Chapter 43

Forty-Three

Q uinn strode out of the mirror, not feeling any different. A guttural sense of unease lingered but not much else. No new magic or horrible curses . . . yet.

Periwinkle said Quinn's emotions would display externally so everyone could see them, but so far, nothing seemed amiss.

But dread sank like an anchor in her stomach as she took in the scene on the street. Countess Teagan, Jevon, and Emrys stood stoically in a line.

Something was wrong.

Emrys hadn't gone into the mirror, which was strange given his sense of profound duty and desire to help.

"What's wrong—"

"Quinn, is there a reason your hair and eyes are suddenly a dingy yellow?" Emrys cut her off, asking a question of his own.

"What?" Quinn stammered as she glanced down and noticed a strand of dirty blonde hair dangling from her head. "Oh, filthy mirrors."

What was Periwinkle's obsession with hair?

Just as the thought poured into her mind, Quinn's fingernails morphed to a bright orange while all the color leached from her hair leaving it moon white. Quinn pulled out a mirror and watched as violet painted her irises.

She changed the colors of her nails, hair, and irises with her mixed emotions. Orange burned with surprise, white sank into terror, and blue danced with sorrow.

"Oh, filthy mirror, " Quinn cursed under her breath.

"I think it's fascinating," Giselle said, appearing at Quinn's side.

"You don't have to live with it." Quinn's hair and fingernails dimmed to the dark-somber-blue of her eyes.

"But I do have to watch it." Giselle smiled, finding the situation far more amusing than she should. "Considering the other options were not feeling anything or giving up your soul, I think this was the better option."

"The mirror cursed you?" Emrys stepped up, his fingers hovering like he was unsure if he should touch.

"Yes." She sucked in a breath and stepped into his embrace.

His arms tightened around her as he rested his chin on her head. "Are you okay?"

She nodded into his shoulder.

"I hate to cut in . . ." Jevon coughed uncomfortably, tapping his fingers on his pants. "But what did the mirror tell you?"

"Oh, yes." Quinn stepped out of the hug. "The third Blood Mirror is in the Ruins District."

Emrys's hand lingered on her shoulder tentatively. A muscle in his cheek ticked, and he looked like he'd swallowed glass.

"Then we should go find it before Seren can!" Jevon said.

"Yes, that sounds like a good enough plan," Emrys said through his teeth. His hand was still on Quinn's shoulder, and his eyes a deep ocean storm.

What's wrong? She tried to send the thought through their minds, but she was still unsure how it worked. Her hair reverted to the dull, uneasy blonde color, her nails remaining midnight blue.

Emrys smiled brightly. Everything is fine .

"So we go to the Ruins District?" Countess Teagan asked. "We only have a couple of hours until the ball."

Quinn narrowed her eyes, not trusting the countess at all.

After the fifteen-minute walk, the group rested in front of the towering mermaid gates. Beautiful yet rotten, unlike the dragon gates of the Gold Quarter.

Quinn's hands shook, and acid crawled up her throat, her hair the midnight black of unmitigated fear—a torrent of it gripping her in a vise.

The viciously beautiful statues on the gate whispered to life, their tails flicking, hair waving in the crisp wind, and their eyes carving a hole into Quinn's chest. The hair on the back of her neck and arms stood at readied attention.

"Enter at your peril, wicked humans and creatures most vile," the mermaids said in sinister unison.

The group hesitated until Giselle held up her skirt and dashed through the gates. Everyone followed.

Two things happened simultaneously. An ocean of screams and curses came from the Mirrors of Trapped Souls, and a chilling invisible barrier attacked the group's bodies. Once they stepped through, night claimed the sky, casting the entire plane in chilling shadows.

Oh, wicked mirrors. Was this how the souls were trapped? People walked through the barrier and were never allowed to leave.

Panic clawed across her back, leaving scars of sorrow in its wake. She couldn't be stuck in a mirror. There was nothing worse imaginable. So, she leaped backward, and the barrier gave away, causing her to crash onto the paved street .

She loosed a breath and thanked the stars that they'd have an escape.

Around her neck, the necklace vibrated and glowed with red fire—the mirror shard liquefying and dancing.

They were getting closer.

With pure resilience and utter grit, she stood back up, wiped off her hands, and barged through the barrier once more. Bile rose in her throat as the caged souls shrieked, filling the air with nothing but terror, torture, and turbulence. They were restless and chanting such evil that even nightmares would cower in fear. As the group moved, the mirrors started telling unknowable truths mixed with unimaginable lies.

