Page 34
His bravado is a screen—if you know him long enough, you learn to see through the dry wit. The way his eyes won’t quite settle on anything tells me how concerned he was, and I reach down to give his hand a reassuring squeeze. The tiny smile I get is my reward, and I let that fill me with warmth as we all calm down.
Dezi’s already gliding around the round room curiously, his skin pale as a funeral lily in the shifting moonlight. He crouches by the rim of the chamber, his fingertips trailing the base where crystal meets obsidian tile. “These sigils,” he murmurs, “are not Midnight, nor Harvest, and not even Reaping.” He flashes a thin smile, and it makes my stomach knot. “They’re old—pre-realm division old. Blood-magic that ancient vampires know old.”
No wonder he knew what they were not first—smarmy jackass.
I squint. At this distance the carvings look like a toddler’s—looping lines, half-familiar runes, and shapes that make my stomach turn as I look at them. There’s a chill to the pattern that’s colder than any air conditioning, and the black-stone tiles beneath my feet pulse faintly with every step. I didn’t know that Fae ever worked with vampires, but then, the education Fer and I had at the school in Briarvale was decided by the councils who split up the species. There’s a reason for that, I assume, and also for the way the entire town is sectioned off in quarters.
Khol paces along the rim, his boots crunching on a dusting of glass. “What does your magic say, Sassy?” He glances back at me. “I don’t know a damn thing about that time. Shifter school sure as fuck didn’t discuss it, did yours?”
I want to lie, to tell him I have a clue what this is, but my hands won’t stop trembling. There’s a crawling, prickling sensation under my skin—a compulsion I recognize somehow letting me know the room wants something from us. Unfortunately, I’m the only one unlucky enough to be tuned to its frequency, it seems. Even Rev isn’t adding his two cents, so this must be attuned to the Midnight blood in my veins.
I open my mouth, but Dezi holds up a hand to stop me. He gives me a serious look. “If it’s blood-magic, it’s not here for fun,” he growls. “The Midnight architects of this trial paid a pretty penny to have my kind enchant this room for their kin to do something, and if the witchling cannot accomplish it, we will all die.”
“I think he’s right,” I murmur as I rub my hands over my arms. “It feels like this place is asking me for something, but I have no idea what yet.”
As if to punctuate my statement, the floor vibrates—not a gentle warning, but a full-blown tectonic tantrum. The obsidian tiles at the chamber’s center crack, lines splintering outwards like spiderwebs, and for a moment we all freeze.
Then the tiles drop away, and a maze rises from the pit—instant and silent, walls of glass and mirrors so sheer that each reflection multiplies the light until it’s nearly blinding. Where the gaps form, I catch glimpses of movement. They aren’t shadows, but flickers of distorted, stretched, funhouse grotesques that move a half-second out of sync.
Holy Hecate in a hot tub, they look like us and that cannot be a goddess-damned coincidence.
“Are we supposed to—” Revelin starts, but the maze answers for him. A section of wall slides aside, revealing a mirror-like entrance big enough for one.
It’s an invitation and a threat simultaneously.
“Split up and die, or stay together and die slower,” Khol grunts. “Have I mentioned how much I hate the motherfucking Fae lately?”
Rev and I glare at him, and I freeze when I realize I just instinctively claimed people I didn’t think were mine until a few hours ago. Son of a bitch.
“Actually, it’s probably a test,” Dezi says. He’s tracing the sigils now with a single finger as they glow faint blue in the fractured light. “Old bloodlines, like my own, were obsessed with trials of control and willpower. The mirror is not just a passage; it’s the trigger for a gauntlet. The more you resist, the more it will demand from you inside.”
“Resist? What does it think I’m resisting? That could be a long-ass list for an inanimate object, Dezi,” I snark to distract from the fact that I’m not sure if I’m ready for his answer.
“Yourself,” the vampire says simply, and then, before I can overthink it, he’s inside the maze.
Goddamn it, why didn’t he just say we have to walk in one at a time? Men piss me off so fucking much I want to scream.
Tiernan grabs my wrist as we all head for the stupid entryway. “Stay close,” he whispers, and normally, I’d mutter something sarcastic, but his eyes are dark, so his shifter instincts must be screaming.
“Okay.”
“Don’t look too long at your own reflection. Those with my powers sometimes find that to be a trap,” Khol says.
Giving him a wry smirk, I reply, “That’s a gorgon, asshole.”
He shrugs, winking at me as the edges of his face blur, scales already flickering along his cheekbones. “It never hurts to be cautious. Who knows what twist the winged shits have built into this house of horrors?”
I want to laugh because he’s right. I mean, what’s more narcissistically Fae than a mirror maze—but the joke curdles in my mouth. The statement about them twisting things for their benefit is also accurate, and I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a fuckton of psychological tricks waiting to pounce in here, too.
My basilisk watches as I follow Tier into the portal, bringing up the rear with Revelin. Once I’m inside, I feel the air growing colder. The mirror world must multiply the trial’s icy atmosphere—every breath clouds in a hundred, a thousand duplicate worlds.
Isn’t winter the Court of Reaping? Why the hell is Midnight’s damn trial so fucking cold when we’re dressed like idiots for a ball?
The walls shift, herding us down a tight corridor that turns abruptly left, then right, then opens into a small node where four paths diverge.
“Getting old with the ‘split up now’ shit,” I mutter, but nobody laughs. I’m not kidding about that; if they wanted me to do it alone, why the hell even let my mates come with me? This is such bullshit, and it makes my ass twitch.
The first mirror to my right is already active. It doesn’t show my face, and my hair is different—longer and styled in some fancy curls. The clothes are the color of bruised fruit with silver thread, but the eyes are unmistakably mine. They seem older and harder, as if the knowledge there is so painful that it physically aches. I try to look away, but the image moves with me, unblinking.
