There'd been no shared soul between them.

The blond princess stood, tall and graceful, by Bowen's side, resplendent in a long, white gown. And they looked perfect together. Her violet eyes glinted with emotion as she glanced from Mari to Bowen. Bowen's own eyes burned with some inscrutable light.

Stay standing... stay standing. "She's returned?"

"Aye. Resurrected by a sorceress. You knew what I believed about you and her. So tell me how this is possible, Mariketa."

He wasn't outright accusing her of an enchantment again, but there was a suspicious note in his tone. Faced with this scene, even she began to doubt herself. "How would I know?" She pinched her forehead between her thumb and her forefinger. Though she'd just come from a healing, her head had started to pound.

"Because you're a witch - "

"A witch, Bowen?" Mariah sidled even closer to Bowen as if for protection. "But you despise them!"

As he absently patted her hand, he said to Mari, "This is your area of expertise."

"Resurrection is not my area of expertise. I only know that there are a very limited number of beings on earth that can do it. Most of those won't," Mari answered. "Look, I don't know what's going on - I'm fresh from a plane wreck and a shade bewildered here. But I do know we can figure it out." She met his eyes and held out her hand. "Together."

Just when she thought Bowen's body tensed to move - to cross the ten feet to Mari's side, the princess said, "Bowen, who is this woman? Did you... did you find another? You told me I was the only one," she added softly. "You vowed to me that you'd never want another as long as you lived."

He didn't walk the ten feet.

Mari exhaled a breath she hadn't known she'd held and dropped her hand. She could read the writing on the wall. Just what in the hell would it take for someone to look at her and say "I choose you"? "If I leave here today, MacRieve, I leave for good."

Seeming as though she'd faint, the princess whispered, "I gave up my soul to rejoin you. Was this sacrifice for naught?"

He put his flattened hands out as if motioning everyone to slow down. "Just give me a minute... to think... "

Her soul? How can I compete with that? Mari wanted to loathe her, needed to, but she only pitied this other female who'd made the ultimate surrender to be with the male she loved. She found herself murmuring, "To think I'd worried about you going back for her, when she was already on her way forward."

Hope flashed in the fey's violet eyes. "You were trying to go back for me?"

"For nearly two hundred years," Mari told her. Relentlessly. Mercilessly ridding any obstacles in his pursuit of this exquisite princess - a fairy-tale princess.

Mariah was the name he'd called out the night he'd believed he'd claimed his mate.

"Then you must still care for me," Mariah said. "And you wear my pendant after all this time."

Mari swung her gaze to the medallion he wore at his neck - the one that he never took off.

Even when he'd made love to her. Bastard!

He glanced down, seeming surprised he wore it. "I just need to think for a few bloody minutes. Just... just let me think."

B team. Why am I even surprised?

"What's there to think about, Bowen?" Mari demanded. "You've got a choice - make a decision." But choose me!

His eyes narrowed. Maybe she was being unreasonable. Maybe he wouldn't take her hand not because he no longer wanted Mari, but because he wanted to spare the princess any unnecessary hurt. Yet Mari needed him to walk to her side and pronounce her as his so badly - longed for him to. "MacRieve?"

"Doona push me, witch."

Witch. Her heart fell. He'll never see past that. At his words, Mari was reminded that she and Bowen hadn't resolved the obstacles between them - because they couldn't. The fey princess suited him far better, and probably deserved him more for the sacrifice she'd made.

Suddenly, Mari became aware of the group witnessing this scene - Emma and her Lykae husband gazed at her and at Bowen with sympathy, while Carrow and Regin looked alternately sorry for her and incensed with him. Mari recognized that arguing with him here like this wouldn't get him back. She could think of nothing that would. And Mari wasn't known for fighting losing battles.

It was time to take herself out of the game - again. "I'll go get my bag." With her shoulders shoved back, she turned toward the door, refusing to cry.

Which was proving difficult - since she'd already fallen in love with Bowen MacRieve.

Damn that witch for pressuring me like this!