They said things like: "We want to taste your soul," "Quinnevere Ashelle fears emotion more than is wise," and "Your heart is evil and full of hate." They went on and on, whispering cruel and damaging words into the blackened night. "Magic rests inside. Use it, and you may prevail," said a mirror with kind gray eyes.

A particularly vicious one screeched. "One of your friends will betray you, little ballerina."

But that had already happened.

All the while, Quinn's hair paled to snow-white, and her nails wept midnight tears.

As she trekked farther into the fray, she began to find warm souls that split the wretched with hope. They cheered them on and helped them to continue through. At the edge of the cluster, rested a mirror with a thirty-year-old woman who had sweet eyes, a kind soul, and silky black hair. So much about her was familiar.

Blood . It was Blood.

Quinn clutched her necklace.

Blood whispered, "Stay the course, and only trust the human without magic."

When they finally reached the clearing beyond, it was like breathing for the first time. All six of them gasped for air. Their reactions ranged from clutching their knees to holding their sides to staring straight ahead at the next obstacle .

The towering vampire ruins.

Stone crumbled at the seams of turrets and looked like the jagged edges of a shattered stained-glass window. The once beautiful, majestic castle festered and rotted like the bowels of a river-soaked corpse. Darkness's wings surrounded the place and covered it in death. Vines snaked up the shattered stone, and mold grew along the walls like parasites feasting on flesh. Moss and mildew covered the ground, and everything about the place screamed, "Get out!" Including Quinn's gut.

Monsters worse than death haunted the grounds. Decay breathed life into this place, and nothing was free from its chokehold.

Above the entrance were dripped words written in blood.

It took several moments for Quinn to organize the letters and make sense of them. If you wish to enter the ruins safely, a blood sacrifice must be freely given.

"What does that even mean?" Giselle asked, her eyes wide with excitement or fear. It was hard to tell the difference with her.

Emrys cocked his head. "I think it means we need to offer it some of our blood if we want to enter."

"Any volunteers?" Jevon asked, kicking a piece of severed stone away from her.

"This is your foolish mission, Quinnevere . Why don't you go first?" Countess Teagan said the name like poison.

"Sure, if you're too afraid. I'll certainly go first."

Without hesitation, Quinn stepped up to the castle, picked up a sharp rock, and pulled it against her palm. It was an incredibly foolish choice, but her friends' lives were on the line. The third Blood Mirror was inside.

Quinn rubbed her palm against the stone, not knowing what else to do. Immediately, the ink leeched from her arm and cried a river of tears flowing into the crevices of the stone. It stole her tattoo, and it tore all the magic clinging to her fingernails and hair.

"Enter if you dare." A faceless voice whispered in the wind.

Quinn glanced back at her friends, white painting her face. They all stepped up and repeated the process. As the vampires touched their hands to the wall, wisps of shadows leaked out of their bodies. And from Jevon's body, white light drained. Giselle was the only person not affected by the castle's strange magic.

"It took my healing," Jevon said, staring down at his bleeding hand, tapping his free hand on his chin.

"And our speed," the countess echoed.

"All of our abilities." Emrys's face leeched color.

Teagan straightened her spine. "Then, we shall have to face the unknown as mere powerless mortals."

"Broken mirrors, that must be terrible for you." Giselle rolled her eyes, folded her arms, and stepped through the entrance. Always blazing the trail.

The group tentatively followed. Nothing happened. Quinn wasn't sure what she expected, but it certainly wasn't anything.

The inside of the castle stared upon the cursed night sky. Stars leered down with wicked intent, the rays burning and glowing with cruelty. They were disturbing like possessed humans turned into fiends. The room shined with crimson light that illuminated the shriveling castle. At its center stood a scarlet mirror. A ruby the size of a boulder.

The crown jewel in a sea of rot.

"Thank you. You've done very well. I have to admit I almost lost hope when you decided to spend too much time with that stupid prince," Jevon said, his voice changing and lowering into a dark caress.

His friendly facade tumbled to the floor like a snake shedding its skin and was replaced with something truly wicked. He stood straighter, taller, and completely stopped fidgeting. Everything about his body language shifted. Where his face once glimmered with compassion and a quiet knowing, he now radiated a dark cruelty. It was almost as if he were possessed by a completely different Jevon.

Quinn's body grew as taut as a harp string. She didn't move a muscle. Confusion and betrayal hammered at the back of her skull.

