Chapter 29 - First Test**
Monday, September 13, 2027 – 3:17 p.m.**
First period after lunch is supposed to be study hall in the library.
Instead, the lights go out valley-wide.
Every bulb, every screen, every phone dies at once.
Then the mirrors come back.
Not the ones we broke or painted over.
New ones.
Hundreds of them.
They bleed out of the walls like black water, forming perfect standing sheets of glass all over the school.
Time Stands completely still for the mortals and non magical people.
Teachers and Students frozen in time. The entire School is full of fog and mirrors.
I'm already moving.
Remy is at my left, claws half-out.
Seras is at my right, palms blazing orange.
Kayo's tails are fully visible for the first time in public, nine golden whips crackling with fox-fire.
Aki and Riku flank us, horns glowing crimson.
We reach the library.
A single mirror stands in the middle of the floor.
Inside it: the Forty-Eighth.
Full crown.
My face.
My body.
My voice, but colder.
**Not-Celeste (smiling like she's won):**
"Time for your first real test, little storm."
She steps halfway out of the mirror—only her top half, like the glass is a doorway stuck halfway open.
In her hand is a perfect replica of the bloodstone locket Remy wears.
She crushes it.
Real-world Remy gasps and drops to one knee, clutching his chest.
The locket around his neck shatters into red dust.
**Not-Celeste (soft):**
"Rule of the test:
You can save one.
Only one."
The mirror splits into five.
Five scenes appear.
1. Remy bleeding out on the library floor.
2. Seras burning alive from the inside, screaming my name.
3. Kayo bound in her own tails, forced to watch her brothers die.
4. Aki and Riku turned to stone, cracks spreading from their hearts.
5. The entire valley on fire while I stand crowned and alone.
**Not-Celeste:**
"Choose who lives.
The rest die right now.
No tricks. No loopholes.
Choose."
The library goes dead silent.
Every student, every teacher, every ghost who followed us in—watching.
Remy tries to stand.
**Remy (hoarse):**
"Don't you dare—"
Seras's fire gutters.
**Seras:**
"Celeste—"
Kayo's tails lash.
**Kayo (dead calm):**
"Choose yourself. End this."
I look at each of them.
My family.
My reasons.
Then I look at the Forty-Eighth wearing my face and daring me to become her.
I step forward until I'm nose-to-nose with her reflection.
**Celeste (quiet, steady):**
"No."
I place my hand flat on the mirror.
The silver scar in my bloodstone flares white.
Dacia's voice—ancient, furious, proud—speaks through me for the first time in front of witnesses.
**Dacia/Celeste:**
"We do not choose who dies.
We choose who we refuse to let die."
I speak the twenty percent I have in perfect, unbroken Vinča.
Not an attack spell.
A binding.
An oath.
Light explodes from the scar—not crimson, not black, but the color of dawn on snow.
Every mirror shatters at once.
The visions vanish.
Remy's locket reforms around his neck, whole and warm.
Seras's fire steadies.
Kayo's tails uncoil.
The oni brothers breathe again.
The Forty-Eighth staggers back into her mirror, crown flickering like bad reception.
**Not-Celeste (actually scared for the first time):**
"That… wasn't supposed to be possible yet."
**Celeste (smiling with all my teeth):**
"You forgot the forty-eighth piece isn't a thing.
It's a choice.
And I just made mine."
The mirror collapses into black sand and is gone.
The lights come back on.
The school is silent for one heartbeat.
Then Al Capone's ghost starts slow-clapping from the reference section.
Every ghost in the valley joins in.
Remy stands, pulls me into his arms, and doesn't let go.
**Remy (whisper against my hair):**
"Never do that again."
**Celeste (laughing, crying):**
"Deal."
The HUD flashes once.
```
11 → 12 / 47
New piece acquired: CHOICE
The Forty-Eighth bleeds when you refuse to become her.
```
Junior year is one month old.
