Whispers drift down the halls as they so often do in the evenings. It is not the study this time, though, nor the drawing room where my mother and her children like to gather and gossip over the fire. Instead, it is the dining room, a place I have deigned to visit before it is empty today.

My name echoes down stone, bounces through empty corridors, rings in hollow rooms. Kyren is losing it. Kyren is fragile. Kyren is breaking. Kyren is our only hope. Kyren is playing games. Kyren is telling lies. Kyren is always with the mirror. Kyren believes there is a spirit. Kyren can fix this. Kyren thinks he can fix this. Kyren is fragile. Kyren is unwinding, unraveling, fraying, coming apart. Kyren, Kyren, Kyren, Kyren, Kyren.

I think another day has passed. Another day without Arcene. Just the reflection, watching and watching. Always watching. The sun has come and gone, and the moon has followed. And still I am watched. Maybe Arcene has grown bored of our agreement, and I have no way to force her to come out. I cannot threaten her nor bribe her. I can only wait on her.

Kyren must answer the spirit's every whim or we'll all be pulled down with him.

Her only whim seems to be my suffering. But I won't break. I won't fray. I will pull myself back together, and I'll stitch my pieces in place, and I'll sit watching and waiting until it is time to play again.

And then I'll win. I'll win two more times or as many as it takes. Arcene won't beat me. My reflection won't beat me. No one will beat me. I won't fray.

When I step into the dining room, it is silent. There is no clink of silverware, no conversation, no long sips from polished glasses. There are only silent stares, long and narrow and accusing. How long do you intend to remain holed up with the mirror, Kyren? You've finally decided to join us, Kyren? Where have you been, Kyren? You ought to have stayed with the mirror, Kyren. What if she calls for you and you're not there? How can you play if you wander too far?

The ring twists on my thumb. It twists and twists until my skin is burning. It is so loose now I don't know how much longer I can keep it there. It will soon fall off. And then I'll never see more than the silver eyes. Or will Arcene reveal herself without it? Do I kid myself into thinking it matters? It twists and twists and does not answer. Ever a silent thing.

I sit in my seat, at the place set out for me, so far, far away from everyone. Silence digs into my ears and crawls into my brain and makes its nest in the crevices of my thoughts. I think Mother addresses me, but I cannot hear her. I'm too busy watching myself eat half a bowl of lukewarm watery soup from someplace far away.

What happened to your head? There's dried blood in your hair. Azalea is suddenly gingerly touching the wound. I snap at her. For a moment, I think I've truly bitten her head off, but she backs away and I see her wide-eyed stare is still there. She's caught somewhere between offended and frightened, and I don't know which I want more.

I know her secret. All I have to do is let it drop from my loose lips and she'll break too. She'll break into a million pieces. Mother will hate her daughter the way she hates me for hoarding silver, for lying, for disobeying.

And if I do that, will Arcene return? Has she picked a game?

It shouldn't take her this long to choose.

Will there be anything left of me when she does decide?

I'll slip through the cracks if she isn't careful.

No, I'll put myself together. I'll be whole and complete and solid, too big to fit through any cracks. Yes. I won't unravel. I won't fray. I'll just wait. And wait and wait and wait.

She'll come back. She wants a sigil bearer. She wants to play games. And I'm the only one she has chosen to play with. That's why her mirror came to be mine. That's why she visits me.

Yes. I mean something to her.

Kyren must continue to play the game he started. There's no backing out of a deal with a spirit. So no matter what it costs, he must see this through.

The silence is thick, and I stir it with a spoon from somewhere far away. I look down on our little dining room and the puppets of Blackwoods in their seats, always the same seats. Therion is standing in a defensive way, his mouth open in a shout directed at Father. He's probably yelling about school and paying for it again, but I don't care. It's the same as Azalea's whines that her dresses are becoming worn and she must have a coin purse to take to market to replace them, because getting them fixed is never an option. She must have new things all the time. And Mother is shrinking into a shell of herself in her high-backed chair. She has broken her stale, stale bread into many pieces, and she crumbles them into her lukewarm soup without a care. Her eyes are glassy and empty. Or perhaps she is mirroring Kyren in his seat across from her at Father's other side.

And Father, ever the meticulous one, stays silent and stiff-backed through it all. He utters no complaints. But he watches. He's always watching, much like the mirror. His scrutiny remains on Kyren. I wish he would look elsewhere before his eyes burn through me. I'll be ashes if he doesn't.

It was cruel to leave the mirror there—you didn't even try to move it out or move him somewhere else. You wanted it there. You wanted him to get like this.

Someone is arguing, harsh words that cut through my perfect silence then break as emotions swell—those foolish, pitiful things. No one can control them. But the sound bounces around the sparse, empty dining room. There's nothing in this house anymore but the Blackwoods and the bare framing they cling to for sanity. Someday, Kyren will save them.

If he remembers he is Kyren.

My eyes are not silver. I try to touch them to make sure, but my hand jerks away. It's afraid my mind might be wrong. There are no reflections in the dining room for me to check—all but the murky one in my half-eaten half-full bowl of watery lukewarm soup. My eyes are not silver. The soup has told me so.

Laughter bubbles up from within me, buried somewhere deep down. No, Kyren, the soup couldn't have told you so. Don't fray. Then you'll never beat Arcene. You've already won a game. What's two more? Don't fray. She'll be back soon. Stay together.

He's only a child, the person is arguing again. That shrill voice must be Mother. It can be no one else. No one else in this house cares for anything other than money and silver, but Mother cares for reputation and status. What's a mother who doesn't pretend to love her children? This is too much of a burden for him.

It's for the best. The spirit in the mirror has made her choice. That one is Father, the rumbling voice that only joins when he has no other choice. When his silence has served him well enough. We needn't do anything else but wait. These things take time. If Kyren can make peace with it, we will be saved.

I nod and Kyren nods with me, glancing—satisfied—at Therion who always doubts. The little brother blanches, his face as pale as his knuckles are white on the table's edge.

The arguing voice cuts in again, always tearing my order to pieces. Look at him. He may never recover even after he makes a pact. That's not even my son—that's something else, Tiernan.

I look at my hands. They are not silver. They may be weak, no longer calloused from work but frail and dry and skeletal, but they are mine. I can be no one else but me. That's what I play the games for. I play them to remain Kyren, to not reflect someone else, to not be silvered.

Father retorts again, only this time his voice sharpens and clarity yanks me back to my place, stuffing me back into my own head in my own seat staring dazedly across the table at Mother and Father over an untouched bowl of lackluster dinner.

"So be it," Father is saying, and his gaze cuts through me again. Piercing. Stabbing. But real and wholly focused on me. Then he looks away, returning to his dinner as if his next words are not a knife poised over my heart. "He won't need to be more than a sigil bearer once the pact is made. He won't even need to make silver anymore. Therion can take over his apprenticeship."

My newfound clarity snaps against me, and I stand so suddenly that the world rocks. The scrape of my chair is soft beneath the roaring of my blood in my ears. "What?"

✶