Senti's POV
Vale slept, but I didn't.
The city murmured under its breath — ships in the harbor, neon signs flickering through fog, the faint hum of a generator somewhere far below. I listened to all of it from the floor of a half-lit room, back against the wall, blade across my knees.
It had been a week since the docks.
Maybe two.
Time didn't make noise anymore, so I stopped keeping track.
They said silence was healing.
Whoever said that never had to live inside their own head.
The Reflection didn't speak often now — just small things.
Finishing my thoughts.
Answering before I asked.
Sometimes it used my voice. Sometimes Blake's. Sometimes… his.
You should have stopped sooner.
You should have never stopped at all.
They would have killed her too.
It was all true. Every line. Every tone.
That's what made it worse.
I still saw them when I blinked — flashes of red through the fog, Aura breaking like glass, the weight of bodies hitting concrete.
The smell stuck to everything.
When I slept, I dreamed of the sound.
Not the fighting — the stillness after.
Like the world itself was holding its breath, waiting for me to move again.
And sometimes, I did.
Woke up standing with my blades drawn, breathing hard, muscles coiled, Aura flickering gold-red around my hands.
No one else in the room.
No blood.
No fight.
Just me.
And the Reflection, smiling in the window.
I stopped eating for three days after that.
Couldn't tell what was real. Couldn't tell if the warmth under my skin was Aura or fever.
When I finally looked in the mirror, I didn't recognize what looked back.
Eyes too red.
Pupils too bright.
A smile I didn't remember making.
"Stop," I said.
The Reflection tilted its head. I'm trying to help.
"You're lying."
You wanted me to save you. I did.
"You made me a killer."
You were already one.
I slammed my fist against the glass. The mirror didn't break — it just rippled, light bending in waves, and for a heartbeat, I saw four faces staring back.
Joy — laughing, blood on her teeth.
Logic — calm, surgical, indifferent.
Cruelty — smiling too wide.
Charm — crying quietly in the corner.
They didn't fade. They blended.
Their mouths moved together.
We're all you have left.
The days stopped having edges.
Sometimes I thought I was outside — sunlight on steel rooftops, the smell of rain. Then I'd blink and find myself back in the same room, same chair, same heartbeat that wasn't sure it belonged to me.
I'd whisper Blake's name just to remember how it felt on my tongue.
Sometimes I'd say it wrong. Sometimes I'd forget what it meant.
She's gone, the Reflection would say. You made sure of that.
"No," I'd whisper. "I let her live."
Same thing.
I'd laugh, and the sound wouldn't stop. It would echo off the walls until I couldn't breathe, until my Aura flared red-hot and the lights blew out.
Then it would be dark again, and I'd forget what had been so funny.
One night, I caught my reflection moving again.
Not after me — before me.
It raised its blade when I hadn't.
Tilted its head when I stayed still.
The grin was wrong — too sharp, too certain.
"Who are you now?" I asked.
The part of you that can still function.
"And the rest of me?"
Collateral.
I stopped trying to argue.
There was no winning against something that wore your face better than you did.
So I went quiet.
Walked the streets at night, hood up, tail hidden, coat soaked through with rain. Sometimes I heard them again — the White Fang, the ones who got away. I followed their voices down alleys, across rooftops, through the market.
Never caught them.
Maybe they were never there.
Maybe I was chasing ghosts.
Maybe I was the ghost.
When I came home one night, there was writing on the wall — long, uneven lines scrawled in black ink. I didn't remember writing it.
The Wolf protects. The Wolf erases. The Wolf survives.
Over and over. Hundreds of times.
The Reflection's voice filled the room.
See? You've remembered the rules.
I sank to my knees, laughing until my throat cracked. "You sound proud."
I am.
By morning, the words were gone.
The mirror was whole again.
My blades were polished and ready.
And I didn't remember doing any of it.
Only the lingering sound of my own laughter in a room that didn't echo anymore.