Through Fire & Sea

by Nicole Luiken

  In her peripheral vision, Holly glimpsed something—the view from the dressing table mirror—and then it vanished again.

  “Go!” Eleanor whispered.

  “Miss Fairfax!” The boy playing the butler announced Gwendolen.

  Dana’s voice: “Pray let me introduce myself to you. My name is Cecily Cardew.”

  Holly winced as silence descended.

  “I said, ‘My name is Cecily Cardew,’” Dana repeated.

  “Hello,” her otherself said. “I don’t think I should be here. I’ll leave.”

  “No!” Dana said. “At least tell me your name,” she ad-libbed.

  Then, like a miracle, a tiny window opened up. Holly could see her own face, up close. She must be looking out of the reflection in Dana’s glasses. She met the eyes of her otherself—

  Holly slammed back into her body. No slow-motion fall this time. She staggered, her thoughts whirling. She had to get out of here…back to the bathroom, before…before… What? The memory faded like a bad dream.

  Here under the stage lights was real. The anger in Dana’s eyes as she gripped her shoulder, that was real.

  The audience shifted, whispering.

  Her dad was in the front row. She imagined the look of embarrassment on his face…

  If she ran off the stage now, the play would be ruined for everyone, including Ryan.

  And she’d done so well in Act One—with Ryan’s help, of course, but all he’d really told her to do was relax. She could do this.

  Holly took a deep breath. “Cecily Cardew? What a sweet name…” Her voice shook, but she made it through the scene.

  At the second intermission, she dashed for the washroom, not even caring when Eleanor tailed her like a chubby purple bulldog. But no bodies lay on the floor, and the mirror, examined from the corner of her eye while she washed her hands, looked perfectly ordinary.

  Whatever she’d seen during her blackout couldn’t have been real.

  Was she going crazy? Everything inside her rebelled at that explanation. Her body had been taken over. But instead of being knocked out cold by her otherself’s possession, perhaps her mind had reacted to the sensory deprivation by conjuring up a dream sequence.

  The tension in her shoulders faded, and she let Eleanor shepherd her backstage for Act Three.

  …

  “I take it the siren command wore off at the beginning of Act Two?” Ryan asked sotto voce. The play had ended, and they’d changed clothes but still lingered backstage.

  “Something like that,” Holly admitted.

  Ryan shook his head. “I should’ve left things alone. You pulled through just fine.”

  “Only because I had Act One under my belt.” Holly kissed him. “Thanks to you, I knew I could do it.”

  Ryan lifted his brows. “Still. Never again.”

  “Come on.” Holly tugged on his hand. “Time to meet my dad.”

  Her stomach fluttered when she spotted her mom, dad, and Shannon clumped together. She desperately wanted to know what her father had thought of Ryan’s performance, but she dreaded what he would say about hers.

  Shannon rushed forward. “Holly! You told me you couldn’t act!”

  Holly accepted her friend’s hug, pleased that she’d come. What with Ryan and rehearsals, Holly hadn’t spent much time with Shannon lately.

  “You were great,” Shannon continued. Then for Holly’s ears only, “Oh my God, you were so right about Ryan. He is hot.” She turned her postbraces perfect smile on Ryan. “You were terrific!”

  “Thanks.” Ryan looked away, uncomfortable under Shannon’s adoring stare.

  Shannon’s about-face annoyed Holly. It occurred to her that maybe a little of Ryan’s siren power had leaked into his performance. She hoped the effect would wear off soon.

  The next hug and kiss came from her mom. “You did great. Didn’t she do great, Joe?”

  “You made a lovely Gwendolen, once you committed to being onstage,” her dad said.

  “Joe,” her mom warned.

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying she looked like she wanted to run off at the beginning of each act.” He addressed Ryan. “You, on the other hand, turned in a terrific performance. Great expression, excellent comic timing, not one missed cue…I’ve never seen a better Jack. Holly, introduce us.”

  “Dad, this is Ryan Sullivan—my boyfriend.” Was that too pointed? “Ryan, this is my dad, Joseph Beecher.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Ryan shook hands but didn’t blather like Dana had.

  “Ryan, do you have representation?” her dad asked. “I’d like you to fly down to L.A. and take a screen test. I think you’d be perfect for Violet Eyes, the movie I’m directing.”

