I woke on something that felt like glass, but it rippled under my weight as if it were alive. Silver veins pulsed inside it like faint lightning trapped in dark stone. There was no forest. No wind. No sky. Only an endless dim space stretching in every direction, tinted with a blue so faint it barely existed.
My first breath caught in my throat. My body felt weightless, unanchored, like the ground might vanish if I exhaled too hard. The Mirror’s pulse inside my chest beat irregularly, too fast and then too slow, as if it were trying to slip out of sync with me. A cold ache spread through my ribs.
Where was I?
A whisper of movement pulled my gaze upward.
The shadow figure stood several feet away, but its form had changed. The mist around it no longer swirled wildly. It draped around the
