Chapter Six — Through the Mirror

The dream began in silence.

No sound, no breath, just a slow turn of air that shimmered like glass.

Evelyn stood barefoot in a hall of mirrors, each pane showing a version of herself—one asleep, one burning, one staring back with silver in her eyes.

Somewhere far off, a door closed.

She moved closer to the nearest reflection.

Her mirrored self smiled.
You’re late, it mouthed.

The glass rippled, and her hand passed through it.

Suddenly she was standing somewhere else—the marble corridor again, lit by moonlight instead of flame. The same man waited at the end, R. Draven, face half-shadowed, eyes too bright.

“Why are you showing me this?” she demanded.

He tilted his head. “Because you asked.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did the moment you stopped running.”

She tried to move closer, but her body refused. The air between them thickened like smoke. The mark under her skin ached in rhythm with his steps.

“This isn’t your first life, Evelyn,” he said softly. “It’s just the first one you remember.”

Before she could answer, the scene cracked—like glass under pressure—and she woke with a scream lodged halfway in her throat.

The room was dark, humid with her breath. The clock read 3:12 a.m.

Her sheets were damp. The taste of smoke lingered in her mouth.

And her chest—her chest hurt.

A sharp, pulsing pain beneath the collarbone, as if something inside her skin had burned.

“Lucien,” she whispered.

The bond flared in answer, sudden and searing.

Across the city, Lucien staggered against the edge of his sink, breath ragged. The same pain cut through him, sharp and deep—too real to dismiss, too synchronized to ignore.

He grabbed the counter with both hands, veins rising against his wrists.

The wolf inside him wasn’t growling; it was listening.

He reached for his phone, thumb hovering over her name. Stopped.

Every instinct screamed go.

Every rule said don’t.

He’d made a career out of obeying the latter. But instinct had teeth.

The knock came minutes later.

Evelyn didn’t ask how he got past security. She opened the door before he could even raise his hand again.

Lucien stood there, rain-soaked, eyes the color of stormlight. His coat was unbuttoned, his control barely fastened.

“What happened?” he asked.

She stepped back to let him in. “You felt it too.”

He didn’t deny it. His gaze flicked to her collarbone—where the skin was faintly red, almost glowing under the lamplight.

“I dreamed again,” she said quietly. “About him.”

“Draven.”

She nodded. “He said I wasn’t the first. That I’ve done this before.”

Lucien’s throat worked once. “He’s manipulating you.”

“Then why do you see the same fire when I do?”

That silenced him.

The air between them was charged, heavy with everything unsaid.

She took a step closer. “Tell me the truth, Lucien. What was Case Gray really about?”

He exhaled through his teeth. “You want the clean version or the one that keeps me up at night?”

“The real one.”

Lucien moved to the window, the light catching the scar at his jaw.

“My mother believed the mark wasn’t random. She thought it could be engineered—transferred, repeated. Case Gray was her proof of concept. A human woman marked without consent to see if loyalty could be replicated.”

Evelyn’s stomach turned. “She died.”

“She burned.” His tone was flat, but his eyes weren’t. “And every file says it was an accident. But I’ve seen the autopsy. It wasn’t the fire that killed her. It was the mark tearing itself apart.”

Evelyn’s breath caught. “Because it was forced.”

“Because it wasn’t hers.”

Silence spread, thick as smoke.

Evelyn whispered, “Then what am I?”

Lucien turned. “The first successful experiment. Except—”

“Except what?”

“Except you weren’t supposed to survive it.”

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. The bond between them pulsed once—slow, deep, painful.

“I’m not your experiment,” she said.

“No,” he replied, voice low. “You’re my consequence.”

The words hit harder than any confession.

Evelyn stepped back, heart pounding. “So you knew.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” he said. “Not until the night of the mark.”

“You should’ve told me.”

“And lose the only chance to keep you alive?”

Her pulse jumped; so did his. The air crackled like static.

“You don’t get to decide that,” she said, eyes wet but steady.

He moved before he thought—one step, two—and his hand caught her wrist. The mark under both their skins lit faintly, a glow seen only in shadow.

Her breath stuttered. “Let go.”

“I can’t,” he said, and for once it wasn’t defiance—it was truth.

The bond hummed, growing louder until the room itself seemed to shift. The mirror on the far wall flickered, its reflection blurring.

Evelyn turned toward it—and froze.

Their reflections weren’t moving in sync.

Her mirrored self stood still while Lucien’s image turned to look at it.

“Lucien,” she whispered.

He followed her gaze. His mirrored self smiled—slow, deliberate, wrong.

Then the glass cracked.

The sound wasn’t loud, but both of them flinched as the mark flared white-hot. The room spun, and for an instant, se wasn’t looking at the reflection anymore—she was inside it.

The world on the other side was colder. The air shimmered like frost, but her breath made no mist.

Lucien’s voice reached her faintly, distant, muffled.

“Evelyn!”

She turned, but the sound came from everywhere. The corridor from her dreams stretched before her again, but this time it wasn’t silver. It was soaked in blood-red light.

At the far end, the figure of R. Draven waited—smiling the same wrong smile as the mirror.

“Now you see it,” he said. “The mark isn’t a chain. It’s a map.”

She backed away. “A map to what?”

“To the first lie.”

The light behind him pulsed brighter. Images flashed in it—her own face, burning; Lucien kneeling beside a woman she didn’t know; Helena watching through glass.

Evelyn gasped. “That woman—”

“—was you,” he said. “Before you were reborn.”

The ground shook.

Lucien’s voice broke through again, closer this time. “Evelyn! Take my hand!”

She turned—he was there, arm outstretched through the fractured edge of reality, light tearing at his sleeves.

She ran.

When her fingers brushed his, the mark exploded between them—light, heat, noise, pain—and the mirror shattered outward, throwing them both back into the room.

They hit the floor hard, glass raining around them. The lamps flickered once, twice, then steadied.

Lucien pulled himself up first, eyes wide, breath harsh. “You disappeared.”

“You pulled me out,” she said, still shaking.

He stared at the mirror—or what was left of it. The cracks glowed faintly, as if the light behind it hadn’t gone out.

“What did you see?” he asked.

“Us,” she said. “But not us.”

He frowned. “Explain.”

She looked up at him, pale and fierce all at once. “She died because of the mark. Because of you. And I think I was her.”

Lucien’s pulse faltered. “That’s not possible.”

“Neither is any of this.”

They both looked back at the fractured mirror.

In one of the shards, something moved.

Not a reflection.

A shadow.

Lucien stepped closer, muscles tense. The shard showed a room neither of them recognized—stone walls, symbols etched in silver, and in the center, a glowing sigil shaped exactly like the mark on their skin.

He whispered, “It’s opening.”

Evelyn touched his arm, her voice trembling. “Then we close it.”

The mark pulsed in reply, light spilling from beneath their skin—silver and red, heartbeat and heartbeat, two rhythms colliding until they became one.

The shards hummed once more, then went still.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. The only sound was their breathing—shared, uneven, real.

Finally, Lucien said, “You should rest.”

Evelyn shook her head. “If I sleep, I’ll see him again.”

He hesitated, then quietly said, “Then don’t sleep alone.”

The words hung between them—unspoken promise, unspoken fear.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. The mark had already decided for both of them.

Outside, the clouds drifted apart.

Moonlight touched the broken mirror.

And from somewhere deep within the shards, a faint voice whispered back:
The cycle begins again.