The ladder to the attic creaks under Ava's weight, each step groaning under her weight. Night presses against the small circular window, filling the attic with deep shadows. Ava's flashlight beam cuts through the darkness, revealing boxes covered in dust and pieces of her family's history. She pauses at the top of the ladder, listening to the empty house below her, wondering if she really is alone up here.
After everything that happened at school—the vacant stares, the missing records, the rippling shadows—Ava couldn't just sit in her empty living room waiting for answers that might never come. The thought had struck her as she stared at the blank spaces where family photos should have been: if her mother had been erased from Clearwater's memory, perhaps she had left something behind. Something hidden.
Ava steps fully into the attic, wincing as the floorboards groan beneath her feet. The air is stale, with that same sharp, metallic smell she'd noticed since their birthday. Her flashlight beam dances across dusty furniture, illuminating cobwebs that stretch like delicate fingers between boxes and beams. It feels like no one's been up here in years—but not abandoned.
"There has to be something," she whispers, the sound of her own voice startling in the silence.
She moves carefully between stacks of cardboard boxes labeled in her mother's neat handwriting: "Christmas," "Tax Records," "Ava—Baby Clothes." Her throat tightens at this evidence of her existence, proof that her life with Maya was real. Ava kneels beside a trunk containing old photo albums, but as she reaches to open it, her flashlight beam catches on something unusual.
A floorboard near the circular window doesn't quite match the others—slightly darker, its edge raised a fraction of an inch. Ava crawls toward it, her heart quickening. She presses her fingertips against the wood, feeling it give slightly. It's loose.
Her fingers shake as she pries at the edge of the board. It lifts with surprising ease, revealing a hollow space beneath. Dust motes dance in her flashlight beam as she peers into the darkness, catching the gleam of something solid. A box.
Ava reaches into the cavity, her fingers closing around smooth, cool wood. She lifts the box out carefully, cradling it in her palms. It's smaller than she expected, about the size of a hardcover book, with intricate carvings along its edges. In the center of the lid, two initials are carved in flowing script: M.M.
"Maya Montgomery," Ava whispers, tracing the letters with her fingertip.
She settles cross-legged on the floor, the box balanced on her knees. For a moment, she just stares at it, both eager and afraid to see what's inside. Then, taking a deep breath, she lifts the lid.
The hinges whisper as they open, revealing a stack of yellowed papers folded with precise care. Letters. Ava's hands tremble as she lifts the top one, unfolding it to reveal her mother's familiar handwriting, the elegant loops and sharp angles she knows as well as her own face.
The date at the top catches her eye first: August 17, 2006—the day Ava, Liam, and Sophie were born.
*The sacrifice is complete. The children are safe, at least for now. I can't stop thinking about what we've done, what we've given up. Ethan says it was necessary, that the protection through erasure was the only way. Nora agrees, of course. She always does when it comes to these matters.*
*But I wonder if we've made a terrible mistake. The Forgotten One promised safety, but at what cost? Our children will grow up never knowing who they truly are, what they're capable of. And when they turn seventeen—when the mirrors begin to speak to them—what then?*
Ava's breath catches in her throat. The mirrors. The strange reflections at the diner. The way the glass had rippled and distorted, showing them and not-them at the same time. Her pulse thunders in her ears as she unfolds another letter.
*November 3, 2006*
*The binding is holding, but the price feels steeper each day. Clearwater continues as it always has, unaware of what lurks beneath its surface. The children grow, showing no signs of what they carry inside them. But the seventeenth year will come, and with it, the thinning of the veil. Will our sacrifice be enough when the time comes? Or will the Forgotten One claim what we promised?*
Her mother's words blur as tears fill Ava's eyes. She blinks them away, determined to understand. The next letter is addressed to someone called "Keeper," the handwriting more hurried, less controlled.
*The protection will hold until they turn seventeen. After that, the reflections will begin to call them. We've bought them time, nothing more. When the mirrors begin to speak, it will be too late to hide the truth. The necessary sacrifice—our memories, our existence in this world—will seem small compared to what comes next.*
*They must find the anchors before the Forgotten One finds them. They must understand their power. Or everything we've done will have been for nothing.*
Ava's hands feel cold despite the stuffy attic heat. Her throat constricts around questions she can't even form. Her parents had done this—made some kind of deal, some sacrifice. And now they were gone, erased from Clearwater's memory. But why? What was the "Forgotten One"? What power did she and her friends supposedly have?
