Chapter 5 Chapter Five

Maren

I wake for the second time that night with one hand pressed against the hickey and enough new information in my head to make going back to sleep impossible. The clock on my nightstand says three seventeen. My room is dark except for the green lines glowing faintly beneath the skin of my wrist, and Piper isn't here because she finally left after spending most of the evening dodging every question I asked about Alaric and Aldric.

I turn on the lamp, pull my neuroscience notebook from the backpack beside my desk, and write Caerhold, Blackstone Spire, Elarion, dreamwalking, corrupted reflection magic, copied Winter access, and missing royal signature across the back page. The words look exactly as unreasonable in my handwriting as they sounded in the garden, but at least they're in an order I can study instead of circling my brain until sunrise.

Writing it down doesn't make it less insane. It just gives the insanity bullet points.

The hickey cools while I reread the private record Alaric sent to the edge of the connection. I don't hear his voice, but I know the information came from him because every sentence is careful enough to survive a trial. The foreign signal is separate from my invitation. The copied signature isn't complete. He doesn't know who controls it. He hasn't told the licensing office because somebody inside that system may be able to alter the evidence. I understand the reasoning. I also hate that he made the decision before telling me, which means at least one of the princes has already discovered exactly how to piss me off without being in the same realm.

I add his instructions beneath the list. Don't touch residue with bare skin. Photograph it. Cover any sample so it can't reflect light. Keep iron nearby. Then I open my locked symptom log and record the second dream, the stop test, the words each man used, the black line, the pain in my wrist and neck, and the exact second Aldric forced me awake after the foreign current attached.

My body still feels used in ways I'm not complaining about. My mind feels less cooperative. I wanted the sex. I chose the pace. I tested whether they'd stop, and they did. Somebody else entered after that and turned the entire memory into evidence.

Nothing kills the afterglow quite like illegal magical surveillance.

I sleep for less than two hours before my alarm goes off. By the time I meet Piper outside the sensory lab building, I've covered the hickey with concealer and a high collar, hidden the wrist lines beneath my sleeve, and decided I won't accuse her again until I can keep her from walking away.

She hands me coffee without mentioning last night's argument. I take it because refusing caffeine would hurt me more than it would punish her, then fall into step beside her as we cross the lobby.

"You look terrible," she says, glancing at the dark circles beneath my eyes while she presses the elevator button.

"That's sweet. You look suspicious," I answer, taking a long drink while I watch her check the mirrored wall before the elevator arrives.

Piper gives me a tired smile that never reaches her eyes. "I always look suspicious. It's part of my charm."

"No, your charm is being five feet of attitude in boots you can't afford. Suspicious is new," I tell her, and the elevator opens before she can invent another answer.

The elevator doors open, and Piper steps inside without answering. She stands beside the control panel instead of facing the mirrored wall, then uses her body to block me from leaning against it. The move is subtle enough that I might have missed it yesterday. Today, I watch everything she does around glass.

"Are you going to tell me why you keep putting yourself between me and reflective surfaces?" I ask as the doors close.

"Are you going to start another supernatural interrogation before I've finished my coffee?" she asks, keeping her back to the mirror while the elevator starts moving.

"I finished mine in the lobby. I'm ready," I reply, lifting the empty cup so she cannot pretend caffeine is a legitimate boundary.

"That isn't the flex you think it is," she mutters, stepping out the second the doors open and using the arriving students to end the conversation.

She gets off on the third floor before I can push harder. Professor Denning is already inside the sensory processing lab assigning equipment to six students, and Piper immediately changes into the version of herself who can hide behind instructions, other people, and the possibility of losing participation points.

Professor Denning sends us to the visual response station, where polished metal trays hold electrodes, mirrors, and reflective lenses beneath the overhead lights. The second I step close, pressure begins behind my left eye, faint but identical to what I felt when the black current entered the garden. I stop beside the table, and Piper reaches past me so quickly that her sleeve knocks a packet of wipes onto the floor.

"We don't need this tray," she says, lifting the polished metal and carrying it toward the storage cabinet before I ask what she's doing. She replaces it with a dull plastic one, then starts arranging electrodes while refusing to look at me.

I wait until Professor Denning moves to another station before leaning closer, keeping my voice low enough that nobody else turns toward us. "You felt something."

"I felt you stop in the middle of the aisle, and Professor Denning is already watching because you nearly walked into a chair."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it. The pressure started when I got near the metal. It stopped when you moved it."

Piper tears open an alcohol wipe and rubs it over an electrode with far more force than necessary. "Then wait until we're not surrounded by people before you start another interrogation."

"You said not here yesterday too. You looked at the windows when you said it."

Her hand stops for half a second, and when she finally looks at me, fear has replaced the annoyance she has been using all morning. "Maren, please."

