The Crumpled Mirror Elizabeth Loea (best historical biographies txt) 📖

emotions and history of a person,” he began. “Now...now try changing bits.”

“That’s too much,” she said. “I’m not that powerful.”

“Not to change a person’s history,” he said. “Just their emotions. You can’t give them a whole new emotion, but you can amplify one that already exists. Try it on one of your friends.”

“Now you’re just fucking with us.”

“A little,” he admitted, dragging a hand through that odd snow-white hair of his. “But it’s something you should be able to do.”

Ginger turned to the rest of us. After a moment, I realized she was waiting for a volunteer. Considering the others—Lilac’s distress, Adrian’s breakdown, and Indigo’s anxiety—I figured I would probably receive the least amount of irreparable damage if Ginger were to use this power on me.

I raised my hand and stepped forward.

Ginger looked at me, visibly concerned.

“Do your worst,” I said, and sincerely wished she wouldn’t.

Ginger didn’t even have to touch me to get a read on me. She just looked at me the right way, pale brown eyes almost golden, and I knew she knew every little dark secret inside my mind.

Ginger didn’t say anything, which I thanked her for in my mind—something I was sure she could hear. She didn’t stay still and expressionless, though...there was something that changed about her, something that relaxed and smoothed out.

And then there it was: a quiet welling up of tears. She blinked them away before one could fall and before any of the others could notice, but I saw them.

There was that sympathy of hers—fleeting, quiet, stunningly deep. As sardonic as she often was, her caring was sincere.

Slowly, something began to build in my lungs, my shoulders, my stomach. A smile twitched across my face, tugging at my chin and cheeks, until at last, my laughter spilled over into the rest of the room.

The rest of my body tried as hard as it possibly could to fight the odd, terrifying feeling of humor without cause.

“Stop!” I told Ginger through tears of joy. “Please!”

She immediately yanked herself out of my mind and reached out a shoulder to steady me.

“Are you okay?” she asked, quiet enough that it was a question just for me. Somehow, it felt like a larger question than just an issue of the moment.

“Uh—” I started. “Uh, yeah.”

She shot Mint a withering glare and stepped back into line. There were two of us left to go, and I hoped against hope that it would be Adrian next—

“Clementine,” Mint said. His voice was almost gone. He was almost whispering with pain. I wanted to intervene, but I had no idea how to.

I stepped forward out of the line and stuck my hands into my pockets to quell their shaking.

“I can’t practice my magic,” I told him. “I don’t know how it works. You never told me.”

He shrugged. “Think of it as the potential for impossibility. Try...try stopping time for a few seconds. That should be easy enough, even for a newbie.”

“Time?”

He gestured expansively as I turned to face my friends. Indigo watched me, half encouragement and half sincere fear. Ginger took a few steps back. Lilac raised an eyebrow at my hesitation.

I stretched my hands out in front of me and concentrated. Time...time like a watch, like the beating of a heart, like the demarcated moments that slide by during a person’s life. Time between minutes, hours, days…

I pushed the way I usually did, urging magic out through my fingertips, and—

And nothing. Absolutely nothing.

“Something else,” I demanded, refusing to admit that I felt none of the familiar lightness in my bones.

“Sure, try shapeshifting,” Mint suggested. Through his pain, there was a slight smile. An angry smile. A...proud smile.

I flexed my fingers as though that would do anything to help and thought of something—anything—to turn into. I thought of my mom, tall and lanky, her teeth straight and white in that broad smile of hers.

I waited for the gust of wind that indicated a spell complete...and I was met with nothing at all.

XXV

I tried again and again until I heard Ginger groan and sit down on the floor. Mint, too, looked bored and angry. His freckles were back, and the streak in his hair.

I wanted to demand answers from him, but that would come later. As long as he wasn’t Oberon, it could be dealt with later.

I needed to get out of the house as soon as I could. The easiest way would be by passing this gods-damned test and getting Mint out of here so I could plan a course of action.

“I don’t—” I started, panic bubbling in my chest “—I don’t know what’s happening.”

“I don’t either,” Mint admitted. “You probably don’t have enough of a handle on it yet. Whatever it is, you’re out. Sorry.”

He smiled. This was the wrong Mint.

My world tilted until Indigo’s hands on my shoulders steadied me.

“That’s not fair,” Indigo said. “That’s not fair.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Mint told him. “It’s the way this works.”

“She probably just hasn’t had enough time to recharge,” Indigo started. “She used it when—”

I cut him off with a hand on his arm. I didn’t know how much trouble I’d get in for blowing my apartment up, but there had to be some sort of punishment for it. I’d rather fail the test than be subject to some sort of criminal charge.

Mint massaged his temples and took a deep, calming breath. I couldn’t breathe—couldn’t think. I wished I could. It would have made this a lot easier. If he chose to make me leave, well, there was nothing I could do about except go home.

I knew I’d die without magic.

I’d come to that conclusion the moment its existence had been confirmed for me. If I got sent home to be an eccentric recluse while people died...well, I would follow not far behind them.

“Okay,” Mint said, still rippling back and forth between features. I’d almost gotten used to it now, if not for the pain that clearly engulfed him. “I’ll let Adrian go first, and then you can