THE EYES STARING back at me in the mirror weren’t my own. Sure, they were green, but a different kind of green. Not like mine. Not the color of moss and ivy but an unnaturally bright color.

They were mocking eyes with a cruel mouth and a harsh nose. Freshly made scars littered the intruder’s once-pretty face.

Lydian stared back at me from the mirror with a slow, taunting smile growing on his face.

From beside me, Soren was still heavily asleep, and for that, I was glad. Perhaps if he looked in the mirror, all he would see was our own reflections, but I didn’t want to risk it. Not with my worst nightmare staring back at me.

“Leave me alone,” I said, knowing full well that he wouldn’t.

But you haven’t answered my question. He didn’t open his mouth to speak, but I heard the words in my head all the same. What happens when the serpent stops eating its tail?

“What happens if I smash this mirror? Will you leave?”

Oh, you should know by now I’ll never leave, Janneka. Not when there’s so much work to be done.

That was it. With a flash of hot fury, I slammed the heel of my palm into the glass, causing it to shatter on the floor. The specter of Lydian disappeared with the broken glass, but his voice still lingered in my head.

You cannot get rid of me. Not when there’s still so much to do.

“Janneke?” I whirled around, prepared to see Lydian somehow staring behind me, but it was only Soren. His long hair was disheveled and his lilac eyes blinked sleepily. “Are you okay?”

“I—I’m fine,” I stammered. “Sorry for waking you.”

He sniffed the air. “You’re bleeding.”

I was silent. What was I supposed to say? That I kept seeing the apparition of his dead uncle who gave me cryptic advice, and I got tired of it so I smashed the mirror? That would go over well.

Soren sighed and took my bleeding hand, gently nipping the broken skin until it knit itself back together. “I’m not going to ask you why you smashed the mirror,” he said. “I know you’ll tell me in your own time.”

“I keep having nightmares,” I said. It was true. Maybe not the reason I smashed the mirror, but it definitely was true. They plagued me every time I closed my eyes. A serpent twined around the world, waiting to devour it whole; a ship manned by the dead, made of fingernails, sailing ever closer to us; the earth crumbling in on itself and falling into oblivion; people riddled with holes and pockmarks and wounds so terrible that all they could do was lie there and wish for the sweet release of death.