Sonder stepped back.
Her legs felt shaky, her breath still caught in her throat. She turned to the door. It was time to leave.
Then something struck her.
A shape darted across the room. Her eyes snapped back to the mirror just as the surface rippled.
From the black glass, something lashed out.
Dark tendrils. Not quite solid, not quite shadow, something in between, reached for her, impossibly fast. And even she could feel the cold when it clamped around her wrist. Then her waist. Then her shoulders.
The air pressed around her like a closing fist.
Whispers filled her ears, sudden and sharp like thorns. Not in any language she knew. Not words meant for hearing.
They were cruel things.
Sonder fought, but slowly the tendrils melted into her, becoming one with them.
She thrashed, twisting, clawing at the tendrils, but her nails met only cold pressure. She tried to use magic, but nothing came to life, no matter how hard she tried.
She looked for Hiraeth to help, but the sprite had disappeared.
"Why isn't he here? Why isn't he helping?" Sonder's thoughts panicked.
Another tendril coiled around her ankle, dragging her closer to the mirror. She hadn't touched the mirror, she was still a few steps away, but it felt like she was already halfway inside it.
This couldn't have been real, but it felt real.
Something snapped inside her.
Something she could have only done under immense pressure.
And the change took her.
Sonder's back arched. Her skin turned pale and almost translucent, her veins like black ink beneath the surface. Her mouth opened, not in a scream, but a wail, terrible and high.
She grew, twisting and changing.
Her hair flew upward, caught in invisible wind. Her eyes turned silver-white. Her fingers sharpened into claws.
She became the banshee.
A monster.
The tendrils recoiled, not in fear, but as if pulled back by the force of her cry. The mirror's surface writhed like it was trying to hold her scream inside it. She struck out, spectral hands slicing through the air, through the dark.
And then it all stopped.
The cold was gone.
The tendrils vanished.
The mirror stood silent. Still. Covered again.
She stood in the doorway of the room. Her hand was still at her side. Hiraeth on her shoulder, staring forward, blinking slowly.
Nothing had moved.
No tendril. No magic. She was no banshee but an ordinary Sonder.
Her heart was still.
"What...?" she asked, unsure if she'd spoken aloud.
Hiraeth gave no answer.
Because he hadn't seen it. Hadn't felt it.
Because it had never happened.
Not really.