Micah's fever wouldn't break.
They moved him to the nurse's isolation wing, but nothing worked. Every hour, his body temperature dropped. Frost clung to his eyelashes. He mumbled in his sleep—names no one recognized, spells in forgotten tongues. Symbols formed in his veins, glowing faintly under his skin like branding.
And still, Amara stayed by his side.
"Don't leave me," she whispered, pressing her hand to his. "I need you."
But his eyes opened, blank and silver. "You already left me," he said in a voice not his own.
Then he began to scream.
—
Selene dragged Amara out of the room and locked the door behind her. "You can't stay near him anymore," she snapped. "It's feeding off your guilt."
Amara turned, trembling. "Feeding? You think I chose this?"
"You let it in!" Selene exploded, her composure finally breaking. "You found the mirror! You followed the child's whispers! You let it touch your soul! And now—Micah is paying the price!"
Amara shook her head. "There has to be a way to save him."
Selene clenched her fists. "There is. But it's not what you think."
—
That night, Selene took Amara to the woods behind the school.
To a place hidden from modern maps.
The Hollow Grove.
Once, it was where witches were drowned in silence. Now, it pulsed with forbidden energy—runes etched in tree trunks, bones half-buried in moss, and shadows that whispered without voices.
At the center stood an altar.
Selene lit black candles around it and handed Amara a blade. "You want answers? You want to know who fathered that mirror-child inside you?"
Amara's breath caught. "You mean…?"
"Yes." Selene's face was unreadable. "The child wasn't born of magic alone. It needed flesh."
Amara's voice broke. "I thought… it was just a curse. A spirit."
"No." Selene's tone was grim. "It was a pact."
She opened an old grimoire, flipping to a page drawn in blood.
"You made a deal, Amara. Or someone did on your behalf. And the mirror-child was promised to a father."
The sky above them shifted. The stars blinked out one by one.
And then the wind spoke.
A voice older than stone.
"She is mine."
The trees shook violently.
A figure stepped out of the darkness—tall, robed in black silk, eyes that glowed like frozen fire.
His face was eerily familiar.
It was Micah.
But older.
Twisted.
Amara fell to her knees. "No…"
Selene's hands gripped her shoulders. "He's not human anymore."
The figure stepped closer. "I was the first," he said. "She called to me across time. Through the glass. Through blood. Through desire."
Amara's heart stopped. "You're the father?"
He knelt beside her. "I am the child."
—
Selene grabbed the dagger. "You can't have her."
The air exploded into black mist.
Amara screamed as mirrors formed from mist and circled them, each one showing a future where she held a child. In one, she was weeping. In another, burning. In another… laughing, surrounded by shadows.
"You've already given birth in a thousand reflections," the being whispered. "You just haven't caught up yet."
Selene drove the dagger into the altar. "I banish you!"
A blinding light shot up—ripping through the grove like lightning.
The being hissed, retreating into the mist, eyes locked on Amara.
"This isn't over."
Then silence.
—
Back at school, Micah awoke.
No fever.
No frost.
But his eyes glowed faintly silver.
And he remembered everything.
—
Amara stood in her dorm room mirror, tracing the curve of her flat stomach.
She wasn't showing.
But she felt it.
A heartbeat. Not hers.
A presence growing stronger.
And in the mirror…
The reflection was already a mother.