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Good-bye, cheerleader . . .
Good-bye, Isobel thought, just as her back collided with something solid. The ocean floor?
No, she thought when she felt an arm loop around her waist—pulling her in close against a body.
The moment seemed so familiar. Like it had happened once already.
Isobel opened her eyes to slits. As her mind attempted to make sense of murky shapes, garbled sounds, and hazy colors, she wondered if it was now her turn to relive old memories.
Pinfeathers, pulling her from one side of the veil to the other . . .
Then her clouded brain registered a look of rage contorting the demonic face that still hovered inches from her own. Lilith’s pitted eyes weren’t fixed on her anymore, though. They were locked instead on whatever—whoever—had taken hold of Isobel.
Isobel grabbed the hand gripping her, feeling for claws, but she found strong fingers instead.
A glint of silver sparked in the fringe of her vision.
Was that . . . ? Her arm shot out, and as soon as her fist closed around the veil-wrapped hamsa, the demon’s hands unlatched from her like loosed manacles.
Recoiling, Lilith’s face fractured down the center, spilling clouds of black and violet ink.
The creature opened its mouth in a soundless shriek, palms pressing to its rupturing face.
Then, before Isobel’s lungs could collapse, forcing her to inhale the swirling ink, the arm encircling her wrenched to one side—transporting her.
A sharp splash crashed in her ears as she felt her body depart suddenly from the crushing ocean, hurtling through a wall of water into . . . a room?
Inhaling with a rattling gasp, lungs filling to the brink, Isobel fell, tumbling hard with her savior onto carpet.
A hand grabbed her by the shoulder, and the world swam by in a whir as she was thrown onto her back. She caught a brief glimpse of glittering crystal shards, violet flames, a rolling ceiling of smoke.
Then Varen’s face, drenched and shocked, appeared over her.
Jet hair streaming, electric-green eyes wide and darting, he scoured her form, his expression lit with a mixture of panic and disbelief.
Isobel turned her head away, coughing and sputtering. Behind Varen, the wall undulated and rippled, still liquid at the point through which they’d entered until it snapped solid. As she drew in breath after breath, Isobel took in the sight of ornate gold frames everywhere, each encasing its own fractured glass.
He’d transported them into the mirrored corridor from that morning’s dream.
Along with the green mechanic’s jacket and her own bedraggled, sodden pink dress, Varen’s usual black clothes and coat had returned.
Reflected in every splintered shard of glass, Isobel saw herself and Varen, their pale, drenched faces repeated into infinity by the cracked mirrors that bounced them from one wall to the other and back again.
“You have a reflection,” Varen said between gasps, his tone accusing.
“We,” Isobel wheezed as she sat up, one hand tightening around the hamsa still in her fist, the other clutching his sleeve, “need . . . to leave.”
Varen’s expression changed, his bafflement melding with something that just might have been hope.
“You’re alive,” he breathed. “We both are.”
But before Isobel could answer, a crackling sound drew their attention to the frame-filled wall.
Tink went one of the glass shards as it leaped free of its mirror.
A trail of water poured from the crack.
Tick. Tack. Crack.
