They try to leave.
Lucien's hand is warm in hers. His car waits with the engine humming, headlights cutting a gold line through the dusk. The iron gates ahead creak open, mouth-like. The estate seems to exhale as if it's ready to release them.
But Irlenne can't move.
Something inside her won't allow it.
It isn't fear.
It's recognition.
Like a house left burning behind her, and she's the one holding the match.
---
> "Lucien," she whispers. "Something's wrong."
He's already looking at her, jaw tight. "I know. I feel it too."
The mirror may be shattered, but its echo has not gone quiet.
It's shifted, instead—curled inward like a dormant beast.
Waiting. Dreaming.
Irlenne steps out of the car, boots crunching the gravel. The air feels thinner out here, like breath filtered through silver dust. The trees on either side of the road seem taller, hungrier. She presses a palm against her chest, right where her heart feels too loud.
She's being watched.
Not by Lucien. Not even by the house.
By something else.
---
She turns. Slowly.
There's a path that wasn't there before.
Narrow. Crooked.
Wound between the trees like a scar healed wrong.
Lucien hesitates, then follows her without asking.
> "You really want to walk into that?" he says.
> "I don't think I want anything anymore," she murmurs. "But I need to."
---
They walk in silence.
Branches bend unnaturally toward them, curling like fingers. The wind moves backward. Every footstep feels like retracing something they never meant to remember.
Then: the clearing.
The air parts around them, soft as velvet but heavy with static.
At the center stands a tree.
Unlike anything Irlenne has seen.
Its bark gleams like polished obsidian. Its roots spread across the earth like broken veins. And from its limbs hang long, sharp leaves that shimmer like mirrored glass. The leaves move, even though the wind has stopped.
Lucien steps closer, awe overtaking caution. "What the hell is this?"
> "The mirror," Irlenne says. "Or what's left of it."
No. That's not right.
It isn't what's left.
It's what's grown.
---
Theda appears from between the trees, barefoot, holding a small black vial in her hand. Her coat trails behind her like spilled ink. She doesn't look surprised to see them.
> "It rooted itself," she says, voice flat. "The pieces that didn't break grew teeth."
Irlenne takes a step back.
> "It's alive?"
> "It always was."
---
The tree hums. A soft, eerie sound that vibrates in Irlenne's bones.
She looks into the bark—and sees herself.
No distortion this time.
Just her.
Pale. Bruised. Beautiful in the way grief sometimes is. Hair tangled. Lips cracked.
Alive.
She lifts a hand to touch the bark, and the mirror breathes beneath her skin.
---
> "You can ask it a question," Theda says. "It remembers everything."
Irlenne doesn't hesitate.
> "What did Mara want?"
The bark ripples. The mirror drinks her voice like water.
And then, quietly, it answers—not in sound, but in vision.
---
Mara's bedroom.
Long ago. Light streaming in like honey.
She's in front of the mirror—this mirror—crying.
But not because she's been hurt.
Because she's furious.
> "I want to be her," Mara says. "I want to be loved like her. I want to be looked at and seen. Not almost. Not second. Not… her friend."
She presses her palm to the glass. "Give me her."
The reflection changes.
It becomes Irlenne.
And Mara smiles.
---
Irlenne reels back like she's been struck.
Lucien catches her.
> "She asked to become you," Irlenne breathes. "And the mirror gave it to her."
Theda nods grimly.
> "For a price. That's how it works."
> "So who was I?" Irlenne whispers. "Was any of it me?"
> "That's the wrong question," Theda replies. "The right one is: Who are you now?"
---
Irlenne stares at the bark again. Her reflection this time does not mimic her.
It waits.
> "What happens if I touch it again?" she asks.
Theda's expression tightens.
> "You'll remember everything you gave up to become her."
> "And if I don't?"
> "You'll keep living with a heart that isn't whole. And it'll never stop whispering."
---
Irlenne hesitates for only a moment.
Then she places both palms against the tree.
The mirror accepts her.
---
She sees her childhood in reverse:
A girl who always stood slightly in someone else's shadow.
A girl who was kind enough to be invisible.
A girl who said yes when she wanted to scream no.
She sees Mara offering her friendship like a trap laid in honey.
She sees herself give it all away: voice, rage, memory.
To be loved.
To be chosen.
---
She gasps and stumbles back.
Lucien catches her again. He's been silent, but his eyes are wet.
> "You don't have to carry that alone," he says.
> "I never did," she answers, voice hoarse. "But I thought I had to."
---
The tree creaks.
Theda steps forward.
> "It's done," she says softly. "You've called your name back. The mirror has no more to take."
> "Then what happens to it?" Lucien asks.
Theda's fingers tighten around the black vial.
> "Now we bury it where even longing can't reach."
---
They burn the roots that night.
Theda pours the contents of the vial—dark ink that smells like bitter ash—into the base of the tree. The leaves scream, folding in on themselves, until the tree cracks open like a broken tooth.
Inside: no core.
Only more reflections.
Each one flickering.
Each one fading.
---
Irlenne stares into the final mirror.
And sees nothing at all.
And for the first time, that feels like freedom.
---
They walk back through the woods.
Lucien's arm around her shoulders.
Theda beside them, silent but steady.
The wind moves forward again.
Time exhales.
The estate no longer groans when they approach the car.
The gates open and mean it.
---
Irlenne doesn't look back this time.
Because you can't look back once you've remembered everything.
You can only walk forward.
Even if it hurts.