As if in answer to her unspoken questions, a low, metallic hum fills the air. The same sound she heard the night her parents disappeared. It vibrates through the floorboards, making the dust dance in her flashlight beam. The letters tremble in her hands, and for a moment, Ava swears she sees the ink shifting on the page, the words rearranging themselves before settling back into her mother's handwriting.
The hum intensifies, rising in pitch until her teeth ache with it. Ava fumbles for her phone, hands shaking as she opens the camera app. She photographs each letter quickly, making sure the flash captures every word, every detail. The wooden box seems to grow colder in her lap, as if responding to the strange energy filling the attic.
When the last letter is documented, Ava carefully refolds them all, placing them back in the box exactly as she found them. The metallic hum fades as she works, leaving behind a ringing silence that feels almost as oppressive. She returns the box to its hiding place, replacing the floorboard with trembling fingers.
Standing in the center of the attic, phone clutched to her chest, Ava feels a strange certainty settle over her. The fear is still there, but alongside it grows a determination that burns through the confusion. Her mother had left these letters for her to find. There were answers here—not all of them, but enough to start with.
Ava climbs down the ladder, each step more purposeful than her ascent had been. Her chest feels tight with a mixture of fear and resolution. Whatever sacrifice her parents made, whatever deal they struck with this "Forgotten One," she and her friends are caught in the middle of it now. And she won't stop until she understands why.
Liam Foster kneels before his father's study door, a paperclip bent between his fingers, determination overriding the voice in his head that says this is wrong. The house settles around him with familiar creaks and sighs, but it feels hollow now, a shell of the home it once was. The lock clicks open under his persistent efforts, and he pushes the door slowly, wincing at the soft whine of hinges that haven't been oiled in months. Ethan Foster's study lies before him, meticulously organized even in abandonment—a perfect reflection of the man himself.
Liam steps inside, closing the door behind him with a soft click. The room smells of his father's sandalwood aftershave and the leather-bound engineering manuals that line the shelves. Everything is exactly as it should be—pens aligned at precise angles on the desk, chair pushed in at exactly the right distance, papers stacked in tidy piles. Except for the fact that Ethan Foster isn't here. Hasn't been here for days.
"Sorry, Dad," Liam mutters, moving toward the landscape painting that hangs behind the desk. He's never been allowed in this room alone, never been trusted with whatever secrets his father keeps locked away. But rules feel meaningless now, in a world where they're being erased person by person, memory by memory.
The painting—a stark mountain scene his father brought back from a business trip to Colorado—hangs slightly off-center. Liam has noticed this before, the one imperfection in Ethan Foster's otherwise flawless space. He lifts the frame carefully, revealing exactly what he suspected: a wall safe, its metal face gleaming dully in the low light.
Liam's fingers hover over the keypad. He should try the combination first—his father's birthday, his mother's birthday, his own. None work. The safe remains stubbornly locked, indifferent to his growing frustration. Sweat beads on his forehead as he kneels down, examining the lock more closely. It's older than he expected, with a traditional tumbler mechanism rather than just the electronic keypad.
Perfect.
Three years of lockpicking videos online are about to pay off. Liam pulls out another paperclip, straightening it before bending one end into a small hook. His hands shake slightly, but he forces them steady through sheer will. The first tumbler clicks after a minute of careful manipulation. The second takes longer, testing his patience.
"Come on," he whispers, adjusting his grip on the improvised tools. "Come on."
The final tumbler falls into place with a satisfying click, and Liam feels a surge of triumph. He turns the handle, and the safe door swings open, revealing its secrets at last.
Inside, everything is organized with his father's characteristic precision. A stack of legal documents in labeled folders. A small bundle of cash held together with a silver money clip. Insurance policies. The deed to the house. And behind them all, something that doesn't belong—a small velvet pouch, its rich blue fabric standing out against the sterile efficiency of everything else.
Liam reaches for it, hesitating only briefly before loosening the drawstring top. Something cold and metallic slides into his palm—a coin, slightly larger than a half-dollar, made of what appears to be pure silver. It feels unusually heavy for its size, the weight of it disproportionate to its dimensions.
In the dim light of the study, the coin seems to capture and hold the shadows. Strange symbols are etched into its surface—not letters or numbers, but something more fluid, almost organic in their design. As Liam turns the coin in his fingers, the symbols appear to shift, rearranging themselves before settling back into their original pattern.
"What the hell?" he whispers, tilting the coin toward the desk lamp.
