The jasmine blossom was still warm when the first mirror cracked.
Elara had fallen asleep clutching Theo's second letter against her chest, the single white flower pressed between its pages like a living bookmark. She woke with a jolt at 4:42 a.m.—not from sound, not from light, but from the unmistakable sensation of being watched.
The bedroom was dark except for the faint green glow of the bedside clock.
Yet something moved in the corner of her vision.
She sat up slowly, heart already racing.
The cheval mirror that stood against the far wall—her grandmother's, tall and silver-framed—reflected nothing but the rumpled bed and the moonlit window behind her.
No one stood in front of it.
But the glass itself was breathing.
A thin, hairline fracture appeared at the top left corner—slow, deliberate, as though an invisible fingernail were scoring the surface from the other side.
It lengthened downward in a perfect diagonal.
Then another crack branched off, then another, until the entire mirror spiderwebbed in seconds—yet the glass held, trembling, refusing to shatter.
Elara's breath fogged in front of her face.
The room temperature had plummeted twenty degrees in the space of three heartbeats.
From inside the fractured mirror came a whisper—not loud, not angry, almost gentle.
He will pay… or you will…
The voice was hers.
Not an imitation.
Not an echo.
Her own timbre, her own cadence, the slight huskiness she only heard on old voicemail recordings when she was tired.
But the words were not hers.
Elara scrambled backward until her spine hit the headboard.
The letter and blossom tumbled to the floor.
The jasmine scent intensified—overpowering, almost cloying—as though every petal in the world had been crushed at once.
The mirror-voice spoke again, still using her own mouth's inflections.
One heart fills. The other empties. Choose now… or the choice will be made for you.
Lightning flashed outside—silent, no thunder yet—illuminating the room in stark white.
In that split second Elara saw her own reflection splintered across the broken glass: dozens of versions of her face, each one wearing a different expression.
One smiled sadly.
One wept openly.
One looked directly at her with eyes that were not green, but black from edge to edge.
The light vanished.
The mirror went dark.
Elara lunged for the letter on the floor, fingers closing around Theo's words like a lifeline.
She pressed the page to her lips and spoke aloud—voice shaking but steady.
"I do not choose.
Not tonight.
Not tomorrow.
Not ever.
We both fill… or the balance stays broken forever."
The room exhaled.
The cold retreated—slowly, grudgingly—like a tide pulling back from shore.
The mirror's cracks stopped spreading.
The jasmine scent faded to something softer, more natural.
But the silence that followed was worse.
Because in that silence Elara heard something new.
A single grain of sand falling.
Not in the attic.
Here.
Inside the bedroom.
She looked down.
On the floorboards between her bare feet lay the antique hourglass—intact, brass gleaming, both bulbs full again.
A single grain had just detached from the top and was drifting downward with impossible slowness.
She stared at it—frozen—until it landed.
Then another grain fell.
And another.
The clock on the nightstand blinked to 4:43.
Elara snatched the hourglass before the third grain could drop.
It was warm—almost feverish—in her hands.
She carried it to the window, held it up to the moonlight.
The sand inside was moving faster now—not a trickle, but a steady, golden thread.
She turned the relic over.
On the brass base—barely visible unless the light hit it just right—were two words engraved in a hand she recognized instantly.
Choose soon.
Elara sank to her knees.
The letter in her other hand crinkled.
She opened it again, even though she already knew every line by heart.
Theo's final sentence stared up at her:
Write back. Quickly. Before the sands run out. Before the guardian finds the crack in your courage.
She looked at the hourglass.
The upper bulb was emptying visibly now—sand pouring in a thin, relentless stream.
She had minutes.
Maybe less.
She ran barefoot to the attic, hourglass clutched against her chest, robe flapping behind her.
The writing desk waited—quill still wet from her last reply, ink bottle uncapped.
She sat.
She wrote.
Theo
The mirror spoke in my voice.
It used my face—dozens of my faces—to tell me to choose.
The hourglass is back—whole, full, running again.
It says choose soon.
It says one heart must empty.
I refuse.
We refuse.
But it's moving faster than before.
The grains are falling like they're angry.
Tell me what to do.
Tell me how to keep you.
Tell me you're still there.
She folded the sheet, carried it to the small table beneath the dormer, and placed it where the first letter had once lain.
She waited.
One heartbeat.
Two.
The hourglass gave a soft, metallic sigh.
The sand stopped.
Then—impossibly—began to rise.
Grain by grain, the golden thread reversed direction, climbing back into the upper bulb.
Elara's knees gave out.
She sank to the floorboards, clutching the desk leg, tears streaming.
A new envelope materialized beside her reply—wax seal fresh, still warm.
She tore it open with shaking fingers.
Theo's handwriting—shakier than before, ink smudged in places as though his hand had trembled.
Elara,
The sands reversed the moment your letter appeared.
The guardian screamed—once, high and terrible—then silence.
It tried to force the choice.
It failed.
Your refusal—our refusal—turned the flow backward.
But it cost something.
The hourglass is weaker now.
The brass is cracked in three places.
The sand is less.
We bought time… but not much.
My mother is ill.
She woke this morning burning with fever, speaking your name—your name, Elara—though I have never told her.
She says a woman with green eyes is standing at the foot of her bed, begging her to let me go.
She says the woman is crying.
I do not know if it is the guardian wearing your face… or you, somehow, reaching across to warn her.
We are running out of time.
The next full moon is in thirteen days.
Seraphine says the ritual must be performed then—or the guardian will gather strength again and the choice will become inevitable.
Write to me.
Tell me you are safe.
Tell me you still refuse.
Tell me you still choose us.
I love you.
I am not letting go.
Theo,
Elara pressed the letter to her forehead.
The hourglass stood silent again—sand level in both bulbs, cracks visible but holding.
Outside, thunder growled—low, warning.
The storm was closer now.
And it knew their names.
To be continued…