She knew the signs.
The breath that caught not from pain, but dislocation.The stillness that came not from focus, but forgetting.The way the eyes dulled, not dimming, but widening too far, like they were straining to see through a veil only they could feel.
She'd seen it before. In herself.In others.And in the ones who never came back.
Alpha sat in silence on the stone bench, the scroll still half-unfurled in his lap. His fingers were slack, shoulders no longer tense but slumped. Like something inside him had let go.
Selene knelt across from him, watching, not daring to touch.
His lips moved.
She leaned in."What did you say?"
No response. Only the sound of breath, too shallow. Too calm.
Then he whispered again, but it wasn't to her.
"…that wasn't me," Alpha murmured. "But I felt it."
Selene's stomach turned to ice.
She reached out, gently, placing her hand on his arm. "Alpha. Look at me."
He didn't.
The room around them seemed to hold its breath. Mirror-wards pulsed faintly on the walls, charms, sigils, protective glyphs, burned into stone and glass. They'd held so far. But they were meant to trap reflections. Not rescue the living.
Selene moved closer. She placed a second hand against his cheek. "You're still here. You're still you. Do you understand?"
Alpha's eyes finally turned to her, but they didn't focus. He was looking through her. Into something deeper. Or further.
"I remember a girl," he said softly. "She stood in a courtyard. Blood on her hands. Yours."
Selene flinched.
"That wasn't you," he said.
Her voice caught. "No. It wasn't."
"But it felt like it."
Alpha's breathing hitched. His hand twitched. The scroll slid from his lap, the last of the inked script vanishing into the floor's shadow.
Selene caught it. Clutched it to her chest.
"Listen to me," she said, shaking now. "It's trying to anchor through you. You read too far. The Rite wasn't complete. Your Echo..."
He jerked back.
Not violently. But enough to send a chill through her.
"She was crying," he said. "The girl. She was you."
Selene's grip faltered. Her nails dug into the parchment.
"She begged someone not to leave. And then she..."
"Stop." Her voice cracked.
Alpha's gaze flicked back to hers. And for a moment, just a heartbeat, it was him.
"Don't follow it further," she whispered. "You have to come back now."
Silence.
Alpha's breath slowed. His eyes drifted closed.
Selene stood. Swiftly, gently, she moved behind him, pressing her fingers to the wards etched along the mirrored archway. A pale blue shimmer lit the glass.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
Then she touched the sigil to seal the chamber.
And the mirror behind Alpha, once silent, began to hum...
The mirror had gone still again.
No hum. No flicker. No sound.
Selene stood with one hand still raised, fingertips inches from the warded glyph that sealed the chamber shut. Her palm ached from restraint. Every instinct told her to open it. Tear the damn thing off the wall. Drag him back.
But if she opened it too early…
The Echo would slip through.
Behind her, the boy watched. Small. Quiet. Not afraid exactly, but alert, like a child who'd learned too young that adults lie when they say everything will be alright.
"He was talking," he said softly. "Before you sealed it. What was he saying?"
Selene closed her eyes. "Memories. Not his. The Echo's bleeding through."
The boy glanced at the mirror. "Will he be okay?"
That question. So simple.
She swallowed it.
There had been others. Apprentices. Chosen. Twin-Wielders marked from birth. Some had survived. Some had… changed. Some were never seen again except in fragments, flashes of faces in silvered glass, voices trapped between worlds, reaching back with hands made of smoke.
"Echoes aren't evil," she said finally, more to herself than to him. "They're made from the parts we abandon. The parts we refuse to carry. But if we don't choose who we are.."
"..they'll choose for us," the boy finished quietly.
Selene turned, surprised.
He shrugged. "That's what the texts said."
"You've been reading."
He nodded. "Since he let me. He said I should understand what I am. What he is."
Selene knelt so she was eye-level with him. "And what do you think he is?"
The boy didn't answer right away. Then..
"Someone trying to carry too much."
Selene stared at him.
The mirror behind them remained silent. Ominously so.
She rose to her feet again. Pressed both palms flat against the smooth surface. It was cold. Too cold.
"He's slipping," she murmured.
"You can feel it?"
"No." Her eyes narrowed. "I remember it."
She bit her lip.
The cold.The disorientation.The moment the Echo whispered something you'd forgotten ,something you thought you'd buried, and it made more sense than your own thoughts.
If Alpha stayed too long inside those memories, he wouldn't come back as Alpha.He'd come back as both.
Or neither.
"Should I go in?" the boy asked quietly.
Selene turned sharply. "No."
"But I can guide him. I've seen it happen before. In visions."
"You don't guide someone through an Echo's mind," she snapped. "You anchor them. Or you lose them."
The boy looked down. But he didn't move away.
Selene stared at the mirror.
Minutes passed.
Then, a single knock from the other side.
She froze.
The boy stepped closer. "That was him, wasn't it?"
"No." Her voice shook. "He wouldn't knock."
They both stared at the glass.
A second knock. Slower. Rhythmic.
Selene reached for her knife. The one carved with silver inlay. The one that could sever a tether if she had to.
She pressed her other hand to the glyph once more.
"Alpha," she whispered. "Don't make me choose."
The knock faded.
Then nothing.
No footsteps. No voice.
Just the glass. And its waiting.
The boy sat cross-legged on the floor now, chin propped in one hand, gaze never leaving the door. Not like a child waiting to be let in. More like a sentry guarding a gate to a world no one should enter.
Selene stood motionless. The knife hung in her hand. The glyph pulsed beneath her fingertips, warm now, reactive. The seal knew what she was feeling. Fear. Doubt. Hope.
And love.
She hated that last part.It made the decision harder.
"I don't know if it's him anymore," she murmured.
The boy glanced up. "Would it matter?"
She looked at him sharply.
"If he's different," the boy continued, "would it matter to you?"
Selene didn't answer right away. She sat beside him instead, tucking the knife into her boot.
She wanted to say no. That she'd accept Alpha no matter what came out of that door, as long as it was him.
But that was a lie.
She knew what happened to people who came out Echo-touched. Their eyes too still. Their smiles not quite theirs. Speaking of things they'd never lived but remembered like dreams.
Selene had fought one once.
Had to.
It had worn her friend's voice like a mask. Had said things only her friend could know. Had begged her to listen, saying, "It's me. It's really me."
She still heard that voice in her sleep.
"Selene?" the boy asked.
She realized she was trembling. Small, almost invisible shakes. The kind that came when the body had held itself together too long.
"Did you kill yours?" he asked.
The question froze the air between them.
She didn't look at him. Just stared at her reflection in the mirror.
"No," she whispered.
The truth curled in her throat like smoke.
"I ran."
He blinked. "You mean you?"
"I didn't have the strength. I couldn't kill her. So I sealed her away. Deep. Buried." She tapped her chest lightly. "In here. She's still there. Waiting."
The boy said nothing.
Selene gave a dry laugh. "You think I'm afraid of Alpha coming out changed? I'm afraid he'll come out exactly like me."
The silence stretched.
Then, softly:
"I don't think he will," the boy said.
She turned.
"Why not?"
"Because he's not trying to kill what's inside him. He's listening to it."
Selene stared. That idea terrified her more than anything.
"He's not afraid?" she asked.
"Oh, he's terrified," the boy said, smiling faintly. "But he still listens."
Selene looked back at the mirror. This time, her reflection didn't stare back.Only the glass. Empty. Waiting.
She reached toward it again, but didn't touch it.Paused there, suspended in a breath.
"Then we wait," she whispered.
The boy nodded. And so they waited.Two souls outside the glass,Wondering what shape the third would take when the door finally opened.