The quiet plea gets my attention more than another lie would. I study her face, the tension around her mouth, and the way she keeps her body between me and the cabinet full of reflective equipment. "Are you scared for me or scared of what I'll find out?"

"Both can be true," she whispers, then turns away before I can ask anything else. "Sit down. We have to finish the first calibration."

It isn't an explanation, but it's the first honest thing she's given me. I sit, let her attach the electrodes, and complete the first set of tests while watching her remove or turn over every reflective object within reach. When another student asks why, Piper says she's reducing glare. The lights aren't causing enough glare to matter, and she knows that I know.

By the end of the session, the mark beneath my collar has warmed three times, the pressure behind my eye returns whenever polished glass faces me, and I can't stop remembering Alaric inside me while Aldric used his mouth. The memories become stronger around reflective surfaces, which should make me avoid every mirror on campus. Instead, fear and arousal remain tangled tightly enough that my body won't settle, and the notes in front of me stop making sense.

I tell Piper I need the bathroom before our next class. Her head jerks up from the data sheet. "Use the one downstairs."

"Why?" I ask, waiting while she searches the room for an excuse.

"This one is usually dirty," she says, but she folds the data sheet before I can see whether her hands are shaking.

"You used it yesterday," I remind her, standing slowly so she cannot redirect me with another task.

"Then I learned from my mistake," she replies, gathering the electrode wires even though Professor Denning has not told us to clean the station yet.

I stand and shoulder my backpack. "I'm going to pee, Piper. I'm not opening a portal on purpose."

"Maren." She catches my wrist, her fingers landing directly over the green lines before she realizes what she's touched. Her eyes widen. The mark heats beneath her hand, and she jerks her fingers away with a sharp breath. "Just don't touch the mirrors."

"That's specific enough to count as information." I pull my sleeve back over the mark and look at her. "Why can't I touch them?"

Professor Denning calls her name from the other side of the room, and Piper closes her eyes for one frustrated second. "Because whatever found you uses reflections. Please don't make me explain more in here."

I leave with that warning sitting heavily in my chest and walk to the restroom at the end of the science building. Two students are leaving when I enter. I wait until the door closes behind them before checking each stall, because apparently verifying that I'm alone before confronting possible mirror creatures is part of my life now.

The room is empty. The mirrors above the sinks look ordinary. The overhead lights are bright, and there's no pressure behind my eye when I study my reflection from several feet away.

"See?" I whisper to myself, setting my backpack on the counter farthest from the glass. "Normal bathroom. Normal mirror. Normal woman having a completely normal week."

Convincing. You should teach a seminar.

I wash my hands even though they aren't dirty, mostly because standing here without doing anything makes me feel ridiculous. When I glance up, Alaric is behind me.

He isn't physically in the room. I know that before I turn because his image appears only in the center mirror, his white hair loose over one shoulder while darkness hides most of the space behind him. He has one hand pressed to a glowing crystal, and his attention is fixed on my reflection with the same controlled focus he wore while explaining the copied signature.

I spin around anyway. The restroom behind me is empty.

When I face the mirror again, he's still there. Relief hits first, which is embarrassing considering the warning he sent specifically told me not to trust reflections. His gaze moves over my face, then drops to my collar where the hickey is hidden. The mark warms. He lifts one hand and places it against the glass on his side, but his mouth moves without sound.

"Alaric?" I step closer before common sense catches my sleeve and tries to drag me back. "I can't hear you."

His expression changes. He shakes his head hard and points away from the mirror.

That probably isn't an invitation to flirt with the glass.

I stop. The image flickers, then returns with a thin black line moving behind his shoulder. Alaric strikes the crystal with his palm, and the mirror ripples. The action should be enough to make me leave, but the mark on my neck heats with the memory of him inside me, and my body responds before fear can organize itself. My nipples tighten beneath my shirt. My thighs press together. Alaric's gaze drops, notices the movement, then rises to my face with frustration rather than desire.

He points toward the door again.

"You're very bossy for somebody who can't cross the glass," I mutter, but I back away. The image of him changes when I move, stretching across the mirror with a delay that doesn't match my reflection. Cold pressure begins behind my left eye.

I should leave immediately. Instead, another wave of arousal pulls low through my body, stronger than the one in the lab and mixed with the memory of Aldric's tongue. I grip the counter, trying to separate what belongs to me from whatever the mirror is doing.

"Is this you?" I ask Alaric, hating that my voice sounds uncertain. "Are you making me feel this?"

He shakes his head, then slams both palms against the glass. The black line behind him widens.

That answer should end the question. I grab my backpack, but the need between my legs spikes hard enough to make me bend forward. It feels familiar, built from my own memories, yet too sudden and too intense to trust. The mirror isn't creating a new desire. It's taking what already exists and amplifying it until thinking becomes difficult.