The silver catches the light oddly, reflecting it back with a bluish tinge that doesn't match the warm glow of the lamp. The coin grows colder in his hand, a chill that seeps past skin and into bone. Liam's breath fogs in the suddenly frigid air of the study, though the temperature of the room itself hasn't changed.
His gaze drifts to his father's desk, where a small mirror sits in a wooden stand—a gift from Liam's mother years ago. In the reflection, Liam sees himself holding the coin, but something is wrong. The image wavers like heat rising from pavement, distorting his features in subtle, unsettling ways. He leans closer, unable to look away.
The Liam in the mirror does the same, but not quite in sync. There's a delay, a fraction of a second where the reflection moves of its own accord. And its eyes—Liam's breath catches as he notices the difference. The reflection's eyes gleam with a metallic silver sheen, like polished coins themselves, watching him with an awareness that feels separate from his own.
"Jesus," he hisses, nearly dropping the coin but finding his fingers unwilling to release it.
In that moment, the coin pulses once in his palm—not a physical vibration, but something deeper, a resonance that travels up his arm and settles somewhere behind his sternum. The shadows in the room respond, bending toward him like plants seeking sunlight. They stretch across the floor, the walls, the ceiling, all reaching for the coin in his hand as if drawn by some magnetic force.
For a heartbeat, maybe two, Liam can't move. The shadows touch him, passing through clothing to brush against skin with a sensation like ice water. His reflection's silver eyes widen, its lips parting as if to speak—but no sound comes. Instead, the shadows recede as quickly as they advanced, snapping back to their proper places as the coin goes inert once more.
Liam staggers back, colliding with his father's bookshelf. Several engineering manuals topple to the floor, the sound jarring in the sudden silence. His heart hammers against his ribs, and his breath comes in short, painful gasps. The coin is just a coin again, though it remains unnaturally cold in his palm.
His gaze darts to the mirror, which now shows only his normal reflection—wide-eyed and pale, but with eyes their usual blue. Liam swallows hard, forcing his breathing to slow. His father knew about this. Had kept this hidden away, locked behind metal and wood and wall. Whatever this coin is, it's part of the answer to what's happening to them.
With shaking hands, Liam slips the coin into his pocket. Its weight feels disproportionate to its size, as if he's carrying a small boulder rather than a piece of metal. He quickly straightens the fallen books, closes the safe, and returns the painting to its slightly off-center position. Everything looks untouched, just as his father left it.
In the hallway, Liam pulls out his phone. His thumb hovers over the screen for just a second before he types a message to both Ava and Sophie:
"Found something in my dad's safe. Meet me in the woods behind school. Bring whatever you've found. Don't tell anyone."
He hesitates, then adds:
"Be careful. I think whatever's happening is getting worse."
Liam sends the text, then closes his eyes, feeling the weight of the coin in his pocket, the lingering chill of the shadows on his skin. His jaw clenches with resolve. Whatever his father was hiding, whatever's happening to them—he won't let it happen without a fight. Not to him, not to his friends. Not to anyone else.
Sophie Clarke sits cross-legged on her mother's bedroom floor, a notebook open beside her, columns and categories already mapped out in her precise handwriting. The room feels clinical under her systematic scrutiny—each drawer examined, contents logged, nothing overlooked. She works with the detached efficiency of a scientist cataloging specimens, though the slight tremor in her hands betrays the emotion she's trying to compartmentalize. Three hours, seventeen minutes, and approximately forty-five seconds since she began her search, and so far, all she's documented are the ordinary remnants of her mother's life.
"Statistically speaking," she murmurs to herself, "people who plan to disappear leave behind indicators. Patterns. Evidence." Her voice fills the empty room, a conscious effort to make the space feel less abandoned. Less final.
Sophie pushes her wire-rimmed glasses up her nose and examines her findings so far. Clothing inventory: complete, with seventeen items missing—roughly enough for two weeks away. Jewelry: missing three pieces, all with sentimental rather than monetary value. Toiletries: travel sizes gone, full sizes present. The data points toward a planned departure, not a forced one. But it offers no explanation for why, or where, or what's happening to the very fabric of their existence in Clearwater.
She stands, her legs stiff from sitting too long, and surveys the room again. Her analytical mind segments the space into quadrants, each already thoroughly examined. Except—Sophie's eyes narrow as she considers her mother's bed. Queen-sized, positioned exactly in the center of the north wall, headboard flush against the baseboard. A geometric certainty that's always bothered her.
