I knew, deep down, none of this was real, but the details were so clear. The chitter of birds in the very tops of the trees. The rustle of leaves around me. The whisper of the grass as my feet slashed a path through. The firmness of the ground under me. The cold pricking at my arms, the white dress I wore leaving too much of me exposed.
Cruelty wasn’t the only one who’d worn a wedding dress. The costume I wore to the Halloween party pulled at my body as I ran, and I remembered a specific issue with this dress as my boobs nearly escaped.1
I didn’t know why I needed to catch those moths, but I kneweverythingdepended on it, so I kept running. Even as I grew breathless, even as my legs jellified, I kept running, until a brighter glimmer of light shone in the distance.
In the strange passage of dreams, I blinked, and I was right in front of it. I’d expected a glowing door, or maybe even a window to climb through. I should have known it would be a mirror. A solid pane of glass, smooth and unblemished unlike the mirror they imprisoned Tor in. And Kami before him.
But when I peered into this mirror, it was my own face staring back at me. Pale skin, no skull makeup, with bright eyes instead of heavy and tormented. I looked older than I had at the start of term, but my reflection didn’t have the weight ofsuffering, fear, and grief on her face. Rather, she was smiling, carefree.
I hoped I was looking at my future and not an alternative timeline that was lost the moment Nightmare cursed us all.
“Hello?” I whispered, staring at the trees around me, startling at the way they curved inward, turning their trunks toward the mirror.
“Hello,” the mirror repeated, sending my heart into an uneven clatter.
“Do you… know why I’m here?” I asked, barely above a breath. I didn’t have the nerve to speak any louder. Part of me thought I was crazy for speaking to a glowing mirror in a vision, but I saw too much magic everyday to doubt it.
“Yes,” the Cat in the mirror replied, watching me as I watched her. She wore a high-necked dress of blood red velvet, a stark contrast to my Bride of Death costume.
“Can you tell me?” I pressed.
“Ford,” she replied, her smile knowing. “Ford is a power in its own right and ithatesthe gods who call themselves its masters.”
There was a big chance I was a) delusional, b) dreaming, or c) just desperate enough to be talking to myself. But I said, “You’re telling me Ford has magic, andFordbrought me here. The school.”
“No.” My frown deepened, but then she added, “The island.”
Well. I blinked. “Theislandbrought me here. Why?”
“To tell you how to destroy Cruelty and Violence.”
I leaned closer. “You know how to kill her.”
“She’s desperate for it. Shecravesthe oblivion. She won’t fight you when you kill her. She’ll welcome it.”
I made ahurry upmotion. If I really wasn’t deluding myself, I was having a vision about how to kill Cruelty whilein the room with her.
“She already knows how she must die, and she’s set a plan in motion. A former god can kill a current god. They simply have to remember they have the magic in them. It never really leaves, you see.”
“So, find the last woman who was Cruelty.”
That knowing smile again. “The lastman.You already know who it is, you’re just in denial.”
“Sure.” I had no fucking clue who she meant, but my husbands might be able to find him. “What about Violence? Can he be killed by a former Violence?”
“No.” Anger flitted through the eyes of the Cat in the mirror. “He hunted them all, every last living Violence and murdered them. He doesn’t seek oblivion like Cruelty. He wants torule.”
“Great.” That wasn’t surprising. “So how do we stop him, if he can’t be killed?
“I never said he couldn’t be killed. You can do it.” Her smile became wicked. “But not yet.”
Something fluttered around my head, and I startled back, batting at the moth that tried to land on my shoulder. “What do you mean—”
I sighed. The mirror was just a mirror, not even my reflection flickering across its silver surface.
“Cat!”
I wrenched back in the chair, ripped into the present, dragged away from the forest so violently that I felt the impact everywhere. Had Cruelty seen the vision, too? Did she know I’d been told how to kill her?
