There is nowhere in my room where the mirror cannot see me. Even when I stand in a place where my reflection should not appear, it is there, watching with silver eyes. At night, it stares at me from across the room, and I sit awake for long hours to stare back at it. When I cover it, it always finds a way to uncover itself. It is too large and heavy for me to move it from its original position leaning against the bare wall.

I've destroyed it once or twice. A sizable cut across my palm is proof of that, though it is little more than a pale scar now. I've watched the glass shatter into tiny pieces and skitter across my stone floor, and my ears have echoed with the sound of everything breaking. I've scratched its ornate silver frame with a knife and tried to burn away the reflection using a candle, but it always returns to the way it was. Whole. Unscathed. Unmoving. But always watching.

If I moved to a different room, I'm sure it would follow me, too. That's how it came to be mine after all.

It greeted us in the grand entryway when we arrived, positively glowing in the sunlight. The groundskeeper told us the previous owner of the house left it, but he swore it was in a different room when the old family lived here. He told us not to stare into its silver eyes. Staring too long will reveal something else within.

Father says it's better to leave it alone, but he doesn't sit staring into its silver eyes all night long.

I twist the ring again, standing outside the door to my room as I wait for the hum of fear in my veins to go away. I know the mirror will be there when I open the door, it always is. I know it will never leave me alone.

"I know you're there," I whisper through the door, and the wood presses into my palm as I lean against it. "With this ring on, you won't be able to hide from me. You'll have to give up your tricks. I'll make you leave."

There's no answer but the hush over the halls. Somewhere down the corridor, Azalea and Therion sleep soundly in mirrorless bedrooms, enjoying a moment of peace where the spectre cannot watch them because Mother has spared them. Their only concern stems from Father's wealth, ever dwindling as our commissions have rapidly disappeared and our customers shrink from our now-cursed silver. So long as we remain in this house, we will fall to ruin.

I care little for such things. All I want is to sleep again. To look into my reflection and know that what stares back is me.

For that, I take a breath and open the hefty door. As it swings, it reveals my four-poster bed, my small fireplace, my dresser where an oil lamp burns bright, and the mirror looming over it all. It reflects the doorway, and a boy stands there looking haggard with his vest unbuttoned and his shirt crooked. Silver eyes gleam, crinkled with a smile that I do not give. I swing the door shut and march to the mirror, lifting my hand and showing off the little ring on my thumb. For just a moment, the silver-eyed spectre's gaze catches on it, though mine has never moved from its face.

"You will reveal yourself," I say. There's a quiver in my voice, but I straighten and harden my expression so that I look imposing even if I don't feel it. "I know you're not me. I wish to speak with you."

The reflection stares back at me, mimicking me, but without answering.

"I have silver." I pause, running my tongue over my teeth before I twist the ring off and hold it out. My mirror image does the same, but the silver eyes shift again. Anyone else wouldn't see it, but I do. I know when it moves, when its eyes wander, but mine don't. "You like the silver, don't you? You follow it everywhere, clinging to its polished surface and the reflections within. You can have it if you show yourself."

The mirror holds its breath. What else? a little voice whispers as cold fingers trail the shell of my ear.

"Come out, and we'll talk." I put the ring back on my thumb decisively.

My reflection ponders for a moment. A slight furrow forms between its brow, one I do not feel. Its silvery starlit eyes finally move, wandering my face. I stiffen, and my heart flutters like a bird in a cage. Soft as the whisper of wind, the spectre sighs and moves a mirror image of my hand down the mirror image of my face. As it does, its shape changes.

A woman appears in the mirror, with silver skin that glitters when the light shifts across the glass. Her hair, pulled back from her face and falling straight down her back and past her hips, shimmers like tinsel and starlight. Her high cheekbones and an aquiline nose give her face a distinct and regal appearance. She looks down at me with narrowed, silver eyes through thick silver lashes. A white silk dress hangs loosely over her tall, slender frame, belted at the waist and with only one flowing sleeve that drifts past her wrist. Thin silver bracelets jangle around her other wrist and her bare ankles. Matching them is a pair of silver necklaces that dip low over the front of her dress. When she tilts her head, her ears curve up in a slight point, and both are pierced with a silver hoop that dangles at her jawline.

I close my mouth, uncertain of when it fell open. I had expected a fiend, some hideous creature of the netherworld come to rip my soul from my body or haunt me until I truly am as insane as Mother believes. Yet here stands a woman so graceful, every line and curve perfectly sculpted from precious metal, that she might as well have been a statue in the garden.

But when she smiles, I see it. The glint of malice that watches me through the mirror, the vicious, cold depths that I can't look away from nor escape. She's otherworldly, gleaming, and decidedly not human.

I crush my ring into my fist and shove my hand behind my back, my throat suddenly tight. "What are you?"

She turns and lifts her hair, exposing her bare shoulder blade. A faint symbol rests in her silver skin there, a mark—a sigil—that sends a shiver running up my spine.

"You're... a patron spirit?" I whisper, and my voice cracks. I had only heard rumors of elemental spirits. They were said to be powerful, beautiful, and wild, but forming a pact with them and carving their sigil into the skin granted a person unimaginable power. Sigil bearers, they called them, and they were the only people who wielded magic.

The silver woman leans in so close to the glass that I flinch, but it stops her from touching me. Her uncanny glittering skin is polished to perfection, purer than anything I'd ever seen. It catches the light and reflects my face back at me. "Have you not summoned me to bargain?" Her voice is rich and commanding.

I steel myself and square my shoulders. They say spirits do not listen to those who roll over for them. "I came to ask you to leave. Your presence here corrupts, and I cannot rest with you watching. Always watching. I'll have Mother return the silver to you—we'll make you more if you want—but you must go."

She folds her arms, bracelets clinking as she moves. Even her movements are practiced and elegant. "You think to cast me out of my own home? I have lived in this mirror for a century, in this house for half that time. Your trinkets are not enough to convince me."

"Then what will?" I ask. I'll give her anything so long as it's reasonable. Anything to piece myself together again. Anything to pick up the pieces that won't stop unraveling.

Her smile is charming, devilishly so. Slender fingers reach through the mirror, cold as ice as they curl around my wrist. She tugs me closer to the glass, and I fall through this time.

"Are you any good at games?" she asks.

In spite of myself, I nod. 

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