Chapter 27

Twenty-Seven

T he morning played out like a Looking Glass nightmare, except instead of being covered with blood and fighting vampires, it was covered in a pending dramatic altercation with one of her closest friends.

Quinn needed to confront Constance's lies. Unfortunately, when Giselle pounded on the dancer's door, there was no answer. Constance DeWinter avoided them.

"Come on," Quinn said. "We have to get going."

She only had six days to find the mirror or the murderer, or die. Her time clock was running out.

"Yes, and timeliness is next to godliness." Giselle yawned. "The words I so lovingly woke up to this morning."

"Seems like you are enjoying your new roommate." Jevon leaned against the wall across from the door, biting into a croissant and silently examining the situation, his fingers tapping as usual. His hair was tousled like he'd just woken up from an eventful night filled with glitter and many mistakes. He was not as much of a rogue as the prince, but Jevon often found himself surrounded by female company. He was just so sweet and brooding, and girls fawned over it. On occasion, he gave in to the temptation .

Quinn scrunched her nose and crossed her arms, not amused. "Someone has to teach Giselle how to show up on time."

Thirty minutes later, Quinn hovered over all the fingerprint samples that Giselle and Emrys had gathered. Giselle didn't care to elaborate on how she'd gathered the gang's samples, but it was most likely using her charm or the skills she learned when she lived with her father. Giselle picked locks better than most professional thieves.

Using the list of who the fingerprints belonged to, Quinn cross-checked them as she lifted the samples and tried to find a match.

So far, nothing.

Her friends were doing their best to help. She taught them how to dust and pull prints, which proved to be helpful because they had 130 to check.

"What did I miss?" Constance sprang up behind them, scaring everyone.

Quinn clutched her chest. "Mirrors, Constance, you do know how to terrify."

"I believe that is my middle name, Constance Terrify DeWinter." She crinkled her nose, and merriment lit up her cheeks.

"Oh, and here I thought your middle name was Liar. " Giselle's glower was so dark it rivaled the shadows.

Constance's eyebrows crinkled into a plié, her chipper demeanor slightly slipping. "I am not sure what you mean by that."

Giselle scoffed. "I am sure you do."

"Would you like to enlighten me?"

Quinn cut in, slightly afraid of what Giselle might say next. " You told us not to go to the Blood Council meeting, but then you were there with Kordelia."

Constance jolted, her spine becoming ramrod straight. "I was at the Council meeting?" The words seemed to slip from her mouth as if she didn't mean to say them.

Quinn side-eyed Constance. Something about her was off.

"And now you pretend like you weren't." Giselle shook her head, and the vein in her forehead pulsed.

"I—" Constance's mouth worked. "I . . . yes, I was at the Council meeting with Kordelia." She chewed on the words as if the longer it took her to say them, the more clarity it would bring her. From her reaction and general demeanor, it truly seemed to be news to her.

"So, you are a liar," Giselle said.

"I forgot. I am not sure how, but I didn't remember going last night." Constance's eyes were drowning in confusion. She was typically forgetful, but this was a new level of absent-mindedness. "Maybe I drank too much, or the Viridian mirror is getting to me again." She rubbed at her temples.

"The Viridian mirror never gets to me. Perhaps you've been faking it." Giselle's voice was a silk cravat fashioned into a noose, trying to strangle her friend.

"That's not entirely fair. You're the only one of us not affected by its memory warping, G," Quinn said.

Giselle glowered. "Fine but blacking out is not an excuse. At any moment since Jane's death, she could have told us about the council and vampires."

"But I . . ." Constance trailed off, lost in thought, an unreadable expression storming on her face. She glanced at Jevon as if asking for help. He slightly nodded as if giving her encouragement. "I couldn't have told you anything. The Accords bind me just like they bind vampires. I wanted to tell you. It's been torture watching you try to solve the murders and not being able to say anything."

