You are nobody.
Over and over again.
You are nothing.
And it was true.
The light under the curtain strengthened. The door rattled. Someone said something on the other side of it, but she closed away the sound of the voice.
They weren’t talking to her, anyway. Maybe to the ghost of the girl who should have had this room.
The girl she had tried, and failed miserably, to be.
After a while the sound stopped. It came back, twice, then the light under the curtains faded and welcome darkness returned.
It was dark for a long time. Her stomach growled, and she tried not to move until she couldn’t stand the jabbing pains, muscles protesting.
Soft taps at the door. “Cami?”
She squeezed her dry, burning eyes shut. Hearing him hurt almost as badly as the stiffened-up bruises and drying scabs.
Nico said other things, but she turned her brain into a soft droning hum. The door gave a sharp banging groan, shaking on its hinges, but she counted the words inside her head, rolling them like small metal balls on a dark-painted surface.
You are nobody. You are nothing.
It was almost a relief. No more struggling with her stupid tongue. No more being the third wheel. No more jumping at shadows. No more flinching.
Yelling, finally. But she clutched her hands over her ears. They, at least, belonged to her, and the yelling ended with a thud. The doorknob screeched, the ancient lock groaning against the doorframe. She curled even more tightly into herself, around the empty rock of her stomach, the smell of her own body wrapping in a close comforting fog.
My hands. I can’t be nobody if I have hands.
She tried to shove the thought away, but it wouldn’t go. Her bladder ached too, a steady relentless pressure. Her lungs, stupid idiot things, kept going even though she tried to stop them. Her hair lay damp-sticky against the back of her neck—she was sweating.
You are nobody, the whisper insisted. You are nothing.
Then who the hell was it talking to? Her fingers tensed, fingernails digging into her scalp. Her scalp, and the stinging was welcome. Some of her nails were broken, she could feel the sharp edges. Her mouth tasted bitter and nasty, there were crusties at the corners of her eyes.
My eyes. My hands. My mouth. She shifted restlessly, every part of her jangling a discordant song of ache and pain, and her bladder informed her once again that it was not happy. Her stomach rumbled loudly, insistently.
Her stomach didn’t stutter. Her breath moved in and out, despite everything she could do. There was a thumping, regular and insistent, and she kept her eyes shut. Traceries of false light burned against the inside of her eyelids.
You are nobody. You are nothing.
The tha-thump, tha-thump irritated her. It interfered with the whisper, shoved it aside, and demanded to be heard along with the need to pee. What was it? Someone banging on the door again?
Don’t be an idiot. It’s your heart.
Tha-thump. Tha-thump. The rhythm didn’t vary. She felt it in her wrists, her throat, the backs of her knees. All through her, scarlet threads twitched as the beating in her chest went on. It was whispering too, and as soon as she realized it she moved again, restlessly, trying to figure out what it was saying.
Her bladder was going to explode, and the murmur from the mirror was getting more insistent. Was it hoarse now, a little desperate? It was scratchy, like a smoke-filled throat. She shook her head, slowly, every muscle in her neck shrieking, trying to figure out what the thumping in her chest was saying. It was a song, maybe? One of Nico’s favorites, with thumping bass shaking her into jelly?
No.
Her arms spasmed. So did her legs. Muscles locking, moving restlessly, annoyed at her. The whisper from the mirror pushed against the gauze; the torn material billowed, fingernail-scraping the wooden frame.
Cami scrambled out of the bed, tripping and going down, banging her knee on the floor. She lunged up, bare feet smacking the carpet, and just barely made it to the bathroom.
It was there, sitting on the toilet and a glorious relief filling her, that the noise in her head died down, and she figured out the thumping in her chest.
Tha-thud. Tha-thud. Tha-thud.
I am. I am. I am.
The pace quickened. The aching and cramping in her bladder subsided.
I am. I am. I am.
She flushed, her hands moving automatically, and the chugging cascade of water drowned out the mirror’s fuzzy staticwhisper. As soon as she stepped into the white room, though, she could hear it. The gauze fluttered to the floor, stroked by an invisible hand, and the mirror’s surface was full of gray vapor, pouring out from the glass in defiance of its own unreality. Heavy, perfumed smoke. It crawled along the floor, reaching for her with begging, sharp-nailed fingers.
White fingers, on a broad soft hand.
Nobody. Nothing. You are nobody. Nothing! YOU ARE NOBODY NOTHING NOBODY NOTHING NOBODYNOTHINGNOBODYNOTHING—
“Noooooo!” The wail burst out of her. She flung herself across the room.
Punch from the hip, Nico said in her memory. Teaching her how to fight one lazy summer day, while they played banditti in the woods. That’s my girl. Hit ’em so they know they’ve been hit.
Her fist met bulging, smoke-bleeding glass. Her scream spiraled up, drowning out the other cry of female rage—the one coming from the mirror as it broke, crashing, a red jolt all the way up her arm.
The White Queen stumbled back, almost tripping on her long dress, her face graven, runneled with lines, a contorted picture of hatred. She screamed, and the mirror in front of her showed a withered, slobbering hag, the jewel at her throat dark heartsblood, flickering as her life faded.
Cami came to on her knees, her bleeding right hand clutched to her chest, the pale carpet silvered with glass. Running feet in the hall, a splintering jolt against the door. She hugged herself, sobbing, as the acrid smoke in the room thinned.
And through it all, her heart thundered.
I am. I am. I am.
TWENTY-SEVEN
IT WASN’T NICO. IT WAS STEVENS, WITH TRIG RIGHT behind him. The gaunt consigliere stabbed two fingers at the broken mirror, snapping a charm that flashed venomous-red in the darkness as the broken shards on the floor quivered; Trig’s hand closed around Cami’s arm and he lifted her bodily out of the glass, fingers slipping against blood and sweat. Her hand bled freely, and there was a stinging in her knees.
Stevens hissed a curse in another language, a long sonorous filthy-sounding term that ended with him jabbing his fingers at the mirror and hissing once more. Glass shards trembled as if they wanted to fly up from the floor; a shudder worked its way down the consigliere’s dusty, black-clad back. “Avert, Bianca mala,” he muttered, finally. “Avert.”
“Mithrus Christ!” Trig had a handful of material—it was her old terrycloth bathrobe, and he bundled her into it with quick efficient movements before half-carrying her toward the bathroom. He reached around the edge of the bathroom door and flicked a switch; sudden golden light stung her eyes. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”