And I just drew first blood.
She wanted a war of power.
I just changed the rules to a war of who we choose to be. The fog evaporates and the mirrors turn to dust and the lights come back on and time becomes unfrozen.
Your move, mirror girl. Monday, September 13, 2027 – 3:22 p.m.**
Time slams back into motion.
One second the library is a frozen tableau of open mouths and half-raised phones; the next, every mortal in the building gasps like they've been underwater for five minutes.
Books hit the floor.
A freshman drops an entire tray of cafeteria pizza.
Someone screams.
Then the screaming spreads.
Because every mirror in the school is now black sand drifting across the carpet like obsidian snow.
The lights flicker once, twice, then hold steady.
Al Capone's slow clap echoes louder than it has any right to.
Mrs. Hensley, the librarian, stares at the pile of dust where a full-length mirror used to be, then at me, then at the six of us standing in the middle like we just survived a war.
**Mrs. Hensley (shaky):**
"Everyone… everyone out. Now. Orderly lines."
No one moves.
They're all staring at us.
At the faint white glow still fading from the scar on my forehead.
At Remy's locket, whole again and pulsing soft red.
At Seras's hands still wreathed in orange fire that isn't burning anything.
At Kayo's nine golden tails slowly folding back into invisibility.
Principal Hargrove bursts through the doors, face pale.
**Hargrove:**
"What in the name of—"
Rowan Vale steps in behind her, calm as ever, silver mug in hand.
**Rowan (cutting her off, smooth):**
"Gas leak combined with a minor seismic event.
Nothing to see here, folks.
Early dismissal.
Everyone go home, hug your parents, drink some water."
He snaps his fingers.
Every mortal in the room blinks, nods, and starts filing out like that actually makes sense.
Glamour on a mass scale.
Rowan waits until the last student is gone, then closes the library doors with a soft click.
Only our crew remains, plus Al, Frankie, and a dozen other ghosts lounging in the stacks like they own the place.
Rowan looks at me for a long second.
**Rowan (quiet, almost proud):**
"You just used twenty percent of a dead language to bind a primal reflection.
In public.
On school property."
He exhales.
**Rowan:**
"The Monastery felt that in Shambhala.
They're sending someone.
Tomorrow."
Seras's fire finally dies down to embers.
**Seras:**
"Good someone or bad someone?"
**Rowan:**
"Depends which side of the fence you sit on."
Remy hasn't let go of my hand since the mirrors shattered.
**Remy (low):**
"She bled."
He's staring at the black sand.
There's one single drop of crimson mixed in with the dust—real blood.
Not mine.
Hers.
Kayo crouches, touches it with one claw, and smiles like a cat who just spotted a wounded bird.
**Kayo:**
"First blood belongs to the storm queen.
The Forty-Eighth is scared now."
Al tips his hat from the reference desk.
**Al:**
"Kid just rewrote the rules in front of the whole damn town.
Respect."
I laugh—shaky, exhausted, but real.
**Celeste:**
"So what happens now?"
Rowan meets my eyes.
**Rowan:**
"Now you go home.
You eat something that isn't papanasi.
You sleep.
Because tomorrow the Monastery sends an envoy, the Severed Circle licks its wounds, and the Forty-Eighth starts playing dirtier."
He pauses.
**Rowan:**
"And you just proved she can be hurt.
That makes you the most dangerous sixteen-year-old on the planet."
He turns to leave, then stops.
**Rowan (soft):**
"Also… nice oath.
Your grandmother would be proud."
The doors swing open on their own.
We walk out into a school that looks like a bomb made of mirrors went off.
The HUD flickers once more before it goes dark.
```
12 / 47
The war has rules now.
You wrote the first one in her blood.
```
Junior year is officially no longer safe.
But for the first time since the mirror appeared, I'm not running.
I'm hunting.
Your move, mirror girl.
I'm done being afraid of becoming you.
I'm going to become something better.