Bowe knew why she felt she had to leave. She thought herself passed over yet again. Both parents had deserted her, and then her first love had thrown her over.

And I've told her there'd never be another female for me - then my mate showed up on my doorstep.

But he hadn't made any bloody decisions, hadn't chosen Mariah over her.

Regin hissed at him and followed Mariketa, with Carrow right behind them. As Carrow passed Bowe, she said, "Prick. You and Twice-Baked here deserve each other."

Clasping his forehead with frustration, Bowe turned to Mariah. "You remember Lachlain, do you no'?" he asked, as if speaking to a child. "He and his new wife are going to sit with you for a few minutes. Everything will be fine."

Lachlain stepped up, his arm wrapped tightly around Emma's waist. "Aye, I'm sure you've questions - "

But Mariah seized Bowe's hand with both of hers. "Please don't leave. I'm so confused by all this. By this place and time I've been brought to." Tears streamed. He'd nearly forgotten how fragile she was. "Ah, gods, please, Bowen."

Bowe glanced from her to the doorway Mariketa had just exited. The witch was only going back to the bedroom. I'll stop her before she tries to leave.

As she stared into the dresser mirror, Mari wiped at tears with the back of her hand. She didn't have to bid the reflection to come. Knowing she would likely get just one answer, she decided to ask, "Am I his mate or not?"

"You are."

She gasped. Apparently Mari was his - and he still passed her over! "Then what in the hell just happened?"

The hand breached the glass with an apple. "Come with me."

"Damn it, if there was ever a time to answer more than one question, it's now! Tell me how this is possible!"

"Are you ready to know the truth?" the reflection whispered.

"The truth about what?" Mari snapped.

The reflection smiled. "About - everything."

Mari frowned, recognizing that she finally was ready to go. I have nothing to lose. She was going to journey into that mysterious world of the mirror.

She nodded. "I am." Mari took the apple and set it on the dresser, then grasped the offered hand. She climbed up and through the portal, entering another dimension. Here it was soft, a place veiled in mist and sublime silence.

The reflection was gone - because Mari was the reflection now? Doubt over her action immediately suffused her. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw Carrow and Regin rushing into the room, bewildered by what they were seeing.

Behind them... ravens gathered on the windowsill.

Ravens? Had she just gone willingly to her own doom?

As Bowe tried to disentangle Mariah, his heart felt like it sank to his gut - for the second time in minutes.

Mariketa's scent was utterly gone.

He tore away toward the bedroom, but of course, she wasn't there. "Where the hell is she?" he bellowed at Carrow.

Eyes wide, Carrow hiked her thumb at the dresser. "In the mirror."

A single red apple sat beside it.

49

"Elianna?" Mari whispered when she spied her mentor waiting for her here. "Are you... real?"

She patted her wrinkly skin with a frown. "The last time I checked."

Mari pinched her forehead. "Am I real in this mirror? Or was the reflection fake?"

"Everyone's real." Elianna chuckled. "The reflection is merely a facet of your being. A bit like an astral projection. And before you ask - yes, you do look that diabolical when you are using strong magick."

Somewhat reassured, Mari hugged her. As always happened, pungent scents from the powders and dried leaves in Elianna's infinite apron pockets wafted up between them. "I missed you! I'd wondered why you weren't with Carrow holding vigil."

"Well, don't think I wasn't watching over you."

Mari gazed around her. This was the plane of unbroken black from her dreams. "What is this place?"

"This is your new home. Your very own dimension." She smiled brightly and waved her hand around. "You can decorate it however you like."

"Um, why would I need a new home?" Mari asked.

"Every great sorceress has her own dimension."

"I'm not a sorceress."

"Do you want to be?" Elianna asked in a strange tone.

"I just want to understand what is happening."

"This is where you need to be for now," she said. "You're safe here from the magick of others. And no one but your family and other members of the Wiccae can ever come here - unless you expressly invite them."

"Was I in danger?" Mari asked.

She nodded. "Come with me." As Elianna crossed to a cauldron, Mari followed, apprehension pricking at her. She hadn't seen witchery like this in years.

