Chapter 4: Mirror Hollow

Rook looked up at the red light, and he did not step away from me.

Instead he put his mouth on my neck, loud enough to be heard, and murmured, "Play along."

I played along.

I tipped my head back and let out a breathy laugh that I hated.

His hand slid down my spine, a performance for a lens.

"Cameras love a sulking couple," he said low, as we walked out into the hall. "Your face is a gift. Keep it that way."

"I didn't find the ledger."

"You found a better thing. You heard her say it."

"Say what?"

"Later."

He steered me down the left stairs, away from every light, and stopped at the door to my room.

"Sleep," he said. "Tomorrow is the first trial. Mirror Hollow."

"What is it?"

"A cave. It shows you your worst thing."

"And then?"

"And then you decide whether it owns you."

He kissed my forehead, quick.

Then he walked away down the dark hall, and the whole way I watched his back.

I slept two hours.

At dusk the next evening the network drove us to the lake road in white vans.

There were twenty-four women in matching gray robes.

The Hollow was a cave in a black cliff.

At its mouth stood a stone basin of silver water, and a wall of mirrors behind it reached back into the dark.

Delphine waited at the basin with a cluster of cameras and a smile.

"The Hollow shows each of you your deepest fear," she said.

"Face it and cross to the far side in your wolf shape. Fail, and the moon marks you down."

"And if we freeze?" asked a girl near the front.

"Then you won't be much of a Luna."

The first woman went in and came out ten minutes later, weeping.

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