Chapter 129: The Mirror Bargain
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The old apothecary hadn’t been used in years , not properly. After Celeste’s wounds, the place fell into dust and shadows, the smell of dried herbs and ashes clinging to the warped beams like ghosts refusing to be exorcised. Magnolia stood in the doorway now, cloak drawn tight around her shoulders, breath misting in the draft that slithered across the stone floor.
Inside, the shelves sagged under glass jars with labels so faded they may as well have been written in another tongue. Bundles of sage and yarrow crumbled where they hung, furred over with dust. The hearth at the far wall held a single unlit brazier, its iron belly blackened by old flame and older secrets.
Magnolia stepped inside, her boots whispering across the rushes. Her fingers traced the nearest shelf, leaving lines through the dust. At the far end, half-buried under a collapsed basket of dried wolfsbane, lay Celeste’s old book , bound in dark green leather, its edges stained with something darker.
She lifted it carefully, brushing the cover clean with her thumb. No more ghosts, she told herself, but the lie stuck in her throat. She was drowning in them.
She opened to the page marked with a brittle strand of black hair , Celeste’s hair, she realized. Her heart clenched. There, in Celeste’s thin, looping script:
The Mirror Bargain , A ritual of Sight and Veil. Risk: fracture of the tether. A soul may be lost in the mind’s shadow.
Below it, a single warning underlined twice: Never enter the mind of one who has turned.
Magnolia’s jaw tensed. She let the book drop onto the table with a soft thud. She could feel Beckett’s doubt echoing in her bones. Don’t trust him. Don’t follow him into the dark.
But Camille was out there. Somewhere between Sterling’s clenched teeth and Gabriel’s poisoned hands. And if she waited for the Elder to deliver her sister in pieces, then what use was the crown at her throat?
She pulled her knife from her belt , not Beckett’s hunting blade but the thin ritual dagger Celeste had once pressed into her palm when she was barely twenty. The edge still held its bite.