Elianna stirred the bubbling brew inside it with a staff, clearing the smoke to reveal a scene. In a dimension much like this one were two marble altars.

Mari's parents lay atop them.

Her father was on a slab of cold rock, with his fists clenched, just as Mari had dreamed. Her mother lay beside him, her beautiful face frozen in pain.

Mari bit back a cry. "Oh, gods, what is this? Are they alive?"

"Yes, but they were struck down by a powerful sorceress. Ensorcelled by a dark power."

"Who? Who would do this to them?"

Elianna hesitated, then finally answered, "Häxa."

Mari swallowed. "She does feed off trapped souls."

Elianna nodded, then continued, "Your father succumbed first."

"He didn't... he didn't just ditch us?"

"No, leaving his family nearly killed him, but he is a powerful warlock, and his destiny had always been to fight Häxa. He was ruthless in his preparation for battle. Black magicks, sinister pacts for spells of greater power. He dealt with devils and rogue wizards. Yet still he was unable to smite her."

"And Jillian?"

"Häxa froze your mother when she went to beg for his life. Jillian knew the futility, but she couldn't live without him."

Mari felt like she was choking. No wonder Jillian had always seemed so sad - she'd been missing her husband...

"Druid sabbatical, Elianna?" Her father lived? Her mother hadn't remained away by choice? "How could you not tell me about this?"

"Jillian wanted you to have a normal life for as long as possible."

"Normal? I thought I was unwanted! That they both chose to leave me."

Elianna looked baffled. "But they adored you - surely you remember that?"

Mari pointed an accusing finger at her. "You should have told me about what happened to them!"

"When should I have? When you turned eighteen, should I have said, 'Your parents are frozen in eternal pain and agony - and you can't do a damned thing about it for many years.'? Then wish you luck on your SATs?"

Her parents had loved her. "How do I wake them?"

Elianna glanced away. "You have to kill the one that did this to them."

Häxa was one step down from a goddess, the most powerful sorceress ever to live. "Fate does no' blow her bullets," Bowen had said. He'd been right. Mari was to fight the witches' greatest enemy. She feared the idea, but the fury churning inside her wouldn't be denied. Elianna stared at her eyes, and Mari knew they'd changed.

"I'm going after her. Tell me how to find her."

"You will know how to find her when you are prepared to fight her."

"For once, stop this witchy, mystical bullshit, Elianna! I want to kill her now!"

"You're not ready," Elianna insisted.

"If you think I'll sit around here waiting to turn immortal - "

"That won't matter," Elianna quietly interrupted. "Häxa can turn any living being to dust. Immortality or mortality will make no difference."

"Then do I even have a shot at winning against her?" Mari demanded. "What do the seers say?"

"Anyone who tried to read the battle between Mariketa the Awaited and Häxa... was struck mad. We doubt Häxa has even been able to see this."

"Doesn't matter. I'm still going after her, with or without your help."

"If Häxa defeats you, she will usurp your powers. We can't risk that - or she will become unstoppable."

"I'll figure it out!"

"Your parents are not the only ones in this state. There are thousands more, taken from all Lorekind and accumulated over time. Think of others suffering. You have responsibilities to them as well."

A thousand voices calling to her in her dreams.

"How do I prepare, then?"

"You are a captromancer. You'll use the medium given to you to learn. No longer will you be given hints of information or power. Because you are the Queen of Reflections, knowledge will flow from the mirror straight to your being. You'll learn everything from how to coax fire from water to how to shield yourself from another's magick attacks, deflecting damage."

Mari thought over all Elianna had revealed, struggling to remain calm. "Does Häxa have any weaknesses?"

"It's been reported that her eyesight is poor. Her animal familiars see better than she does."

"Familiars? What kind?"

"Trolls, some kobolds, ravens, and - "

"Ravens?" Mari bit out. When Elianna nodded, Mari said, "Häxa's already been watching me! I saw them in the jungle, and in my dreams. Even just now when I stepped into the mirror, ravens were on the windowsill."

