I'd checked the mirror this morning. My tongue wasn't silver like Mother had said. I'd deflated some. It would have been quite fascinating if it was, and it seems unfair to give me such expectations.

Mother is often setting up unfair situations. If she had her way, I never would have become Father's apprentice. I'd never be the one set to inherit the Blackwood estate and the silversmithing business. If Mother had her way, it would all go instead to Therion, but my younger brother doesn't have the brains nor the hands for the Blackwood wealth and name.

"He twists his words," Mother says to Father when she thinks I can't hear her. She stands by the fire in Father's new study, secluded in its own wing of the manor. Rows upon rows of books line the walls, all painstakingly rearranged into the exact order they once held in our old house. Only now there is ample space for them to breathe. There is space for everything to breathe in this house.

Even the walls breathe. They do it now as the fire roars, as Mother paces. I stand watching through the crack in the door.

"He can convince anyone to do anything he asks—that's why you chose him over Therion," Mother continues.

"No, I took him on as the eldest son. It's his right," Father argues. He doesn't look up from the papers on his desk. He almost never does, and it has hardened the lines in his face so that he is stuck in a permanent scowl. His large hands are rough and calloused, but he holds his pen with such grace from years of delicate silver work. "He's only fifteen, barely halfway through his apprenticeship. He has a lot to learn, but he shows promise. Besides, his way with words is good when I take him and the wares to market. People are drawn to a charming speaker."

"He's always lying to me." Mother stops suddenly, her long shadow stretching toward me. The fire dances behind it. "I tell him to get rid of all the silver, ask him if he's done it, and he looks me right in the eye and speaks so plainly as he spins falsehoods."

"That certainly doesn't make him silver tongued. It makes you too trusting and him a common liar." He sighs. "If my son is going to lie, the least he could do is be smart about it."

"Tiernan!"

"I'm only saying we should never raise our children to use their skills halfheartedly. Any talent can be useful in life if you know how to put it to work—" Father curses suddenly and throws down his pen, splattering ink on the desk. "This confounded place must be cursed. Our numbers haven't been this low since before my father's time. At this rate, I won't even be able to purchase more silver to work with, much less send Therion to school."

Mother wrings her hands. She has stopped wearing jewelry since we came to this house, throwing everything into the workshop furnace to be melted down. Despite our financial plight, she refused even to let it be sold, saying it is too evil and no one will buy it. She used to twist her rings, but now she's afraid of them like she's afraid of all the other silver. There are no mirrors either. They all have eyes.

"Why doesn't he toss the silver? It's all tainted," she says, turning the conversation once more to the thing that haunts her every move, and she begins to pace again. Her skirts shuffle across the carpet, whispering and wandering. "Don't you find him odd?"

"Who?" Father busies himself with a blot of ink on his hand. Numbers and silver are the only things he cares for.

Mother pins him with a glare. "Kyren. We were talking about Kyren."

"No, Izara, I don't find him odd in the slightest." Father finally looks up at her. I shrink out of sight as he leaves his desk. He isn't wearing his glasses, but I know he can see without them. "He's hardworking, skilled at the craft, and progressing quicker than I anticipated. I believe he can get our family back out of this low point better than I can. Don't you remember? He made this possible—our wealth, our move here, our connections with noble clients."

"He's a fine salesman and maker of silver jewelry, yes, but you hardly know him outside the workshop. Ever since coming here, he's... different."

My ears are burning. Mother spins delusions almost as well as her daughter Azalea spends Father's coin. It is not as if I am so flimsy that the peculiarities of this old house will make my edges fray. Mother is the one fraying; how does a woman expect to be a silversmith's wife if she develops a fear of silver?

I lean in and peer through the door. Father has taken Mother's hands, and he strokes his thumb across her knuckles. The conversation must have shifted because Father's tone softens as he speaks. "You're letting it get to you. There's nothing to be afraid of anymore."

Mother rips her hands away and swishes to one of the bookshelves, arms folded. "I threw out the silver he hoarded. There's nothing left now—nothing but that mirror, and it is too large for me to move."

I push away from the wall and start down the long corridor out of the study wing. Mother acts based on fear, driven to insanity by it, and it fans something angry inside me. A month after we settled in to the house, she threw out anything that reflected her face, no matter how tainted or damaged it might be. Azalea followed, smashing even her prized engraved silver hand mirror against the stone wall with a scream when she saw what was within. Even Father and Therion began to hide their faces when they walked past any reflective surfaces before Mother got rid of it all.

In secret, I had kept the first pieces I had crafted: a goblet with a crooked lip, a bowl I'd dropped and dented, and a ring that fit on my thumb but was always trying to slide off. Mother couldn't stand the reflections within them, haunted by their eyes following her and their limbs moving like a puppet on strings whenever she did. Something lived in the reflections, and it watched.

There were to be no more mirrors, no more silver pieces, and no more reflections save for the water.

The only exception was the grand mirror in my room, which no one could move.

I slide my hand into my pocket and find the silver ring I had hidden there. It slips easily onto my thumb, safe and certainly not thrown out. As I make my way back to my bedroom, past windows pointing up to the starry night sky, I cling to the comfort of the ring. I brace myself. My heart already hammers against my ribs, and my steps waver like my feet are afraid to take me back. The ring spins, twisting, turning, and twisting again. The red mark on my thumb beneath it is almost permanent by now.

Unlike Mother, who fears what she will see within the silver, I can't stand what I will see without it. 

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