Quinn fiddled with the fringe on her dress. It made sense. If Emrys couldn't tell the truth and she couldn't, then how could Constance? All of Quinn's pent-up hurt fizzled and melted. How could she be mad at her friend for something that she couldn't help?

"She is telling the truth," Quinn said. "I've seen the pain cross Emrys's face as he's tried to tell me about the Accords."

"Then why keep us from going to the meeting?" Giselle asked.

Constance shuffled her feet, her face a deflated hot air balloon. Tears gathered in the corner of her eyes and threatened to fall at any moment. "I don't know."

Giselle was a frozen sculpture, but some of her ice seemed to be slowly trickling off. "Is there anything else you would like us to know?"

"What do you mean?" Constance's brows crinkled.

"You don't have a council tattoo."

Constance glanced down. "I do." She held out her arm, and the tattoo blinked into existence. "I keep it hidden with my mirror abilities."

The illusion was so real and persuasive. Quinn knew her friend was powerful, but she'd never realized until this moment just how much Constance must have given for magic that was convincing. Maybe that's why the Viridian mirror affected her so much more than others.

But then, the Viridian seemed to affect everyone's memory except Giselle. There was something eerie about that, but Giselle never knew why either.

Perhaps she was keeping secrets, too.

After another ten minutes of cataloging the prints, Constance ambled up to Quinn's side. "I'm very sorry about the lies." She seemed to be still worrying about the easier conversation.

Quinn set down her dusting brush. "I understand why you had to lie about the council meeting, but you've been acting strangely lately. You always forget things, you lie, and you act like a completely different person around Emrys. "

"I know." Constance wrung her hands. "I hate lying to you. I hate it." The vein in her neck feathered. "Sometimes I don't know what the truth is. I feel like I'm going crazy. The Viridian is slowly destroying my mind."

Quinn also lost time and memories at the Viridian, and she was hardly ever there. She couldn't imagine what it was like for her friend. "Why don't you leave?"

"It's not that easy." Constance loosed a breath. "Kordelia is tied to the Viridian; she can't leave for long periods of time, and I . . ."

"You love her." Quinn finished the sentence.

Constance nodded. "Wouldn't you do almost anything for the person you love?"

Quinn didn't know. She didn't love anyone romantically like that, but she could see herself going to the ends of the world to fight for her friends. "Yes."

Constance's lips rose in a defeated smile. "And as for Emrys, I do act like a different person around him because we have a complicated relationship."

Quinn raised a brow.

"We used to be . . ." She cleared her throat. "Lovers."

"What?"

"Keep your voice down. I don't want everyone to know." Everyone being Giselle. "Emrys and I had a . . . fling ." Constance swallowed, her face flushing, and she looked utterly uncomfortable.

"But I thought you only liked girls?"

"Well . . . it's complicated. Constance likes—" She cut herself off. " This version of me only wants to be with girls, but I had an experimental phase."

Quinn nodded. She understood the urge to experiment. That's what she told herself she was doing with Emrys last night . . . just experimenting.

"When I ended things with Emrys, he was devastated, and now things are awkward, and I don't know how to behave." Constance bit her lip. "I sometimes think he still has feelings. I think that's why he dallies with so many girls now."

"Oh . . ." Quinn gulped. Girls like Quinn.

And as if summoned by his name, Emrys stepped into the lab, his usual arrogance on full display. "Did we find anything? Match any prints?"

Quinn averted her eyes, the embarrassment a tightrope in her stomach. How did one look at a person after they'd done such improper acts together?

But Emrys seemed to have no qualms because while she squirmed, he was all ease, confidence, and the manifestation of dark desires. Every time she glanced at him, she remembered the feeling of his lips and her deep mortification—and her fury. He used her as his new shiny toy.

That was what grated against her heart the most. She was not a plaything or a girl who wanted to be seduced.

She was practical and focused.

Realizing he asked a question, she finally said, "No, and we only have five more prints to check."

"So, another dead end?" he asked, sliding his hands into his pockets and striking a pose.

