E L L E

For a heartbeat, nothing moves, the frost holds its breath and the lights stutter in and out like a dying pulse. Even the shadows seem caught mid-step, as if the entire corridor is bracing for what just arrived, and then the mirrors start to breathe.

It’s not air, it’s movement, it’s subtle and wrong and the glass along both walls ripples like water, like something is pushing from the other side. I don’t hear footsteps but I hear… wet dragging like the sound of ink spilling across tiles. Luke shifts beside me, and I feel the second he registers it. That cold-soaked silence, the scent of burnt ozone and the hum vibrating under our feet. One of the mirrors cracks with a sound like splitting bone, then everything explodes.

A gust of air slams into us, colder than before, not just winter-cold but wrong, like a vacuum from somewhere deeper. The hallway strobes with the emergency lamps as the first shape pours out of the broken glass.

It doesn’t walk, it glides, silent and wrong, like smoke unspooling through the air. Tall, eyeless, its face splits and reforms in constant motion, a shattered mask of porcelain fractures. It doesn’t really have legs, just a shape that hovers and trails behind in ribbons of shadow, bleeding into the floor like ink dropped in water. A Mirror Shade. More screams echo down the corridor behind us.

“PREFECTS! IN FORMATION!” Korran’s voice cuts through the chaos, sharp and commanding. Footsteps thunder closer. “GET SALT ON THE FLOOR, NOW!”

I blink as figures in red-trimmed cloaks rush into place with blades flash, eyes wide. One girl sobs as she drags a line of salt across the tile, another fumbles a ward stone, chasing it with shaking hands. The mirror beside me ripples  and a new Shade slips out, its voice twisting into Luke’s.

“Elle…”

I stagger back, spine hitting the wall hard and glass explodes just inches from my head.

My breath won’t come, I try to scream, but all I hear is the hum. It’s inside my chest now, vibrating under my ribs, matching my heartbeat and pushing against it. Frost spiders across the stone beneath my boots, not spreading out but spreading from me. I stumble forward, hand out, and when my fingers brush the cracked floor, a spiral blooms beneath them in perfect, glimmering white. Like I called it.

“No,” I whisper, but it’s already happening.

The frost on my wrist throbs again, syncing with my heartbeat but beneath it, there’s another rhythm. Slower. Older. Not mine.

Light flares across the mirrors, and a Shade launches from the left, its mouth gaping where a face should be. I flinch, instinct screaming, but it doesn’t reach me, before it makes contact, something crashes into it, hard and human. A shoulder. A body

“Elle!”

Luke’s voice, real, rough, and terrified cuts through the static. He yanks me backward, wraps one arm around my waist and pulls me behind a row of fallen benches. His hoodie is soaked through, already frosting at the sleeves.

“Are you hurt?” he pants. I shake my head, but I don’t think I’m lying. “They came through the mirrors.”

“No shit.”

He’s shaking, whether from cold or fear, I don’t know, but he’s still here. His hand finds mine and for one second, the frost doesn’t spread. His warmth hits me like a memory, and that’s when the mirrors across the hall begin to crack again, not from inside, but from pressure building behind them. More Shades. So many more.

Luke’s grip tightens. “Where the hell is Ashriel?” I don’t answer, because I already know he’s coming.

The air shudders, not from another Shade, this is different. It’s denser like gravity doubled just for him. Ashriel emerges from the smoke like it belongs to him. His coat hangs open, frost crusted along the dark metal strapped across his back. His wings are already out, broad, lethal, not feathers but blades, all edges that catch the light like glowing obsidian, and very step he takes leaves shattered frost in his wake. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t blink, he just lifts one hand, and the Ethereal Blade appears, blue-white, humming with Riftlight.

Luke curses under his breath. “About time.” Ashriel doesn’t look at him and he doesn’t look at me either. Until a Shade lunges for Luke’s side, then he moves, faster than thought. A single slice and the thing screams, unraveling midair like pulled thread. Ashriel lands beside me in a crouch, one wing half-folded to shield us.

I brace for an order but he doesn’t give one instead his eyes drop to my hand, still faintly lit with the echo of that frost spiral, and he says, low and steady, “You feel it now.”

Not a question, but a judgment, a truth and  something final.

.

They don’t speak, but they don’t have to, Ashriel dives into the line of Shades like something out of a nightmare, silent, merciless, beautiful in a way that feels like blasphemy. The blade sings through the air where it passes, the mirrors crack in reverse, like time stuttering to catch up.

Luke goes the other way, less graceful, more brutal. He grabs a fallen salt pouch, tosses a barrier line behind him, and swings a broken chair leg like it’s a goddamn sword. It connects with a Shade’s cracked jaw, shattering the reflection across its face.

They end up back to back, for maybe five seconds, they’re perfect. Luke spins and slams a Shade off its feet while Ashriel slices the same Shade mid-fall, clean through. Another lunges and Ashriel blocks high, Luke drives forward low, knocking it off balance.

“Don’t miss your mark,” Ashriel mutters, breathless.

“Get out of my way,” Luke snaps, eyes blazing.

Their shoulders knock together once, and neither gives ground. It’s furious, messy, but perfect, and I can’t breathe watching them, because this isn’t about who I’ll choose someday. It’s about how they both already chose me, and the Rift knows that.

The mirrors do too, one of them shifts and suddenly I see three reflections of myself. One standing with Luke, one standing with Ashriel, one alone with eyes glowing. That last one smiles, and then the mirror shatters.

I don’t think, but I feel the cold under my skin, the rhythm that isn’t mine, the frost waiting for instruction, and I stop fighting it. I raise my hand toward the largest mirror still intact. A Shade is halfway through it, its body spills like smoke, but its hand is a child’s, small and reaching, calling with my mother’s voice.

“Elowen…”

My hand trembles, but I press it to the glass anyway, the frost answers without hesitation, curling outward in silver-white veins that pulse like they’re alive. The mirror locks mid-shift and the Shade howls, but it’s already too late. The spiral snaps closed like a sharp click, and then silence. The mirror flares once, then goes dark as I collapse to my knees.

Ashriel turns to me like he felt it through the bond, his eyes wide and unspoken words caught behind his teeth. Luke drops beside me, steadying my shoulder.

“Elle. That..what was that?”

I blink through tears, voice rough. “I didn’t mean to…”

But that’s a lie because I did, and something heard me, because every remaining mirror in the corridor hums once, long and low, like they’re waiting for me.

It grabs my ankle, the cold hits instantly sharp and ancient, deeper than winter, deeper than breath. I scream and Luke yells my name while  Ashriel moves like lightning, but it’s too late. I crash to the ground, shoulder slamming into tile, vision spinning. The Shade has me, half-formed, dragging itself from a shard of mirror like it clawed through space just to reach me. Its hand is bone-thin, and skin like cracked ice. Its face is mine, half-finished, frozen mid-expression.

“Elowen,” it says, using my voice.

My lungs won’t work, I reach down grab at its fingers, at my leg but they’ve already frostbitten the skin. The cold is spreading, white-blue veins racing upward like it’s claiming me. Ashriel’s blade slices through air, but the Shade doesn’t flinch, it only looks up at him and smiles, and that’s when I understand.

This one didn’t come to kill me but it came to deliver a message, the frostline on my leg pulses once, and every mirror in the hall whispers together:

“Choose.”