrors, and the wind shuddered at the hot breath sliding through the boy’s darkness. “If you look away, you die. You have to stare into the mirror. Into the darkest part of its eyes. You have to look at it and recognize it. Do you understand?”
