No falling, just being drawn in.


Celeste was pulled through light and dark, through screams and quiet, her body unspooling into threads of memory. The last she remembered before the world folded in upon itself was Armand's face, one begging, one smiling and then it was all unraveled.


When she woke, she lay on chilly glass. Or something similar. The surface glared back at her with neither sky, nor sea, nor forest of any kind, but an infinite ceiling of water. Each ripple above duplicated one below, as if she lay between two oceans hanging in mid-air.


Her breath misted. Her hands burned. The Grimoire was nowhere to be found.


She lay up, confused, her heart beating within the empty space. There were no walls, no horizon but for distant silhouettes striding beneath the skin of the water, their faces unclear, their steps slow and flowing, like memories attempting to arise.


Then the voice.


"Celeste…"


It rolled across the air like a tide. Familiar. Horrific.


"Armand?"


A man emerged from the fog. The true Armand—chained again, ghostly, semi-transparent. His hair drifted like in water, and his eyes, though tired, were his own.


"You shouldn't have come," he spoke softly.


"I couldn't stay behind." She advanced, but the air solidified like glass between them. "How do I release you?"


He moved his head from side to side. "It's too late. The mirror has us both bound now."


Celeste laid her hand on the barrier. "I won't take that."


He gazed at her with something that was not hope but something more akin to longing. "Then hear me well. There are three reflections in this world: the past, the flesh, and the heart. The thing that wears me governs the flesh. I'm bound in the heart. You're between. If it devours me, it becomes real forever."


"Then I'll locate it first."


He smiled weakly. "You sound just like me." 


She would have smiled as well, but the floor beneath her feet lurched. The air vibrated with a hum that built like a scream stretched out too long.


"Go," he told her. "Before it finds you."


The glass broke, webbing out in slow, glowing lines. The floor dropped away, and Celeste fell into darkness once more.


She fell hard onto wet stone. Flickering torchlight around her danced off cavern walls. The air reeked of copper and ancient smoke. Standing, she found herself in a corridor of mirrors hundreds of them, each one showing her a different image.


In one, she was human, living, afraid.

In another, her skin glimmered silver.

In others, she was mere mist.


A voice ran through them: Choose.


She spun around, knife in hand—though she had not recalled grabbing it.


"Reveal yourself," she spat.


The mirrors trembled. And one by one, they began to bleed. Red lines seeped down the glass, conflating into symbols she knew the same sigils carved into the manor door years before.


A doorway coalesced before her, opening up into a chamber huge and round, its ceiling woven with black roots that glowed softly, sucking from hidden veins above.


At the center of it all was the creature wearing Armand's face.


It smiled as it saw her. "You're persistent. I admire that."


"Give him back."


"He is not yours to reclaim." It cocked its head, looking at her. "Do you know what this place is?"


Celeste remained quiet.


"It is the wound beneath all worlds," it said quietly. "Every oath, every sin, every whispered promise bleeds here. Your people dug too deep. My people waited too long."


She brought up the knife. "Then perhaps I'll cauterize the wound."


It laughed a tone that was both lovely and ill. "You believe you can cure what gave you birth?"


"I can attempt it."


She charged.


Steel collided with air and then bone. The beast wrapped its claws around her wrist, twisting, pushing her back until her shoulders hit a mirror. The glass distended under her skin, revealing glimpses of her history: the first time she laid eyes on Armand, the first time she'd tasted blood, the first time she'd learned the word curse.


"See," it hissed, pressing in. "Even your memories are against you. You loved him for what he murdered within you."


Celeste smacked her forehead against its face. It reeled; she stabbed again, bleeding black. The cut smoked, sealing in an instant.


The grin of the creature grew wider. "Good. Anger feeds the mirror. It will soon determine who gets to stay."


The mirrors surrounding them burst into flames, casting hundreds of reflections of them fighting, kissing, dying, into the air. Heartbeats other than hers filled the room.


"Armand!" she screamed.


His voice was distant, faint. I'm here.


The monster's hand flashed out, grasping her throat. "He can't save you. He is me."


She sucked in air, her vision blurring. Her hand caught the edge of the silver knife, cutting her palm again. Blood fell onto the mirror behind her.


The world lurched.


The monster hissed, retreated. "What have you done?"


"Opened a door," she croaked.


The mirror burst apart. Light flooded out, blinding, violent. When she could see again, she saw Armand standing between them, no longer shackled.


He gazed at her, then at his double. "No more running."


The creature grinned. "You can't kill me, Cain. I am what's left of you."


"Then I'll end both of us."


He turned the knife to himself.


Celeste grabbed his arm. "Don't."


"I can't let it win."


