E L L E

Darkness slams down so fast I forget how to breathe. One second there’s blue light shattering above me, the next there’s nothing. Just black. Just the sound of a hundred people holding their breath at the same time.

My heart is punching at my ribs. I swear I can hear it louder than the crowd.

Luke’s face—God, the look on his face burns against the dark like an afterimage. I can still hear the way he said my name. The way it cracked at the end. I reach for him before I even think about it, but my feet don’t move. Something cold curls around my ankles, tight enough to make me flinch.

“Please,” I whisper to no one, to the dark, to whatever is listening. “Don’t let him be hurt. Don’t..”

The darkness breathes back at me. I ruined everything. That’s the only thought in my head, repeating like someone stuck it on a loop. The whole ballroom saw. They saw Luke fall apart. They saw me standing there like an idiot while Ashriel..

I don’t even know what that almost-moment was. I don’t know what scared me more: wanting to kiss him or wanting to pretend I didn’t. And Luke… God. The way he looked at me. Like I was the one thing he trusted and I’d just set myself on fire in his hands.

“Do you love him?” His voice hits my chest like a hammer again. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. And now the dark feels like punishment, like the universe is telling me I waited too long and made the wrong kind of silence.

All I want is to run to him and say it wasn’t what he thought. That I still.. I choke on the rest before it makes it up my throat. The chandeliers flicker back on with this weird, sick stutter, gold, then blue, then gold again like someone messed with the wiring. The room is still too dim. Too cold.

Everyone’s faces appear one by one, ghost-pale and stretched wide, and it’s like the entire ballroom is blinking awake from the same nightmare. The frost around my feet tightens, crawling a little higher like it wants to climb me. I press my legs together, like that’ll stop it.

People start whispering immediately. Phones light up. Screens glow. Someone gasps too loudly and it slices the air open. But all I see is Luke. Still standing there. Still looking like I hit him with something sharp. My stomach drops so hard I almost fold.

“Elle,” he says. Quiet. Devastated. Like a question and an accusation smashed together. His hair’s messed up from running his hands through it. His eyes are wet, and he’s not even trying to hide it now. Luke, who always tries to be composed, who tries to be solid for everyone else—he’s just… undone.

“I asked you something.” His voice cracks on the last word. “And you couldn’t even answer.” The humiliation hits me hard. Not because he’s angry, he’s not. Anger would’ve been easier. He looks.. God, he looks hurt. Deep down, bone-level hurt.

“Luke, I didn’t..”  I stop. The words twist up inside me, impossible to get out cleanly.

He laughs once, but it’s this broken, humorless thing that sounds like it hurts coming out. “I saw your face, Elle. You don’t look at someone like that unless—unless you…” The sentence dies. He drags a shaky breath in and I feel it like a bruise spreading across my chest.

“I thought I knew you,” he whispers. “I thought you were mine.”

“I’m not lying,” I say, except it comes out so weak even I don’t believe it. My throat feels too small. Too tight. Like everything I want to say is stuck behind some invisible wall. The frost lifts in a faint swirl, almost like it’s waiting for me to finish the sentence. Like it’s listening. The chandeliers hum again, low, and electric syncing with the pulse hammering in my neck.

“Luke, I didn’t choose anything. I swear. I just.. something happened, and I panicked..”

“Panic doesn’t look like that,” he says, voice barely above a breath. “Panic doesn’t look like wanting someone else.” I feel myself fold inwards. I want to reach for him. God, I want to. But my hands stay frozen at my sides, and the frost keeps climbing like it’s holding me still on purpose.

“Please,” I whisper, but the rest of the words never make it out. Ashriel moves a step toward me, just one and something hits him so hard his whole body jerks. His breath catches, sharp and painful, like he got punched somewhere no one can see.

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand him. He looks at me like he’s fighting something inside himself, something that’s clawing him apart. His jaw is tight, and when he reaches a hand out, just slightly, just enough to show he wants to help, the pain slams him again.

He drops his hand. His eyes drop with it. I don’t know why that hurts me so much. I shouldn’t care. Not right now. Not with Luke standing there looking like I shattered him in front of everyone.

But it hits me anyway. The distance. The way Ashriel steps back like he regrets ever touching me. I shouldn’t feel anything about that. I shouldn’t. But my chest twists all the same. It takes about two seconds for the room to explode.

“Oh my God! did you see..”
“She was all over him.”
“Luke looked like he was going to pass out.”
“Is she seriously trying to play both?”

