Kara slammed the door so hard the frame shivered.
Her mother said nothing — not today. Not after the wrong bathroom, not after the principal's clipped apology, not after humiliating another student, not after the suspension that smelled suspiciously like pity.
She couldn't speak.
The seal in her chest — the one that bound a monstrous thing to a prison of bone and spell — would loosen if she let a single word slip. Her father had carried the same curse until it broke him. Everyone else called it vocal‑cord damage. Easier that way. Easier than telling them the truth: that silence kept the demon hungry and patient.
Until school let her back in, chores were her sentence. Today: the attic.
Dust motes drifted like tiny planets as she climbed the narrow stairs. Frustration sat in her like a stone. She felt cut out of the world, a missing piece everyone pretended wasn't missing.
She had already begun dusting and had come across a few family antiques: some fairy wings from the stolen pageant (she was still having a hard time seeing what was morally wrong with humiliating Charlie), and the leather jacket she'd gotten from her sister Coral before she left — before Dad died, when her family had still been whole.
Kara had grown used to silence long before the seal ever took her voice.
Her father's death had carved something out of her — something soft, something trusting — and the empty space it left behind never quite healed. She remembered the way the house felt afterward: too quiet, too still, like everyone was pretending not to hear the sound of something breaking.
Coral had been the first to leave. Not because she wanted to abandon them, but because she couldn't stand their mother anymore — not the coldness, not the distance, not the suspicion that she'd been seeing someone else before Dad died. Coral had shouted once, loud enough for the neighbors to hear, that Mom didn't even look sad enough. Then she packed her bags and walked out, leaving Kara with a jacket, a hug that tried too hard to be brave, and a promise she couldn't keep.
Their mother stayed, but not really. She didn't believe in magic, didn't believe in demons, didn't believe in the curse that had eaten their father alive. She called it stress. She called it illness. She called it anything but what it was. And when Kara's own voice began to fail — when the demon sealed itself inside her heart and speaking became the key that could set it free — her mother refused to understand. Refused to see.
Dad had been the only one who knew the truth.
He had taught Kara and Coral the silent spells — thirteen of them — each one shaped like a gesture, a sign, a secret language meant for emergencies. Kara memorized every one. Coral learned most. Their mother learned none.
And then one by one, they all left her.
Dad died.
Coral moved away.
Mom lost faith in the family long before Kara lost her voice.
By the time the seal took hold, Kara wasn't just mute.
She was alone.
Shaking her head to shake off the tears her eyes fell on a tarp covering something. Curious, she peeled the cloth down. The canvas didn't tear so much as give way, and the mirror revealed its true nature: a reflection of a more demonic version of herself. The demon waved at her, mocking her with all the menace it could muster.
"What do you want from me?" she thought, and the thought was what closed her hand into a fist. It was already taking so much from her. What would be enough for it to go away.
Her hand found the frame. The glass didn't shatter so much as give way. The mirror collapsed inward and revealed its true face: a demonic reflection with a single word engraved on the mantle.
Eldratune.
The mirror — clearly not normal — began its terrifying truth by swallowing her palm, then her arm, then her whole body. For a heartbeat she was nothing but motion and cold air.
---
Suddenly she could see. A dark place, terrifyingly dark — familiar in a way that made her stomach twist. She'd been here a hundred times. She seemed small and vulnerable. Her heart charm hung around her neck. But she had no means to defend or protect herself. No one could hear her. No one would want to. Even though she could speak here, it didn't matter.
The room — though "void" was more accurate — emitted a profound pounding sound. It was steady at first, almost normal, until it wasn't. The sudden shift made her jump. In response, the void played its forsaken tune faster.
Black fog rolled in up to her waist, cold as water. Worse, tendrils formed within it — clawed hands scratching at her, reaching for the gem at her chest. She tried to push them off, but they clung to her. She ran, but the void stretched on forever, and the tendrils always kept pace. The pounding grew faster, skipping in places.
Wait.
She remembered this feeling. This temperature. These sounds. She placed a hand over her chest — and felt nothing.