Sophie kneels beside the bed, her fingers drumming against the hardwood floor. If her mother were hiding something, where would it be? Not in plain sight. Not in any of the obvious hiding places Sophie has already checked. She lies flat, peering under the bed frame. The dust patterns are uneven—recent disturbance on the right side, closest to the window.
She slides beneath the bed, ignoring the dust that clings to her clothing. Her fingers trace the floorboards, searching for irregularities. Near the center, a board shifts slightly under pressure. Sophie presses harder, feeling it give. Unlike the others, this one isn't secured to the joists below.
With careful precision, she works her fingers into the tiny gap and lifts. The floorboard comes away easily, revealing a small cavity beneath. Inside lies a single object: a leather-bound book, its spine cracked from use, a frayed ribbon marking a page near the end.
Sophie extracts it with the care of an archaeologist recovering an artifact. In the fading afternoon light, she can make out her mother's initials stamped into the leather: N.C. A diary.
She settles back into her cross-legged position, balancing the book on her knees. For a moment, she hesitates—a rare uncertainty creeping past her analytical defenses. This is her mother's private journal. Under normal circumstances, she would never violate that privacy. But nothing has been normal since their birthday at the diner.
"Necessity overrides social convention," she tells herself, opening the diary to the first page.
The entries begin sixteen years ago, around the time of Sophie's first birthday. Her mother's elegant handwriting fills each page with meticulous detail—not the everyday events Sophie would expect, but something altogether different. Phrases like "thinning boundaries" and "reflective barriers" appear frequently, along with detailed observations of Sophie as an infant.
*The Keeper's promise binds us now. Ethan has secured the physical anchors, while Maya handles the binding spells. My role as observer seems inadequate in comparison, but someone must document what happens as the children grow. Already, Sophie shows signs—the way she stares at mirrors, the way light bends around her when she sleeps. The protection through reflection holds, but for how long?*
Sophie's breath catches, her mind racing to process what she's reading. Keeper. Binding spells. Protection through reflection. The words feel both alien and strangely familiar, like a language she should know but has somehow forgotten. She flips through more pages, scanning entries that span years, watching her own childhood unfold through a lens she never knew existed.
An entry from when she was seven catches her attention:
*The boundary weakened today. The Forgotten One almost found a way through when the children played near Miller's Creek. The water's surface became a door rather than a mirror. If Maya hadn't been watching... I can't bear to think what might have happened. We renewed the protections tonight. The cost grows steeper each time.*
Sophie's hands begin to shake as she continues reading, analytical detachment crumbling under the weight of revelation. She marks important passages with small sticky notes from her pocket, creating a system even as her worldview shifts beneath her. The most recent entries are the most disturbing, beginning just before their seventeenth birthday:
*May 30, 2023*
*The time approaches. I've strengthened the mirrors in our home as much as possible, but it won't be enough once they turn seventeen. The pact we made all those years ago has kept them safe, but the price was always going to come due. The children must never know what we've done to keep them safe. The pact ensures their protection, but only until they turn seventeen. After that, the choice will be theirs—though they won't understand what they're choosing.*
*We've decided tonight. When the signs begin—when the reflections start to shift—we must enact the final protection. Erasure is the only way to delay the Forgotten One long enough for them to discover the truth themselves. They're stronger together than we ever were. They have to be.*
Sophie's analytical mind works furiously, connecting this new information with everything that's happened since their birthday. The diner. The strange reflections. Their parents' disappearance. The world forgetting them. It wasn't random. It wasn't even malicious. It was... protection?
She turns to the final marked page, where her mother's handwriting becomes more urgent, less controlled:
*August 10, 2023*
*It's beginning. The mirrors spoke to me today—not in words, but in images. The Forgotten One grows stronger. Our time is running out. By removing ourselves from the equation, we give the children a chance. The anchors are in place. The path is set. When they find each other in the reflection, they'll understand their power. Three born on the same day, three aspects of the same force. May they forgive us for what we've done. For what we're about to do.*
A soft chime interrupts Sophie's reading. Her phone, sitting on the floor beside her notebook, lights up with a text. Liam's name flashes on the screen. Sophie reaches for it with numb fingers, reading his message about meeting in the woods. Found something in my dad's safe. Sophie isn't surprised. The pieces are falling into place with a terrible symmetry.
She carefully photographs each marked page of the diary, then closes it and returns it to her bag. Evidence. Documentation. The foundation of understanding. As she stands, a familiar metallic hum begins to fill the room—the same sound they heard the night their parents disappeared. It vibrates through the floorboards, making the windows rattle slightly in their frames.