Maribel’s voice cuts above everyone else’s, sharp as a razor. “Told you. She only looks sweet. This is who she really is.” Someone laughs. Someone else says it louder.

My face burns so hot I want to rip it off. I can’t look at anyone. I can’t breathe with all the eyes on me, slicing me open, making up their own story while I stand here trapped in it. Anya is crying in the corner again, and her friend keeps shooting me looks like I personally ruined her life. Like I deserve this.

The frost around me curls tighter, almost protective. The crowd recoils like it’s another scandal. And I—I just want out. Out of the dress. Out of this room. Out of my own skin. The mirrors shouldn’t move. Not on their own. Not like this.

But when the room settles into this awful, buzzing silence, I notice it, my reflection in the tall mirror near the windows is a second behind me. I blink. It blinks late. I lift my hand to my chest, stupidly, and the reflection hesitates like it has to remember how to copy me.

A chill climbs my spine so fast I almost choke on it.

Someone near the wall stumbles back. “What the hell—?”

“Is that a glitch?” another voice says, nervous-laughing like this is some kind of tech problem and not the universe bending itself wrong. I take one tiny step. The reflection takes two. My heart stops. Completely.

“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “No, no, no..” Because it tilts its head at me.
Not a perfect match. Just slightly off, like it’s trying on my expression, stretching it over the wrong bones.

And then it smiles. Slow. Delighted. Like it’s been waiting for me to notice. My throat closes. Everything I’ve been holding back, the panic, the guilt, the mess of feelings I don’t understand. It all surges up like it wants to tear out of me.

“I never meant to hurt him,” I say out loud. I don’t even realize I’m talking until people turn. “I didn’t choose anything. I didn’t..” The frost pulses under my feet, almost in time with the word choose.

I press a hand to my chest like I can physically push back the pressure building there. It feels like someone is leaning into me from the inside, like the Rift is trying to crawl into the space where my heart should be.

“I don’t know what’s mine,” I whisper. “I don’t know what I feel. I don’t know what’s me and what’s..” A whisper threads into my skull.  Not a voice.  Not sound. A command.

Choose.

I slam my eyes shut, shaking my head, tears burning hot. “Stop,” I breathe. “Just stop.” Ashriel hears the tremor in my voice. I see it in his face. He takes half a step forward before the Oath rips him back again.

But the reflection.. God, the reflection is listening. Leaning closer. Like my confusion is something it can taste. The temperature drops so fast that everyone exhales fog. A girl near the punch table squeaks and jumps back as frost blooms across the tablecloth in a branching, glassy pattern.

Someone screams faintly. Another person curses. Most people just stare at me like this is my fault. Maybe it is. The chandeliers flicker again, blue, then darker blue, then almost black and the hum goes from annoying to bone-deep. I feel it vibrating in my ribs, in my teeth.

Ashriel’s eyes flick to the mirrors. “Elle,” he says, very quietly, “don’t move.” I can’t anyway. The frost has crawled up past my calves now, clinging like cold hands trying to keep me still. My breath fogs out in a broken exhale. The whisper returns, thicker this time, curling around the inside of my skull:

Choose…

I grip the fabric of my dress hard enough to hurt. “I can’t,” I whisper. “I don’t know.. I can’t..” The mirror behind me cracks. A thin, vertical line. Like a seam splitting open.

The crack widens. Not with a sound, there’s no shattering glass, no dramatic noise. Just this slow, awful peeling sound, like something pulling itself free from a surface it’s been stuck to for too long. Students back away fast now. Chairs scrape. Someone shouts for a teacher. Someone else bolts for the doors.

But the doors don’t matter. Nothing matters except the thing stepping through the mirror. At first it looks like a person-shaped shadow. Then it steps into the chandelier light and I realize it’s wearing me, or some twisted version of me. Same height. Same outline. Same tilt of the head from earlier, like it learned it and hasn’t forgotten. Its movements lag just slightly wrong, like a bad recording trying to buffer.

“Oh my God,” someone whispers. “What is that?” My stomach flips so hard I almost throw up. The Hollowed, because there’s no denying that’s what it is now turns its head toward me, slow and curious. Its smile stretches too wide, like it’s proud of itself.

The frost around my legs flares bright, rising like it wants to protect me or drag me backward. I can’t tell which. My heartbeat is so loud I’m sure everyone hears it. The Hollowed steps fully into the ballroom. It lifts its head. And in my exact voice, my exact pitch—it whispers:

“Elle.” I stop breathing.