She couldn't feel anything.
Terror crawled up her spine, but the cold dread and creeping shadows were sensations she knew too well. This room always brought them. A dark, terrifying presence. A pounding she should have been accustomed to by now — the sound of her own heart in terror. Still, it always caught her by surprise.
This was why she couldn't feel anything. She was in the same prison the demon was in. As a soul, she felt more here than she ever did in her body. Being here meant two things:
One — she was asleep.
Two — the demon was about to visit her again, to take another stab at vanquishing her soul, the only thing keeping it from fully controlling her body.
But who knew how long that would last?
She came here every time she slept for more than five minutes. But the last time hadn't been this terrifying. She should have felt the cold water more clearly. The sound should have been muffled. But then she heard it — distorted laughter.
The mist pulled itself from around her body, gathering—
---
She hit the ground face‑first in something that was part dust, part carpet, part garden. Flowers squashed against her cheek.
"Oh gross," she wanted to say. Instead she tasted dirt and the sharp, clean tang of a world that did not belong to her.
A voice: "Oh my — are you alright?"
She blinked up. A boy stood over her, human enough to be familiar and strange enough to be Detrunale. Fox ears peeked through his hair; a tail swished behind him. He wore coveralls and glasses that kept slipping up his nose.
She pushed herself back, still on the ground, and dusted off petals. The landscape around them was wrong in a way that made her chest ache: a blue sun hung low, clouds were black, grass leaned teal. Colors had been rearranged like someone had repainted the world in a mood.
"Are you alright?" he asked again.
She gave him a puzzled look. He blinked, then apologized. "Sorry — I thought you didn't hear me. If you'd rather not answer, that's fine."
She wanted to think geez, shut up, I get it — and a glowing text box popped into the air above her head with those exact words.
He flushed. "Oh — right. Sorry. I ramble. Nervous habit. Worse with girls, for some reason."
Her face went hot. She hadn't said anything. She hadn't moved her lips. The text box had been her private thought, now public like a subtitle.
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Every few minutes a text box appears for visitors. It's… normal. Or it used to be. Most people use their voices now, so seeing one out in the open is rare. Do you prefer not speaking?"
Her expression answered for her. He softened. "I didn't mean to pry. I've just never seen someone like you before."
She looked at him. He looked like a local. He looked like someone who belonged here. She did not.
He offered a mirror. When she looked, the reflection was not the girl who lived in the house with the attic and the portrait. Blue skin, long black hair, magenta horns, a barbed tail — an image that made her stomach drop. Her real face, the one she knew in photographs, would be waiting for her if she left and took a picture. Here, Eldratune rearranged the self to fit its rules.
"Calm down," he said gently. "It's not permanent. Visitors always look… adjusted. If you took a photo and left, you'd see your normal self again."
A red drop hit the ground. Then another. The sky opened in a rain of red, horse‑nosed droplets that burst into rainbow stains where they struck the teal grass.
"Oh bother," he muttered, glancing at his white shirt. "I just washed this."
She watched the drops bloom into blue, purple, and a chartreuse that made her flinch. He made a small, practiced gesture with his hands; leaves clustered into an umbrella above them. The motion was familiar — the same silent spell her father had taught her for emergencies, the one she practiced when she couldn't risk sound.
She mirrored the gesture, steadying the leaf canopy. He smiled, grateful. "Thank you."
A text box floated up: He's such a nice person. I wonder if he's like that for everyone or…
Then another thought hit her — if her private thoughts were being displayed, did that include the ones she really meant to keep private?
Heat crawled up her neck. She looked his way. He was already wearing a sympathetic, embarrassed grin.
"Yeah. The text boxes were meant to help people who couldn't speak. They never quite figured out the privacy settings."
She joked — through a text box — that she'd have to learn to be completely honest because of these glorious truth‑telling devices. She pointed to the box.
He replied, flustered, "But not too honest, I hope. Then I wouldn't be able to know what you want to say to me."
He realized how that sounded and winced. "Sorry. I meant — people wouldn't be able to understand you. I'm rambling again. Nervous habit. Worse with girls, for some reason — which you knew, of course. So why don't I stop talking so we can go inside in peace."
