Viktor felt a flicker of nervousness, hoping Sabine would understand why he needed to keep Ayoka with him a little longer. Sabine had been the first step in helping him break free from that wretched fae woman—a turning point, whether she realized it or not. He remembered the night he'd saved her and a group of her people from a lynching—how she was nearly strung up by KKK members before he intervened. If he hadn't arrived when he did, she would've been another name carved in sorrow. After that, she didn't just survive him—she studied him. Trusted him. Maybe even feared him, in that rare way that breeds loyalty.
He remembered the day Sabine said she needed something from downtown—but waved it off, claiming she didn't feel like dealing with the crowds. It had struck Viktor as odd, even then. He always wondered if she truly just wanted to avoid the chaos, or if she'd sent him out on purpose. Sabine was considered a Fater, after all. Even her quietest words carried weight, especially for someone like him. Maybe it was all calculated. Or maybe she'd simply seen too much in her lifetime and no longer bothered speaking unless the Shadow Man was involved.
That was the day Viktor met him—slipping through alley smoke and late-morning gloom like fate itself had changed clothes.
Viktor stood in the frame, one hand braced against the door, the other holding a cup of something that steamed like it had a grudge. He didn't smile. Viktor Barinov didn't smile anymore unless it was a warning or a weapon—except, perhaps, for the rare, flickering smirk he gave now. It wasn't sharp or cruel. Just a quiet signal between old allies, an acknowledgment of trust formed in fire and shadow.
Sabine looked at him with hopeful eyes. For a brief second, she could see whatever good still lingered inside him—like a half-buried ember, stubbornly refusing to die. But even as she stepped closer, she wondered why she had ever chosen to follow this man.
Maybe it was because he never once asked her to read for him in the way others had. He never treated her like a prophet-for-hire. As if he knew that any word she read in that kind of context would be stained—twisted by someone else's agenda. The only time Viktor had ever asked her to use her web was to look into the present or the past. Never the future.
She had once asked him the same question she asked Ayoka: which time would you choose to live in? Ayoka chose the past. Viktor, without hesitation, chose the present.
Sabine had laughed, softly. Of course he would. She, however, preferred the future—uncertain as it was. At least the future hadn't disappointed her yet.
"Shall we try stories, like the Shadow Man does, before you tell me what you chose?" she asked, her voice velvet-soft but laced with something wistful—bittersweet, like a song half-remembered from a better time.
Viktor paused mid-step, genuinely surprised. "You know about that?"
Sabine gave him a sly look, swirling her glass. "You forget, dear little dragon—my webs are all over this house. Sometimes I look in. Other times, the Shadow Man tells me bits and pieces. Bits about power. Bits about bargains."
She took a slow sip, then added, "Since we're not going to fight in the traditional sense—no fists, no flames—how about we spar with words? Just once, for old times' sake. Before you tell me your choice, dear boss."
Viktor had expected a battle. Not this—this careful grace. He thought she'd throw her fists, spin her webs, corner him with all the fury of a woman scorned by prophecy and power. But she hadn't. And that unnerved him more than a brawl.
That's when the Shadow Man began to whisper—soft, oily, threading through the room like cold smoke only Viktor could feel.
"Well... well," the voice purred in his ear. "She always did see more than she let on."
Sabine remained unaware, sipping her drink with practiced elegance. She handed Viktor his glass, and he accepted it silently.
He drank. So did she.
Then, without warning, she slapped him across the face.
Viktor blinked—more in shock than pain—then slapped her back, firm but without cruelty.
They both smiled, bitter and worn.
It felt like a ritual. A farewell.
They both had the same thought at once: this might be the last time they shared this room, this moment, this strange, war-forged peace.
Sabine started first, her voice quieter now, but edged with something unshakably resolute. "I'm glad you're keeping your end of the deal. Letting us all go. But Viktor... Ayoka was never part of that bargain. Like I said."
With a slow, deliberate gesture, she raised her hand—and magic spun from her fingers like silk catching fire. The air cracked. The room groaned. Reality folded at the seams as threads of shimmering spellwork unraveled into a grand, spectral stage. The walls melted into darkness, and in their place rose a haunting theater carved from memory and echo. Mirrors lined every surface, tall as cathedral arches, each pane humming with restrained tension.
In their reflections, glimpses of other lives flared like trapped lightning—shadows moving behind glass, fragments of decisions made and not made.
Sabine took her place at center stage with the solemnity of a judge. One mirror pulsed to life. In it, Ayoka appeared—not whole, not broken, but caught between. Half-shadow. Half-light. A version of her Viktor didn't recognize, yet one that knew too much.
