“I woke up to someone touching me.” I shook my head as I processed it.
The clear barrier disappeared, and Narcissus cocked his head at me. “And you thought it was me?”
“It was you,” I said firmly. “I turned around and you were there. I tried to push you off, and you slapped me. I punched you, that door opened, and I ran.”
“Fuck,” Narcissus whispered. “It's the fucking Mirror.”
“You're telling me that I was just assaulted by a mirror?” I growled.
“Yeah; I think you were.” He looked back toward the room I'd emerged from and then strode past me and into it.
When I followed him inside, I found him standing over the table of weapons. It did seem like a setup. But those locks of hair... I frowned. Narcissus and I had looked through that room together when we were trying to find a way out. The boxes had been there; I just hadn't thought to open one in his presence. But if they had been there before, that meant they weren't an illusion created by the Mirror. Which meant that I still couldn't trust Narcissus.
But at least I didn't have to kill him... immediately.
“I can't believe it did this to me,” Narcissus whispered as he ran a hand over the weapons. “I thought we were friends.”
“Friends generally don't vow to kill each other,” I said dryly.
“He was mad because I said I was leaving.” Narcissus shook his head. “I didn't take it personally. But this... he wanted me to kill you, and he didn't care about risking me in the process.”
“It's not a he,” I said softly. “It's a curse, Narcissus. It's your jailer and your punisher, not your friend.”
“I guess this is what happens when you're cut off from the world.” Narcissus sighed sadly as he lifted his gaze to mine. “You see friends where they don't exist.”
“At least it wasn't a soccer ball,” I said dryly.
Narcissus blinked at me.
“The Mirror spoke to you,” I amended. “It tricked you just as it tricked me.”
“It seems as if it did.” He grimaced.
Then a steel wall shot up between us, and I was pushed down another metal corridor by yet another shoving plate. Rats in a maze; that's all we were to the Mirror.
Chapter Sixteen
“Mommy!” Lesya's voice echoed down the corridor to me.
I froze as panic iced through my body. It had to be a trick. But what if it wasn't? What if my brave, reckless daughter had found a way into the dressing room and then been pulled into the Mirror? I turned toward the sound of her voice, knowing that even if it were really her, she was probably being manipulated. It didn't matter; I had to know for sure.
“Lesya!” I called to her.
“Mommy, where are you?” She sounded terrified, and then she screamed. “Let me go!”
All reason left me with that scream. I started running. I kept shouting for Lesya, and she kept screaming. I followed her screams down a dark hallway until light appeared at the end of it. Golden rays drenched the cold gray metal, my daughter's voice streaming through a door frame along with the light. I rushed through the opening and burst out into a village square.
Yes; a village square. As in a clearing in the center of a village that looked straight out of early America. Wood-slat houses surrounded the packed-earth clearing, all painted in drab colors. Filling the area were people in colonial clothing holding baskets of rotting fruit and muzzleloader rifles. They were shouting and jeering at something in the center of the square. No, not something; someone.
My daughter.
Lesya stood on a wooden platform, its base bristling with logs and kindling, tied to a thick pole. Tears flowed down her blotchy, red cheeks and her dark hair fell in wild tangles around her tiny body. Her arms strained at the ropes that bound her to the stake, red marks already striping her skin, and her screams clawed out of her throat interspersed with feral growls. A man nearby held an ominously burning torch.
It was an old nightmare; one I had dreamed as a child. But I was always the one about to be burned at the stake as a witch. It had to be an illusion, but how real could the Mirror make it? Could it actually kill my daughter? Would that fire burn hot enough to truly burn her?
I pushed my way through the crowd and barreled into the man with the torch. My daughter cried out in relief when she saw me, but I couldn't reassure her. I was too busy bashing my fists into the monster who'd been about to set my child on fire.
I snarled viciously as I hit him, and the crowd jostled in around us to watch like a bunch of teenagers at a schoolyard fight. My target lifted his arms to block his face; the torch sputtering off somewhere to our left where he had dropped it. He shouted something in a desperate tone, but I couldn't hear his words. Then his arms were around me; squeezing me tightly against his chest. I struggled against his hold and was about to break free when his scent hit me. Lion musk and delicious man. I froze and felt something shimmering between us; a magical bond.
“Kirill?” I whispered as I pulled back.
The colonial man was gone and in his place laid my husband; blood dripping from his cut lip and eyes wide with shock. His hair was coming loose from his long braid; wisps of it stuck to his angled jaw, held in place by the slight stubble. His chest rose and fell violently but his shoulders drooped in relief when I said his name.
“Tima,” Kirill's voice went velvety with emotion as he hugged me tightly. “Vhy did you attack me?”
“You weren't you.” I looked up at our daughter, still sobbing, but now it was with confused sniffles. “You were a man holding a torch about to burn Lesya.”
I glanced