Shivers danced in her stomach, and she looked away again. "It would seem." She played with her brush, letting her thoughts decay into rotten roses—moldy and covered in mistakes.

"So, what do we do now?" Emrys asked, jolting her back to the present.

Quinn placed her brush down slowly before looking up. "We need to find a way to break into Russet Row and figure out what Jane left for us in the vault."

"How—"

"Your vampiric illusions, how good are they?" Quinn asked, cutting him off. Everyone knew about a vampire's four main abilities: their glamour—which gave them the ability to change their appearance. Their compulsion—which allowed them to control a human's mind, their pervasive illusions—which allowed them to create images that were nearly impossible to see through, and their inhuman strength, speed, and senses.

He cocked his head. "What do you mean?"

"Could they turn us invisible?" Quinn asked. "Could we use them to get into the house unnoticed?"

He rubbed his forehead in thought. "Yes, but I don't think I would be able to cover all of us efficiently, but if—"

"That's okay," Constance cut in. "Jevon and I don't have to come in with you."

Constance really did try to avoid him.

Emrys's brow furrowed, and he examined Constance like he was asking an intensely hard math question. He appeared to come to a conclusion because, eventually, he shook his head and shrugged off the worry lacing his brows. "Alright, so Giselle, Quinn, and I will go in."

"Sounds like a plan," Constance smiled.

An hour later, Emrys, Giselle, and Quinn arrived a block away from Russet Row—the beautiful row houses that laced the edge of the Gold Quarter.

"This might feel strange," Emrys said as he lifted his fingers, and what felt like ropes of darkness encircled her. It tingled but wasn't wholly uncomfortable. "Now, ladies, you're invisible. But you still need to be quiet because there will be lookouts."

The three entered the street of tall, narrow row houses.

Despite their lack of side-yard, the houses were bathed in glamour. Each carved with gilded gingerbread trim, featuring decorative towers and dormers. Porches lined the fronts with ornamental spindles and brackets. Everything about the buildings screamed power, wealth, and extravagance .

If Emrys weren't a prince living in a castle, he certainly would have lived in one of these houses.

"So, which one do we enter?" Quinn asked.

Giselle pointed to the house at the dead center. "But we have to be careful because five Fant?mes are on the roof." Her eyes pivoted to the nook and crannies on the housetops—the shadows.

Confidence coursed through her stance as Giselle pulled the pins from her coiffure. Making quick work of it, Giselle picked the lock and slowly creaked to open the door. As she did it, her eyes settled in the shadows on the roof.

She slipped into the doorway and motioned for them to follow.

In a blink of silence, Emrys had the door closed behind them. "So where to, little phantom?"

"Don't call me that." Giselle glowered. "The top floor."

The house opened to a grand entrance with a spiraling staircase at the back. The place was filled with ornate mahogany and rosewood carvings, as well as luxurious crimson and black fabrics. All the wooden panels throughout the house were filled with curling vine patterns and snakes.

Giselle shivered and touched her temples for a moment. Her eyes looked haunted, and she seemed to be struggling.

Was this her childhood home?

But before Quinn could ask, Giselle slowly made her way to the stairs and climbed. Quinn followed until they reached the top landing and a solid silver door. Giselle knew the place. She found the vault too quickly, and she did not know exactly what she was looking for.

Giselle slid the key from inside her corset and into the lock.

The door opened to a night terror.

A pulsating mirror.

It was the only thing in the entire room. It must be the mirror that gave the Fant?mes their tattoos.

The mirror's surface rippled, and at its center, appeared a man with a sinister face crying liquid darkness .

"Well, that's not ideal," Emrys said, stepping up behind them.

"What mirror is it?" Quinn asked.

"The Mirror of Unbound Terror." He smoothed out his lapels. "It's the mirror that the Fant?mes stole and used for all of their bargains, but I believe it also holds their secrets, and in order to reach them, you must walk through your deepest fears."

