Father looks at me like I am prey caught in a snare, struggling against my binds and squealing as I beg for life and freedom. My chest heaves, and I steady myself against the table until everything settles again. All I can hear, droning on and on in my ears, are his words. My position as savior and revered sigil bearer and heir and silversmith—crushed and handed, still crumpled and broken, to Therion like he deserves it all.

My gaze catches on the ring, on my tiny and distorted reflection in the silver. Am I falling to pieces so easily that even my promises to Father are no longer good?

"It's only a precaution. In case your success costs a great deal more than what you can give," Father says. "But you will be useful to the family as a sigil bearer." Then he rises, setting down his spoon, and leaves.

Therion's eyes are shining, hungry when they turn to me, and they crinkle with a vicious smile. There's nothing to stop him now—he'll make sure I break. Then everything will be his. Father's lost it because of you. He was right. Father has changed, but why should Therion despair when it's all turning in his favor?

The back of my head burns where the blood has dried. I shove away from the table and chase after Father, stumbling over my own feet. Mother calls after me, but I'm already bursting out of the dining room before she can reach me. I struggle to keep up with Father's pace, something that has always been true but leaves me winded now. My side aches where the bruise formed—or maybe it's a stitch there, telling me not to run.

"How can you have such faith in the whims of a spirit?" I call, hoping he will stop. He doesn't. My voice carries down the corridor and winds its way back to me, but it isn't enough to halt his steps. But as I creep closer, I see it—his hands once so worn no longer bearer the marks of silver work. It fans the embers inside me. "Your hands are too clean, Father. Your burns are healing, your calluses fading—and you would have me risk my body and mind while you do nothing?"

"I can no longer save us, Kyren." Every step is purposeful. Even the way he lifts his chin, staring straight down the path, and squares his shoulders is a mask. "That mirror is a gift and sigil bearers are renowned all over the world. If you can't hold it together long enough to make a pact with the patron spirit, then I'll know I should have listened to your mother. I should have put more trust in Therion."

"You can't toss me aside." I grab Father's coattails, wondering why he bothers to dress all proper anymore. There's no one in the house but us and the silver eyes that stare from the shadows, and Arcene doesn't care. If she did, she would never have played with me when I was so rotted. I tug, and Father stops, swinging around to face me with that cold, dead-eyed stare.

I shiver and toss his coattails. His attention is harsh and unwavering, and it turns my words to slippery things that refuse to be shaped. I stammer over them, cutting my gaze to my feet. It's only then I notice I've only got on one shoe, and it is only half-laced. Had I planned to go elsewhere? I don't remember the walk to the dining room either. All I remember is snapping back.

He's... different, Mother's words ring through me and burn away everything. Maybe I can't ignore it anymore. Maybe something is breaking. But I set my jaw as I jerk my head up.

"I haven't decided to make Arcene my patron," I say firmly, as cold and unwavering as Father is. "I can't figure her out. She promises things too grand to be true, and I don't yet understand what she gets from me."

Father's fingers curl, his fist tight and white-knuckled. "She gets a sigil bearer. Isn't that what all spirits want?"

"You don't know what it's like—playing her games, watching her mirror, feeling my edges come apart day by day." The words rip from me like knives from their sheaths, and they cut me more fiercely than they do him. The truth bleeds from me: I don't know anything, and I can only dance on the palm of Arcene's hand. Fear curls dark and deep in my core, a feral thing that oozes and spits and bites. It cannot put me together either, but it does spin a new revelation. And as it dawns, I breathe in the stale air of the Blackwood house, the scent of blood and sickness and silver.

I think back to her shrewd smiles, her broken chess strategies. You've won against all odds. How my winning has not brought me peace at all but rather burrowed in my flesh and hollowed me out.

"I think I want to be rid of her more than I want her power, Father. If she's gone, things can go back to the way they were. We can rebuild. We're silversmiths; we should not let our silver control and mold us. I will drive her out, and things will be what they were." And that will be better. Won't it?

Father's face flushes, red creeping up his neck and jaw until all he conveys is rage in every line and crack and angle. His hand snaps out and grabs me by my wrist, pulling me in close as he towers over me. "We cannot go back, Kyren," he seethes, his eyes wild and fiery things. In them, I find my reflection, swallowed by inky black. "We must become better than we were. Stronger. Wealthier. Famous. Blessed. We are nothing without that spirit, and if you won't continue your bargain with her, then you're nothing to me."

The beast of fear rears up and snaps, breaking something inside me. My chest tightens, my throat all closed up. "Father—" I choke.

He doesn't answer. His iron grip only tightens as he drags me all the way back to my room, back to that cold place where the mirror sits watching. In my clarity, I dig my heels in and beg not to return, knowing she will ask me to play. She'll make me believe I want to, make me promises that twist me up inside until I forget again where it all began. She'll whisper sweet words to me, saying I'll be the one in charge. But I never have been and I never will be because I am not all there. Not anymore.

I cannot win. I will not win. I will be devoured by the silver, by the mirror, by Arcene.

My struggling does not earn my freedom. Instead, Father strikes me across the face. I hit the ground hard, knocking the wind from my lungs and irritating the tender wound on the back of my head again. My skin prickles, stinging and weeping, but he's already dragging me again before I can slip away. He flings me as easily as tossing luggage into my room, and I skid on the hard stone, scraping my bruised side. The key flashes in his hand.

"Don't!" My voice breaks as I push up, reaching for the door so far away as it swings shut.

"You will not come out again until you have settled your games with the spirit. I will either find you dead or a sigil bearer."

With that, the heavy door swings shut, and its locks click resolutely in place.

I heave upright, fighting for a breath but all I get are little uneven rasps. In spite of myself, my gaze jerks to the mirror, and I snap once more. I fumble for something under the bed, and my fingers catch on the silver bowl I kept. With a shout, I hurl it at the glass. It cracks on impact, splintering my reflection into many fragments with many more silver eyes that watch from many different angles.

Nails dig into my scalp. I curl in on myself. I won't look. I won't look anymore. I can't look anymore. My throat burns, my voice hoarse, side aching from lying on the floor and screaming until time means nothing. When I stare into the mirror, I begin to lose everything.

I think I want to be rid of her. Have I told another lie?

Cautiously, through dark and dirty curls, I peer at the mirror again. It is only Kyren there, with dark eyes rimmed with circles like bruises. His lip is split and bleeding, his cheek an angry red.

You decide, she told me, giving me the world. Do I truly want to throw away such a chance? Father has never been offered such a gift. Nor Mother nor Therion nor Azalea. Arcene only offered her sigil to me.

You decide.

"Kyren."

Her voice startles me upright. Arcene stands in the mirror again, watching me with her brow knitted in concern and her lips pinched just so. Gone is the face of a monster, a spirit I can't discern, and instead I find the face of a friend.

The spider web of cracks has already faded from the mirror, but how could they stay when it would distort her face within? She reaches through the glass, her silver hand extended to me in an invitation I must not refuse.

"I can help you," she whispers. "If you agree to play the third game."

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