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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I stared into the mirror. The way the candlelight flickered gave the illusion that it wasn’t my reflection that I saw, but hers, then it was mine again, then both of our reflections combined. Either way, we both looked terrified. That was somehow reassuring.

I raised my sword and held it above us, above the mirror, pointing upward. The beating of the drum was almost hypnotic. The flickering light made it seem as if everything was moving around us. The only thing that remained still was the reflection in the mirror.

As one, we reached up and grasped the blade of the sword. It seemed as if our eyes met as the sword cut into our flesh. I wasn’t just looking at my reflection, I was looking through it, through the mirror and into her. I was her. She was me. The blood from our hands dripped down the hilt of the sword. Together, we raised the goblet to catch it.

I didn’t even feel the pain from my hand. I was aware of it, but only vaguely. As the ritual began to take hold, I realized that I didn’t even need Althea’s notes. There was only one way the ritual could proceed from here, and now that it had been set into motion, it was inevitable.

The mirror no longer seemed to exist, not in a physical sense. I didn’t remember taking the lodestone from my pocket, but when I looked down into the goblet, it was inside. As our blood dripped over it, the stone began to glow. It got brighter and brighter, until it was almost unbearable to look at, but still, I couldn’t look away. That light became everything. All that ever was, all that ever would be. All of my life, all of my memories were held inside that light, just as all of Other-me was inside it.

My power came rushing back to me with the force of a freight train. I hadn’t realized just how empty I’d felt without it until it settled over me, making me whole again. But it wasn’t just my power. It had been her power, too, for a while, and it was colored with that sense of her. Just as I’d been able to tell instantly when I’d moved from Tennyson’s side of the wall in the bond to hers, it was tinted in the same way – similar to my own but just a shade darker.

Mrs Spencer had been convinced that I only needed to ascend one more time, to develop my powers again, in order to become the “united being”. If I could become some sort of dark creature, after becoming a werewolf, a magic user, fae, and spirit, I would be this united being, the first. There was a prophecy. Even though I’d scoffed at Althea and Nikolai, I’d seen evidence of it myself, on the walls of that temple that wasn’t quite in this world. And I’d known it myself, deep within my bones. This was the last piece of the puzzle, and now it was falling into place.

Alone, I had been too afraid of my own darkness, but Other-me had embraced hers. Now that we were becoming one, now that I was taking on her darkness as my own, the process had begun. I was becoming a dark creature. But that wasn’t all I would be. All of the power, from all five types of magical beings, I held that power within me, and within me, it became something else. Something other .

After all my power had channeled back into me, things became quiet for a moment. We were still within that light. I could see Other-me opposite me; she was the only other thing within that light. Or maybe I was her, looking at me. It was the same thing. We were looking at ourselves, and we saw everything.

And I knew, suddenly, why she had agreed to do this. It was obvious once I realized. She had been alone her entire life. So incredibly alone. She had seen my memories, looked through my life like flicking through the pages of a book, and it had been filled with love. Even though we’d had the same parents, I had my brothers. I’d had Sam and his family. I had my pack. I had Tennyson. If she became part of me, she could have all that. And she’d never be alone, because we’d be together.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her, just as she said it to me.

I held out my hand, and she held out hers, angry red slashes across the palms. We pressed our hands together, and the moment our palms touched, the world shattered.

At first, I thought it was part of the ritual.

The entire world went dark. I blinked my eyes a few times and realized that there was actually light. I’d just been so blinded by that white light in the ritual that everything else was dim by comparison. We were in the meeting hall, still, and the candlelight still flickered, but the drums had stopped.

“What’s going on?” I said.

The pain from my hand seared through me. How had I not been feeling that this whole time? It felt as if my whole arm might fall off.

I still couldn’t see properly, just shadows moving around. I rubbed at my eyes, but that just made things blurry as well as dark.

“Stay where you are,” Althea called. “The ritual will fail if you move from your positions. Stay on your side of the mirror.”

“Okay,” I called back. “But what’s happening? I can barely see.”

“I think reality is cracking,” she called back. She sounded so calm, as if that wasn’t the most absolutely insane thing anyone could say.

I honestly had no idea how to respond to that.

“Is everyone okay?” I asked, eventually.

She didn’t answer.

“Althea?” I called a bit more urgently.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I can’t move from my place.”

“I’m okay,” Harper called. “Well, bored and cold, but otherwise fine.”

“Same,” said Nikolai. “Hannah?”

“Yep. I feel weird, but I’m not hurt.”

“Sam?” I called. “Tennyson?”

It felt like an eternity until there was a response.

“I’m okay, but Tennyson’s knocked out,” said Sam. “I can only just see him, but he’s breathing.”

“Is he still on his mark, Sam?” Althea asked.

“I think so.”

“What do we do?” I asked.

My eyes just wouldn’t adjust to the dim light. I couldn’t move to go check on Tennyson. It was too frustrating.

“Continue with the ritual,” said Althea. “Just go through the steps, but do it quickly. The crack is spreading. I don’t know what will happen once it reaches us, but I’d prefer not to find out.”

I looked down at the list she’d left on the altar. There were a few splatters of blood on it and some crushed herbs, but it was still legible.

I picked up the goblet. It was heavy, with the weight of the lodestone inside it. The lodestone had heated the metal of the goblet until I was barely able to hold it. I felt like it was burning off my fingerprints; it was so hot. Which I supposed might come in handy, if this ritual failed and I was forced to turn to a life of crime.

The lodestone still glowed, but much more faintly now. It was more like a spark of flame within it than the bright light it had been. I placed the herbs and oils from the altar and swirled them around, so it mixed in with the blood and coated the stone. Faintly, I realized the drum had begun to beat again.

I held out the goblet in front of me. The mirror still showed my reflection but it was no longer solid. Other-me was supposed to do this next bit, but I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t actually see anything, I realized, only the goblet. Still, I held it out. This bit was important. I held out the goblet until it passed through the surface of the mirror. She needed to take the goblet from me, or the whole ritual would fail. I needed to blindly trust that she’d do it, just as she needed to trust that I would accept her soul as part of myself.

Even if I’d been able to see her clearly in front of me, I’d have struggled with it. There was nothing stopping her from turning around and running off with the lodestone. Sure, I’d have my powers back, but the ritual would fail, and the world would collapse in on itself. But if I couldn’t trust, the ritual would fail just as surely.

I let the goblet go.

I half expected to hear it clanging to the ground, but there was no sound at all, nothing but the drum beat. Instead, I felt warm liquid trickle into my hands, as she emptied the goblet into them. Our blood, the herbs, and oils. Then the lodestone fell into the palms of my hands.

As soon as it touched my skin, the cut from the sword began to heal. Within seconds, it was as if the skin had never been broken at all, not even a trace of a scar. I pressed the lodestone to my forehead, to the space between my eyebrows. I closed my eyes, feeling the lodestone sink into my skin. Once I had absorbed it, had taken in the entire stone, I knew the transformation was complete.

Other-me was gone. I had taken on the darkness we both carried, I had absorbed it, absorbed her, just as I’d absorbed the stone. I had ascended into my own darkness and become the first united being. I was all-powerful, in total control. Nothing could stand against me now.

I fainted.