They both looked straight ahead, silent.
She pressed her palms to her temples. Her father's curse had been a private terror; now the world had a way of making private things public. She tried to focus, to keep a thought locked away. Nothing appeared. He gave her a thumbs‑up.
"By the way," he asked, "I don't think I've had the pleasure of knowing your name."
Oh crap. She hadn't mentioned it.
She tried to think Kara. The box autocorrected.
Karma.
She tried again.
Karma.
She exhaled. He bowed with a small, courtly flourish.
"Then Karma it is. Welcome to Eldratune."
---
He led her toward a cottage as the red, color‑changing rain fell, leaving rainbow hoofprints blooming across the meadow. She followed, hollow and furious and oddly relieved — because whatever this place was, it had answers she couldn't get at home, and because the mirror had shown her a truth she could no longer pretend to ignore.
Karma sank into the armchair as if the cushions might hold her together. The study smelled of paper and dust and something older — the kind of smell libraries keep like a secret. Shelves bowed under the weight of books; framed photographs leaned against one another like old friends. For a moment the room felt safe in the way silence can be safe: a place where not speaking was not only allowed but expected.
She should have been upstairs, cleaning. Her mother would notice. Her mother would worry. The thought of that worry tightened something in her chest more effectively than the seal ever could. If she couldn't find a way back — if the mirror had closed behind her — then what? Panic rose, hot and useless. She tried to imagine the attic again, the portrait, the way the canvas had given way. If there had been a mirror on the other side, Rephus would have seen it. He would have told her. He hadn't. That meant she might be stuck.
She let her hand drift to the red heart charm at her throat. The gem lay warm against her skin, a small, stubborn proof that some things still belonged to her. It was the only thing she'd kept close since the seal had been set; everything else felt like borrowed air. The charm's presence steadied her for a breath. It also reminded her that the demon's prison was not a distant rumor but a living pressure beneath her ribs — patient, hungry, and always listening for a word.
Her eyes roamed the spines on the nearest shelf. Spells. Potions. Field guides to impossible plants. She'd known about spells — the silent ones her father taught her for emergencies — but potionology felt like a different language, a craft whispered about in old wives' tales and carnival booths. She pulled a volume free, then stopped. Her brain autocorrected the motion into a thought that popped up above her head in a neat, glowing box:
[Text Box: Karma — don't take things without asking.]
She flushed. Of course the book would scold her. She slid it back into place and scanned the titles instead: On Quiet Wards, The Practical Herbalist of Detrunale, A Beginner's Guide to Bottled Weather. Her fingers hovered over a slim, leather‑bound notebook filled with handwritten potion recipes. The idea of a vial that could fix a voice — or at least soothe the strain — made her chest ache with hope and fear at once.
A clatter from the doorway made her jump. Rephus appeared carrying a tray — a teapot, two cups, and a plate of confections she didn't recognize but that smelled of spice and honey. He tripped on the rug and everything went with him in a graceless tumble. Cups skittered; a sugar bowl rolled. He cursed under his breath, cheeks reddening.
"Sorry," he said, and before the apology could finish he made a small, precise motion with his fingers. The broken teacup reassembled itself on the tray, steam rising as if nothing had happened. He looked sheepish. "I forgot to secure the rug. I—" He shrugged. "First ones you learn. Old habit."
Karma watched the silent spell with a mixture of admiration and envy. Her own spells always hesitated — a breath between intention and result. They worked in emergencies, but never cleanly. They stuttered like a throat that wanted to speak but couldn't. She had practiced until her wrists ached; still, the leaf‑umbrella and the teacup‑mending felt effortless in his hands.
He set the tray down carefully and offered her a cup. She accepted, fingers brushing his for a second. The contact was ordinary and startling. He poured; the tea smelled of cardamom and something floral she couldn't name. She lifted the cup to her lips and sipped. Warmth spread through her chest, small and honest. It tasted like hospitality and like a place that had made room for strangers.
