A Thief of Nightshade(53)

Gradually, she became aware of a figure in front of her—a gentle face, pale and oddly familiar. She looked so fragile in the darkness, so slight. No source of light could be seen in the room, yet the figure was illuminated, glowing faintly as though it has come from within.

Suddenly,

a

glimmer

of

gold

appeared. It started as a tiny fleck out of the corner of her right eye, growing until it appeared as a twelve-foot spire. Then, it traveled sideways and back down and around until it met back with itself. When she looked again at the figure, she gasped —this was no stranger. Aubrey saw only the frightened expression on her own face.

She stared not into the abyss, but into a gilded mirror.

She pressed her hand against the cold glass and eyed the line of her arm until it met with her shoulder and that’s when it struck her that something was wrong.

Aubrey looked down to find that indeed she still donned the gown given to her by the King, yet her reflection was dressed in rags—torn and

disheveled.

Fingers

abruptly slid through the mirror and grasped hers in a hold that held tight as she tried to pull away.

“You’ll never defeat the Fae Queen.

You aren’t strong enough. You’ve never been strong enough,” her reflection whispered.

Aubrey went rigid. “You aren’t real.”

The reflection laughed darkly and to Aubrey’s horror, it began to pull her inward.

“No! No! Let go of me!” Aubrey screamed, but it was no use and without anything to brace herself against, Aubrey was pulled into the mirror.

She fell forcefully onto the floor on the other side, gasping for breath and fighting hard to gain control of the panic that washed over her in waves.

“I made a 98. I did question Professor Clayton on it. He overruled it.

It’s all right, Grant. It’s still an A.”

The voice brought so much pain with it that Aubrey no longer struggled to slow down her breathing—the room was simply devoid of air. She looked up to see herself on the phone in her dorm room at Darlington. She was fourteen.

“Are you coming up this weekend?”

A long pause ensued before she saw herself nod and say, “I know. No, I understand. I forgot about Steeplechase.

Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just tired. Haven’t been sleeping too well. No, I don’t have plans, Neil and I broke up. It’s okay, I’ll see you soon.” Then, she hung up and sat down on the side of the bed with her knees hugged tightly to her chest.

Aubrey wanted to stop what she knew would happen next, but couldn’t.

She couldn’t force her limbs to cooperate and she watched herself stare numbly out of the darkened window of her room, before reaching into the nightstand drawer to pull out a tall bottle of blue pills.

“No, please,” Aubrey whispered, trying to will the scene away.

Wordless, she opened the bottle and without

pausing

to

consider

the

consequences, she took every last pill. No tears or emotion on her face—only quiescent defeat. When she was through, she simply lay down on top of her covers and closed her eyes.

“He started drinking heavier then,” a voice whispered. Her voice, Aubrey realized. “He couldn’t fix you, Aubrielle, so he drank to deal with the pain. Just like Jullian couldn’t fix you. He didn’t tell you the truth because you were weak.”

“That isn’t true,” Aubrey said defiantly.

“But it is. Did Grant not lie twice about why you were in the hospital to the press, your parents and all of his colleagues? He was ashamed of you. Of what you’d allowed to happen.”

“I was eight years old!” Aubrey screamed. “I was petrified of Father when he was drunk. How could I have fought him?”

The voice laughed as the floor felt like it was pulled from beneath her. “But he chose you, not Brooke, to be his favorite. Why do you think that is? And that has to be the truth, or why else would Brooke be perfectly normal while you’re ... well, look at you.”

Aubrey closed her eyes to keep from throwing up and opened them only when the world around her moved.

The vision in front of her wasn’t of her past as she’d expected it to be. It was Jullian she saw, dressed in white as he’d been in her first vision. Saralia smiled at Aubrey knowingly from beside him in her throne.

“She is a queen, more powerful than any living creature in Avalar. She can give him anything he desires. You couldn’t even soothe his nightmares,” the voice said. “You think you’re done with your past? That you’ve made your peace with it? Hardly. You’re so screwed up you don’t even know what to do with yourself.

Why else would you have left the funeral?

Oh ... do you see that look in his eyes?

They look so perfect together, Jullian and the queen. She might even decide to have another child, just because he’d make such beautiful children.”

“This isn’t real. He doesn’t know who he is.”

“Isn’t it real?” the voice whispered.

“Could you have had his children? Or have you come to grips with how worthless you are yet? You promised Jullian he’d never lose you, so why did you jump into the water on the dock? Was that another poorly executed suicide attempt?”