Irleene Vale.
The Mirror Realm is Dying Beautifully
Not shattering. Not breaking.
Unraveling.
Like a song sung backward. Like petals falling from a flower that never bloomed.
Irlenne stepped barefoot across the obsidian corridor of the Mirror Core, where reflections no longer copied but remembered. Each wall shimmered with flickers of her — old smiles, cruel tears, moments she'd wanted to forget.
One showed Lucien's hand slipping from hers at that party in summer — the night Mara had told her, "He only wants you because you don't need him."
Another showed Mara, curled up on Irlenne's childhood bed, reading aloud from her diary, voice sweet as syrup and full of theft.
But the worst was a mirror she didn't recognize.
It showed Elowen—
Wearing her face.
And singing the lullaby only Irlenne's mother had known.
---
The Core Has No Gravity
Here, names have weight.
And Irlenne's name burned on her tongue.
Not from fear. From certainty.
She was no longer hiding behind softness.
She had shed her gentleness like an old skin.
There was power in the ache. In the rage.
> "I see you now," she whispered to the void.
And the void whispered back—
> "Then come and take it back."
---
Elowen Finds a Voice
Back in the waking world, Elowen stood in the Vale manor's broken greenhouse.
She ran a single finger down a shard of Mara's old compact mirror. The glass didn't cut her.
It parted for her.
She hummed as she walked — the tune almost right. Just off-key enough to feel wrong.
Lucien stood behind the curtain, watching.
"Elowen?" he called, unsure of who he expected to answer.
She turned.
And smiled with Mara's mouth.
> "I knew you'd follow," she said.
But it wasn't her voice.
It was Mara's.
Lucien took a step back.
"Elowen—stop it."
"Why would I?" she said, tilting her head. "She didn't. You never asked her to."
---
The Core Tests Irlenne
She passes through a corridor of former selves.
Each version of her offers a choice.
One holds a key: "Open the last door. You'll forget love."
One holds a flame: "Burn the last memory. You'll forget pain."
One holds nothing: "Walk past. You'll remember everything."
Irlenne chooses the third.
Pain, love, rage — she'll carry it all.
The weight grounds her.
Keeps her real.
And that's when she sees the throne.
---
The Throne Is Empty
But the crown is not.
It floats — glass and bone and shadow, humming with stolen memories. Whispers leak from its facets, voices of every girl who ever wanted to be loved more than she was allowed.
> "Take me," it said.
"And rule the broken."
But Irlenne doesn't touch it.
Instead, she kneels and speaks her own name.
"Irlenne Vale," she says.
"I was never the echo.
I was the girl who survived it."
The throne dissolves.
The mirrors begin to weep.
And far away, Elowen clutches her chest—
As if something precious has been ripped from her.
---
Lucien's Decision
He watches Elowen sleep, curled against Mara's old scarf like a child lost in borrowed dreams.
He doesn't hate her.
He pities her.
She was born of longing.
Fed on silence.
And now she's bleeding into the world that never made space for her.
But Irlenne is still his.
Not the girl he kissed once under the chandelier.
But the woman who stepped into the glass and came back with her name sharpened like a blade.
So he writes a note:
> "I'm coming for you.
Not to save you—
To remember with you."
And he steps toward the oldest mirror in the house—
Which no longer shows his face.
Only hers.
---
Irlenne Leaves the Mirror Core
She doesn't need to run.
The Mirror Realm peels itself open for her.
Where once it resisted, now it bows.
She carries nothing.
No artifact.
No crown.
Just truth.
And that's heavier than anything she's ever held.
---
Elowen's Final Rehearsal
She stands before a mirror, wearing Irlenne's old sweater. Her hair curled like Mara's. Her voice trying every octave.
Lucien's old letter clutched in her hand. The one she found and rewrote.
> "If I become her," she says to the mirror, "then he'll come back."
But the mirror doesn't nod.
It fractures.
Just slightly.
And for the first time—
Elowen looks afraid.
---
Theda's Warning Comes Too Late
By the time Theda reaches the manor, the glass is bleeding.
She sees Lucien's reflection vanish into the frame.
Sees Irlenne's return etched in fire across the floorboards.
And in the mirror above the stairs—
She sees a version of herself she doesn't remember becoming.
> "You waited too long," it says.
> "No," Theda answers.
"I was buying her time."