A text box floated up, unbidden:
[Text Box: Is it edible?]
Rephus laughed, soft and embarrassed. "It's fine. I promise. My mother taught me to make it when I was small. If it kills you, at least you'll die with good manners."
She almost smiled. Almost. The thought of being polite while dying was absurd enough to be comforting.
He settled into a chair opposite her, folding his tail neatly. "So," he said, words flowing easily, "you fell through a portrait. That's not something that happens every day."
She let the text box answer: [I didn't mean to.]
He nodded. "Most visitors don't. Portraits are picky." He tapped a book beside him. "If you want, I can show you where we keep the maps. Or the visitor ledger. Sometimes that helps — seeing who's come through and how they left."
Karma thought of her mother, the attic, the portrait's mirror, the word Eldratune engraved on its mantle. She thought of the demon's seal and the way her voice felt like a live wire. She thought of the red heart charm, warm and stubborn against her skin.
[Text Box: I need to get home.]
Rephus's face softened. "We'll figure that out. You're not the first to get stuck. And you won't be the last." He hesitated, then added quietly, "If you want, you can stay here while we look. It's safer than wandering the valleys alone."
Karma let the tea cool in her hands. The room felt smaller and kinder at once. Outside, the red horse‑rain continued to fall, leaving rainbow hoofprints across the meadow. Inside, a fox‑eared boy and a girl with a sealed heart shared tea and a stack of books. It wasn't a plan. It wasn't a promise. It was, for the first time since the portrait swallowed her, a small, steady thing she could hold.
The storm outside refused to be subtle. Red droplets hissed against the cottage roof, each one bursting into a soft rainbow smear as it slid down the shingles. Inside, the fire crackled with a steady, comforting rhythm, and Karma found herself sinking deeper into the armchair as warmth seeped into her bones.
Rephus had said travel after sunset was dangerous — the cerulean sun dipped fast, and once it was gone, the valleys turned into something else entirely. So she would stay the night. She didn't argue. She didn't have the energy to.
While they waited for the storm to pass, they talked — or rather, Rephus talked and Karma listened, answering through text boxes when she needed to. She asked about the world, its rules, the strange physics that bent around visitors. She needed to be prepared for the journey home, even if the thought of returning to her attic and her mother's worry made her chest tighten.
Rephus had opened his study to her completely.
"Use whatever you need," he'd said, pulling open a drawer. "Pads, ink, quills. The books are organized by topic, but the system is… flexible."
Flexible was generous. His "summaries" were entire volumes. But he meant well, and she appreciated it more than she could say — literally.
She took two writing pads:
one for research,
and one for the diary she'd always used as her substitute voice.
She flipped through book after book, searching for anything useful — travel guides, human accounts, even something about demon management. Nothing. Not even close. Eldratune had plenty of lore, but none of it aligned with what she needed. Frustration built slowly, pressure behind her ribs.
She was about to close the last book when a page caught her eye.
Mirror Shards.
Fragments of ancient magic.
Five pieces scattered across the realm.
When united, they granted a single wish — any wish — but only to someone worthy.
Kind. Honest. Humble. Loyal.
The sort of person who could be trusted with anything.
Her breath hitched.
A wish.
A real one.
But the fire had burned low, and exhaustion pulled at her limbs. She curled up on the rug near the hearth, the diary open beside her. She wrote until her hand cramped, venting everything she'd held in all day — the humiliation at school, the loneliness of silence, the fear that the demon would eventually tear her heart apart or take her body entirely.
Her handwriting wavered as she wrote the truth she never dared say aloud:
*If it takes my body, at least I won't die painfully.
But if it takes my body… I'll hurt people. People I don't want to hurt.*
That list used to be small.
Her mother.
Her father, once.
A teacher or two.
But now…
She glanced toward the armchair where Rephus had fallen asleep mid‑sentence, glasses askew, tail curled around him like a blanket.
Maybe she could add one more name.
She signed the entry the way she always did:
Kara → Karma
She sighed as the text box replied, "Karma it is."
The storm outside softened to a whisper.
as the fire crackled gently.