"If it's secrets you seek, come take a peek." The mirror's voice was death personified, and it rattled through Quinn's bones.

The hairs at the nape of her neck rose. "So shall we?"

The clock on Quinn's life was slowly ticking toward its conclusion. If she didn't find the murderer or the mirror soon, she'd become the next victim. There was no time to waste on fear.

Besides, this mirror couldn't be that much more terrifying than Nightshade . . . right?

But Giselle beat her to it. Without any hesitation, the brunette stepped through the liquid shadows and into the portal.

As Quinn moved to join her friend, Emrys appeared like a lightning strike in front of her, blocking her path.

"We need to talk," he said, clutching her hand.

She forced a fake smile. "I can't let her be alone in there." Quinn tried to step past him.

"Even if you went in with her, your paths would be split," he said softly. "You can't help her now."

Quinn cracked her neck, but she believed him. After all, he'd once bragged about going into all of the mirrors. "What is it you want to talk about then?" She huffed.

"I shouldn't have—"

"We really don't have to discuss that." Quinn interrupted him. She couldn't bear being so embarrassed again. He'd used her. He made it clear yesterday exactly why they kissed, and she absolutely didn't need to hear it again. "We really don't need to talk about it. As you said, you're a rake and the . . ." She stuttered, not wanting to say it. Swallowing, she gathered her strength. "The kiss meant nothing."

The room suddenly dropped its temperature, turning the place into an ice cave. Or maybe it was Quinn's heart freezing over and guarding itself. She couldn't care for this spoiled, selfish man. And she absolutely couldn't want to kiss him again.

"I shouldn't have—"

"It was just a kiss. I thank you for teaching me." Her breath hitched, and she forced her smile to grow bright and filled with a thousand lies. "You're right. It will probably help my dancing."

A cloud grew over his countenance. "I shouldn't have done that with you. You're not . . ." He started but trailed off. Oh, what she'd give to hear those final words. But she could fill them in . . .

You're not appealing.

You're not rich.

You're not titled.

You're simply not enough.

Not that she ever wanted to be enough for him. She didn't want him.

He stroked a hand through his hair and tried again. "I just don't want you to—"

"I understand that I was just another girl on your long list. Don't worry. I know you'll never have . . . feelings for me, and I certainly will never be fond of you." Her words tasted like rotten raspberries left in the sun for days.

She understood that she'd never be enough for a guy like him. She was poor, far too thin, and entirely unappealing, not to mention utterly broken—illiterate.

Emrys simply laughed.

And her blood boiled. "We need to help Giselle."

She didn't wait for a response. Instead, she pushed past him and stepped through the glass. Emrys was on her heels, and he clutched her hand as they walked through.

The mirror's surface felt like being suffocated by a thousand snakes. She held her breath, her muscles quaking, and stepped farther inside. There was a slight reprieve from the horrifying sensation until Emrys's grip disappeared, and the real terror started .

One moment, they were together, and the next, they were ripped from each other and plunged into darkness.

All alone, she had to make it through the next part without any help.

From the darkness, a creature silhouetted by screams greeted her with an evil smile. "Hello, Daughter of Ash. If you want Les Fant?mes secrets, you must walk through the seven layers of your fears."

Quinn swallowed and rolled her shoulders. "Fine."

The creature held an arm out and motioned to a door. "Make it through all eight doors, and I'll give you the information you seek."

As she stepped through the first door, her leg snapped, and she crumbled, the bone rupturing through her skin, causing a deep agony to radiate through her body. Quinn's stomach lurched, and her hands grasped the leg, blood seeping through her fingertip and coating her tutu in crimson. The color of shattered dreams.

Pain pooled at the corner of her eyes, begging to be released. And this time, the tears were too heavy to hold in.

Her life as she knew it was over. Ruined. Forever. Ballerinas couldn't come back from an injury like this. The bone would never set correctly, and even if it did, there was nerve and tissue damage. Medicine just hadn't come far enough to fix a wound like this, not for a top athlete.

