Page 18 of The Midwinter Mirror
“Never,” my mum says fiercely. “We never hated you. We never blamed you. It was hard at first—obviously it was hard—we’d lost our baby. But we had to hope she was being looked after. And you were there, and you needed to be cared for, and you were so good, such a perfect child. We never forgot Laura, and we hope somewhere that she is thriving and loved. But we came to love you dearly, as much as if you were our own.”
I push my chair back and get up. The room tilts. I grab the edge of the table, fingers slipping on the wood. Zayne’s hand lands on my arm, warm, grounding—but it only makes the rest of me feel colder. I look down at him, but I have zero clue what to say. I’m lost.
I blink away a tear. Another wells up and slides down my cheek. I want to scream. Cry.Something.But all that comes out is this horrible, shaky laugh.
But then my shoulders stiffen. I take a gulp of air. “What has this got to do with the missing children?” I say. “What has it got to do with magic?” I search my mind for an explanation. “Obviously, she was just some troubled woman. You should have gone to the police. You should have...” I take a deep gulp of air. “It doesn’t mean anything. It certainly doesn’t mean that magic is real.”
Then I drag my arm free and scrape the chair back. I stare at them all for a second, whirl around, and run out of the room. Then out of the front door and into the snow. My feet slow as the thought whirls in my head.
My whole life is a lie.
The words echo inside my skull until they don’t mean anything anymore.
Snow stings my face as I stumble on. If I keep moving, maybe the world will stop spinning. I wrap my arms around myself and cling to the one truth I know for sure—magic isn’t real.
It can’t be real.
Chapter 7
Princess, Meet Raze
Zayne
The front door slams. We all look at each other.
“Well, that went well,” I say to the room in general.
Holly’s mum and dad both look worried. Understandable. That was quite a revelation, and I never saw it coming. Though thinking about it…it makes sense of a lot of things.
All the same, I can’t believe they kept the secret this long and that Holly’s not their real daughter.
So where did she come from?
I’ve got a few ideas, and it’s not anywhere on this world. She’s going to love that.
“I like her,” Josh says. “She’s pretty.”
“Grimlet likes her too,” Grimlet adds from the table, where he’s stuffing his little face with cheese.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to talk,” I feel I have to point out.
Josh snorts. Yeah, that was never going to last long. But nobody seems fazed by having a talking gargoyle sitting on their table. This is Elderfell, after all.
“I'd better go and check on her,” her mum says.
“Maybe she needs a little time, Pam,” her dad replies. “It’s a big thing to come to terms with.”
Yeah, fucking huge.
Josh leans across the table and semi-whispers, “You should go. And be nice.”
“I’m always nice.”
He snorts again. Grimlet throws a piece of cheese at me. I catch it and pop it in my mouth. Then I push back my chair, reach across, grab a piece of toast off the plate, and shove it in my mouth as I head toward the door. I pause and turn back. “Josh, think about everything you know about mirrors. We’re going to have to open one.”
Josh grins. “This is turning out to be way more interesting than I expected.”
I shake my head.
