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

hands. Up close, Adrian was handsome in a way that could break hearts if he wasn’t careful. He wasn’t my kind of handsome (fortunately for Indigo), but Adrian was a fine-boned, long-eyelashed, square-jawed young man that probably haunted many people’s best dreams.

“What about me isn’t right for her?” he said. “Tell me, and I’ll change it.”

And that was what I’d been hoping to avoid. I knew that feeling just a little too well—not in the same way, never for love, never like this, but for respect and admiration.

“Just because you’re not right for her doesn’t mean you’re wrong,” I said. “Sometimes people just aren’t compatible.”

He went quiet for a while and I hoped he’d moved on or fallen asleep, but when I looked over, he was still staring at me.

“How can we be incompatible if I like everything about her?”

I sighed and tried to think of something to say.

Before I could come up with some vague reassurance, Adrian hauled himself unsteadily to his feet and wandered off, probably to look for more to drink.

Well, damn, I told myself. Of course putting a group of teenagers in a house together would result in shit like this, but it was the last thing any of us needed, considering the murders and the ghosts and the magic.

What was I supposed to be doing again? All I’d wanted to do was have one drink with my friends and then sneak away, but now I was caught up in my own mind, lackadaisical and slow.

I needed to warn Lilac.

I hesitated to tell her, since it was definitely a violation of Adrian’s trust, but it would be a good idea to give her time to think about her answer if she wanted that time.

I found her upstairs, sitting in Ginger’s lap as they watched Disney’s Hercules in a TV room I hadn’t seen before. I was always discovering new rooms in this house. Maybe they popped up out of nowhere sometimes; the place certainly seemed like a living, breathing structure.

“Hey,” Ginger greeted me, clearing a space in the pillows on the couch next to them. “Come watch with us. Your world has the weirdest movies, I swear. This guy has flames for hair.”

“I met you in a blue forest,” I reminded her. She shrugged and took a sip from the pale orange cocktail she held and gave me one of her rare soft smiles.

“Have a seat,” she said. “You’ve been doing twice the work of any of us in the past few days.”

I sat down and propped my feet on the table, still a little tipsy.

“Uh, Lilac—” I started. “Could I talk to you alone for a moment?”

Ginger cocked her head at me, but Lilac just sighed. It was a long sigh, defeated, and she pushed at Ginger a little bit—not to move Ginger off her lap, but just to see me better.

“It’s about Adrian, isn’t it?” she said.

I hesitated and glanced between the two of them. Lilac, half-lit in the light of the TV, was as devastatingly beautiful as she always was. I knew what Adrian saw in her. And so did Ginger, whose face had hardened to granite in the silence.

“I’ve had enough,” she said. “We’ve been as obvious as we could without outright telling him we’re together. How long are you going to wait?”

Lilac nodded, resigned but resolute. “I just don’t want to hurt him. He’ll feel like a fifth wheel, and remember how he was when he showed up? We can’t have a fracture in this group while people are getting killed.”

“Leading him on is not the way to go.”

“I’m not leading him on!”

Ginger paused. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That was unfair. It’s just…”

“I know,” Lilac said, and hugged her tight. “I understand. I’ll have a talk with him.”

Behind us, Adrian’s voice rang out from the doorway. He must have followed me up the stairs.

“No need,” he said. “I understand just fine.”

We spun to face him. Ginger turned so fast that Lilac slid from her lap. Adrian stood there, leaning against the doorway, bottle in one hand and heartbreak across his face.

Silence settled between us.

“I would understand if it was because you care about my feelings, but not telling me just because you want to keep the group together? That’s so…cold,” he said. There he was, angry and empty.

I stood, a hand out in his direction, and he finally rounded on me.

“I’m never telling you anything ever again,” he said, drunk and angry. “Except one last thing, because I tell people when they’re about to get hurt. I just had a vision, and a woman who looks a hell of a lot like you is at your apartment. Well…” he stopped for a second, “What used to be your apartment, I suppose. When were you going to tell us about that?”

Claire. Of course she’d come to visit. My apartment had exploded and I was nowhere to be found. I just hadn’t thought my family would come so quickly. It had been...what, a day? A mere twenty-four hours, and without even a call to warn me.

No, of course there was no call. Our phones didn’t work here.

Shit. She probably thought I was dead, or that I’d run away. Considering that my family had believed me to be teetering on the brink of insanity ever since my obsession with Vivi’s death had started, it made sense that Claire would come out and check on me, but…

A door slamming interrupted my spiral. Adrian had gone, the heavy wood banging shut behind him. At my side, Ginger and Lilac quietly consulted each other about what to do next.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Ginger said. “Maybe we should have told him earlier, but he just proved Lilac’s hesitations right.”

I thought of him storming downstairs, of him ransacking the house or—

“Shit,” I said. “Shit, he’s going to leave, isn’t he?”

I couldn’t have him going out in the night, angry and drunk. Not when I was absolutely sure that Oberon had returned.