“Marika …” he stammered, struggling for words.

A blush rose to her cheeks.

An exasperated voice called out from behind him. “Oh, just ask her to dance already.”

He turned to find Kady standing there, her arm around Pindor’s older brother, Heronidus. The two had spent most of the past week getting reacquainted. It had involved a lot of kissing.

Still, Jake knew the young man wasn’t the entire reason Kady had stayed away. Upon returning to Ka-Tor, Jake had spent an entire evening explaining all that had happened to her. Most of his words went to describing the sudden reappearance of their mother. Kady made him repeat everything—every word, every gesture—of that brief reunion. All the while she had cried, her tears a mix of happiness and disappointment.

Why you and not me? she had finally moaned, covering her face.

Jake had no answer; but in the end, they also both recognized a hard truth. The image in Thoth’s mirror was centuries old. For all Jake knew, he had been speaking to nothing more than the ghost of his mother.

Afterward, with no resolution, Kady had grown apart from him, perhaps finding it too painful to be near him. Even now Jake saw a glint of sadness in her eyes, laced with jealousy for what he got to experience and she did not. He didn’t know what to say to soothe that ache.

Still, she hugged him, her cheek against his. “Dance,” she said to him with the smallest of sad smiles. “Just dance.”

Grabbing his shoulders, she turned him back to Marika.

Maybe that’s all they could do for now.

He held out his hand.

Marika took it.

The music had slowed to something quiet yet hopeful. He walked out with Marika, folded her to him, and, step by slow step, he danced and let the world around him turn.

That’s all he could do.

* * *

Hours later, well into the night, a knock sounded on his door.

Jake woke out of a dream in which his eyes were burning, spitting out black flames that consumed everything he touched. He bolted upright as a knock again echoed across the set of rooms he shared with his sister. He touched his face. His eyes were still there.

At least that was good.

Night after night, that same nightmare plagued him. And he knew why. He hadn’t told anyone about the image he’d seen in Thoth’s mirror: his eyes blazing with black fire. Maybe it meant nothing; maybe he’d just imagined it amid all that blood and chaos. Either way, he thought it best to keep it to himself. Still, it plainly troubled him enough to invade his dreams.

As a third knock sounded—more loudly now—he rolled from under his covers and headed out in his boxers and socks. His bedroom adjoined a common room. He found his sister, dressed in a long nightshirt, stumbling out through a doorway on the other side.

“Who’s bothering us at this hour?” she asked.