Wonderful. Weaponized horniness. Exactly what higher education was missing.

I move into the last stall and lock the door, telling myself privacy will help me figure out which reactions belong to me. That explanation lasts until I lower my jeans and underwear, sit back against the closed lid, and slide two fingers through the wetness already coating me. The first touch pulls a sharp breath from my lungs. I circle my clit, thinking about Alaric watching me in the mirror and Aldric's mouth in the garden, then push two fingers inside when the pressure builds too fast for patience.

It feels good because I want it to feel good. That matters. I keep one hand braced against the partition while the other moves, my breathing growing uneven as I use the same rhythm Aldric used on me. For several seconds, fear disappears beneath the pleasure, and I let myself be a woman getting herself off in a locked bathroom instead of a possible magical target documenting every symptom.

A wet scrape drags across the mirror outside the stall before I can come.

I stop with my fingers still inside me, every muscle going rigid as the sound comes again, slower this time. I pull my hand away, drag my clothes into place, and wipe my fingers with toilet paper. Water begins dripping into one of the sinks even though nobody else is in here to have turned on the tap.

"Alaric?" I call, keeping one hand on the lock while the other closes around the iron key ring Piper gave me last year as a joke about my tendency to lose everything. "If that's you, now would be a useful time to figure out sound."

No answer comes. I open the stall door carefully and step into the main room with the key ring clenched between my fingers.

Alaric's image is gone. A hand remains pressed against the inside of the center mirror. The fingers are too long, the skin is completely black beneath moving water, and the palm pushes hard enough that the center of the mirror bows outward.

"Nope," I whisper, backing toward the exit. "Bathroom mirrors are done. I'm done with them forever."

The hand moves with me, dragging across the other side while the pressure behind my eye becomes sharp enough to blur my vision. The mark on my neck burns. I remember Alaric's record and Aldric's instructions in the garden. I don't pull all the green current inward. I gather only the warmth touching the foreign pressure, hold it where I can feel the difference, and push it away from my body.

The hand jerks back. The mirror cracks at the center without breaking, and a dark fingerprint remains on the inside before appearing on the outside with black water running from it onto the sink.

My first instinct is to run. My second is to remember that the symptom log exists because evidence matters, and apparently the part of my brain trained by laboratory procedure is willing to work during a magical attack. I use my phone to photograph the print from three angles without flash, record the time, and take a close image with the sink edge for scale.

Then I pull a wrapped cotton swab from the first-aid pouch in my backpack. "Don't touch residue with bare skin," I remind myself, keeping my voice steady because silence makes the dripping louder. I collect a small amount of black water, seal the swab inside a plastic specimen sleeve, and wrap the sleeve in notebook paper so it can't reflect the overhead light.

The remaining fingerprint contracts when the swab leaves it, proving the residue is physical enough to collect and still connected to the mirror route. I photograph that change too, then shove everything into my bag and leave before scientific curiosity gets me killed in a campus restroom.

I pull the door shut and nearly run into Piper standing in the hallway with my phone charger in one hand and fury all over her face.

"What happened?" she asks, looking at me first, then the closed door. Her gaze catches on my shaking hand and drops to the backpack. "Did it touch you?"

"No, because I pushed it back." I take the charger from her, shove it into the side pocket, and point toward the restroom. "There's a wet black fingerprint on the outside of the mirror, and something tried to push through while I was in there. You've spent two days pretending you don't know anything, but you removed every reflective tray from our station before I touched it, warned me about this bathroom, and just asked whether it touched me."

Piper reaches for the restroom handle, then stops before opening it. "Did you collect anything?"

"A swab. It's wrapped so it can't reflect light, exactly the way Alaric told me to handle residue."

Her face goes completely still at his name. "You spoke to him again."

"Both of them. They told me more in one dream than you've told me in years of friendship." The anger hits after the fear, hot and immediate. "You know who they are. You know what found me. You knew mirrors were dangerous, and you still let me walk around campus without an explanation."

"I was trying to keep you out of it."

"I'm already in it, Piper. It left bruises on my body and tried to crawl through a bathroom mirror. You don't get to protect me by making sure I'm the only person who doesn't know what can hurt me."

She looks toward the windows at the end of the hall, then takes my wrist and begins pulling me toward the stairwell. "We can't talk near glass, polished metal, or open water."

I let her move me three steps before pulling free. "Then find somewhere safe and start talking. I'm done asking nicely, and I'm done accepting half an answer because you think fear gives you the right to make decisions for me."

Piper's face tightens with guilt. This time, she doesn't deny anything.

"Come with me," she says, lowering her voice as she opens the stairwell door. "I'll tell you what I was sent here to do."