His chest tightened. He'd heard of Faters and their mirror games, tales woven with illusion and truths warped for prophecy. But this felt more serious. More final. Like a reckoning masquerading as a performance.
"You've been offering Ayoka a way out," Viktor said, voice low, words careful as knives. "But are you sure you're not just trying to pull the same trick I did?"
The first mirror trembled—then cracked outward in silence. From that fracture, more mirrors bloomed, unfolding with the dreadful grace of a war flower in bloom. Each one mirrored a truth neither of them had spoken aloud. And each one carried weight.
This wasn't a game. It was a confrontation dressed in elegance, a final story told in glass and shadow.
She exhaled slowly. "What I offered was freedom," she said, more directly now. "And I already stood on the sidelines—not because of who I am, but because something about spending time with Ayoka changed me. Made me think differently."
Viktor chuckled under his breath, picking up a jagged, fool-shaped mirror from the nearest row. "You offered her a way out—by sending her to work for your mother and father. To 'keep her safe.' The only difference is you just rearranged the cage."
Sabine didn't argue. The mirrors around them shimmered with scenes: Ayoka walking the streets of old French cities where her presence would be exoticized, dissected, adored, and feared. On the Creole islands, she'd be seen as a contradiction—too divine for the poor, too dangerous for the rich. A girl touched by gods, but still marked by man. There would be whispers. There would be chains of softer silk, laced with honeyed duty.
"Do you think they would ever let her walk freely?" Viktor said, voice harder now. "A girl like her—walking into those salons in Marseille or the quarter courts of Saint-Domingue? They'd put her in a chapel or a circus. Dress her in silk and call it mercy."
Sabine closed her eyes, the magic in her hand flickering. "I know."
"Then don't pretend it was freedom."
The mirrors trembled again, and one cracked clean down the middle—splitting Ayoka's reflection into a thousand uncertain futures.
She stepped toward another mirror, brushing her fingers against its frame. "Even if what you two feel is real, how you started—what shaped you—still clings to her. It isn't old or new. It just... is. And the wonder in it? It's still fresh, still blooming. That's why it's so fragile."
Viktor didn't look away, but he said nothing. Around him, the mirrors continued to shift and swell, casting scenes across the room like light through stained glass. He saw Ayoka laughing in a dusty courtyard, her hand in his—something that had never quite happened. Another mirror showed her alone, crowned in flowers and flame, walking into a council chamber that wasn't his. Another, cracked but burning bright, revealed a version of them fleeing together, hunted by gods and governments alike.
These were futures that hadn't come to pass—and might never. Each one flickered like a dying star: intimate, impossible, haunting.
Viktor was in awe. These weren't just illusions. They were truths with edges sharpened by what-ifs. He could have stayed lost in them.
But he knew better. He had to focus.
The truth—his truth—was still waiting to be spoken.
"If you brought her home," Sabine continued, louder now, her voice rising with pride and conviction. "What would your people say? Would they see her as your equal? Or as a cursed ornament? An oddity for the court?"
She rolled back her shoulders—and then, with a breath that shimmered in the air, let her six arms unfold like wings from beneath her coat. Each hand glowed with spell-thread and power, weaving runes of history and hurt into the space between them.
"Immortals love to pretend they've evolved," she said, stepping forward with each word. "But they still carry 'mortal' in their name. That rot never left them. They act like the mortals they once ruled beside, and sometimes worse—because now they forget they're still capable of prejudice. Of cruelty dressed in culture."
She stabbed a glowing finger toward one mirror, which now displayed Ayoka standing in a marble hall with chains made of pearls, smiling through blood.
"At least in the Creole Islands, there are elders who look like her. Black immortals who've endured and remember. They know what Ayoka carries. They know how sacred and how scarred she is. She'd be among kin who understand—not just worship or fear her."
The mirror rippled again. And this time, one shard fell to the floor anThe mirror rippled again. And this time, one shard fell to the floor and didn't stop glowing.
Viktor stood stunned. The power in Sabine's presence, the certainty in her words—it rocked something in him. Around them, more mirrors began to drop, striking the ground with soft, terrible notes like the tolling of bells.
Sabine, undeterred, now seemed to hold even more mirrors than before—her hands, her arms, her very aura reflective and glowing with possible truths.
Viktor took a breath and stepped forward. "Then what about the child?" he asked, his voice steadier than he felt. "We keep talking about Ayoka like she's not here—and that's the one thing I know we both hate."
Sabine paused, then nodded slowly. "That's true."
"You might've helped with the boy," Viktor continued, softer now, "but do you know what Ayoka would do to keep that child safe? Anything. And I mean anything."