  Fly down? Holly stopped breathing. This wasn’t what she’d wanted!

  Ryan looked equally stunned. “Uh…”

  “You’d play the male lead, Michael Vallant.”

  Ryan blinked. “The lead role? But I—”

  “He has representation,” a strong voice said. “Me.” Nimue emerged from the shadows.

  Nimue lying unconscious on the bathroom floor, the witch looming over her with a knife…

  Holly shook off the image, relief rolling through her. It had just been a dream. Nimue was alive.

  But a moment later, Holly noticed something different about Ryan’s mother. Not her clothes. Nimue still wore the same yellow blouse and brown slacks Holly had seen her wearing earlier… Crap. Seen in her dream.

  No. Holly calmed her breathing. She must’ve glimpsed Nimue’s clothes while onstage. That made more sense.

  Nimue had twisted her brown hair up into a neat roll instead of letting it hang loose, but the change went beyond the cosmetic. She held her shoulders straight and looked Holly’s dad in the eye, negotiating fearlessly for paid airfare and a travel allowance. Holly hadn’t realized how much of Nimue’s craziness factor arose from her inability to meet anyone’s gaze.

  This Nimue looked sane. More than that: competent, confident. Like a different person.

  For a moment Holly wondered if— But, no. Ryan had said his mom had taken her medication today. That explained the improvement in her demeanor.

  Ryan watched his mother with a mixture of fear and hope. Guessing that Nimue’s periods of lucidity were rare and to be treasured, Holly squeezed his hand. “I think we have a deal, Mr. Beecher.” Nimue smiled.

  Ms. Prempeh, Dana, and Eleanor “happened” by. Holly performed more introductions. Her dad made polite comments on everybody’s performances and flirted with Ms. Prempeh, who looked terrific in a red blazer that set off her cocoa skin.

  Dana invited everyone to a wrap party at her house. Holly firmly declined. “My dad’s only in town tonight.”

  “He could come, too!” Dana said, her smile manic.

  Eleanor winced and pulled her friend away.

  Holly’s dad made a donation to the Build a New Stage fund—a generous one, from Ms. Prempeh’s stunned thank-you—and then, neatly excluding her, turned to Holly, her mom, Ryan, and Nimue. “Let’s go out for drinks and dessert. We have a lot to discuss.” He smiled at Nimue.

  …

  By the time everybody polished off their dessert, Holly was vibrating with the need to talk to Ryan alone. Their eyes met in mutual frustration when Holly’s dad ordered another glass of wine.

  Her mom took pity on them. “Why don’t you two go for a walk while we finish our drinks?”

  “Good idea.” Holly leaped up. Ryan led her to the edge of the restaurant patio and down the steps to the beach. They walked in silence for about a hundred meters along the hard-packed, wet sand.

  “Well.” Holly swallowed. “I knew you’d wow him.” Which was true, but she hadn’t expected her dad to want to cast Ryan in his current project. The thought of Ryan flying out to L.A. tomorrow morning put a lump in her throat, but how could she say that? This was Ryan’s big chance. “I bet you’ll ace the screen test. You’ll become famous.”

  Ryan raised his eyebrows,
but Holly knew she was right. Moonlight limned his face.

  “Maybe we can go for lunch sometime when I’m in L.A.,” Holly said brightly. Inside, she was dying.

  Ryan rocked back. “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “No! Well, maybe. You—your whole life is going to open up, and I don’t want to hold you back—” She had other, jumbled, reasons—like long-distance relationships sucked—but Ryan didn’t give her a chance to say any more. He framed her face with his hands and kissed her possessively.

  When he lifted his lips, his eyes were stormy seas. “I’m taking a screen test, that’s all. I’ll be back in two days. We are not breaking up.”

  “But—”

  Another deliciously hard kiss. “Repeat after me: we’re not breaking up.” He didn’t use his siren power, but Holly heard an echo to his voice.

  “We’re not breaking up,” Holly said, dazed. “But what if you do get the part?”

  “But nothing,” Ryan said fiercely. “Acting in some movie is not going to change my feelings for you.”

  “What feelings?” she whispered.

  His eyes widened. “Don’t you know? I’m crazy about you.” He said it straight out.

