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

His face had been on the ceiling. This was who Mint had been pointing to...but he looked a little wrong. He looked like Mint, or, at least, a little like Mint. He was tall, like Mint, and his eyes looked a little more washed out than green eyes usually did—as though they’d taken a little of Mint’s coloring on. This had been the face Mint had been switching back and forth with for this last week. There were those freckles, the dark hair, the different forehead and jaw.

“You’re Mint,” I concluded. “You’re him, but you’re not.”

“Very eloquent,” Oberon said. “Yes, I suppose that to you, I look a little like Artie. But I assure you I am not.”

“Artie,” Indigo repeated. “Who’s—”

“Artie Lincoln,” I said. “Mint’s old name was Artie Lincoln. Oberon killed him in the final test ten years ago. He brought Mint back by killing your sister, and Vivienne, and the others. I expect the magic made him...merge with Mint. He lost his powers in the process, too. So they’re two barely-magical people inhabiting a single dead body. And…” I paused.

Oberon nodded encouragement.

“And these deaths aren’t some sort of stick-it-to-Robin College display,” I breathed. “You just want your powers back so you can have your own body again. So you aren’t stuck to Mint.”

“Bingo,” Oberon said.

But Mint had been testing us. He was clearly part of Robin College, clearly here on behalf of authority. And neither Oberon nor Artie had passed the test, I was sure. So how did he have the authority to test us?

Amaranth had warned me about Mint from the very beginning. How long had Oberon been inhabiting my mentor?

“We were never being tested,” I realized. “Were we?”

Oberon finally looked at me as though I was worth looking at. It was not a comforting feeling, especially since he was giant and clearly angry.

“Sort of,” he said. “They were going to test you. They sent Rose over and everything, too. But I disposed of her and took her place, so I suppose it’s true that the real test never actually happened.”

“So why wait ten years between killing the others and coming after us? And why us? And why test us? And why—”

“I felt bad,” he said. “I killed five kids before I even knew what I was doing. I tried to...I tried to be kind to them. To raise them and give them lives in order to make amends.”

I couldn’t form words. A response was...impossible.

“Of course,” he continued, “that silent little ghost friend of yours was impossible. She hasn’t said a word to me except that she wants to move on.”

Vivi. I could just imagine her sulking, her back to him.

“After ten years, Artie started to get restless. I’d kept him calm for a while, feeding him stories about passing the test. When he was awake, he’d roam around on little missions I sent him on. I pretended they were on behalf of the college, or some other magical agency. After ten years, though, he started to wonder why he hadn’t been to the school since the first time we’d gone together. He started to struggle. To go mad. I...I needed to get free before he took me down with him.”

“Why us?” Indigo repeated.

“There’s a beautiful spectacle in it,” Oberon admitted. “And it was shockingly easy to get most of your names. The kids were perfectly willing to help, since I’ve been more of a parent to them in the last ten years than anyone else, although I haven’t quite mentioned the killing you part of this to them yet. They’re really all quite angry at you. You all ignored them for a decade. You pretended they weren’t real. I took care of them. I treated them like my own.”

“You killed them,” Indigo interjected.

“They don’t know that,” he said. “They were very helpful, once I realized their use. They told me your names. They told stories about you.”

“What do you want?” Indigo demanded, his voice surprisingly strong. “We’ll give it to you if you’ll leave. Anything, in exchange for our lives.”

Oberon smiled, and it was a terrible thing. His face, unlined, unblemished, curved unnaturally with the expression. Mint’s features were not meant for such wicked glee.

“That’s the thing,” he said. “You’ll have to die for me to leave.”

Indigo’s hand found mine again.

“Why?” I asked. “Why go through this ritual?”

Oberon tried to step toward us, but Indigo’s telekinesis held him in place no matter how hard he struggled. I wished Indigo would just snap his neck, but I knew, deep in my gut, that something like that would never happen.

“It hurts,” he gasped out, although Indigo’s magic seemed to have a good hold on his throat. “Every day it hurts. To be two people, crammed together. To be stuck with him. I want to go home. I want my magic back. I want to...”

Indigo pinched off his air supply before he could finish the sentence.

“You killed my mom for this?” Indigo shouted, his voice cutting through the ocean air. I’d never seen him this angry. He stepped toward Oberon, pinioning his elbows behind his back. “You killed her sister for this? For what? For magic?”

“For home,” I corrected.

Something flickered at my side for a moment. I barely had time to turn before a ghost had caught my torso. It wasn’t Vivi—this was a little boy. He used his unnatural strength to pin me to the ground, his knee in my spine. It took less than a second. I didn’t have time to gasp.

“You!” Indigo yelled behind me. “What have you done—”

Something cut him off. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of dark hair—Cecelia. There was Indigo, flailing, trapped by Cecelia and two others. His magic had worked on Oberon, but telekinesis couldn’t do anything to ghosts.

Where was Vivi?

Oberon stood and gestured dismissively to the ghosts holding Indigo.

“Keep them busy at the school,” he told the ghosts. “Killing humans is one thing, but five magicians they were keeping