Page 130 of Gilded Wicked Mirrors
Emrys cocked his head. “I think it means we need to offer it some of our blood if we want to enter.”
“Any volunteers?” Jevon asked, kicking a piece of severed stone away from her.
“This is your foolish mission,Quinnevere. Why don’t you go first?” Countess Teagan said the name like poison.
“Sure, if you’re too afraid. I'll certainly go first.”
Without hesitation, Quinn stepped up to the castle, picked up a sharp rock, and pulled it against her palm. It was an incredibly foolish choice, but her friends’ lives were on the line. The third Blood Mirror was inside.
Quinn rubbed her palm against the stone, not knowing what else to do. Immediately, the ink leeched from her arm and cried a river of tears flowing into the crevices of the stone. It stole her tattoo, and it tore all the magic clinging to her fingernails and hair.
“Enter if you dare.” A faceless voice whispered in the wind.
Quinn glanced back at her friends, white painting her face.They all stepped up and repeated the process. As the vampires touched their hands to the wall, wisps of shadows leaked out of their bodies. And from Jevon’s body, white light drained. Giselle was the only person not affected by the castle’s strange magic.
“It took my healing,” Jevon said, staring down at his bleeding hand, tapping his free hand on his chin.
“And our speed,” the countess echoed.
“All of our abilities.” Emrys’s face leeched color.
Teagan straightened her spine. “Then, we shall have to face the unknown as mere powerless mortals.”
“Broken mirrors, that must be terrible for you.” Giselle rolled her eyes, folded her arms, and stepped through the entrance. Always blazing the trail.
The group tentatively followed. Nothing happened. Quinn wasn’t sure what she expected, but it certainly wasn’t anything.
The inside of the castle stared upon the cursed night sky. Stars leered down with wicked intent, the rays burning and glowing with cruelty. They were disturbing like possessed humans turned into fiends. The room shined with crimson light that illuminated the shriveling castle. At its center stood a scarlet mirror. A ruby the size of a boulder.
The crown jewel in a sea of rot.
“Thank you. You’ve done very well. I have to admit I almost lost hope when you decided to spend too much time with that stupid prince,” Jevon said, his voice changing and lowering into a dark caress.
His friendly facade tumbled to the floor like a snake shedding its skin and was replaced with something truly wicked. He stood straighter, taller, and completely stopped fidgeting. Everything about his body language shifted. Where his face once glimmered with compassion and a quiet knowing, he now radiated a dark cruelty. It was almost as if he were possessed by a completely different Jevon.
Quinn’s body grew as taut as a harp string. She didn’t move amuscle. Confusion and betrayal hammered at the back of her skull.
Sweet, harmless Jevon was a lie.
A lie that was nearly impossible to process.
It was supposed to be Seren. The evidence pointed to her. The dress and the alley disappeared after Quinn remembered the attack. It all pointed to Seren.
But what if this whole time, it was them both?
Quinn’s brain tumbled with all of the evidence.
The fingerprints from the feather found at the crime scene matched the killer’s, and Jevon had picked it up without gloves. Jevon and Constance were in the reporter’s apartment first. He brought in the threatening note to the lab, and he even disappeared at the Queen’s Royalle Ballet.
It was them all along.
Jevon was always one step ahead because he was always there, silently observing. Seeing everything.
“It was you,” Quinn breathed. A hand raised to her lips. A draft of icy air slapped her in the face, and she nearly buckled, but Teagan steadied her arm.
“Yes,” he hissed. “Emrys, if you would.” Jevon removed a handheld mirror from his coat pocket when Emrys didn’t respond. “Do it, or I will instantly kill you, Teagan, and all of your friends.”
Before anyone could react, Emrys strolled over to Giselle and placed a blade against her neck. Did Jevon have Emrys’s painting inside his mirror, or was the mirror used to compel Emrys? Either way, it was clear Emrys was under the other man’s spell. And even without vampiric strength, Emrys was intensely strong. Giselle tried to fight, but she was no match for him.