  “Me, too,” Holly choked, falling into his arms again.

  It wasn’t until Nimue called, “Five more minutes,” from the patio that they broke apart.

  “Okay!” Ryan bellowed back, then to Holly, “You still sound like you need convincing. Let’s try this again.” He grabbed a stick and wrote, “Ryan + Holly” in the wet sand. “Sorry I don’t have time to carve it in stone, okay?”

  “Okay,” Holly said with a helpless giggle. “Just promise you won’t fall in love with any of those gorgeous California girls.”

  Ryan rolled his eyes. “That’s not going to be a problem, trust me.”

  But Holly remembered the starstruck light shining in Shannon’s eyes and wondered.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Talisman

  Leah fell into the reflection—back into her own world, her own body in the Mirrorhall.

  She shuddered, glad that Holly was now the one in front of that crowd, but anxiety knotted her stomach when she thought about Qeturah. How—and why?—had Qeturah gone through the mirror bodily? And that horrid dissonance, as if the very laws of nature rebelled against two otherselves being on one world.

  Leah was still worrying over the matter when the ice mirror bulged outward, signaling Qeturah’s return.

  Two bare feet poked through first. With a wet sucking sound, Qeturah’s body slid free all at once, queerly boneless, and thumped facedown onto the floor. She was naked except for underwear.

  “Ashes!” Leah rolled Qeturah over, then stared, horrified, at the blood smeared on her hand.

  A red wound gaped in Qeturah’s chest, and her eyes were glassy. Dead.

  Leah stumbled back, her heart in her throat. Had Nimue killed her? But in the next second Leah realized the dead woman’s hair was both grayer and several inches shorter than Qeturah’s, her arms bonier.

  Nimue, Qeturah’s pitiful, lost, crazed otherself, lay dead at Leah’s feet. Murdered by Qeturah.

  Leah swallowed, hard. The memory of how she’d forced Nimue to look at her reflection while the woman whimpered made bile rise in her throat.

  When she’d said she’d do anything to break Gideon’s curse, she hadn’t meant this! How could Qeturah have done it? Killing your otherself seemed a great evil.

  Unless Nimue had attacked Qeturah first? But she’d been unconscious when Leah left. Completely vulnerable.

  Was that why Nimue had been so frightened of mirrors? Had Qeturah made earlier attempts on her life?

  Nimue’s eyes seemed to accuse her. You helped her find me.

  Leah had known something was wrong when Qeturah came through the mirror. Why had she let Qeturah send her away like a child?

  Because Qeturah called herself a duchess. What a terrible reason to let someone die.

  Unable to bear the sight of Nimue’s half-naked body, Leah spread a dust cover over her.

  Nerves jangling, she began to pace. Her instincts urged her to leave before Qeturah returned, but what of Gideon? Her mind shied from the thought of telling him Qeturah had murdered her otherself to break his curse. He’d feel guilty.

  And where could they go? Not to her father. If Duke Ruben found out the dragon was trapped in the vulnerable body of a boy during daylight, he would kill Gideon without hesitation. So would all the other dukes.

  Turning, Leah saw the surface of the ice mirror bulge again.

  In a panic, she scrambled under the Four Worlds mirror and up the ladder. Halfway to the Aerie she heard a thump, followed by swearing.

  She resumed climbing but flinched as her sandal scraped on rock.

  “Leah?” Qeturah called.

  Leah pulled herself over the ledge at the top.

  Qeturah ducked into the bottom of the shaft. “Come down here. We have much to discuss.”

  No more blind obedience to the nobility. Leah unbarred the door.

  Qeturah sounded annoyed, lacking the decency to even pretend to guilt. “Fool girl. It’s not as if you can hide.”

  Maybe she couldn’t, but Leah knew she would feel better once Gideon’s arms closed around her. She flung open the door—

  —only to find the dragon curled up on the stone floor, his tail wrapped around his body.

  Leah inhaled sharply, as if she’d been stabbed. The curse still gripped Gideon tight. Nimue had died for nothing.

  “I know you’re upset, but it’s going to take more time to break the curse than I thought,” Qeturah said. Her voice came from below—she couldn’t see into the Aerie yet. Which meant she hadn’t expected Nimue’s death to break the curse.