It was a ballet career-ending injury.

An agonized cry slipped through her lips. Ballet was the one thing Quinn loved. It was her heart, her life, her dreams, her everything. And now she would never be able to dance again—probably never even able to walk without pain. But this injury wasn't only the death of dance; it was the death of her freedom. There would be no escape from this cruel world of mirrors, vampires, and murderers.

Her life as she knew it was over, and there was nothing she could do about it except reverse time or trade with a mirror. But could she? How big of a cost would that take? But she knew a mirror was her only—

Mirror. A mirror. Quinn was inside the one in Jane's room.

So perhaps this injury wasn't true. It was fear. An illusion. Right?

But it felt so real.

Quinn glanced down to the wound to check, her fingers hovering over the bone, but the injury was so gruesome that she passed out from the pain, her body sensations finally catching up with her thoughts.

When she woke up, the pain vanished; her wound healed, but in its place, she cradled a completely uncalloused foot. Then, the scene was replaced by her clutching her knee. All the tendons were ripped apart. Vision after vision, scene after scene on repeat.

Her fear of not being able to dance manifested itself into physical pain.

There was something about the mirror that made Quinn forget it was all fake. The visions were so real and so consuming.

It was unclear how long she spent repeating injury after injury. It felt like forever, but eventually she sucked in a breath. Yes, a career-ending injury would destroy her heart, but it wouldn't destroy her. She'd survive.

On the thought, she gathered her strength and hopped to the door, leaving the first chamber behind.

In the second she was attacked by her ongoing Looking Glass Nightmare.

Vampires.

Fangs sliced into her neck and ripped out her throat. She didn't even have the chance to scream. Just like the first scene, once she died, the vision repeated.

And repeated.

And repeated.

And repeated.

. . . Until she was able to fight the fear just long enough to reach the next room .

Panting, Quinn stepped into the third chamber, and she turned into a vampire, her fangs and claws bursting out.

Fear gripped her soul, and time spilled.

She didn't know how long it took to reach the next door.

It felt like an eternity and just moments.

In the fourth room, Quinn simply cried, showing her emotions to an entire newsroom filled with cameras. Everyone saw her vulnerability. It was unbearable.

She lost all control over her life, situation, and emotions.

It was pure torture, having no control.

But it was the fifth room that gutted her.

A vision of Jane appeared and said, "The Queen's Royalle Ballet Director has made his final decisions, and the list of new apprentices is posted on the wall."

A volcano of bad luck erupted in her blood, and she knew without even checking the list that she hadn't made the cut. It was her instinct, and it was never wrong.

With steady feet, she trekked to the crowd gathering around the board.

Only three names glimmered like glorious comets.

Arthur Florence

Scarlet Jones

Constance DeWinter

Quinn's name was not there.

Devastation rattled her bones, piercing its fangs into her core. She wasn't special. She wasn't great. She wasn't worthy. She wouldn't get fame or glory or a better life.

She'd have no control and no prospects.

Quinnevere Ashelle was useless and pathetic, just like Countess Teagan and the police always said.

She couldn't read.

She couldn't solve a murder.

And she wouldn't be a ballerina.

She was a failure.

An utter despicable failure .

Quinn crumbled to her knees and let the agony consume her. It was unclear how long she stayed on the floor, rolled into the fetal position, refusing to cry. Eventually, she pulled herself off the floor to face her next fear.

But with each room, the fear elevated, and in the sixth room, Giselle appeared.

"Oh, thank the gods," Giselle said and flung her arms around her friend. "This place is horrible, absolutely horrible." Her voice cracked.

"Yes, it is." Quinn sunk into the comfort of a friend.

The hug eased all the residual fears lingering over from the previous rooms. Giselle's presence would help her get through whatever came in the last two rooms.

