“And everyone knows this, what she does to the cider?”
Kioni shrugged and leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs. “I don’t know. No one really talks about it. Since you came from away, thought I’d clue you in.”
I twirled the chalice between my fingers and watched the last sip of my second cup of golden red liquid swirl. “Well, I’m royally screwed.”
Kioni laughed again, and seconds later, the flap from the tent pushed aside with a confused Monday staring at the two of our smiling faces, her side-swept bangs untamed and framing her small face. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”
I stood and held my palm out in front of me. “Just getting my palm read,” I blurted as if I’d been caught with a blunt between my fingers, like I was doing something wrong. Monday made me feel like that at times.
Monday’s gaze slid to Kioni, and Kioni lifted her chin and stared back. “We’re all heading over to the Devil’s Playground. Come on, Kane’s waiting for you.”
“Groan,” Kioni muttered, then flicked her eyes to me. “Don’t forget what I told you.”
The poisoned cider. “Thanks.”
There was a group of us who entered through the large double doors of Town Hall. I’d only been in the west wing for the Town Hall meeting, but the grand room had been transformed into a maze of mirrors covering the ceiling and walls. My reflection bounced off every angle. The floor was glossy and the color of black licorice. Fog machines blew from inside, blanketing the floor in thick brushstrokes of crawling smoke.
Adora, with her sultry lips laced with a brilliant and conniving smile, grabbed Maverick’s hand. She slid her gaze to Kane with a lifted and determined chin, meeting his eyes for a fraction of a second before her and Maverick disappeared inside the maze. Ivy and Monday ran the opposite direction, Fable and Cyrus, through another, everyone breaking apart, leaving Kane and me standing at the entrance.
“You want to check it out?” he asked, unfazed by Adora taking off with Maverick. Laughter bounced from inside the maze of mirrors against the bass of the haunting music, and from here, reflections swiftly moved as if bodies were passing through the glass. “Go on, I’ll give you a head start.” He smiled a boyish smile, but Kane didn’t wear his chaste smile well. It remained crooked, whispering lewdness.
My eyes darted back to the dizzying maze, already feeling my throat constricting. I shook my head, taking a step back. Trapped, trapped, trapped …
Kane spoke words, insisting I join him and took both of my hands into his as a ringing grew louder in my ears. He ignored my murmurs, walking backward as he dragged me deeper into the maze. I tried to keep my eyes on his, my mask like a weight over my face. My steps, my breaths, my shuddering pulse, it all seemed heavier in here.
When we turned a corner, I was face to face with myself. Black leather dress, white hair dangling over my hips, frightened pale blue eyes screaming at me to turn and run. I jerked my attention back to Kane, and his laughter rebounded off the glass like elasticity. Why couldn’t he see how scared I was?
“Come find me,” he called out with his arms up at his sides and a brazen smile, then took off through the maze, leaving me here alone.
I ran after him, my arms out in front of me, seeing only myself in front of me, to my left, to my right, behind me. I was all around. My steps hurried, frantically searching for an exit.
“Kane!” I shouted. More laughter came, more mockery. But the song playing in the Devil’s Playground drowned it out for it to only return again between beats of the bass. My body slammed into a mirror, and I turned, dropping back against it and closing my eyes, trying to control my quivering breath.
Then I opened my eyes, and a flicker of him stood in the mirror.
Only a flicker, yet enough to dismember my racing heart, turning all worries to dust.
Julian, Julian, Julian … Inside the reflection, he ebbed and flowed like a shadow of death, the cycle of life. “Julian …” I walked toward him with my palms out in front of me as he drifted through the mirrors.
My hands slid over the cold, fogged glass as my steps and heart quickened, chasing the silhouette of the guy with the silver eyes and black mask. He was here, and I felt myself being pulled to him like an invisible chord connecting us. I hit another dead end and turned, seeing glimpses of his black coat, black pants, black boots, wild black hair. Black, black, black, but nothing could convince me of such wickedness.
“Fallon.” Kane’s voices slithered throughout the maze. “Where are you?” he sang.
I pressed my back against the glass, eyes darting, hoping he wouldn’t find me. There were at least three of me staring back with icy blue eyes inside the mask I wore. The reflections swirled like a drop of black paint into water, the side effects of Mina’s cider. The bass from the music boomed in my ears, Julian was gone, and the fog was suffocating me, making it harder to breathe. My muscles turned stiff, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t turn my neck. Trapped, trapped, trapped … The only thing I could do was close my eyes again and wait for this night to be over, to wait for the sun to rise and for someone to find me in the maze in the morning.
And that was when I felt a hand brush mine. The cold and gentle hand slid over my skin to the tips of my beating fingers. My lashes fluttered, my knees wobbled, and a breath escaped from my lungs.
“Fallon,” Kane called out again, appearing in the mirrors just as I was whisked away from the wall and into another room in time before he saw me. “You still hiding from me, Fallon?” Kane’s voice drifted with humor.
Julian held a finger over his mask as he walked backward, pulling me forward until he turned us, and my back rested against another mirrored wall. A blast of cold air pierced my skin and entered my bloodstream. This thing I felt for him, whatever it may be or called, it had worked its way inside me and filled my cracks.
Julian moved closer, and in his eyes, I saw the same stripped and vulnerable man from the woods, from the night under the stars. The one who had once been a winter rose among the pile of black-feathered wings. His gaze flicked over my face like Morse code, taking me in. His trembling fingers drifted down the length of my arm.
“Julian, you’re shaking,” I choked out, doubting he could hear me above the music as my chest heaved. Despite the unsettling nerves, I’d noticed his, and it happened to calm mine.
Julian
Fallon was right. My hands were shaking. I couldn’t stop it, this chain reaction whenever she was and wasn’t near. Either way, it no longer mattered. And to be honest, I had no idea what I was doing. I shouldn’t have come to Defy night pretending to help Agatha but only itching to see her after so long. To find her, to search Town Square for white hair and glassy blue eyes. The eyes who saw me as more man than mask—more human than Heathen. And my heart, it ran freely, reminding me that there was still space in my chest for something other than darkness.
We didn’t make sense, but as I stood before her, she saw all the things in me that felt too messed up. She pulled me back into the person I’d abandoned a long time ago. Fallon looked past the curse, and therefore, I couldn’t look past her.
The shape of her smile colored the nightmares in the sky, and I couldn’t bear to touch her without shaking, without seeing her as anything other than a rare girl who had a celestial stamp in all her details.