Page 33 of The Midwinter Mirror
I can see it now so clearly, his dad on his knees beside her, so much blood. Zayne appearing, a gash on his forehead, trauma in his eyes. And I lied. Or at least I didn’t say anything. Which was just as bad. And however much I tell myself that I had no choice, I know that the guilt will haunt me forever. My fault.
“The Hunter killed her,” Zayne murmurs.
“Yes. I’m so sorry you had to think your dad was a killer.”
“I never really believed it.”
“But you doubted. That’s why you left. You were scared you might be violent like your dad, that you might hurt someone you love.”
He looks away for a moment. “I was so angry. Just like my dad, so yeah, I was a little concerned.”
“You would never have hurt me or Tansy.”
“No, I understand that now. But come on, Holly, I was a stupid fucked-up kid back then. Not with you, maybe, but I fucking hated the rest of the world. I had to get away from this place.”
He holds out his hand to me, and I take it as he pulls me to my feet. My knees wobble a little, and he wraps strong hands around my upper arms to hold me steady. I stare into his beautiful, intense silver eyes and lose myself for a moment. “The only thing I regret about leaving was walking away from you the way I did. Letting you think I hated you. I could never hate you. I just didn’t understand.”
“Join the club,” I mutter.
“But know something,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
“I’m not walking away from you again.”
I have no idea what that means for the future, but I’m not arguing. There’s a connection between the two of us; it’s always been there. Maybe it’s forged in magic. I smile at that thought—how the mighty have fallen.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Just thinking about magic.” Then I shake my head. “How could my mother do this to me? Why?”
“Believe me, she was right to do what she did. There was this king on your world who basically drained all the mirror mages of their magic. He would have done that to you. Some of them took hundreds of years to die. She saved you from that.”
“Hundreds of years? How can that be?”
“You’re immortal, Holly. All Astralis are immortal.”
Okay, I think I’ve done really well in accepting all this. But immortal? No way. I can’t even think about what that means.
“Don’t worry; you can still die. No one lives forever.”
“That’s a relief.”
But what now? I still don’t know how to find the children or how to help. I peer inside myself again, down, down deep inside. Something is stirring. Something that fills me with primordial terror. I’m not who I thought I was, and I have no clue who or even what I am. And I have to face that terror because now I know this is real. The children are gone to another world. And they will die within hours if I don’t find a way to get them out. It’s down to me. And so far, I’ve made a complete fuck-up of everything.
My stomach clenches, and my heart races.
Zayne squeezes my arms. “Hey, take it slow. Deep breaths.”
“I can’t take it slow. We need to find them.”
“You’re no use like this. Just take a moment and relax.” He strokes my hair with his long fingers, then my cheek. I can feel the sense of calm assurance emanating from him, the belief in me. He always believed in me.
God, I missed him so much these last few years.
My best friend, but I’d always known long before he left that he would be more than that. He would be my everything.
Now, we’ve been given a second chance.
