There are moments in life that feel like stolen scenes from a dream.
This wasn't one of them.
This felt like a warning.
---
The moment Lucien touched her hand, everything went... quieter.
Not peaceful—just subdued, like the world was holding its breath. The music continued to waltz through the air, laughter bloomed and burst like fireworks, but to Irena, it all felt like she was underwater. Watching people dance through ripples.
Lucien's fingers were cold.
"You're not like the others," he said, voice low as if speaking through smoke. "You didn't even flinch when the mirror broke."
"I thought maybe it was supposed to."
He tilted his head. "No one breaks a mirror in Skyevale. Not unless they're ready to bleed."
"I'm not afraid of broken things."
That made him pause.
"Neither am I."
---
Across the Room
Mara saw them. Of course she saw them.
She was in the middle of a perfect conversation with the son of a parliament lord when she felt it—a sudden, twisting thread that pulled her gaze like a hook through the spine. And there they were: Irena and Lucien.
Talking.
Smiling.
Touching.
Her mask felt suddenly too tight, the ballroom too bright. She excused herself with a practiced smile, drifting toward the edge of the dance floor like silk spilling off a table.
She watched them from the shadows, her hands clenched inside her gloves.
It wasn't fair.
She'd seen Lucien first. Had studied his bloodline, his family, his movements. She'd tailored entire versions of herself to catch his attention. Yet somehow, Irena—dreamy, careless Irena—was the one standing beside him, the one who caught his gaze like a mirror snatching light.
Mara's reflection in a passing mirror smirked at her.
"Not yet," Mara whispered to herself. "Not yet."
---
Lucien & Irena — The Garden
He led her out of the ballroom and into the Ashvale garden. It hovered in the air—an open terrace carved from stone and moonlight. Ivy crawled like veins over crystal railings. Night-blooming flowers opened to reveal petals the color of bruises.
"I don't like parties," he said.
"You seemed good at pretending."
"Pretending is expected. But I notice things. People. The ones who don't quite belong."
Irena looked at him. "And you think I don't?"
"No," he said. "I think you're real."
It should have been a compliment.
It felt like a spell.
She turned away, breath catching. Below, the city twinkled like shattered glass. Her hand brushed the cold stone—and something shifted.
The glass panel beside her rippled.
A reflection—hers—but again, the smile wasn't hers.
The girl in the reflection leaned forward. Her eyes glowed softly. Her lips moved.
I see you.
Irena gasped and stumbled back.
Lucien caught her.
"You saw it too," he whispered, more to himself than her. "Didn't you?"
"What is that?" she asked.
"The Mirrorworld," he murmured, staring into the panel like it was a window into hell. "Some say it's just your own madness, bouncing back. Others say it's a place that copies feelings until they grow teeth."
"And which do you believe?"
Lucien's mouth curved. Not a smile—something more wounded.
"I think some people were born too full of feeling. And this world doesn't know what to do with them. So it reflects them elsewhere."
---
Back Inside – Mara's Spell
In the powder room, behind a locked door and a drawn velvet curtain, Mara unfastened the chain around her neck. A mirror the size of a coin dangled from it—small, ancient, and pulsing with a faint blue light.
She held it up and whispered:
> "Show me her face as he sees it.
Twist it. Tarnish it.
Make her reflection lie."
The mirror shuddered, a hairline crack sliding across its surface. The light flickered.
And somewhere, Irena's image in Lucien's eyes... began to change.
...
POV– Lucien: "The Boy Made of Reflections"
They told him he was born without a soul.
But that wasn't quite true.
He was born with too many.
---
Lucien remembered the first time the mirror spoke back.
He was ten. Barefoot. Bleeding from the palm, after pressing too hard on a shard of something once called beautiful. The mansion was quiet then. His mother had gone missing again. His father was already a rumor fading into whiskey.
He had walked into the Hall of Echoes—the gallery no one else dared enter—and stared at the great mirror in the center. The one that didn't reflect the present, but possibilities.
That day, it showed him three versions of himself.
One with a crown.
One with a knife.
One with Irena's eyes.
He hadn't understood it then. Not really. But something in his chest—some low, thunderous part—had started to wake.
Since then, mirrors had followed him.
Not in the way they follow anyone, trailing your image as you pass.
They watched. They waited.
They remembered.
---
His family had always made their fortune in the illusions business—what they called Glamourcraft. But it went deeper than stage tricks and elixirs.
The Ashvales dealt in emotional truth, bottled and bartered. Reflections that whispered your weaknesses, charms that turned guilt into silk, potions that softened grief until it became edible.
Lucien was the first heir in five generations to be born bound to a Mirror.
They called it the Gilded Curse.
He just called it lonely.
---
He didn't expect her.
Not the girl in silver. Not the girl who looked like moonlight kissed her skin just out of spite. She wasn't supposed to catch his eye, or his interest, or the hungry thing underneath his ribs that had been sleeping for years.
But Irena didn't look at him like he was a price tag.
Or a myth.
Or a mirror.
She looked at him like she'd seen something… worse.
And lived.
That terrified him.
That thrilled him.
So he smiled when he took her hand, even though smiling always felt like breaking a rule. And when she looked into the cracked glass of the garden, and didn't scream, didn't run, didn't deny it…
He knew.
The Mirror wanted her.
And gods help him—so did he.