  Had Qeturah killed her otherself to gain access to Water? What did she intend to do there?

  Qeturah’s scheming didn’t matter; Gideon did. Now that Nimue was dead, how could she break his curse?

  With a sudden chill, Leah realized she had only Qeturah’s word Nimue had cursed him. She had only Qeturah’s word for a lot of things.

  The dragon lifted his huge head. Smoke puffed out of his nostrils. Diamond eyes met hers, and in them Leah saw intelligence. More than that, warmth. Gideon might not remember his time as a dragon, but the dragon knew Leah.

  She laid her head against his muzzle, luxuriating in the heat he radiated. “Oh, Gideon, everything’s gone so wrong.”

  She didn’t know if he understood her, but he nudged her with his nose, as if inquiring.

  Qeturah appeared in the doorway. She wore a red silk shirt and her knees showed under her black skirt. Clothes like the kind worn on Water. Her hair barely brushed her shoulders with an even shorter fringe over her eyes.

  “Murderer,” Leah spat.

  Ignoring Leah, Qeturah tossed the lunch bucket rope at the dragon. “Pull it up,” she commanded.

  The dragon clamped the end of the rope in his jaws and turned his head, then laid a claw on the rope and repeated the process. Each movement produced the sinister sound of cloth dragging on stone.

  His third pull brought Nimue’s limp body into the Aerie. Qeturah’s cavalier treatment of her dead otherself nauseated Leah.

  The dragon sniffed at the body and moaned a mournful question.

  Qeturah rolled her eyes. “It’s not me. Obviously. It’s just a copy.”

  Just a copy? Nimue had her face. “How could you do it?” Leah asked with loathing.

  Qeturah lifted her eyebrows. “I needed access to Water, and she kept blocking me. Two otherselves cannot share the same world for more than a short amount of time. The dissonance quickly becomes lethal.

  “I suppose I can’t expect you to understand.” Qeturah smiled condescendingly. “You were born here. But your whole world is nothing but a dirty reflection of the True World. No one here is real. Killing otherselves isn’t a crime, for they were never real to begin with.”

  Leah pressed her back against the dragon�
��s comforting heat. “You’re from the True World?”

  Qeturah shrugged one slim shoulder. “Yes. I may be an exile, but I’m still a True Worlder.”

  “Exile?” Leah repeated faintly.

  “The True World’s High Council banished me to this rock twenty years ago for killing my Fire self.” Qeturah seemed to enjoy shocking Leah.

  “It sounds like this council doesn’t think it’s your right to kill your otherselves,” Leah challenged.

  Qeturah’s nostrils flared. “The Council is old and conservative. It doesn’t accept the new school of thought.” She sneered. “Hypocrites. As if they don’t manipulate their otherselves all the time. The true reason they banished me was because of the time slip my Fire self’s death caused. I wonder if they’ve noticed yet that Fire and Water are out of sync. It’s the dissonance,” she explained when Leah frowned. “Two otherselves on the same side are like two strings vibrating out of harmony. When I killed Nimue, I snapped the string. The two worlds slipped out of harmony. Almost eight months have passed for me on Water, during which time the mirror was closed to me, but from the looks of the corpse”—she toed Nimue—“almost no time has passed here.”

  Leah’s mind whirled. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because you have potential. Duke Ruben may have blackmailed you into becoming his spy, but you’re ambitious. Like me. You want more than the life you were born into. I can help you get it.”

  The idea that Qeturah saw something of herself in Leah sickened her. “What about Gideon?” Leah stalled. “Is there a cure?”

  “No. His dragon nature is his birthright. He’s Thunderhead’s son.”

  Leah reeled. “That’s not possible.”

  Qeturah didn’t like being contradicted. Her eyes narrowed. “Where do you think the dukes got their precious hot blood? From the Volcano Lords. But they’ve gone so many generations without a fresh infusion from the source, their blood is cooling.”

  “But how—?”

  “The old name for diamond is ‘dragonseed.’ They’re formed in the heart of the volcano. Once I discovered the correct ritual, I bred myself a dragon boy. As Thunderhead’s son, Gideon is more hot-blooded than any duke, and he’s under my control. Watch.” Her hand made a grasping motion. “Grovel before me.”