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

People would still see a piece of driftwood zooming through the sky, of course, but I held myself flat to the board and hoped that some small portion of my very large and very dangerous magic would disguise me. Neal or one of his friends reporting a UFO sighting was the last thing I needed.

I’d grown immune to the cold over the last eighteen years—or at least tolerant of it—but being in the air without a thick jacket made it miserable. If it had been later in the day, the fog would have been thick enough to hide me, but as it was, it just made me damp and angry.

The bright side of having a hoverboard (a real hoverboard, not one of those silly ones preteens flaunted a few miles south in Silicon Valley) was not having to take the stairs. I wedged my apartment window open, clambered through, and tried to ignore the woman staring at me from down the street. My shoulder hit the hardwood floor at an angle that made it pop, but I managed to pull the driftwood inside without much pain.

My apartment had started to feel smaller the last time I’d come by. Now, it felt like a broom closet. Not because the mansion in the forest—the Hekataion—was so big, but because this apartment was a shrine to my past as a confused, knowledge-hungry teenager.

I’d gotten my answers, but this place was still filled with questions.

I left my driftwood in midair and paced to my door, hoping against hope that Amaranth had left something to help.

There it was. An envelope, green as varnished grass this time. It was darker than before, and, in a way, more real. It didn’t look translucent or false, but almost too there, like whoever had put it down had contemplated nailing it there.

I yanked the note out before my door had even closed all the way, and I’d read it before Vivi materialized on my couch. I didn’t even glance at her before sinking into my desk chair.

The note was short, as it had been before, and got right to the point.

Dear Ms. Clementine,

You have something I want.

I glanced to my satchel, where the copy of Midsummer had been stuffed. If this mysterious Amaranth had any connection to the names in the book or the teacher who’d given the book to me...well, that put him firmly on the side of untrustworthy.

You have a very powerful magic. I think it could be useful—not just to me, but to the world. Enclosed is a list of runes. Follow them if you wish to be of use to your friends, and to prove your usefulness to me.

I flipped the page over to find a series of symbols, somewhat reminiscent of the earlier one Amaranth had drawn. Each had a few notes in English next to them, scrawled in Amaranth’s neat hand. I took a photo of them on my phone.

I hear you want a safe place—a place to hide. There is also a charm for that. Be careful with it.

I wished Amaranth would appear next to me so I could demand answers: what was this intended for? What was I supposed to do? What was I contributing to this exchange? As far as I could tell, Amaranth had no reason for helping me...so what was I providing without my knowledge?

Well, I’d killed Adrian the night before. If Amaranth was looking for power, that was one example of it.

There were two journal pages this time. I stuck the second one in my pocket and flattened the first against my knee.

I don’t have much time to write. We had the third test today. Jamie came back only a few minutes before, but he wasn’t able to take the test. The nameless kid beat the shit out of him before he could join us. The kid just held out a hand and his magic tossed Jamie out the window.

Jamie fell three stories.

I wish you could take magic away from someone. That kid doesn’t deserve to have it. I had to skip the test and have Rose test me individually afterward because someone needed to take care of Jamie. He needed two dozen stitches.

The guy came to visit afterward. He made me leave so he could talk to Jamie. Afterward, Jamie said the guy had apologized. I don’t know if I believe him.

Magic is awful. I came here wanting to know more. Now I just want to leave.

We all passed the third test in the end, except Jamie, who hasn’t taken it yet. I expect he’ll do fine.

I had another vision today. It was of Artie. He was dead.

That wasn’t the weird part, though. He looked different than he does now. He had a bit of dark hair, a few freckles.

It didn’t look like a clean death, either.

Shit, I’ve got to go.

I clutched the book the substitute had given me. I knew those names. I’d read them in the front cover of the book the substitute had given me: Artie Lincoln, Penelope Hsu, and Jamie Jacobs. The writer of the journal must have been Gavin Hernandez, then, since the fifth of their group would never have revealed his name by writing it inside the cover of a book.

It was clear what importance that book held for the group: it was a story about young people wandering into a forest and being exposed to a world of magic that was so far away from their own, it seemed impossible for it to be right next door.

But why would they all write their names in it? Especially considering the clear hostility that divided them? And why would the substitute give the book to me?

My stomach sank. The warnings of that teacher had been intimate. He’d known the danger we were in. What had he said?

Don’t make our mistakes.

I’d just watched the death of one of the people Hernandez had been writing about. Maybe it had been Hernandez himself.

I tucked the note into my pocket,