"It makes sense that you've had foresight about her. And I figured she would already be spying on you. But remember, she can't get to you here."

"Were you watching the scene when the fey princess showed up?" Mari asked.

Elianna gave an emphatic nod. "Was I ever."

"Mariah said a sorceress brought her back - it has to be Häxa that's done this. What better way to create misery than to return a male's mate precisely when he's decided to move on." To herself, she thought, What better way to hurt me? First take my parents from me, now separate me from the man I love.

"It's certainly possible. This is how she operates."

"If I actually succeed in killing her, what will happen? Will the world be changed?"

Elianna answered, "Aside from freeing so many souls, your act won't change anything about today. But if Häxa is not stopped now, she will continue to grow more powerful. Soon there will come a time when she will enslave the entire world in misery. Hell will reign on earth."

"But if Häxa's destroyed, what will happen to the balance between her, Hekate, and Hela?"

"This balance might be disrupted already because Häxa is no longer a goddess. And some are saying that Hela isn't as beneficent as she once was."

Mari exhaled a long breath, wondering if she'd have to do battle with Hela one day as well. Had Mari actually dreaded the idea that her career highlights would peak when she was twenty-three? "How do I begin?"

"I suppose you'd best conjure a mirror. Just imagine one you've seen and a facsimile will appear here."

Mari pictured her oval antique mirror, framed in oak in a spindle stand. Within a nanosecond, a copy manifested itself. "I just stand in front of it?"

"Yes, but be cautious with it," Elianna said. "The knowledge is potent and addictive. You'll receive an understanding no mortal has ever experienced. If you feel yourself getting in too deep, then you must pull back."

Mari nodded and faced the mirror. Beautiful glass.

Her eyes flashed, reflecting back. To infinity, Mari's eyes seemed to reflect. No more tedious questions and answers. Knowledge had begun to funnel directly into her, spells and magicks becoming part of her.

It was exquisite, but now she had only one thing she wanted to know.

How to kill a sorceress.

"You always stand outside," Mariah said as she joined Bowe at the porch railing. "Is it to scent her?" Over the last few days, Mariah had settled in here, as best as she was able.

"I want to know she's safe." Bowe had just returned from another failed attempt to locate Mariketa. Though he could scarcely believe it, the witches in her coven had allowed him to come and go into Andoain at will. But none could - or would - tell him how to find her.

Bowe had found that to the naked eye, the property had a proud-looking mansion surrounded by laden apple trees with shockingly green leaves. Butterflies flew everywhere.

Yet when he'd blinked for a fraction of a second, he'd seen an entirely different landscape. Hot stones choked up steam and smoke around a dilapidated manor house. Serpents wound along rotting balusters. That was the true Andoain - Mariketa's home.

"You are so miserable, Bowen. It's clear to me that she's cast a spell on you. What's unclear is why you seem not to care."

"Mariah, the years after your death were... harsh."

"I know. But I want to get past those times and look to the future. I need new memories. My last memories are of my death, and it was a... horrific death. But you know I don't blame you."

Then why bring it up? he thought, then flushed. She'd never irritated him like this before. But everything about her was different from the witch, so that meant everything about her was... wrong.

"I see so many things differently now. I want to learn your ways, and give you the children you've always longed for."

"What changed?"

"I was so selfish before and couldn't be more sorry for it. Death brought my priorities into focus. I want to create life." She smiled shyly up at him. "With you."

Here Mariah was, offered up to him as he'd begged the gods for decades. All the difficulties he'd had with her seemed erased. She wasn't a witch of unspeakable power, but a gentle fey.

She was everything he'd thought he could ever want.

And he wasn't even certain that the witch would take him back. They'd fought before the plane wreck and hadn't overcome the difficulties between them.

Yet none of this mattered.

Whether the witch was his mate or not didn't matter - because what he felt for her was stronger even than that pull. He'd already fallen for her.

For the first time in Bowe's endless, lonely existence... he loved.

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