But pain ripped through her core, and she jerked. Her gaze fell to the knife protruding from her chest. Her knees buckled, and a vicious Giselle caught her limp body.

"Why," Quinn whispered, blood bubbling from her lips.

Giselle cocked her head like a bird of prey. "Didn't you know you've always been the pathetic one? Never good enough to be with us." Jevon and Constance appeared at Giselle's sides; their smiles equally feral.

The scene repeated, each time a different friend stabbed her in the chest and betrayed her.

The last room was the worst.

The last room was pure devastation.

Giselle, Jevon, Jane, and Constance's lifeless bodies rested in a pool of blood, their eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. Quinn ran in and cradled Giselle to her chest. Tears freely rolled down her cheeks, and she rocked back and forth, whispering sorrow into her best friend's ear.

Quinn was inconsolable, her hands shaking, and her heart shattered into a million pieces. She wanted to crawl into darkness and never return. She wanted to die and trade her life for her best friends. She clutched Giselle's icy pale hands as a guttural scream escaped her lips .

Giselle was the strong one. The rock. The one who kept them all together. The one person Quinn allowed to see her most flawed pieces.

This couldn't be reality.

The thought tore Quinn from the vision, and she suddenly remembered that it wasn't true. It was a wicked mirror.

Time poured out as she tried to get herself to move. Knowing something was false and believing it were two different things.

She'd felt the body in her arms. It felt so real.

So true.

But eventually, Quinn sucked in a silted breath and reached for the final door. As she turned the knob, the mirror spoke sinister words. "Four of your greatest fears will come to be. Perhaps next time, you won't come to me, for every mirror bestows a consequence."

The final room appeared to be a normal messy bedroom with papers strewn all over. On one of the walls was a map and prison escape plans and on another hung a painting of a ballerina center stage at the Royalle Ballet.

After spending about ten minutes examining the plans and the painting, Quinn was at a loss for what it all meant.

It was another dead end.

Another lead that went absolutely nowhere.

A pulse stroked up Quinn's bones but not from fear, shock, or surprise. Jane said that the key unlocked her secrets. That it would lead her to the truth.

The Royalle Ballet.

The only object not associated with a gang plan. The only thing that didn't fit was the painting of the ballerina. It was a clue wrapped in lies. To anyone else, they would just assume it was a painting, but not Quinn.

"The second Blood Mirror must be at the Royalle Ballet," Quinn whispered.

Quinn shuddered as Giselle—the real Giselle—appeared beside her. "So that's where we need to go—" Giselle's words were cut off as she glimpsed and fixated on the second wall. "It's plans for a prison break."

Giselle's face paled as if she'd seen a long-lost ghost.

Quinn sighed and shut her eyes tight. She knew her friend was in pain, and it killed Quinn to hear the vulnerability in her friend's voice. The only person valuable enough to the Fox to spring from the Rock was Giselle's father.

It was complicated and cruel knowledge.

Giselle loved her father, but she also hated him for abandoning—

Suddenly, the world fell out from beneath them, and both girls were thrown from the mirror and were dispensed onto the floor.

They had the information they came for, and the mirror no longer wanted them.

Emrys was missing, possibly still fighting his own demons inside the mirror.

But now that Quinn was out, her fears and the awful prophecy the mirror spoke hit her all at once, and she started shaking as tears leaked down her face. Four of her fears would come true.

It was the mirror's promise as an unintended consequence.

But which four?

"What do you need?" Giselle asked and crossed the room with tentative steps as if she were scaling across shattered glass. And she was. She was traversing Quinn's haunting emotions, across the vast expanse of feeling that she'd never let anyone see.

It was a small and delicate thing.

"I don't know," Quinn whispered as she reached up and touched the liquid fire still flowing down her scarlet cheeks. It was wet and precious, like a secret had been first spoken. She swiped a teardrop onto her finger and stared at it like it was magic.

But her awe was splintered as the door swung open, and the Fox entered, his face a nightmare covered in scorpions and the promise of poison.