2025-08-11 20:30:27
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Chapter 56
The black mirror swelled outward like something inside it was pushing to escape. The air in the Ash Wing turned icy, so cold that every breath burned Mason’s lungs. Norra gripped her sword with both hands. “Get back!”John didn’t move from Mason’s side. His eyes stayed locked on the mirror, his jaw tight. “It’s not just reaching this time. It’s coming.”Mason’s heart hammered. The last word the mirror had shown still burned in his mind, “TAKE.”He lifted the shard, ready, but the mirror pulsed again, harder. The torches on the wall guttered out one by one until only the faint glow of the mirror lit the room.The surface split down the middle. A long, pale arm pushed through, the fingers impossibly thin, joints bending the wrong way.It reached straight toward Norra. She swung her sword hard. The blade passed right through it, no resistance, no sound, and yet the hand still caught her wrist.Norra gasped, her breath turning to frost in the air. The pale fingers began pulling her toward
Chapter 55
The face in the mirror was his own. Mason didn’t move, didn’t breathe. The black surface rippled, distorting the features just enough to make them wrong. The eyes were wrong too, not brown, but silver, cold and knowing.On the other side, the mirror-Mason smiled. Slowly. Deliberately. Norra’s voice broke the silence. “That’s not you.”“It looks like me,” Mason said.“No,” she replied firmly. “It looks like what it wants you to be.”John stepped closer, eyes narrowing at the reflection. “Or what you’ll become if you go through.”The mirror-Mason tilted his head, as if listening. Then he raised his hand and pressed it flat against the glass.Mason felt the pressure against his palm, but he hadn’t moved his hand. The surface of the mirror swelled outward, wrapping around his reflection’s hand. A cold, sharp tug yanked at his chest. “Mason!” John grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back.The tug vanished. The surface smoothed again. Norra’s jaw was tight. “It’s not just showing you things
Chapter 54
The Ash Wing was quiet now. Too quiet. The silver light from the conduit was gone, leaving only the faint torchlight that flickered against the cracked walls. The air was heavy, thick with the dust that had fallen during the battle. Mason stood in front of the black mirror. His breathing was rough, his grip tight around the shard in his hand. He could still feel the heat from closing the conduit, but it didn’t matter. The image of Aurora being dragged back into the vault realm replayed in his head over and over, each time sharper, crueler. “She told me to close it,” Mason said finally. His voice was low, almost to himself. “I did what she asked.”Norra wiped blood from the side of her face. “And she’s gone because of it.”John shot her a sharp look. “Not helping.”Norra didn’t back down. “He needs to hear it.”“I heard it the first time,” Mason said, turning toward her. His eyes were cold, but there was something else there too, a hollow space where his usual fire should be.Behind
Chapter 53
The silver light was blinding. It poured from the conduit like a flood, spilling across the Ash Wing and washing over the vault realm’s mist at the same time. The edges of both worlds wavered, bending and twisting like heat over a road.Mason shielded his eyes, but the glare was already burning into his mind. He could feel the pull, the vault realm and the academy trying to merge into one.Aurora’s grip on his arm was tight. “Mason, the door’s gone! There’s no in or out, it’s both now!”Vazquez stood calmly in the chaos, silver-eyed and smiling. “Exactly as planned.”The porcelain army didn’t hesitate. They rushed forward as one, some vanishing into the light and reappearing in the Ash Wing, others staying in the vault realm to surround Mason and Aurora.Through the blinding glare, Mason saw Norra on the other side, already swinging her sword at the first wave spilling into the academy. John was beside her, hurling bursts of white fire into the mass of porcelain faces. “Go!” Aurora
Chapter 52
The fracture in the conduit mirror widened with a sound like ice splitting on a frozen lake. Silver light bled from the crack, casting sharp shadows on the walls of the Ash Wing. The air grew thick and cold, carrying with it the faint smell of wet stone and something older, like dust that had been trapped for centuries.Norra’s grip on Mason’s arm was iron-tight. “Back away!” she shouted.The porcelain-faced figure on the other side pressed both hands against the glass. Each touch left a spiderweb of fresh cracks. Its blank face was inches from Mason’s, but its wide jagged mouth was stretching open, revealing rows of teeth like shards of mirror.John stepped forward, wand raised. “Mason, if this thing gets through.”“It won’t,” Mason said, but his voice lacked conviction.The creature struck the glass. The conduit shuddered, silver light flaring. Mason felt the force through the frame, like something was pounding directly on his chest.Aurora’s voice carried faintly from the mist be
Chapter 51
The first thing Aurora noticed was the silence. No air. No wind. No echo. Only her own breathing, sharp, too loud in the emptiness.She stood on a surface that wasn’t stone or glass. It felt soft under her boots, but it didn’t give way. Black mist curled around her ankles. The vault’s white light was gone. “Aurora.”She spun, dagger raised. Vazquez’s puppet stood a few paces away, his silver eyes glowing faintly in the dark. Behind him, the shape of the creature loomed, less defined now, but its many eyes still blinked slowly, watching her. “What is this place?” she demanded.“The vault realm,” Vazquez said, stepping closer. “A cage for the things the council feared most. A place between death and life. Between thought and memory.”Aurora’s grip on her dagger tightened. “Then let me out.”Vazquez smiled. “I could. But I won’t.”In the real world, Mason paced the Grand Hall like a caged animal. Norra sat on the edge of a shattered pillar, sharpening her blade in silence. John stood n
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