The Crumpled Mirror by Elizabeth Loea (free novel reading sites TXT) 📕

lame codenames,” Adrian said, plunking himself down in the dust with no regard for his too-fancy coat. “Might as well get introductions out of the way now before I kick your asses.”

He smiled at us.

Ginger bristled. Indigo, Lilac, and I glanced at each other.

“Kick our asses,” Lilac repeated. “You do realize this is a test we take together, not a test we take against each other.”

“You sure?” Adrian asked. “Didn’t he say that if one of us didn’t show up, none of us would get to take this test?”

There were nods all around.

“That means we’re all needed for the test to happen. Either we’re doing some sort of powerful group enchantment—which I doubt, since I don’t know any magic, and I don’t expect any of you do, either—or we’re going to be pitted against each other, right?”

One thing I can say for Adrian (well, not really for, but about) is that he knows how to make a conversation awkward. I once asked if he planned on majoring in it. He asked if I was planning on majoring in being a bitch. That’s pretty much the natural flow of our conversations.

In a weird way, I was glad we hadn’t gotten a test out of the way yet. There would be dangers to come, and even back then, I knew it (although I didn’t know the true extent of the dangers). I’d enjoyed that day with my friends—well, they were basically strangers, but they would come to be my friends, blood-bound in more ways than one. Thinking about a competition with the truth about the deaths we’d witnessed as the prize...it was almost too much.

It was too much for Indigo, who hauled himself to his feet with all the grace of a man in his low nineties and strolled over to me, plopping himself down at my side with his knee against mine.

“I’m not competing against Clementine,” Indigo said.

“Clementine,” Adrian repeated. He didn’t bother to look at me, and I was glad he didn’t. “Why not?”

“She let me stay with her when my realm burned. I owe her, and besides, I don’t compete with people who are kind to me.”

“Why not?” Adrian challenged, leaning back on his elbows.

I interrupted, “You know, I think we’re going to get along great. Adrian, was it?”

“Adrian Tsai,” Adrian said. “And you?”

“Clementine.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.” He leaned back on his elbows and took a good look at all of us, eyes lingering on Lilac.

Uh oh, I thought, but didn’t say. At my side, Indigo combed a strand of hair out of his face and turned to look at the center of the clearing.

Maybe Mint could hear anything we said. I expected he could, but it was impossible to be sure.

“Okay, icebreaker: who’d each of you lose?” Adrian asked, his tone as easy as when he’d asked for my name.

“Shut the fuck up,” Ginger quipped, her eyes on the spot where Mint had risen from the dirt the night before.

Adrian did stop talking, but that somehow made the moment worse. The rest of us had little more to talk about; all we had after that morning were more questions than we’d started with the night before. I wished Mint would just rise from the dead already so we could get on with asking questions and getting what would inevitably be cryptic, unappealing answers.

At six, there was still no sign of movement, and by then, I was starting to get stiff. Ginger had fallen asleep in Lilac’s lap and Adrian was pulling leaves apart along the lines of their veins. Indigo stared off into space like he had been doing for the past hour so the choices were between talking to Adrian and trying to find a way to pass the next four hours.

I stood up to pace the circumference of the clearing. Next to me, a blackened tree had started to crumble into the ground, and now it was ringed with ash at the base, like blood leaking from a wound. The tree stretched into the sky, frail and at the same time almost macabre, a huge sculpture formed by bark and fire.

I was on my second turn around the clearing, feet scuffing across grass and dust, when Indigo joined me. We strolled around once, twice, before Adrian commented on us.

“Just go somewhere,” he said. “I don’t see why we all need to be here right now.”

“It’s dangerous,” I told him. “We need to stick together.” I realized I hadn’t mentioned the recent deaths yet. “More people have been dying—it seems like at least two have died today, if not more. In the same way as…” I wasn’t sure how to phrase this, but I knew he wouldn’t care “as they did.”

“Well, shit.”

Indigo and I got another round of walking in before Adrian spoke up again.

“Go anyway,” he said. “There are two of you. You’re making me nervous.”

“You should be nervous,” Indigo said.

Adrian threw up his hands and gestured as if to shoo us from the clearing. “I don’t care if I should be nervous, Indigo,” he said. “I don’t want to be, and frankly, considering that the first test is tonight, it’s not a great idea for any of us to be nervous. So I’ll thank you kindly for stepping out now, before you send us all spiralling.”

I suspected he just wanted time to stare at Lilac in peace, but I nodded assent to Indigo, carefully linked my arm with his, and tried to pull him toward the portal to his world.

“No,” he muttered. “No.”

“We don’t have to go,” I said, also speaking quietly to avoid Adrian’s blatant eavesdropping. “But wouldn’t you rather go with a companion?”

He gave me a look that said, “really?” but fell into step next to me as I headed toward the portal.

Stepping through was vastly different than stepping through the portal to home. Something about this portal one felt viscerally wrong, as if I had taken several gulps of rubbing alcohol or had slid my hand along a rack of knives by accident.