"Won't you." She pressed her bleeding hand against his. The blood flowed red and dark glowing where they touched.


The chamber exploded in light once more, burning, ripping, reforming. The creature screamed—not with pain, but rage. "You don't see! This was never your curse it was mine!"


Then it flung itself forward, spearing itself on the blade.


The three of them man, monster, and woman plunged into the heart of the mirror.


When Celeste opened her eyes once more, she was in a field of white. Snow fell silently. The air was without weight.


Armand stood beside her, human once more, his breath misting gently.


"Are we free?" she breathed.


He did not reply. He was looking at the horizon, where a black line bisected the sky. It throbbed palely, like a heart.


"I think," he said softly, "we've only gone deeper."


The snow itself grew dark, ashing where it lay. The air grew thick with whispers. Celeste spun around, seeing the field wasn't snow—just a plain of broken glass, each piece reflecting something different. Blackthorn burned in one. In another, the manor remained, alive and golden.


She knelt down, running her hand over one piece. It rippled, displaying the church above the fog dense now, consuming buildings whole. The curse had escaped.


No," she breathed. "We didn't close it. We opened it."


Armand's face was impassive. "Then we go back."


"Where?"


He gazed at her, eyes shining faintly with the same faint shimmer that had tormented the creature. "Anywhere we're still real."


Celeste moved closer. "And if we're not?"


He smiled wistfully. "Then we become the story others dare not tell.


A noise ripped through the field then—a bell, a deep one. The earth split under their feet. The pieces of glass lifted, a spiral of mirrors enclosing them.


Something watched from inside the mirrors.


It was not the thing that had been there before. It was bigger, older, its eyes the hue of suns that were dying.


"You shattered my prison," it said. Its voice was everywhere. "Now you will fill its space."


Celeste caught Armand's hand. "Run!"


They spun around but the earth melted into reflection, and now they ran across the surface of an ocean composed of glass. Below their feet, infinite echoes of themselves shrieked silently.


The creature laughed, the sound warping the air. "Run, little echoes. The curse does not die. It changes form only."


The horizon cleaved. A spire of dark stone burst heavenward—unbelievably high, its top disappearing into the emptiness above. At the top swayed a mirror as large as the moon. It rotated slowly, showing a reflection of Blackthorn, alive still but now engulfed in flowing tendrils of darkness.


Celeste went still, windless. "That's our world."


"It's devouring it," Armand said. "The curse has taken the town."


He turned to her, eyes fierce again. “If one of us stays behind to hold it, the other might still escape.”


“No,” she said. “We finish this together.”


Their hands tightened. The tower pulsed again, a beacon calling them forward. Every step toward it felt like walking through water resisting gravity, will, time itself.


When they arrived at the base, an obsidian door awaited, inscribed with the same glyphs that had opened the first gate of the manor. Only now, the symbols ran red with light rather than darkness.


Armand laid his hand against it. The door awakened to his presence, speaking his name in a soft voice.


Celeste breathed, "What if we open it?"


"Perhaps we end it. Perhaps we become it."


The door creaked open, slowly, light seeping out too bright, too alive. A gust of wind screamed from inside, yanking their hair and clothing, tugging at their skin as if attempting to unmake them molecule by molecule.


Armand turned back to her. "Whatever's inside don't let it get you."


She nodded once, the light in her eyes. "Then keep your hands on me."


He did.


They stepped through.


The other world was neither bright nor black. It was blank, endless, filled with threads of hissing energy souls, memories, pieces of what used to be. And at its core floated the Mirror of Destiny, restored, whole once more, waiting.


But the reflection in it was twisted.


It displayed them standing before it but behind their images, another thing was creeping, both of their forms at a time, smiling.


Celeste's breath caught. "It's still alive."


Armand lifted the knife. "Then this is finished now."


The surface of the mirror wavered. The reflection pushed against it, laying a mirrored hand against the glass.


A beat later, a voice whispered behind them, low and peaceful:


"Who said you were the only ones who could bleed twice?"


They turned.


Standing under the pale light was another Celeste—black eyes, serene smile, same Grimoire in her hand. Her runes glowed with more light than the stars themselves.


The real one stood back, comprehension dawning. "You're not—"


"I am what you left behind when you went through the mirror," the other replied gently. "The part of you that believed."


Her smile grew wider. "And I've been keeping busy while you were away."


At her back, the reflected world started to break open like an eye, and from its hub, Blackthorn's god awakened for the first time in centuries.


Celeste and Armand are confronted with a mirrored double sprung from Celeste's own reflection who has brought to life the hidden god that powered the original curse.

Boundaries between worlds, mirrors, and selves are breaking down