The mirror—cold, cracked, humming with a pulse like a second heartbeat—sat in the middle of the old chapel's altar. The dim blue glow leaking from its frame made the shadows on the walls tremble like they were alive.
Celeste stood farthest from it.
Everyone else had gathered around—Hope, London, Jessa, Stephen, Daemon, and even Raphael, his arms crossed and eyes narrowed as though the glass had insulted him personally.
"I don't like it," he muttered.
"You don't like a lot of things," Stephen replied. "That's not much of a review."
"I like things that don't steal souls."
Hope crouched in front of the mirror, fingers hovering just over the surface. "Daemon, you're sure it's a soul mirror?"
Daemon gave a single nod. "Runes don't lie. This one's ancient. And something—or someone—is locked inside."
London knelt beside Hope. "Can we get them out?"
Celeste clenched her hands in her sleeves. "Only if they want out."
Everyone turned to her again.
She immediately regretted speaking.
Stephen tilted his head. "You've been quiet, Celeste. For a while now."
"I just…" She hesitated. "I read something. In the library. About whisperglasses. Mirrors like this. They don't show reflections—they show souls. But only trapped ones."
Jessa's voice was small. "So that means...?"
Hope turned to Celeste. "That means Richard's soul is in there?"
"Maybe."
Or worse. Celeste didn't say it aloud—but whisperglasses didn't trap people on their own. Someone had to put the soul in.
Daemon stepped forward. "I can try to activate it. Just a touch of dark magic."
Raphael raised a brow. "And you've got that lying around?"
Daemon didn't answer. He pulled a blade from his coat—obsidian and carved with sigils—and sliced his palm. The blood hissed as it touched the glass.
The mirror rippled.
Then—shone.
It flashed once. Then again.
And then it showed—
Richard.
Bound in shadow. Standing in what looked like an old, broken classroom. Chains of black light wrapped around his wrists and ankles. His face was pale. Lips cracked. Eyes blank.
Hope gasped. "Dad…"
Celeste swallowed the knot in her throat.
Stephen looked sick. "That's not a tomb. That's a cage."
The mirror shimmered again.
And the image shifted.
Now it showed a dark corridor. Carved stone. Burning runes on the walls. At the far end stood another figure—tall, cloaked, faceless.
Daemon stiffened. "That's not Richard."
The figure turned.
The Ashbringer.
But this time… it spoke.
The voice wasn't audible—it boomed inside their minds.
> "You seek what you do not understand."
"You dig into graves meant to stay sealed."
"The chains on Richard are not mine. They belong to what stirs beneath Blackmoor."
Hope stepped forward. "Then who are you?"
> "I am the harbinger. The lock. Not the key."
London's hand gripped Hope's. "He's protecting something worse."
The image blinked again. The figure vanished.
Only the black classroom returned.
Only Richard.
Only the sound of his whisper, somehow faintly echoing through the mirror:
> "Don't come for me."
> "Not yet."
Then—silence.
The mirror went dark.
Hope didn't realize she was crying until London wiped her cheek.
"I'm going," she said. "We're going. We have to find him."
Daemon's jaw tightened. "That place wasn't anywhere in the school's plans."
Stephen sat down on the nearest broken bench. "Cool, cool. So we're officially breaking into the forbidden crypts under the school to rescue our maybe-possessed, maybe-cursed headmaster."
Celeste spoke up. "We need to prepare. Once we go in… we might not be able to come back up."
Jessa looked over. "Celeste. Are you okay?"
Celeste managed a smile. "I'm fine."
But she wasn't.
Because in the mirror, for only a second, she hadn't seen Richard or the Ashbringer.
She had seen herself.
Eyes black as coal. Runes burned into her arms.
A version of her that wanted to destroy Blackmoor.
She hadn't told anyone.
She wouldn't.
Not yet.
Later that night, as the group prepared to rest and plan, London sat with Hope by the moonlit windows of the old music room. The tension of the day weighed on them, but in the silence, there was stillness.
London leaned closer. "If we make it through this, I'm taking you out."
Hope smiled faintly. "To where?"
"I don't know. Somewhere quiet. Normal."
She tilted her head. "You? Normal?"
He leaned in, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him, like a sun just beneath the skin.
Their lips were inches apart.
Closer.
Hope's heart thundered.
But then—
BANG!
The door crashed open.
Stephen burst in, hair wild and shirt halfway buttoned.
"Sorry—sorry! But also, not sorry—Daemon found a hidden gate under the west tower. Like, a real one. With teeth. And possibly lava."
Hope groaned.
London leaned back with a frustrated sigh. "I was this close."
Stephen winked. "Then hurry up and save the school so you can kiss the girl."