Sophie turns toward her mother's vanity mirror, intending to check her appearance before leaving. The hum intensifies as she approaches, and what she sees freezes her in place. Her reflection stares back, but it's not alone. Flanking her image are two more faces—Ava on her left, Liam on her right. They look like themselves but slightly different, their eyes holding an awareness that suggests they're not just reflections but something more.
The three reflections move in unison, raising their hands as if pressing against the glass from the other side. The metallic hum builds to a crescendo, then stops abruptly. The mirror shows only Sophie again, pale and wide-eyed, her analytical mind struggling to process what cannot be explained by any science she knows.
She backs away from the mirror, her normally steady hands trembling as she gathers her bag and notebook. For once, she doesn't attempt to categorize or analyze what she's witnessed. Some truths defy organization. Some patterns reveal themselves only when you stop trying to force them into familiar shapes.
Sophie checks her phone again, reading Liam's final warning: I think whatever's happening is getting worse. She thinks of her mother's words about the three of them, born on the same day, aspects of the same force.
"No statistical model accounts for this," she whispers to the empty room, a tremor in her voice that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with determination.
She heads for the door, leaving behind the empty frames and forgotten spaces, moving toward the only certainty left: whatever this is, they'll face it together.
Fog clings to the trees behind Clearwater High, transforming the familiar woods into something ancient and strange. It wraps around Ava's ankles as she picks her way between gnarled roots and fallen branches, the moisture beading on her skin like cold sweat. The world feels muted here, sounds dampened by the thick mist that turns even nearby trees into gray silhouettes. When she spots two figures waiting in a small clearing ahead, relief washes through her—Liam and Sophie, solid and real amid the ghostly landscape, the only certainty left in a world that's forgotten them.
"You found it," Sophie says as Ava approaches, her voice unnaturally loud in the fog-muffled stillness. Her glasses are slightly fogged, giving her a spectral appearance, but her posture is rigid with purpose. Beside her, Liam stands with arms crossed, his expression tense but determined. The fog swirls around his feet as if drawn to him.
"I almost didn't," Ava admits, joining them in the small clearing. "The paths look different today."
"Everything looks different," Liam replies, his voice low. He uncrosses his arms, revealing something clutched in his right hand. "But that's why we're here. To figure out why."
They form a tight triangle, instinctively drawing closer in the unsettling atmosphere. The mist seems to create a boundary around them, a private space amid the shrouded trees. Ava pulls out her phone, bringing up the photos of her mother's letters.
"I found these in the attic," she says, her voice steadier than she feels. "Hidden under a floorboard in a box with my mom's initials."
She passes the phone to Sophie, who scans the photos with methodical precision, her eyes narrowing at certain passages. "Protection through erasure," she reads aloud. "The seventeenth year. The mirrors speaking." She looks up, meeting Ava's gaze. "This matches what I found."
Sophie produces her own phone, showing them photos of diary pages filled with elegant handwriting. "My mother kept detailed records. She called herself an observer. She mentioned both your parents—" she glances between Ava and Liam, "—by name. Maya handled binding spells. Ethan secured physical anchors."
"Anchors?" Liam repeats, his brow furrowing. He opens his palm, revealing a silver coin that catches what little light filters through the fog. "Like this?"
The coin seems to pulse in his hand, its symbols shifting subtly as they watch. Sophie reaches toward it but stops just short of touching it, her analytical mind visibly processing what she's seeing.
"The diary mentioned anchors, but not specifically what they were," she says, adjusting her glasses. "It said they were placed to create a boundary between worlds."
"Worlds," Ava echoes, wrapping her arms around herself. The woods suddenly feel colder, the fog pressing closer. "The letters mentioned a 'Forgotten One.' And a sacrifice our parents made to protect us."
Liam turns the coin in his fingers, his movements careful, controlled. "When I found this, my reflection changed. Its eyes turned silver. And the shadows—" He pauses, struggling to describe something that defies logical explanation. "They bent toward me. Like they were alive."
"The mirrors," Sophie says, her voice taking on the focused clarity it gets when she's piecing together a complex problem. She scrolls through her phone, finding a specific passage. "My mother wrote about reflections. About protection through them."
She reads aloud, her voice steady despite the weight of the words: "The Keepers maintain the balance between worlds. Our children are the price we paid."
Ava feels a chill that has nothing to do with the fog. "We're the price? What does that mean?"
