Evanor lys
There's a silence in the glass that doesn't exist anywhere else.
It's not like the hush of a library, or the soft quiet after snowfall. No. This silence breathes. It creeps through the gilded cracks, coils around your thoughts, and waits. You don't notice it at first—not really. But then, one day, you find yourself talking just to break it.
Sometimes to myself. Sometimes to my own reflection. And sometimes… to her.
Liora.
I had stopped hoping anyone would ever look into the mirror and see more than a boy shaped of smoke and silence. And then she did. She whispered my name like it meant something. Like it was tethered to something real.
The first time she said it, it was like being pulled into color after centuries of grey.
And now… there's this necklace. Her voice is no longer distant. Her thoughts sometimes brush against mine. It's maddening and marvelous all at once. I hear her when she hums while brushing her hair. I hear her mutter when Pim knocks something over. And today… today, she brought him.
Quippleton the Fourth.
I never thought I'd see that ridiculous, squawking ball of feathers again. The moment I saw him, the mirror shimmered. Something in me cracked open like a door I'd forgotten existed. The ache of childhood returned with all its stupidly soft edges.
He mocked me, of course. Immediately. Just like old times. And I wanted to cry, or laugh, or punch a tree—
It traps everything. Grief, joy, sarcasm, rage. There's no release in here. Only echoes.
And sometimes… those echoes aren't even mine.
There are shadows in this mirror that don't belong to me. Faint outlines of past Guardians. A woman with ink-stained fingers and sadness sewn into her smile. A boy with wings instead of arms. A girl who never spoke but left letters carved into the glass with her fingernail.
They linger. Watching. Waiting.
We're all just ghosts pressed against a window.
But Liora—she's real. Alive. Loud. She brings life into this tomb with every word, every eye-roll, every time she storms off because I dared suggest her hair resembled a startled dandelion.
(She does not take that kindly, in case you were wondering.)
And yet… I wait for her. Even when she's not wearing the necklace. Even when the mirror dims. Because when she's gone, it's just me.
And the silence.
༓☾༓
I was sitting near the edge of the woods when I felt it—the necklace humming faintly, like it was picking up a signal. It wasn't loud. Just a buzz at the back of my mind, like someone clearing their throat in another room.
Then her voice, barely a whisper:
"I'm coming."
No ceremony. No dramatic lead-up. Just that. But I knew what it meant.
I stood up too fast, nearly tripped over a root, muttered something that would've gotten me in trouble in every century, and started running.
I didn't even know why I was running. It's not like she was going to vanish if I didn't get there in time. But my legs moved anyway.
Through the silver grass. Past the same trees I'd passed a hundred times. Straight to the Butterfly Glass.
And there she was—already there, staring in, holding some book like she'd just fought a storm for it.
I caught my breath, stepped into view, and said the first thing that came to mind
I stepped closer, and slowly, her reflection appeared.
She looked flustered and wind-swept, with a book clutched tightly in her hands.
"You again," I said, teasingly
"Don't start," she huffed. "Listen—I found something. In the Garden Library. A book, That says the mirror weakens every hundred years. That this—this curse—could make it shatter."
I folded my arms. "You're not wrong."
"And Lady Seraphine—she told me more. That if we don't keep the mirror fed with magic, it'll collapse. That you'll be lost. Forever."
I didn't speak.
She stepped closer to the glass. "There's more. She said I have to go to a place called the Vale of Thorns. Some haunted village called Virelda, where time doesn't move. Every night. I have to find a flower that grows on the grave of the witch's daughter. The Moonpetal Nocturne."
I exhaled slowly. "Of course she told you that."
Liora looked at me carefully. "You know it?"
I turned away, running a hand through my hair. The lake beside us shimmered, casting ghost-light on the hollow trees. "I know it because… this is it."
She blinked. "What?"
I faced her again, voice quieter now. "The world you have to enter every night. The place you thought was a fairy tale. It's this one. Where I'm standing. You'll be coming here."
Her face paled. "But… you said you were inside the Butterfly Glass."
"I am," I said. "The mirror is the door. But the world behind it—it belongs to her. To the witch who cursed me. I've been trapped in her forgotten kingdom for centuries."
Liora's hands tightened around the book. "So… every night after midnight, I'll be entering this world. Your world."
"More like her world," I said bitterly. "She twisted it into what you see now. A place frozen between time and grief. Virelda was once a village. Now it's a dream that never ends."
She looked at the silver woods behind me, the pale sky that never darkened. "Is it safe?"
I tilted my head. "If you keep walking straight, you'll find the graveyard of empty houses. Keep going, and you'll reach the Whispering Vale, where shadows still whisper names. Safe isn't the word I'd use."
She swallowed hard. "Why didn't Seraphine tell me this was your world?"
"Because it's not. Not anymore. The witch made sure of that."
A silence passed. Then she said, softly, "Are you scared I'll fail?"
I didn't answer right away. The glass lake shimmered at our feet. Finally, I said, "I'm scared you'll forget who you are. This place… it feeds on memory."
Liora reached up and touched her necklace. "Then I'll remember for both of us."
I almost smiled.
"Evanor,I have to go now" she said, stepping back.
I nodded. "Wish you luck when you come here,Bring a lantern. And don't follow any voices that sound like me."
She froze. "What?"
"You heard me," I said, as the shimmer began to fade. "Just because it sounds like me, doesn't mean it is."
The last thing I saw before the connection broke was the worry in her eyes.
And the last thing I heard was Quippleton squawk somewhere : "Biscuits of Destiny, incoming!"