Page 84 of Gilded Wicked Mirrors
The only object not associated with a gang plan. The only thing that didn’t fit was the painting of the ballerina. It was a clue wrapped in lies. To anyone else, they would just assume it was a painting, but not Quinn.
“The second Blood Mirror must be at the Royalle Ballet,” Quinn whispered.
Quinn shuddered as Giselle—the real Giselle—appeared beside her. “So that’s where we need to go—” Giselle’s words werecut off as she glimpsed and fixated on the second wall. “It’s plans for a prison break.”
Giselle’s face paled as if she’d seen a long-lost ghost.
Quinn sighed and shut her eyes tight. She knew her friend was in pain, and it killed Quinn to hear the vulnerability in her friend’s voice. The only person valuable enough to the Fox to spring from the Rock was Giselle’s father.
It was complicated and cruel knowledge.
Giselle loved her father, but she also hated him for abandoning—
Suddenly, the world fell out from beneath them, and both girls were thrown from the mirror and were dispensed onto the floor.
They had the information they came for, and the mirror no longer wanted them.
Emrys was missing, possibly still fighting his own demons inside the mirror.
But now that Quinn was out, her fears and the awful prophecy the mirror spoke hit her all at once, and she started shaking as tears leaked down her face. Four of her fears would come true.
It was the mirror’s promise as an unintended consequence.
But which four?
“What do you need?” Giselle asked and crossed the room with tentative steps as if she were scaling across shattered glass. And she was. She was traversing Quinn’s haunting emotions, across the vast expanse of feeling that she’d never let anyone see.
It was a small and delicate thing.
“I don’t know,” Quinn whispered as she reached up and touched the liquid fire still flowing down her scarlet cheeks. It was wet and precious, like a secret had been first spoken. She swiped a teardrop onto her finger and stared at it like it was magic.
But her awe was splintered as the door swung open, and the Fox entered, his face a nightmare covered in scorpions and the promise of poison.
Twenty-Eight
Quinn froze as Francois’s fury danced on his face. Behind him stood his second with a pistol at the ready.
Quinn’s fingernails bit into her palms as a spike of fear raged through her body.
Francois’s gaze flicked over her for a moment, but it settled on Giselle, devouring her whole, his eyes lingering far too long on her chest. Instead of cowering under his scrutiny, Giselle slightly tilted her head and raised one taunting brow.
“Are you here to make me scream?” He winked, his glasses highlighting his angular face.
Quinn was pretty sure it was a carnal reference, but she wasn’t entirely certain. She needed Giselle to interpret these types of things, but it didn’t seem like the time to ask.
“I did say we could schedule another time for it.” Giselle’s voice lilted and fell into a purr.
Quinn swallowed, embarrassed, and Hadleigh cleared her throat.
“Right, you are, Haddie.” Francois shifted his gaze to Quinn. “I told you to stay out of Fantômes business, and here you are, breaking into my vault.”
“We aren’t very good listeners,”Giselle answered.
“Clearly.” His lips rose slightly in amusement. “How did you get inside unseen, and where did you get the key?”
An enchantment filled his voice, and a siren song interrupted Quinn’s thoughts, humming in the air, and pulsating through her bones. Her mouth moved without her permission and formed the words, “Prince Emrys used his illusions to get us inside unseen, and Jane gave me the key.”
The rhythm of Quinn’s heart sped up into a stampede of terror. The man had compulsion magic like a vampire, but she was fairly certain he wasn’t one.
