She walked slowly away from Wesley, toward the bullet that had pierced through Ashwood and was lying on the bridge. Her movements were careful, in case the illusion shattered. Magic was a fragile thing and Tavia couldn’t risk being seen.

Especially when Zekia had killed her so convincingly.

A little too convincingly, Tavia thought.

Because though she didn’t feel the pain of the bullet, there was a small glitch, maybe ten seconds or so, when she’d seen the blood on herself and the look on Wesley’s face as he’d seen it too. The few fractures of time when the illusion propelled into the world and Zekia forgot to omit Tavia from it.

For a moment, Tavia thought she was going to die.

The bullet was squashed and wrinkled and when Tavia picked it up, it was still a little warm. The blood that coated the gold metal was an almost black shade of red.

Tavia clasped it with a busker’s smile.

Ashwood still had his back to her, his magic clutched tightly around Saxony’s neck.

Her friend was gasping for breath.

Tavia narrowed her eyes and set Dante Ashwood in her sights.

With hands quick enough to earn her reputation as Creije’s best busker, she reached into the back of her trouser pocket for the mirror doll and wiped the bullet, riddled with Ashwood’s blood, onto its body.

The change was instant.

The doll’s head snapped back and its body shook as it shed its makeshift form and mutated into something other, growing flesh in place of fabric, hair stringing from its ghostly scalp.

Its face was muddled and incomplete, just as Ashwood’s was. Eyes that were a faded black and lips that were smudged across its deathly face. The only thing human about it was the heartbeat, the breath that escaped its tiny mouth, and the way it shuddered under Tavia’s touch.

Ashwood whipped around to face her and Tavia caught the moment his shadows jolted and his thin frame stiffened.

Saxony gasped, Zekia smiled, and Tavia swore that Karam looked close to rolling her eyes.

And Wesley, who blinked as the pretend Tavia’s image faded and he looked up to see the real thing standing over him, swallowed loud enough for it to sound like a crack of thunder.

He said her name, just once, in utter disbelief, voice splintering on the sound. And then he was by her side and she thought maybe he was going to kiss her in the middle of this battle until she heard Ashwood hiss, and they both turned to see his graying teeth bared.

“Impossible,” he said at the sight of Tavia alive. “You—”

Tavia snapped the doll’s leg backward.

Ashwood fell to a knee, clutching on to his cane to keep himself upright.

Up ahead, the skies growled with his anger.