Page 64 of Our Crooked Hearts
So I did the next worst thing. As quickly as the idea seized me I took Marion by the shoulders and waist and heaved her body through the mirror.
In my memory it happened in silence. No sounds of effort or surprise. Marion’s eyes and mouth stretched wide, her throat trailed our broken necklace chains. Her body shrank as she dropped into the mirror’s greenish depths and was gone.
Astrid had time only to take a step toward me, both hands grasping, then the strength of the binding pulled her in after. I felt the locomotive huff of the circle breaking, then the empty-socket shock of Astrid’s magic being ripped out of us by the roots. Fee gasped, Sharon swore, and I screamed with relief and terror. My scream set the mirror’s surface to shivering. Not entirely glass, not entirely a door.
I slammed my fist into its center.
It gave against me. My heart sank with my hand, plunging into its dreadful jellied coolness. Then it rebounded and broke. My hand sang with pain and the cracks shuddered outward until the whole mirror was a glittering spider’s web.
I cradled my hand, all gloved in red, and looked at my brave Felicita.
She was staring at me with open horror. She would’vediedbefore doing what I’d just done. But that was the thing: I wouldn’t let her.
