Page 44 of Apples Dipped in Gold

I narrowed my eyes, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

“I have hobbies, Lore. I am a multifaceted being.”

“Multifaceted?” I asked. I’d never heard my brother use such a word in his entire life.

“You are just jealous because you are…boring!”

“And you said my insults were dull.”

I looked at the library and then back at him, narrowing my eyes.

“Are you… Did you meet someone? Are you in love?”

“What?” Cardic asked. “No…no. I am most definitely not.”

I raised a brow.

“Fuck off,” he said, and I grinned as he walked past me. I turned to follow.

“So,” I said. “Tell me about her.”

“No,” he said, throwing open a door on his left.

“So youarein love with someone?” I asked.

“I am not in love!”

“You are lying,” said a voice.

Cardic had entered his study, where a jagged piece of mirror hung over the fireplace. It had once been whole and displayed in my father’s grand hall, but before his death, he shattered it into seven pieces and declared that whichever brother assembled it first would be king.

Only one of our brothers cared about becoming king, and that was Silas, yet none of us wanted to give up our piece of the mirror because of its magic, which showed us anything we desired.

The downside was that the mirror also talked.

“Shut up!” Cardic said. “Or I will shatter you into a million pieces!”

“Shatter me,” said the mirror. “I will merely speak a million times more.”

“Has he asked to see her? This woman he desires?”

“Of course,” said the mirror. “Just as you have asked to see yours.”

It was true that I had asked the mirror to show me Samara, but in my defense, I was cursed.

“Why can’t you keep secrets?” asked Cardic.

“Because I am a mirror,” the mirror said.

“Show me this woman,” I said.

“Don’t—”

The mirror rippled and gave way to a scene that shocked me even more than the library. I expected Cardic’s love interest to be…well, like him, immoral and unholy, but the woman in the mirror was the opposite.

“Are you in love with a nun?” I asked.

I was pretty sure the woman I was looking at was a nun. She wore a black frock with long sleeves and a cowl on her head. Every part of her was covered, even her ankles, and she was sitting!