He placed his hand on one of the mirrors that still shimmered. "I'm willing to give her that. That boy... he's just as much mine as he is hers. I've seen his smile. I know how he holds my finger like it's the only thing anchoring him. They are my horde. And you know me, Sabine—my horde is my family."
His voice caught slightly, but he kept going. "Sometimes with family, you hurt each other. Not because you want to—but because the truth demands it. And I won't try to hurt her more than I have to. But you've seen what she's becoming... especially since she started sleeping next to me."
As if triggered by his confession, more mirrors began to swirl around Viktor—slowly at first, then multiplying, surrounding him like orbiting moons. Each one glinted with fragmented memories and futures fraying at the edges.
Half the mirrors clustered around Sabine shattered at once.
The sound wasn't loud. It was deep. A soul-shaking implosion.
Sabine let out a raw, sudden scream, staggering back. Magic sparked wildly from her six arms, crackling as if her body was fighting to contain the force within her.
Viktor instinctively stepped forward, panic flaring in his chest. "Sabine—"
She threw a hand up, face twisted with pain. "Back the fuck away..."
Their eyes met. Her golden chain—enchanted, sacred, unyielding—was breaking. One link at a time.
She was crying now. Not delicately. Not beautifully. Her face was streaked, trembling with fury and grief.
"The Sonsters' deal... it's starting to kick in. The timing couldn't have been worse."
Viktor felt his own tears well, uninvited. One fell silently onto his cheek.
Sabine drew herself up, shaking but defiant. "We are going to finish this, Viktor. We're going to try to convince it all—to rewrite fate, if we have to. So don't you dare show fucking mercy. You better prove me wrong... or I better prove that I'm right."
The room stood still. Every mirror watched.
Sabine straightened slowly, magic crackling faintly in her joints. Her hands trembled, but she wiped her face and stood tall. "I asked her to come with me," she said, voice rough but steady. "And she said yes. But her eyes... they wanted to say something else. I get it. I really do."
She began summoning more threads of story-magic into the air, her six arms weaving them into shape, wrapping them into a glowing loom of memory and warning.
"I've already been making plans to leave with her," she continued. "And there's only one true way to stop me now. And we both know... you've never really had to use it before. Probably because you're too weak to."
Her words were sharp, but her voice cracked faintly at the end.
She pulled up a mirror—this time not of prophecy, but a tale: a slave from no country and no name, no sex nor identity, only service. That slave fell in love with the one they were sold to. And the master, in turn, came to love them back. But though they lived in comfort, the slave was never truly free.
"The master said the slave could walk away any time," Sabine narrated, weaving the image with her voice. "All they had to do was ask. But the slave never did. Not because they couldn't. But because they were afraid—of what that kind of freedom might cost."
She turned to Viktor, eyes red but steady. "Are you hoping Ayoka will tell you the truth, if you choose to take that first step? Or are you waiting to hear the thing you need just to make your chains feel holy?"
The mirrors shifted again, the story still echoing.
Viktor didn't answer. Not yet. His gaze had fallen to the golden chain at Sabine's neck—the one the Sonsters forged, once unbreakable, now visibly unraveling link by link. His breath caught as a terrible thought bloomed inside him:
Is this it? Is this the moment I've been trying not to use?
Something inside his chest twisted. Not just guilt. Not just longing. A deep, ancient ache that came from knowing the cost of magic that binds love to obligation. He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, he was still staring at the chain, and all the things it represented—deals, power, the illusion of choice. And Ayoka's silence.
The question Sabine asked still rang in the air like a chime struck once, echoing forever.
Viktor's jaw tightened. "You're only doing this because you know exactly what I'm talking about. You say you don't support Ayoka's imprisonment—but what about the others? The ones your family brought in? The ones you helped trap?"
Sabine flinched. Her voice came out a whisper. "That's different... and you know it."
Viktor's shadow flared out behind him, rising like ink pulled from bone. It twisted and coiled, no longer bound to flat surface—it danced, alive and aware. He began to shape it—his own mirror forming in the dark, cast from memory and intention, not silver.
The shadow expanded like a stage curtain, revealing dark silhouettes playing out scenes in grainy, living light. A noblewoman with Sabine's eyes, her arms outstretched as workers—blurred, nameless, but trembling—handed her tools. Behind her, other shadows labored in silence, threading webs into mirror frames, futures knotted into glass. Smiles twitched on their faces—false and stretched by the weight of unspoken bargains.
"Different? Fine," Viktor said, his voice low and sharp. "Let me tell you a story. Your family were among the first to weave mirrors—not just the glass, but the stories inside them. They didn't buy people the way others did. No, they made them need them. Got them addicted to weaving futures, locked into fates they didn't choose. Trapped in debts written in prophecy ink."