"I think—" Sophie begins, but her words cut off abruptly as her gaze fixes on something beyond Ava's shoulder.
Ava turns, following Sophie's line of sight. The fog has thinned in one small area, revealing the massive trunk of an ancient oak tree. Its roots twist above ground, forming gnarled patterns that seem almost deliberate in their arrangement. And there, half-embedded in the tangle of roots, is something that wasn't there before—an antique mirror, its ornate frame tarnished with age, its glass surface clouded yet somehow reflective.
"That wasn't here yesterday," Liam says, his voice barely above a whisper. "I know these woods. That wasn't here."
They approach cautiously, moving as one. The mirror looks as though it has grown from the tree itself, the roots curling around its frame in a possessive embrace. Despite its weathered appearance, there's something vital about it, something that draws them closer despite the warning bells sounding in their minds.
"It looks ancient," Sophie observes, her analytical nature asserting itself even as her hand trembles slightly. "The stylistic elements of the frame suggest late 19th century craftsmanship, but the integration with the living wood is impossible to explain through conventional physics."
As they draw nearer, the fog recedes further, creating a perfect circle of clarity around the tree and mirror. The rest of the forest remains shrouded, isolating them in this small pocket of visibility.
"Ava."
The whisper is so faint that Ava almost believes she imagined it. But both Liam and Sophie freeze, their expressions confirming they heard it too. The sound came from the mirror, a soft, sibilant calling of her name.
"Ava," it comes again, the voice neither male nor female, young nor old. It seems to bypass her ears entirely, resonating directly in her mind.
She steps closer, drawn by a compulsion she can't name. The clouded glass clears as she approaches, revealing not the reflection of the foggy forest behind her, but three distinct figures—herself, Liam, and Sophie, standing in a different version of the woods, one bathed in silver light rather than fog.
"Our reflections," Sophie whispers, moving to stand beside Ava. "They're moving independently."
It's true. The reflections watch them with an awareness that no mirror image should possess. They raise their hands in perfect unison, pressing them against the glass as if trying to reach through to the other side. Their eyes hold a silvery gleam similar to what Liam described seeing in his own reflection earlier.
Liam joins them, the coin still clutched in his hand. As he approaches, it grows colder, frost forming along its edges despite the mild temperature. "What the hell is happening?" he demands, his protective instinct flaring in the face of this impossible threat.
Sophie's fingers tremble as she finds another passage in her mother's diary. She reads aloud, her voice gaining strength with each word: "When the three born on the same day reach seventeen, the veil between worlds thins. The reflection will call them home."
As if in response to her words, the forest around them seems to awaken. Branches rustle though there is no wind. The ground trembles beneath their feet, a subtle vibration that builds with each passing second. The metallic hum they've heard before returns, rising from beneath the earth, vibrating through the trees and their own bodies.
"There's more," Sophie continues, her eyes scanning frantically. "The children are the key. The door. The lock. Three aspects of the same force, bound together by birth and blood and reflection."
The mirror's surface ripples like disturbed water, the reflections reaching more urgently now. Ava feels something pulling at her, not physically but deeper, as if hooks have been set in her very essence. Beside her, Liam's jaw clenches against the sensation, while Sophie's breathing quickens, her analytical mind struggling to process what her senses are telling her.
"Whatever our parents did," Liam says firmly, reaching out to grasp Ava's hand, "we'll face it together."
Ava takes his hand, then extends her other to Sophie, who completes the circle. The moment their hands connect, the coin in Liam's pocket pulses with light, visible even through the fabric of his jeans. The symbols etched into its surface appear in the air around them, glowing silver against the mist.
"The final passage," Sophie says, her voice growing steadier as she recites from memory now, the phone forgotten in her hand. "When the three join as one, what was forgotten will remember. What was lost will be found. The price will come due, but the power to pay it lies within."
The mirror flashes with blinding silver light, the glass no longer a barrier but a doorway. The metallic hum builds to a crescendo, vibrating through their joined hands, through the ground beneath them, through the very air they breathe. In that moment, Ava feels something ancient and powerful awakening—in the forest around them, in the mirror before them, and most terrifyingly, within themselves.
The light grows until it consumes everything, washing away the fog, the trees, the very boundaries of the world they know. And in that silver radiance, standing between what is and what might be, the three friends hold tight to each other—the only anchors in a sea of uncertainty, the only constants in a world that's forgotten them, the only hope against whatever waits on the other side of the mirror.