No One Slept That Night
Even the walls held their breath.
Every reflection had split. Just slightly.
Theda drew sigils in salt around the beds, the windows, the base of the mirror-tree growing crooked through the house's western wall. Lucien had tried to laugh, once—"this is all superstition"—but the way Elowen stood beside the cracked hallway mirror with her head tilted just so made even his arrogance curdle.
Irena didn't speak much.
Not until she heard the voice.
It came at 3:33 a.m.
Through the mirror in the old closet.
The one Mara used to use to brush her hair.
The one Irena had covered with a black sheet months ago.
Now, uncovered.
Now, whispering.
A name she'd never spoken aloud.
Her name—before.
---
The Name She Forgot
The mirror called her Irlenne.
The sound of it shook something loose in her ribs, like a memory of a scream swallowed in childhood.
It wasn't a name she remembered choosing.
But it fit. Too well. Too ancient.
Theda's eyes widened when Irena said it out loud.
"You remembered," Theda said softly.
"No," Irena whispered. "The mirror did."
That changed everything.
---
Theda's Spell
"You can break the tether," Theda said. "But only if you go in."
"Into what?"
Theda looked at her.
"The Mirror Realm."
Lucien stood abruptly. "Absolutely not."
"She has to go," Theda insisted. "The name awakened it. Elowen isn't the end—she's a vessel. If Irena doesn't reclaim what Mara replaced, the Mirror King will finish what she started."
Lucien's hands curled into fists.
"I won't lose her again."
"You already have," Theda said coldly. "We all have."
But Irena… Irena was quiet.
Because something in her wanted to go.
Because deep down, she wanted to see Mara again.
---
Crossing Over
The entrance was the oldest mirror.
The full-length one in the attic, warped at the edges and etched with symbols no one ever learned to read.
Theda prepared the spell.
Lucien watched, tight-jawed and silent.
Elowen stood in the corner, whispering to her reflection.
And Irena stepped forward.
She whispered her real name—Irlenne Vale—just once.
The glass rippled.
And she walked through.
---
The Mirror Realm Is Not a Place
It was a feeling. A memory turned inside out. A house made of emotion and absence.
There were rooms of heartbreak.
Hallways where each step echoed with your worst thought.
And doorways that only opened if you wept hard enough.
Irena—Irlenne—walked with bare feet.
Each floor whispered back with voices not hers.
In one mirror, she saw her first kiss.
In another, Mara's.
In another, Lucien kissing Mara in her skin.
She wanted to scream.
Instead, she walked on.
---
The Mirror King Waits
He was not a man.
He was not a thing.
He was presence. A silhouette of mercury and sorrow. Eyes like cracks in the universe.
> "You've come to reclaim yourself," he said.
His voice was not cruel.
It was worse—it was kind.
"You gave your face away," he said, stepping toward her. "You let her stitch her longing into your laughter. She was only ever what you feared you weren't."
"I didn't let her," Irena said. "She took it."
"No," the Mirror King corrected gently. "You offered."
And that—
> That was the truth she had buried.
She had loved being adored.
Loved being needed.
Loved the performance.
And Mara had simply done it better.
---
The Bargain
The Mirror King lifted a hand.
In it—a shard of glass. The original mirror. The one that had first distorted Mara's envy into a second self.
"You may reclaim it," he said.
"But the cost?"
"Your memory," he replied. "Of Lucien. Of the love. Of the pain."
Irena's breath caught.
"Without it, you will never ache again. You will be whole."
She thought of the pain.
Of the betrayal.
Of Lucien's mouth against Mara's.
Of Elowen's hum.
She thought of the girl she used to be, who believed love would save her.
Then, softly:
"No."
The Mirror King tilted his head.
"No?"
"I'll keep the ache," she said. "It's how I know I'm me."
Then she reached forward—
And took the shard herself.
---
The Mirror Breaks
Outside, the house screamed.
Mirrors shattered. Windows imploded. Elowen fell to her knees, clutching her chest.
"She's taking it back," Theda murmured, wonderstruck.
Lucien ran to the attic, calling Irena's name.
And then—
She stepped out.
Eyes glowing. Hands bloodied from holding the shard.
No longer Mara. No longer fractured.
Just Irlenne.
And Lucien—he saw her.
Truly.
For the first time in weeks.
---
The Ending Isn't Peace
Elowen vanished.
Theda stayed.
Lucien wept, but didn't ask for more than what she gave.
And Irlenne?
She buried the shard in the garden.
She planted nothing on top of it.
Because sometimes, things needed to stay dead.
But some nights—
Some nights, she still stood in front of the old mirror and whispered Mara's name like a prayer:
> "I forgive you."
And the mirror never whispered back.
But it never forgot either.
---