His shadow pulsed again, wrapping around Sabine's feet now—not to harm, but to confront. The images grew crueler: a child signing a pact they couldn't read, an old man kneeling in joy to be chosen. The kindness had teeth, and the chains were gilded.
Sabine looked down.
The shadows Viktor had conjured played too close to her truth. As they rippled across the floor and walls, a deep shame tightened in her chest. She could see it—those contracts spun like spider silk, those workers smiling with hands bleeding behind curtains of gold and glass.
It was the story she never wanted told, the one her family buried beneath generations of ornate diplomacy and silvered prophecy. The one that sparked the Fate War.
Her voice, when it came, was low and bitter. "We only survived because we were strong enough to. That's it. Not smarter. Not better. Just brutal enough to outlast what we helped set on fire."
Her eyes didn't rise to meet Viktor's, but the truth sat heavy on her shoulders, and now the chain around her neck wasn't the only thing beginning to break.
"You call what I've done monstrous? Maybe it is," Viktor said. "But don't pretend your hands are clean just because your family was kinder about it. You know damn well if Ayoka went to your realm, someone would see the shadows inside her and try to spin a Fater's tale around her neck. Just like they did to every soul that ever danced too close to darkness."
Half of the mirrors on Viktor's side shattered at once, falling like glass rain.
But then something else happened. The broken shards didn't fade—they began pulling together, assembling themselves into one enormous mirror.
Viktor stepped toward it. "Let me tell you another tale. Of a Shadow Fater and a Light Fater. Like your fae courts—they spun false prophecies, tore realms apart in secret, just so they could stay hidden and in love. They started a war. Not to win. But just to delay the light."
Sabine scoffed, though her expression cracked. "Really, Viktor? What are you trying to get at?"
Viktor stepped toward it. "Let me tell you another tale. Of a Shadow Fater and a Light Fater. Like your fae courts—they spun false prophecies, tore realms apart in secret, just so they could stay hidden and in love. They started a war. Not to win. But just to delay the light."
Sabine scoffed, though her expression cracked. "Really, Viktor? What are you trying to get at?"
The mirror pulsed. More shards from both sides merged with it, forming a jagged shape that trembled with unstable power. Viktor's shadow began to flicker like a storm behind him—twisting, elongating, forming into looming figures that mirrored his own silhouette.
Viktor's eyes glinted. "She's a priestess of the shadows. And I'm distracting you. Because this time, you're the villain."
Behind him, his shadow pantomimed the shape of Ayoka—arms raised, trembling, then erupting into tendrils of darkness. Another silhouette appeared behind her, small and childlike, clinging to her side. The scene was silent but devastating.
Sabine touched the chain around her neck. Her eyes closed, but her ears remained sharp. Listening. Breathing like she was trying not to sob.
"She's getting too dangerous," Viktor said, the shadows echoing his words in movement alone. One lifted an arm and shattered a faceless silhouette of a Lighter with a single touch. "And you know it. Without the right training, she'll kill someone. A Lighter. Maybe worse. So I'm keeping her. I made her this way. A child of the dark. A creature of my horde."
He swallowed hard. "You keep your plan. But leave her behind. You won't have to face her. You'll lie to her. Give her hope. Let her believe."
Sabine's hands trembled. The chain around her throat glowed faintly—more than half of it already snapped, the links hissing as if burning through her skin.
"You can visit, dear ally," Viktor said, voice barely above a whisper now. "But our contract... it's done."
Suddenly, the room convulsed. A low hum built in the walls like a scream trapped behind plaster. Then—
A violent pulse of magic ripped through the chamber. The colossal mirror shattered in a burst of white fire. Light and shadow collided like colliding storms. Viktor's shadow roared upward like a tidal wave, wrapping around him even as it broke.
Both Viktor and Sabine were thrown against opposite walls with bone-rattling force.
Silence.
Then slow, ragged breathing. A groan. The dull clatter of magic disintegrating.
Sabine was the first to stir, dragging herself upright and wiping blood from her lip. Her six arms twitched, aching. Viktor coughed, rising to his elbows amid the ash of shattered reflections.
There was nothing left of the mirror but scorched glass and tension that refused to dissolve.
They stood.
Viktor poured the last drink with shaking hands.
Sabine took it without a word, her fingers brushing his.
They clinked glasses one final time. Neither smiled. Their eyes said what their mouths would not: grief, exhaustion, and something like farewell.
Sabine turned, cloak dragging behind her like mourning silk. She reached the door and paused.
"I hope this was worth it."
Then she walked into the light.
And Viktor stayed behind, in the shadows.