Sweet, harmless Jevon was a lie.

A lie that was nearly impossible to process.

It was supposed to be Seren. The evidence pointed to her. The dress and the alley disappeared after Quinn remembered the attack. It all pointed to Seren.

But what if this whole time, it was them both?

Quinn's brain tumbled with all of the evidence.

The fingerprints from the feather found at the crime scene matched the killer's, and Jevon had picked it up without gloves. Jevon and Constance were in the reporter's apartment first. He brought in the threatening note to the lab, and he even disappeared at the Queen's Royalle Ballet.

It was them all along.

Jevon was always one step ahead because he was always there, silently observing. Seeing everything.

"It was you," Quinn breathed. A hand raised to her lips. A draft of icy air slapped her in the face, and she nearly buckled, but Teagan steadied her arm.

"Yes," he hissed. "Emrys, if you would." Jevon removed a handheld mirror from his coat pocket when Emrys didn't respond. "Do it, or I will instantly kill you, Teagan, and all of your friends."

Before anyone could react, Emrys strolled over to Giselle and placed a blade against her neck. Did Jevon have Emrys's painting inside his mirror, or was the mirror used to compel Emrys? Either way, it was clear Emrys was under the other man's spell. And even without vampiric strength, Emrys was intensely strong. Giselle tried to fight, but she was no match for him.

"Emrys," Quinn breathed, her eyes begging him to stop, but he remained uncharacteristically silent.

"Retrieve my paintings, Quinny." Jevon's eyes tore to the mirror. "I'm a bit of a collector. "

Emrys jerked at the words, his eyes a liquid inferno. The vein in his jaw pulsing from holding it too tightly. "No."

"Quiet, Princeling." Jevon waved the mirror.

A vile sickness rose in Quinn's esophagus. "Why?"

"Because I can," he said. "Now, get my paintings, or Emrys will kill pretty Giselle."

Giselle stood still, her nostrils flaring. She was unable to talk because the knife was so tight against her skin.

"Stop this," Quinn said. "We're your friends. We love you." Her voice broke.

"Are we?" Jevon asked, walking over to Emrys. Jevon roughly gripped Giselle's chin and tilted her head closer to the blade, drawing blood with the action. Emrys visibly swallowed but did nothing.

Ash burned in Quinn's blood. Teagan stiffened, an unreadable expression on her face.

"Careful." He clicked his tongue. "We could kill her in a second. Humans are such fragile creatures."

Was he not human, then? Was he a vampire?

He kissed Giselle's neck and laced his fingers into her hair, pulling her neck backward and out of Emrys's grip.

"If you would, Emrys?" Jevon held out his hand for the knife, but the prince hesitated before handing it over.

During the exchange, Giselle shifted. Then she turned sharply and kneed Jevon in the jewels. He howled and fell to the ground, his scream a dark promise.

Giselle dashed away, but Teagan blocked the way and punched her in the face. "He will kill us all, girl." Teagan shook out her fist as Emrys grabbed Giselle by the shoulders.

"I'm sorry," the prince whispered. "I can't have him kill my entire family."

Jevon sat up, holding his core, his fingers circling around the mirror, and hissed, "You're going to regret that." After a moment, he stood, gripping the knife tightly. He raked it down Giselle's face, and blood pooled in a river down her chest. "Try to escape again, and I'll put it through your heart."

Giselle gritted her teeth and held her head high despite the blood still pouring from her wound.

Jevon licked some of it off her cheek. "I wonder if it tastes different to a vampire," he said. "A question for a different day. Get my paintings, Quinny."

Quinn's eyes shifted to the vampires, sending a silent plea for help.

"Oh, they won't help you." Jevon's mouth curved with fiendish delight. "I control them. I could make your pretty prince slit his own throat if I wanted to."

She turned back to the mirror, her veins on fire, and her intestines twisted into knots. There was no time to waste, so she inhaled sharply and darted to the surface—

"No!" Emrys's cry was suffocated by the consistency of the mirror.

As Quinn stepped deeper within the barrier, she glanced down at her arm, and magically, her tattoo returned as if the magic that affected the ruins held no sway here.

This mirror felt different than Periwinkle. It felt like flower petals brushing along her skin. Smooth, soft, and calming. Like a relaxing bath or a sweet garden. But it was also wet like rain. When a drop landed on the center of Quinn's palm, it was red and thick.

Blood.