Chapter 1: The Shards of Glass
The cold bit through the soles of her feet. Seraphina stood perfectly still in the center of the grand room, breathing in the sharp, glittering silence. Shards of mirror lay around her like a frozen explosion, each fragment holding a piece of the night sky or a sliver of her own pale, composed face. The air still vibrated with the violence of it.
Behind her, the light bent. A whisper, dry as fallen leaves, brushed the shell of her ear. “She played Chopin better than you ever danced.”
She didn’t turn. She watched her reflection in a large, dagger-like piece at her toes. In it, she saw the shimmering approximation of him coalescing over her shoulder. Julian. Or what was left of him. A suggestion of dark hair, the faint outline of that arrogant jaw, those haunted amber eyes that now held only mockery.
“Go haunt a cemetery,” she said, her voice flat. It didn’t even echo. The frosted glass walls and vaulted ceiling of the penthouse seemed to swallow sound, just as they swallowed the city’s neon pulse far below.
“I’m afraid my subscription is exclusive to this address.” His spectral form drifted, a ripple of impossible light. He was clearer now, leaning against the grand piano as if he still had weight. “You broke the conduit, my dear. The mirror. Where else would I go?”
“Into oblivion. It was your favorite concept when you were breathing. Philosophical escapism. How convenient for you.”
A low, humorless laugh. The piano keys gave a faint, discordant hum, though no one touched them. “You always reduced everything to convenience. A marriage of convenience. A wife of convenience. Tell me, was it convenient when I said her name?”
Seraphina’s fingers curled into her palms. The pain was a clean, bright thing. She welcomed it. It was better than the hollow ache that had preceded it. Hours ago, in this very room,