The Mirror of Unmaking stood like a wound in the center of the chamber—a vertical crack in the world's own narrative. It pulsed, not with light, but with presence, as if it were a living thing exhaling silent judgment. The cracked black glass reflected no one, not even Mary, and that terrified her more than if it had shown something monstrous.
The moment Mary crossed the threshold into the mirror chamber, the door slammed shut behind her, sealing with a soft hiss like breath held too long. Lela and Loosie stood on either side, weapons drawn, tension bleeding from every pore.
Loosie glanced around. "So, where's the monster? Every ancient room like this ends with a boss fight."
"Maybe this time it's not about fighting," Lela murmured. "Maybe it's about surviving yourself."
Mary's eyes narrowed. "No. We'll have to do both."
The cracked mirror shimmered, then began to hum. At first the sound was imperceptible—more felt than heard—but it grew, a vibration in their bones, resonating with buried guilt and forgotten dreams. The air thickened.
The mirror turned—not physically, but conceptually, like it was aligning with some higher dimensional axis. A mist rose from its base, coiling like serpents made of thought. Then the glass flickered—and a reflection emerged.
It was Mary.
But not quite.
This version wore armor laced with crimson veins, her eyes black pits swirling with silver runes. Her face was the same—but older, harder, etched with the weariness of entire lifetimes. She looked at Mary with pity—and hunger.
"I am what you become," the reflection said, stepping forward from the glass. "If you choose the Codex. If you open the Final Page."
Mary stood still, every instinct screaming to flee, to fight. But she forced herself to breathe. "You're not me."
"I was," the doppelgänger said softly. "Before I made the hard choices. Before I bled the world to silence the Void. Before I ended hope to save it."
Loosie raised her pistol. "I don't care what twisted timeline you crawled out of. If you threaten her—"
"—You'll die trying to stop me," the reflection said, smiling sadly. "Just like you did in my world."
She snapped her fingers.
The chamber changed instantly.
Gone was the sterile black stone. Now they stood on a shattered plain under a sky torn in half—one side burning with red stars, the other consumed by shadows. The Codex floated in the center, open and unreadable. Around it, corpses lay in concentric circles—mages, soldiers, monsters, innocents.
Lela stepped forward and recognized one of the bodies.
Her own.
She paled. "This is a lie."
"This is a possibility," the mirror-Mary said. "The moment you wield true power, you become the author of consequence. I unwrote an apocalypse—and became one to do it."
Mary clenched her fists. "Then you failed."
"No," said the reflection. "I succeeded. The Hollow World still spins. But no one's left to see it."
From the shadows emerged other figures—reflections of the three of them, distorted and monstrous. Loosie's reflection was half-machine, half-demon, one arm fused to a cannon of burning sigils. Lela's wore bone armor and carried a blade that whispered names of the dead. They all wore the same expression—resigned, triumphant, exhausted.
Battle erupted without warning.
The reflection of Loosie fired first, sending a cascade of burning light into the real Loosie, who dove behind a crystal shard and returned fire. Her bullets struck true—but the mirror version absorbed the impact, laughing.
"Pain is what made me real," she shouted. "You still think you're fighting for something!"
Lela clashed blades with her own reflection, sparks flying in bursts of purple flame. Each strike between them sent out tremors that cracked the dream-world around them. The battlefield was coming undone.
Mary squared off against herself.
"I won't become you," she whispered.
Her reflection smiled. "You already have. Or you wouldn't be here."
With a roar, the dark Mary lunged.
They collided in a storm of will and magic. The Codex flared, caught between them, torn between potential realities. Mary struck first, her blade—a weapon formed from one of the Codex's living pages—piercing her doppelgänger's shoulder. But the dark Mary responded by grabbing Mary's wrist and twisting time itself.
For a moment, Mary saw herself as a child, lost in the gardens of her family's estate. Then as a vampire, blood-stained and trembling. Then as a scholar, caged in a monastery. Then, finally, as a weapon, forged by fate.
"See?" the dark version hissed. "We are the same story, written with different ink."
Mary screamed, not from pain—but from understanding.
She tore herself free, placed a hand over her heart—and spoke a name.
"Vael'them'ra."
It wasn't hers. It belonged to the First Speaker—the only being who had survived the Mirror and emerged unbroken.
The Codex pulsed.
Light filled the chamber.
Time snapped.
The battlefield dissolved.
When the smoke cleared, only one Mary remained—scarred, panting, but whole.
Lela and Loosie stood beside her, bleeding, shaken, but alive.
The Mirror had gone dark.
Its power spent—for now.
A new door opened in the far wall, glowing white.
Mary looked at her hands.
She hadn't become her reflection.
But something inside her had changed.
The Mirror had shown her what she could be—and it hadn't lied.
Lela touched her shoulder. "You okay?"
"No," Mary said quietly. "But I'm certain."
Loosie looked at the door. "Where does that go?"
Mary turned to the others. "To the Scriptorium—the heart of the Codex. That's where we end this… or begin something worse."
They stepped through together.
Behind them, the Mirror cracked once more—and began to reform.
Waiting for the next soul.