Hidden: House of Night: Book 10

free.
    “Grow up, Zoey. This time you’re not going to save the day,” Neferet said.
    Stark was shouting from behind me. Darius and Rephaimstood side by side in front of the open elevator, battling the threads of Darkness that kept trying to leak within.
    But all of that seemed very far away to me because Neferet’s last words kept echoing around, over and over, inside my mind.
I save the day … I save the day … I save the day …
    Then I remembered.
It’s not a poem! It’s a spell!
    I felt spirit wrench from me and I stepped forward. I pulled the piece of folded purple paper from the pocket of my jeans, and as I did my Seer Stone flamed with heat.
    I didn’t have time to question myself. I only had time to act. I jerked on the chain that held the stone around my neck and lifted it before me like a shield. Then, in a voice magnified by panic and power, I recited:
“
Ancient mirror
    Magick mirror
    Shades of gray
    Hidden
    Forbidden
    Within, away
    Part the mist
    Magick kissed
    Call the fey
    Reveal the past
    The spell is cast
    I save the day!
”
    I looked through the Seer Stone and the world changed utterly. I was no longer holding a small, Lifesaver-shaped stone. Before me it had expanded so that it was a slick, round surface. I didn’t realize what it was until I saw the reflection of the room glistening darkly on its surface.
    “You think to battle me with a mirror?”
    I didn’t hesitate. I knew the answer. “Yes,” I said firmly. “That’s exactly what I think I’m going to do.” Holding the mirror in both hands I turned so that it caught Neferet in itssurface.
    She’d gotten up from the couch. The mirror trapped her reflection as she glided toward me. She was laughing cruelly and glancing dismissively into the mirror when her entire body language changed. Neferet’s head began to shake from side to side. Her mouth opened and she whimpered, cringing back as if from an invisible blow. Amazed at the difference in her, I craned my neck around and looked at her reflection.
    It was a Neferet that I didn’t know. She was young—she looked barely my age. She was also pretty, extremely pretty, even though her long, green dress was torn, exposing the fact that someone had beaten her. Badly. Her face was perfect. It had not been touched. But her chest looked as though there were bite marks on her breasts. Her wrists were swollen and black with bruises. Most horrible of all was the blood that covered the insides of her thighs and dripped down her legs.
    “No!” Neferet sobbed. “Not again! Not ever again!” She covered her face with her hands, keening with despair. As the Tsi Sgili wept brokenly, the tendrils of Darkness began to dissolve.
    “Spirit!” I called to my element, the one that still held the beast in a fading circle of power. “Let him go.” Then I walked forward, keeping the mirror trained on Neferet. “Aurox!” My shout had the beast’s head turning from where Grandma had collapsed on the floor to me. “Darkness doesn’t control you. Come back to us! You can do it!” He shook his misshapen head. I kept walking to him. He began to circle me. I kept looking into his moon-colored eyes. “Spirit! Don’t trap him—help him!”
    I felt the element enter the beast. He stumbled and went down on one knee. He roared.
    “Fight it! You are more than a creature made of Darkness!” I hurled the words at him.
    He lifted his head and I felt a rushof hope. His flesh was shivering and twitching. He was changing!
    “Zoey, watch out!” Stark shouted.
    I looked from Aurox in time to see Neferet closing on me. She was still staring at the mirror I held. Tears of blood streamed from her eyes. She had torn her own flesh with her claw-like hands. She raised them, blood-soaked and deadly. “You bitch! I won’t let you bring it all back to me! Nyx be damned—I’ll kill you myself!” Neferet rushed me.
    Aurox hit her hard. He still was beast enough to have horns, and one long, white tip speared Neferet in the middle of her chest. Momentum carried them forward and together they crashed through the remnants of the web Kalona had been battling. The winged immortal jumped aside as the part beast, part boy carried a writhing, screaming Neferet across the balcony. It took less than a breath for them to reach the stone balustrade. The inhuman power of the beast’s body shattered it and the two of them fell off the rooftop.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

    Zoey
    I dropped the mirror and ranforward.