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Mara sat in her dark room, a flickering candle by the cracked window and the moon her only source of light. She stared at her blurry reflection in the mirror, a tome laid out before her, flipped open to a page on glassfairing.

Mara knew very little about glassfairing, its custom banned from even being taught in lectures throughout the kingdom. She had already read through every book in her library at Venmore and she had never come across anything relating to the travel god, Khonsu. Those books had been locked away years before she could properly read.

But what she didn’t expect to discover was how evil glassfairing was portrayed. She read through the newfound tome, gulping at the intensity of the words. She learned that it was believed that when traveling through the realms, a mirrored image of yourself takes your place in your absence—a demonic version. There was something dark and macabre about one's own reflection. It wasn’t you—not really—that you saw staring back in the mirror. And sometimes a svik , or false self, might steal your reflection’s form, edging itself into the living realm to pilfer your place.

Mara scanned the page again, though she couldn’t truly read it in this dim lighting. She memorized the short passage by heart by now. It was just a blip of information, a short few paragraphs denoted to glassfairing. That was all she could find.

One must find a root to hold onto in this realm, or you risk being unable to return. Your demonic reflection would take your place forever. And one must truly want to slip into the Veil. If the desire isn’t there, the deed will not succeed.

Mara tried to remind herself that Khonsu ran through her veins, no matter how little was left for the Glass People to inherit. The ability to glassfaire was nestled somewhere deep inside her. She tried to tell herself this was what she truly wanted as her fingers tentatively reached out to her floor-length mirror.

She wanted this. She wanted this. She wanted this.

Her fingers were stopped by the glass. She closed her eyes in frustration, keeping her fingertips in place.

No, she didn’t want this. She didn’t want to glassfaire. She didn’t want to help the prince in whatever scheme he had brewing.

What she did want was to return home. Home to Wrens Reach. To see her father again. To hug her brother. To hear Jessamine’s voice. She wanted this nightmare to be over. She wanted to get as far away from Kairth as humanly possible.

Mara squeezed her eyes even tighter as her fingers began to swim with warmth. She opened them as the sensation grew stronger, her fingers now knuckle-deep in the reflection.

Her eyes widened to giant moons, horrified and amazed at the same time. She wiggled her fingers, trying to push deeper into the mirror.

She tried to summon her desires again; maybe her burn to return home was enough for her to glassfaire.

She wanted to leave. She wanted to get as far away from Prince Acastus as she could. She didn’t want to marry him. She didn’t want to ever have to touch him again. She wanted to glassfaire if it meant escaping him. And Evrardin. She never wanted to hear his gruff voice again ? —

A lick of flames burnt the tips of her fingers, and she yelped, yanking her hand back. She cradled her hand close to her body, her fingertips streaked with a pale red slash. She burnt herself.

She quickly touched the mirror again, but her fingers simply collided with the glass.

“Shit,” she breathed. She sank back, her face falling. She had done it. Slightly, but still, she managed to edge her fingers through the layer of mirrored glass before her.

Her solemn reflection taunted her. She tossed the book across her room and stood up, marching over to her bed and collapsing into her billowing blankets.

The image of Acastus telling her she had to learn to glassfaire was seared in her mind. A flicker of fear tickled her spine. The feeling of his hand on her throat made her scream into her mattress.

She tilted her head to look at the tawny parchment splayed on her bed filled with scratchy ink. Azor had sent her a letter. A letter that made her worry no matter how insistent he was in his writing that he had things under control. But Azor couldn’t avoid being truthful, something she both appreciated and hated. He spoke about the north edge of Wrens Reach where darkness began to fall on the woods. The road became so heavily coated in shadow that it was advised not to travel that way for the time being.

Azor made it sound trivial, like a minor inconvenience that would soon right itself. But in that same sentence, he told her he wouldn’t be able to make the wedding. No one in Wrens Reach would. He promised to visit her as soon as he could, but that didn’t stop the tears from staining the letter she held.

Azor wrote that the hovels on the northern farmlands were starting to wither as if they weren’t made for the weather. But winter had left and summer had begun. There was no reason for the stones to be creaking and collapsing.

Mara knew there was more to all of this, something deeper.