Page 65 of Fractured
“It’s not it,” Vair said after what was probably a whole hour of sitting there on the floor, looking at it, trying to make it do pretty much anything at all.Anything.
The mirror didn’t care.
“Yeah, no kidding, Sherlock.”
He ignored me completely as he paced in front of me back and forth, looking down at the floor, deep in thought. He wasn’t panicked or sad right now—on the contrary. While I kept searching for doors that might have popped up while we weren’t looking, the spark in his eyes became brighter and brighter like he was actually gaining hope. Like he thought there really might be a way out of here.
“It first needed you to understand what had happened,” the lynx whispered.
“And I did. I figured out that the Ice Queen cheated her fate—which wasto die.But we’re still not even sure if she did, in fact, die, so…” I looked down at the mirror, at a loss for words.
“Then it needed to taste your frostfire,” Vair continued, like I hadn’t spoken at all.
“Which you think was so I could find this mirror.” I showed it to him. “You were wrong, weren’t you.”
This time he did hear me. “I wasn’t.” Vair stopped infront of me, looked at the mirror. “I wasn’t wrong. You found the mirror. The Ice Palace knows your frostfire.”
“Andnow? Now what? Because I’m still stuck here, if you hadn’t noticed. There are no doors, no way out.”
Vair sat down and licked his lips. “We needed to get your senses out of the way to reach your frostfire,” he told me. “What is standing in your waynow?”
“Nothing.” There was nothing in my way—he could see it.
“Something is,” Vair insisted. “You want to leave. You’re impatient.”
“Yes, well, I’ve been kidnapped and brought hereby youand now a damn building won’t let me out—of course, I’m impatient!” That I even had to say that was ridiculous.
“No, no,” the lynx said, shaking his head. And it was still weird as fuck to witness him doing that. “You won’t allow yourself tosee,Nilah, and I think that is it.”
“See what? I already did the magic thing!”
“The reason,” Vair whispered, and I clamped my mouth shut. “The reason why.”
It clicked, though I almost wished it hadn’t. “The reason why the Ice Queen cheated her fate?”
“Yes. The reason why.”
I shook my head, looking down at the mirror on my lap. “Because she wanted to live? That’s not very difficult—everybody wants to live, queen or no queen.”
Vair came closer as he said, “If that is the truth, which I believe it is, then…” He came all the way to me, his button of a nose almost touching mine, and I was too shocked to even move back. He wasn’t usually one to get so close to me for no reason.
“How?”
The word seemed to pop in the center of my mind,though I knew Vair said it. It felt more like my own thought, which was possible considering he sounded like me.
“How did she cheat her fate?” Vair asked, and again sat down in front of me, his front paws touching the tips of my bare toes.
“How am I supposed to know that?” It seemed like an impossible question. “She did it withmagic,yes, but I know next to nothing about it.”
“That’s okay. We don’t need to know the exact way or spell. The palace will only need a piece of the whole picture…I think.”
I flinched. “And if you’re wrong?” Because another day was definitely done, and it looked like I wasn’t leaving here tonight after all. I had no clue how much longer I could keep going.
“If I’m wrong, then you try again.”
I laughed. “Easy for you to say when you’re not being held here against your will!”
“Hush now, child. Think.”
