Page 35 of Tears for a Broken Sky
“Ashton keeps her like a doll in the Mirror Room, back in Blackspire.”
My stomach turned. “Thorne mentioned that once. But he didn’t tell me what it was.”
Phoenix nodded, jaw clenched.
“It’s like an amplifier. For her magic, her mind, everything. He had it built specifically for her. You sit in that room, and you watch… everything. Memories. Illusions. Regrets. Some of it’s real. Some of it isn’t. And after a while…”
He glanced at me, eyes dim in the candlelight.
“You stop knowing which is which.”
A silence fell between us. Heavy. Shaking.
“I…”
The words caught in my throat. I swallowed hard.
“What?” Phoenix asked gently.
“I dreamed of him,” I said. “Just now. Thorne. He was in a room like that. Surrounded by mirrors. And there was a girl with him.”
Phoenix went still.
“What do you mean,dreamed?”
“I mean I’ve been… seeing him. In my sleep. When I’m awake, sometimes too. I don’t know if it’s real, or just some twisted nightmare, but—”
“But itfeelsreal,” he said, finishing the thought.
I nodded once.
“What did the girl look like?”
“She had golden hair,” I said. “Straight. Pale skin. Her eyes were just… empty. Like no one was home.”
My voice dropped.
“She was in a wheelchair.”
Phoenix went pale.
“Ashton…” he said, almost under his breath. “He broke her spine.”
His hands curled slightly on the table.
“Allison’s. When she refused to help him. He—”
He swallowed hard.
“He crippled her.”
“Do you think – could he be…”
“I don’t know.” Phoenix rubbed the star shaped scar on his wrist again. “I don’t feel him…”
“What if he’s trapped.. blocked somehow.”
He didn’t answer right away.
