I bite my lower lip and return to my dresser. If they only knew just how awesome this “ugly thing” on my face turned out to be.
Or rather, how awesome it was. Sure I created a façade, but the accomplishment is minuscule compared to all we’ve lost. All we’re still losing.
I pick up the mirror, turn it toward me. Hold it at arm’s length. Hmm. My hair is a disaster, all flyaways and cowlicks curling away from my temples. Seems unfitting with the mirrorglass crown resting there. My complexion is oily and pale. Purple half-moons droop beneath my tired eyes.
A knock at the door jolts my system. Fingers open. Mirror drops.
Crash!
Ebony enters. “Nice one.” Her tone remains sarcastic as ever.
The mirror is in shards at my feet, the plastic frame now vacant of reflection. It’s not as if it was an expensive gift, but it was a gift just the same. A gift from Mom.
I miss her.
“Are you ready?” Ebony asks.
Her purse hangs from one elbow, as is her custom. She’s dressed in some of Mom’s old clothes—chocolate leggings, a pine-green sweater dress, ankle boots. Not Ebony’s style but more so than if she’d borrowed my things. How does she manage to appear as if she walked straight off the runway? Her rich brown hair falls softly past her shoulders, a just-brushed shine gleaming atop her crown like a halo. Clear skin. Sparkling eyes. Perfection.
Except nobody is perfect. No matter how much they seem so on the outside.
Ebony surveys the mess that is my room. In the past this would’ve bothered me. Her scrutiny. Judgment. Now I don’t care. My room is me. Deal with it.
“You upheld your end, now it’s my turn,” Ebony continues. “We should probably move to the back or the roof. More space to practice. Amulet was only the beginning.”
Practice. Right.
Later, I mouth. I try to slide past her, but she blocks my way.
“Where are you running off to?”
I move left and she echoes the move.
“Are you really going to see your man looking like a hobo-girl from the back alleys of Chinatown?”
I stop dead. A blush creeps to my cheeks. Brows furrow.
She slips her hand into her purse, withdraws Ky’s letter. “Found it on the sidewalk. Must’ve fallen from your pocket when we landed.”
How does she still manage to embarrass me? I wish I had some semblance of a voice so I could set her straight.
First of all, it’s bad form to read someone else’s mail.
And second, Ky is not my man.
He’s not.
Ebony is beside me now, dropping her purse and the letter onto the bed and sweeping my hair on top of my head in one motion. “Now hold still.” Before I can argue she’s behind me, removing my crown and twisting and pulling, tucking hairs in here and loosening some there. She takes my shoulders, spins me toward her, and begins on my face. Removes things from her bag to pat and dab, curl and brush. Stepping back, she examines her work, sweeping her fingertips over my eyebrows and wiping beneath my eyelids.
“There.” She leans away, narrowing her eyes. “Now you look on purpose. You’re welcome.” One by one her things return to her bag, all except for her silver compact, my crown, and the letter. She hands the compact over, snaps her purse closed, and waltzes out the door.
Privacy. Wow. How very unlike her to let me face my reflection alone. I push up the lip of the compact with my thumb. Stare. My hair sits in a messy bun atop my head, slightly off center, but somehow perfectly in place. Strands frame my face and ears, but my bangs are long enough to be pulled back now. My lashes are darker, fuller, my lips pink but not unnatural looking. My face is clean but not covered, my mirrormark standing out in all its crimson vines and music notes.
I’ve not worried much about the mark these past months. Since Joshua can’t see it, it’s almost as if it vanished altogether. But now, a reunion with Ky on the horizon, I almost want to hide. To pull my hair down and slink behind the curtain of my bangs.
And then a memory surfaces, faint and fragile, but there just the same.
Ky sweeping my hair off my face.
Smiling.
“Cool tattoo,” he’d said.
At the time I thought he was a nut job, but it turned out he was right. My mark ended up being so much more than I’d ever dreamed possible. A unique composition framing my eyes, playing the strings of my heart.
I smile and close the compact. I’m ready.
Almost.
I swipe Ky’s letter off the bed. I gaze down at the crown, which looks small and insignificant atop my mountain of covers and sheets. Instead of donning it once more, I shove it in my sock drawer for safekeeping. No reason to wear it where I’m going.
Next I steal the mirrorglass blade from Joshua’s Guardian jacket, which lies crumpled like a discarded candy wrapper on the floor. The letter gets folded again and again, then hidden in the compact, which I stuff in my pocket. But the knife, hmm . . . what to do? Whirl. Search. Think. Aha! Old sock to the rescue, it makes the perfect wrap. I don’t have a sheath or anything to make one with so I tuck the socked dagger in the back of my jeans. It’ll do for now.
In the kitchen Ebony is searching the cupboards, removing snacks and dropping them into her purse. I wish I’d thought to bring the pack Ky made me, but there wasn’t time. Oh well.
“Look what I found.” Ebony holds up a wad of cash. “You really ought to rethink your hiding spot. A cereal box, really? You might as well have hidden it in a cookie jar.”
I shrug and return to the foyer. Retrieve a couple jackets from the coatrack. Ebony is already opening the front door when I try to pass her a jacket.
Hair flipped over one shoulder, she makes a stopping motion with one hand. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather freeze than not match.”
Typical. I have to refrain from shaking my head. I drop one jacket on the floor and slip my arms through the other, my right arm shaking from the constant pain residing there now. It’s my jean jacket from middle school and fits a little snug. Wish I had my parka, but this is better than nothing.
When we’re out the door, I lock it and pocket the key. With a last glance at my home, my heart sinks. So much chaos ensued last fall, I didn’t get a proper good-bye. Now we head down the street, and it feels like the end of something. As we aim for the nearest subway entrance, I recall the lyrics to a Christina Perri song.
“This is not the end of me. This is the beginning.”
The words repeat over and over. I’ve always fought change, but sometimes things have to end. They disappear as if they never existed. Never were.
And only then can a new beginning . . . well . . . begin.
Eleventh Day, Ninth Month, Twenty-Second Year of Count VonKemp
Ky mentioned Countess Ambrose in his letter. Was Dimitri from the Fourth as well?
It is with a heavy heart I pen these words. Yet another dame has broken my heart. Yet another love lost at sea, if you will. Is there nothing strong enough to bind two people, heart and soul? Will no one ever remain?
So this was before he discovered the Kiss of Infinity. Interesting.
Tomorrow I set sail for a new Reflection. Perhaps it is there I will find what I have searched for my entire existence. Perhaps it is there true love waits.