The inn smelled like cedarwood and forgotten stories. Rain tapped against the window panes like impatient fingers, and every lamp inside flickered just a bit too long before settling. Rheia stepped in, drenched from the storm, her coat dark and heavy, eyes sharper than the blades worn by the mercenaries lining the corner table. She didn't belong here—but then, neither did the mirror.
It hung crooked on a stone wall behind the bar, gilded, cracked, humming with something ancient. She'd felt it from the road, miles before she saw it. The enchantment sang like a thread pulling her toward something unfinished.
Solene stood in front of it. Her hands hovered inches from the glass, fingers twitching with heat—not from fire, but from restraint. She had the kind of presence that tugged at your ribs: vibrant, hungry, beautiful in a way that made you want to shield her from herself.
"That's a cursed mirror," Rheia said, voice smooth, toneless.
Solene turned slowly. Her smile was half amusement, half challenge. "I know. I put it there."
Rheia blinked once. "You summoned it?"
"No," Solene replied, stepping closer. Her eyes shimmered amber in the candlelight. "It was part of my mother's final spell. She called it a prophecy sealed in glass. I think it's just cruel."
Rheia's gaze lingered on her, quiet and calculating. "And you want me to break it."
"No. I want you to read it."
That was the moment, Rheia would later think, that something shifted. The air. Her chest. Time, maybe.
Solene stepped in, invading distance like it was a dare. "You're the mirror-witch, right? The one who sees everything but feels nothing?"
Rheia didn't flinch. "And you're the flame-summoner who burns things she loves. Convenient."
Their silence prickled. Behind them, the mirror shimmered faintly—one ripple, then stillness. In its surface, they both saw it: a reflection neither recognized. Not past. Not future. But them, intertwined, undone.
Rheia looked away first.
"You'll regret hiring me," she said.
Solene smiled again, slower this time. "I already do."