The mirror had always been there, above the old fireplace in Elowen's room, framed in dark wood carved with leaves and moons. It had once belonged to her mother—before the silence, before the shadows that crept into the corners of their lives.
Elowen rarely looked into it. Not because she feared what she'd see, but because she feared what she wouldn't.
But tonight, something drew her to it.
The moonlight stretched long and pale across the floor, spilling over the rug and touching the mirror's edge. Elowen stood before it in her nightdress, hair loose around her shoulders. The glass was dusty, like it had forgotten how to reflect clearly.
She raised her hand and brushed it clean.
And there she was.
The girl in the mirror.
Same eyes—gray and restless.
Same freckles, scattered like stardust over pale cheeks.
But something was different.
The girl in the mirror wasn't just her. She was something else—something after. After the letters, after Amara, after the hollow ache that had curled its fingers around her ribs. She looked softer, but not weaker. Bruised, but not broken.
"I don't know who I'm becoming," Elowen whispered, touching the glass.
The girl didn't answer.
But her eyes seemed kinder.
Behind her reflection, she could almost see the forest—the place where she had met Amara, where Orielle now walked beside her. She remembered the silver bells. The sound they made when her heart cracked open just enough to let the light in.
"You changed me," she said, to no one and to everyone.
Amara's absence still pressed against her like a winter coat too heavy for spring. But something else had begun to grow. Something unsure and tender. A warmth that arrived not with thunder, but with the soft, steady rhythm of Orielle's presence. Her hands. Her voice. Her staying.
"Maybe it's okay not to be whole yet," Elowen murmured.
A knock at the door startled her.
She turned, heart quickening. "Come in."
Orielle peeked her head inside. "Couldn't sleep," she said gently. "The wind's howling like it lost something."
Elowen smiled faintly. "Me too."
Orielle entered, closing the door behind her. She carried a small book in her hands—worn and soft, the kind with pages that made soft sounds when turned.
"I thought you might want this," she said, holding it out. "It's poems. Not mine, but ones I like."
Elowen took it. Their fingers brushed.
"Thank you," she said. "Will you stay a while?"
Orielle nodded and sat beside her on the window seat. The moonlight cast their reflections in the glass again, this time side by side. Elowen opened the book, thumbed through the pages, and stopped at one that felt right.
She read it aloud, voice quiet but steady.
> "I looked into the mirror once
and found not what I was—
but all the pieces I had gathered
in the shape of someone I might love."
Orielle didn't speak for a long time.
Then she said, "You know, you're not lost, Elowen. You're just… in-between."
Elowen closed the book, heart full and aching. "That's the part that hurts the most."
"I know," Orielle said. "But it's also the part where the real magic happens."
Elowen looked back at the mirror.
This time, she saw not just the girl she had been, but the one she was becoming. A girl learning how to hold grief and love in the same hand. A girl brave enough to name her pain and still hope for joy.
The girl in the mirror smiled.
And Elowen did too.