Page 4 of A Voice of Silver and Blood (Crown of Echoed Dreams #1)

The amp buzzes, the lights flicker once more, and someone coughs too loud in the back. I lower the guitar, let the final note hang until it dies, and whisper into the mic like it’s a secret just for him.

“Thanks for listening.”

I step off the stage, throat dry, knees shaking. I don’t look back, but I know he’s watching.

The side hallway off the bar is narrow, lit by a single buzzing overhead bulb that gives everything a jaundiced tint. Someone’s left a mop bucket out. I step around it and push through the door marked “Staff Only” with my elbow.

Inside, it smells like old dust, spilled beer, and artificial pine air freshener.

It’s not a dressing room so much as a storage closet with a cracked mirror nailed to one wall and an ancient stool I wouldn’t trust with my full weight. As crappy as it is, it’s mine for the next few minutes. A pocket of silence in a world that keeps demanding more than I have to give.

I lean my guitar in the corner and carefully sit. My whole body hums—not adrenaline exactly. Something deeper. Like I opened a door that wasn’t meant to. The man’s gaze clings to me, a phantom touch behind my ribs.

I exhale slowly, shaking out my hands. My fingers ache from pressing the strings too hard. My throat burns from holding that last note too long. Yet none of that is why I can’t quite breathe.

There was something in the way he looked at me. Not desire. Not danger. Something older. Something like… recognition. Familiarity .

I glance at the mirror. My reflection stares back. Same wide eyes. Same damp strands of hair stuck to my neck. Same lipstick worn off in the center from singing too close to the mic.

Then it shifts. Slightly. My reflection’s mouth is still, but I hear a whisper. Soft. So faint it might be my own breath shaping the sound.

“Skye…”

I freeze. The air chills, sharp as ice across my skin. Goosebumps race up my arms. I lean forward slowly, eyes locked to my own.

“What the hell?—?”

Nothing.

The mirror shows me exactly what it should. Me. Tired. Pale. Haunted. But the light is wrong. It flickers too slow. Like time is slipping. Like something behind the glass is waiting.

It’s cold, but a different kind of cold. Not glass-cold, or even room-temperature. It’s more like standing on a winter sidewalk barefoot.

I jerk my hand back. My heartbeat is a war drum in my chest. I laugh. Soft. Bitter.

“Okay. No more three-coffee, no-sleep nights. Got it.”

Still…I don’t turn away. Not yet. Because I swear, for one flickering second, I don’t see my own eyes staring back at me. I see his. The man from the bar.

In the mirror. Behind me. Watching. I spin around?—

Nothing.

Stacked and partially collapsing boxes of soda syrup and beer illuminated by a crooked “Emergency Exit” sign that no one’s ever used. The door’s closed. I’m alone.

When I look back at the mirror, it’s just me, only this time my reflection smiles. And I’m not .

I stumble back, knocking the stool over.

My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird.

I reach for the light switch, fumbling. The bulb goes out with a sharp click, and the room becomes a void.

But in the dark, the reflection lingers—not as a sight, but as a feeling.

A cold certainty that someone is standing behind me, just out of reach.

I spin around, heart in my throat, ready to scream.

There’s nothing. Just the darkness, and the echo of that smile, and the feeling that something has been waiting here all along.

The hallway door creaks open.

“Skye?”

It’s June’s voice. Normal. Casual. Like she didn’t just interrupt a nightmare.

“You okay?” she asks, peeking in.

I suck in a breath. Force a smile.

“Yeah. Fine. Just need a second.”

June glances around, frowns at the fallen stool, but doesn’t press.

“You’re up again in ten, if you’re doing a second set.”

“Got it,” I say. “Thanks.”

She leaves. The door swings closed behind her.

I take another second before I flick the light back on. The mirror looks normal now, but I don’t check my reflection again. That’s enough for tonight. Carefully not looking, I walk through the door. The hallway feels longer on the way back.

The music from the bar seeps down it slowly—low-fi indie bleeding through the walls like it’s trying not to be heard. I press my palm against the wall once before I round the corner, grounding myself with the rough concrete. Real. Physical. Not a dream.

June’s behind the bar, still drying a glass that doesn’t need it. When she sees me, she offers a nod and a soft half-smile. It’s the kind that says she won’t ask questions I’m not ready to answer. I appreciate that more than she knows.

