Elle isn't sure if she's running from something or toward it anymore.
The woods behind her crack like bones in a furnace.
The trees ahead lean sideways, as if ashamed to witness what's chasing her.
And every time she passes a puddle, a shard of glass, a broken window—
Her reflection is wrong.
Not reversed.
Not distorted.
Gone.
---
It started after the cottage.
After she looked in that mirror and saw someone else staring back.
Someone who wore her face like a mask, but smiled with Mara's teeth.
Now, her reflection disappears entirely.
Like the world no longer believes she exists.
---
She reaches a clearing.
No trees.
Just dirt.
And in the middle: a small, rusted carousel turning slowly on its own.
Each horse is headless.
Each mirror panel is blacked out.
Except one.
---
Elle walks to it like she's in a trance.
She doesn't even hear the forest anymore. Doesn't feel the ache in her legs or the blood on her knees.
The carousel hums.
The mirror glows.
And in its heart—she sees herself.
Really sees herself. For the first time in days.
---
Not perfect.
Not glass-skinned or glamoured or symmetrical.
Just... Elle.
Hair tangled. Eyes wild. Skin smudged and real.
She gasps.
But the mirror doesn't react.
It's waiting.
---
> "You remember me," she whispers.
The image doesn't speak, but it doesn't vanish either.
That's enough.
---
She touches the glass.
It's warm. Then hot.
Then burning.
---
The world tilts.
Suddenly the sky is inside out and the carousel is upside down and the horses are watching her even though they have no heads.
And behind her reflection, something moves.
Something wearing Mara's silhouette.
---
> "No," Elle says. "You're not real."
The thing steps forward.
It's her own voice when it speaks—but backwards.
>"Emit fo tuo s'taht tub ,em esool yllautca t'ndid uoY."
---
Elle doesn't run.
She closes her eyes and steps through.
---
She expects pain.
Instead, she falls.
Not physically. Not through space.
Through memory.
---
—She's thirteen, brushing Irena's hair, and lying about how beautiful she thinks she is.
—She's fifteen, watching Lucien walk Irena home and wondering why that hurts.
—She's seventeen, holding the first broken mirror in her trembling hands, and thinking, If I could be her, even once…
—She's twenty-one, and someone is telling her "This is your last chance to be whole."
And she says yes.
---
Elle lands on her knees in a room made of smoke.
The walls breathe.
The only light is a suspended mirror, cracked into a perfect spiderweb of reflections.
In each shard—someone is crying. Or laughing. Or bleeding.
Some look like her.
Some look like Mara.
Some look like Lucien.
But none are whole.
---
Then a voice:
> "I told you not to come."
Elle turns.
It's Mara.
Or—one of them. Dressed in white. Eyes stitched shut with gold thread.
> "You're not the original," Elle says.
The blind Mara nods.
> "Neither are you."
> "But I still have a name."
Mara tilts her head. "Then say it."
Elle hesitates.
Because she knows what Mara means.
Not just a name.
Her name. The one before all this. The one she buried to become the lie. The one the mirror never let her keep.
---
> "I'm not afraid of you," Elle says instead.
> "You should be. I'm the one who stayed behind when you fled."
> "Then why did you let me go?"
The stitched eyes narrow.
> "Because I wanted to see if you'd ever come back for us."
---
Elle steps forward.
The smoke thickens. The shards begin to spin, each reflection twitching like it's alive.
> "You think I'm here to apologize?" she asks.
> "I think you're here to survive."
> "You're wrong."
She presses her hand to the floating mirror.
It splinters louder.
She feels the weight of every version of herself pulling. Tearing. Trying to reclaim.
And she pushes back.
---
> "You don't own me," she whispers.
One by one, the reflections scream and vanish.
---
Mara staggers, gold threads unraveling from her eyes.
The smoke begins to collapse.
The carousel shrieks in the distance.
And Elle—
Elle stands alone.
But entire.
---
The last mirror fades to black.
Then shatters.
She opens her eyes.
She's lying in the dirt of the clearing.
But now—the moon reflects her again.
The world hasn't erased her.
And she has one name on her tongue.
> "Irlenne."