Page 81 of Gilded Wicked Mirrors
A cloud grew over his countenance. “I shouldn’t have done that with you. You’re not . . .” He started but trailed off. Oh, what she’d give to hear those final words. But she could fill them in . . .
You’re not appealing.
You’re not rich.
You’re not titled.
You’re simply not enough.
Not that she ever wanted to be enough for him. She didn’t want him.
He stroked a hand through his hair and tried again. “I just don’t want you to—”
“I understand that I was just another girl on your long list. Don’t worry. I know you’ll never have . . . feelings for me, and I certainly will never be fond of you.” Her words tasted like rotten raspberries left in the sun for days.
She understood that she’d never be enough for a guy like him. She was poor, far too thin, and entirely unappealing, not to mention utterly broken—illiterate.
Emrys simply laughed.
And her blood boiled. “We need to help Giselle.”
She didn’t wait for a response. Instead, she pushed past him and stepped through the glass. Emrys was on her heels, and he clutched her hand as they walked through.
The mirror’s surface felt like being suffocated by a thousand snakes. She held her breath, her muscles quaking, and stepped farther inside. There was a slight reprieve from the horrifying sensation until Emrys’s grip disappeared, and the real terror started.
One moment, they were together, and the next, they were ripped from each other and plunged into darkness.
All alone, she had to make it through the next part without any help.
From the darkness, a creature silhouetted by screams greeted her with an evil smile. “Hello, Daughter of Ash. If you want Les Fantômes secrets, you must walk through the seven layers of your fears.”
Quinn swallowed and rolled her shoulders. “Fine.”
The creature held an arm out and motioned to a door. “Make it through all eight doors, and I’ll give you the information you seek.”
As she stepped through the first door, her leg snapped, and she crumbled, the bone rupturing through her skin, causing a deep agony to radiate through her body. Quinn’s stomach lurched, and her hands grasped the leg, blood seeping through her fingertip and coating her tutu in crimson. The color of shattered dreams.
Pain pooled at the corner of her eyes, begging to be released. And this time, the tears were too heavy to hold in.
Her life as she knew it was over. Ruined.Forever.Ballerinas couldn’t come back from an injury like this. The bone would never set correctly, and even if it did, there was nerve and tissue damage. Medicine just hadn’t come far enough to fix a wound like this, not for a top athlete.
It was a ballet career-ending injury.
An agonized cry slipped through her lips. Ballet was the one thing Quinn loved. It was her heart, her life, her dreams, her everything. And now she would never be able to dance again—probably never even able to walk without pain. But this injury wasn’t only the death of dance; it was the death of her freedom. There would be no escape from this cruel world of mirrors, vampires, and murderers.
Her life as she knew it was over, and there was nothing she could do about it except reverse time or trade with a mirror. Butcould she? How big of a cost would that take? But she knew a mirror was her only—
Mirror.A mirror. Quinn was inside the one in Jane’s room.
So perhaps this injury wasn’t true. It was fear. An illusion. Right?
But it felt so real.
Quinn glanced down to the wound to check, her fingers hovering over the bone, but the injury was so gruesome that she passed out from the pain, her body sensations finally catching up with her thoughts.
When she woke up, the pain vanished; her wound healed, but in its place, she cradled a completely uncalloused foot. Then, the scene was replaced by her clutching her knee. All the tendons were ripped apart. Vision after vision, scene after scene on repeat.
Her fear of not being able to dance manifested itself into physical pain.