I slide back onto my stool. My coffee’s lukewarm, the bitter dregs clinging to the rim of the mug. I stare at it like it might offer some kind of sign. It’s got nothing; only silence.

I glance toward the stage—empty for now—and then toward the corner where he stood. He’s gone. No coat. No glass. No shadow stretched too long across the floor. The table is empty as if no one had ever been there at all.

My pulse trips over itself. Not panic exactly, a strange, quiet ache. That sensation that something important slipped past while I wasn’t looking.

I scan the rest of the bar out of instinct. Familiar faces. A girl with red nails texting under the table. Everyone here wears the same armor I do—tired eyes, slumped shoulders, hope hanging by a thread.

And yet none of them feel like a threat. None of them feel like him. I don’t even know what I’m looking for.

“Looking for your fanboy?” June asks, appearing at my side again with a fresh mug. Steam curls up like breath in the cold .

My fingers twitch. The scent of the coffee all the temptation I need to forget the vow I just made.

“He left?”

“Didn’t see him go. Just… gone.” She shrugs. “Was he weird?”

Yes, I think. Yes. But not in the way she means.

“Just quiet,” I say. “Nothing to write home about.”

June watches me a second longer than I’d like, then sets the mug down in front of me with a soft clink .

“Well, if he comes back, maybe he’ll bring a tip.”

“Right.”

I wrap my hands around the new cup. It’s too hot, but I hold it anyway. I should let this go. Chalk it up to a long day. Too little food, too much caffeine, a brain rewired by grief and static. That’s all. Except…

Except I know what I felt.

That gaze. That sensation of being known from the inside out. That whisper. Not from outside me—but from through me. And the mirror. That smile.

I bring the mug to my lips, trying to pretend it’s just another night. Trying to pretend the world didn’t shift. A little at least.

Out the front window, the streetlight flickers, then goes out. The music crackles. The jukebox skips. And for a second, I swear I hear my name again. Whispered, soft, calling from the shadows.

Skye…

I finish my mug, then set it down with a clink. One final glance around the bar as I slide off the stool .

“Night, June,” I say, sliding my guitar into its case.

“Calling it early?” she asks.

“Is there a reason to stay?” I counter, eyes flicking to the mostly empty tip jar.

She sighs and shrugs.

“Yeah, I get it,” she says.

I slip the strap of the case over my shoulder and head out the back entrance. The chill of the night air bites. Dry. Edged. It remembers winter even if the calendar doesn’t.

I glance up. No stars overhead, only a thick bruise of city light bleeding across the sky. A static hum I’ve learned to ignore.

“Figures,” I mutter.

I’ve got no wishes left to make anyway. I scan the street behind the club’s rusted chain-link fence, half-expecting, half-hoping to see someone waiting there, but it’s empty.

The strange man is gone. He probably wasn’t there for me anyway. As I turn, something catches my eye. A scrap of pitch-black fabric tangled in the fence. Small, familiar, and very much out of place. Scanning the area, I walk over and pluck it loose.

It’s soft. Too soft for anyone who drinks here. Smooth like satin but weightless, like it was stitched from shadow. I run my fingers over the edge. No tag, no seams. There’s something about it I can’t quite place.

I pocket it.

My boots tap on the sidewalk as I begin the long walk home.

One streetlamp to the next. One step, then another.

The city’s quiet tonight, but not the peaceful kind.

The kind that feels like holding your breath.

That feels like something’s waiting. The air is chill enough that my breath fogs.

Summer’s not gone, but it feels like it’s slipping. I pull my jacket tighter.

My thoughts drift as I walk, going to Mom.

I remember the hum in her voice when she sang me to sleep, the way she’d stare out the window like she was listening for something only she could hear, the old lullabies I half-remember.

Then to my dreams, pinned to music and a voice that never felt quite mine.

I don’t even realize I’ve slowed down until I hear it. A whisper. Right behind me.

“You remember, don’t you?”

I spin. Fast.

Nothing.

No footsteps. No breath. Only the wind curling past my ears, lifting the hair at the back of my neck. Above me, a fire escape creaks, metal groaning like it moved, but when I look there’s nothing there either.

I take a shaky breath and force my feet to move faster. I curl my hands into fists in my pockets, knuckles white around the piece of black cloth.

I don’t look back. I don’t run, but I don’t breathe easy again until the door to my apartment clicks shut behind me and the chain slides into place.