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

the tests. Oberon, Mint, Cecelia, Vivi, the ghosts, the tests, the murders...it was all too much.

“That’s incredibly vague,” Ginger grumbled. “Does he give any more details?” She tugged the note from his hand and scanned it again before passing it around the circle. “How are we supposed to prepare if we don’t even know what the test is going to be?”

I set the note aside and leaned back into the leather sofa I’d settled into. At my side, Lilac twisted the envelope between her fingers and looked as though she was formulating some kind of plan.

“What?” I asked, nudging her with my knee.

“All of these tests seem incredibly vague,” she said. “What if it’s some kind of trick?”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, each of us waiting for someone else to say something. Outside, birds called out greetings to one another from the trees and bushes.

“It’s been three days since the last death,” I said at last. “I didn’t see any reports of deaths when I was back home, so I’m sure nobody has died in yours. What’s with the holdup?”

“One death ten years ago,” Lilac mused. “Then two deaths, one after the other. And now nothing. What’s it all for?”

“Blood magic,” I breathed.

“How do you know—”

“Remember what Mint said?” I asked. I knew they hadn’t met him at the same time as I had, but it had been a focal point of his introduction. “We’re bonded by blood magic. Blood magic...I think the same person who did it ten years ago is doing it again. And I think they’re doing it out of guilt.”

Guilt for killing ten years ago. But why had it been so long?

I wasn’t about to tell her about Amaranth’s letters, especially not now that I knew how useful they were. Now that I didn’t have a home address, this mysterious adviser was going to have to get creative with how the letters were delivered, but considering the emergency, I would have been fine if I had to meet a stranger to get the letter myself.

What had that one said?

Repeated murders that occur simultaneously in multiple realms are often used to knit those realms together.

“So,” Indigo interjected, “We’ve got to find  a way to prevent more death.”

I nodded. “Okay, in the meantime…”

In the meantime, I needed to find Oberon, wherever he was. This was clearly al his fault. He had to have brought Mint back the first time, using blood magic. There was no way it wasn’t him again this time. But who and where was he?

And why would he have waited ten years? Why would he have waited for the next test, if a few deaths could have accomplished his goal perfectly well earlier on?

I needed to find him. And I was sure Vivi could take me to him, if I could get away from the others long enough to find her.

I tried to think of something—anything—that could keep the five of us occupied in that big empty house all together until they were distracted enough for me to sneak away. The issue with having a bunch of smart, temperamental teenagers trapped together was that it was easy for us to figure out how to annoy each other.

There’s always an obvious solution to such issues, though.

We were blackout drunk in an hour.

I found myself flat on my back on the dining room floor, staring up at the ceiling. It was a mosaic, tiles arranged in some rune-like pattern, but at that point, it might as well have been a kaleidoscope. I hadn’t moved in minutes, but I didn’t mind the feeling of the linoleum on the back of my head.

Adrian clambered into the large farmhouse-style sink and waved a bottle of something at me. I couldn’t read the label, but magical liquor is much stronger than what I’d had back home, so you don’t really have to know what you’re drinking—no matter what it is, you’re not going to be sober, even after a single glass.

The others were somewhere else; feet pounded upstairs along with the beat of a song in a language I’d never heard before. It was just me and Adrian—him backlit against the sunlight that poured through the window over the sink, me waiting for the ceiling tiles to hold still.

“So!” he called over, too loud for such a short distance. “You and Indigo, huh?”

We were having that conversation, I supposed. My heart was light, but my head was lighter. In the back of my mind, a voice said, People are dying, you idiot. Sober up and figure something out.

Selfishly, I didn’t want to. I just wanted to lie on the kitchen floor forever, or at least until Mint showed up. Secretly, I wanted him to see the five of us, out of our minds and anxious and afraid, and feel just a little bad about throwing us into this new world without a life vest.

I glanced back at Adrian, who was just a blur of slicked-back hair and sweatshirt at that point.

“Yeah,” I said. “Wait, what was the question?”

“I should ask her out!” he proclaimed, loud as ever.

“Oh, gods,” I replied, trying my hardest not to laugh. “Oh, no, Adrian, that’s a terrible idea. Please don’t.”

“Why?” he said, stepping to the lip of the sink so that he could hop to the ground. He managed the landing and rolled to lie next to me, but he tipped the bottle over himself in the process. A liquid as pale and glittering as molten silver seeped into his sweatshirt as he turned to face me.

“Really?” I asked. “You’re asking me why not to ask her out?”

He nodded, heartbreakingly confused.

It wouldn’t be fair to Lilac to tell him if she hadn’t already told him. It wasn’t my place. But I had to give him a reason, since he had asked and certainly wouldn’t let up until I explained something.

“You’re not…” I started. “I don’t think you’re right for each other.”

He grimaced, flipped over onto his front, and propped his head on his