Some mirrors reflect light.
Others reflect lies.
This one reflected her heart and it was already beginning to crack.
The shop was wedged between a boarded-up bakery and a pawn shop that smelled like wet copper. It didn't have a name, just a hanging sign carved with a single word in a language Irena didn't recognize. She hadn't meant to turn down this alley—she never did—but her feet had drifted off the main street like they had a secret to chase. That happened to her sometimes.
A bell above the door jangled as she stepped inside, and the air changed. Heavy. Perfumed with old lavender and something iron-rich underneath.
It wasn't a nice place.
Everything felt stained—by age, by memory, by the kind of sorrow that clings to silk and skin. Tall shelves leaned like drunkards against the walls, stacked with rusted music boxes, cracked porcelain dolls, and vials filled with things she didn't want to identify. Dust floated in slanted shafts of light like sleeping spirits.
But the mirror in the corner was pristine.
It stood taller than a man, framed in gold so bright it looked wet. Vines of metal twisted up the edges like ivy frozen in time. It was covered in red velvet—almost—but just enough of the glass peeked through to catch her reflection.
Except it didn't.
What she saw was not quite her.
Her hair, yes—long and dark, curling from the humidity. Her eyes—grey, wide, tired from not sleeping again. But there was a smile on her reflection's face that her own lips didn't mirror.
It knew something she didn't.
Irena stepped closer.
"That one's cursed."
The voice cracked through the silence. An old woman sat behind a cracked glass counter, a cigarette burning slowly between two yellowing fingers. Her mouth didn't move much, but her eyes tracked Irena like a hawk watching a mouse try to borrow something shiny.
"I wasn't going to touch it," Irena said automatically, voice softer than she meant.
The woman grunted. "Good. It touches back."
---
Later, she wouldn't remember how she convinced the woman to sell it. She only remembered walking out of the shop with the mirror wrapped in old velvet, a price scrawled in ash across her palm. She didn't even own a car—just carried it, dragged it when she had to. It was lighter than it should have been, like it wanted to follow her.
Like it already belonged to her.
---
Back in her apartment, she stood it against the wall across from her bed. It pulsed faintly under the moonlight.
She sat on the edge of the mattress and stared at it, too exhausted to feel strange about the way it made the air hum or the shadows bend around its corners. Something in her chest—something quiet and old—felt seen.
"You're not normal," she whispered to the mirror.
Her reflection blinked a beat too late.
---
That night, she dreamed of a boy with blue eyes sharp enough to cut her open.
---
Morning After
"You bought a mirror from a witch? Seriously?"
Mara leaned across the café table, her voice low but fierce. Her latte sat untouched, its heart-shaped foam art dissolving into bitterness. She was always like this—tight, beautiful, sculpted. Like something carved out of marble and too expensive to touch.
"I'm pretty sure she wasn't a witch," Irena mumbled.
"She told you it was cursed."
"She said it touched back."
"Oh well, that makes it totally fine."
Irena looked down at her chipped mug, suddenly very interested in her tea. "It's… different. It felt like it was waiting for me."
Mara groaned. "You say stuff like that and then wonder why people think you're weird."
Irena gave her a tired smile. "You still love me."
Mara hesitated for half a breath. "I always have," she said. "That's the problem."
---
The Invitation
That afternoon, it came.
A glossy envelope slid under her apartment door. No return address. The wax seal pressed with the crest of the Ashvale family—a snake coiled around a mirror.
She knew it instantly. Everyone in Aetherlight knew that symbol. The Ashvales weren't just rich—they were ancient, powerful, cloaked in legend and scandal and silk. Their parties were the kind you didn't get invited to unless your bloodline had its own Wikipedia page.
She flipped the envelope over. Inside: a formal invitation to the Skyevale Masquerade Gala, signed by name.
Her name.
"I didn't RSVP," Irena whispered, rereading it.
She stared at the mirror. Her reflection smiled.
---
That Night
Skyevale floated above the city like a promise that could never be fulfilled.
The gala glittered in gold and ivory. Masks, silk gloves, champagne bubbles. The rich danced like they were weightless. The poor watched from below, dreaming with open mouths and empty hands.
Irena wore silver.
She hadn't meant to. She'd found the dress in the back of her closet, a thrifted thing with frayed edges and tiny glass buttons. But when she looked in the mirror, it glowed.
Mara wore gold, of course.
"You don't belong here," she whispered as they entered the ballroom.
Irena smiled faintly. "That's never stopped me before."
---
The Meeting
Lucien Ashvale did not look like a prince.
He looked like a wound stitched in velvet.
He stood alone near a broken mirror hung on the ballroom wall, sipping red wine like it was penance. His eyes caught hers across the crowd—and didn't let go.
When he crossed the floor to her, time folded. He bowed without smiling.
"You don't wear your mask," he said.
Irena blinked. "I lost it."
"Good. I'd rather see the truth."
And then he took her hand.
The chandelier above them flickered.
A mirror in the corner shatterd.