The silence shattered along fragile lines.
It wasn't a door creaking or a distant echo—it was something far closer, far darker.
The tension crackled in the air like static, humming with unspoken fear. The group's fragile thread of unity frayed with every breath, every hesitation.
Elara sensed it before she saw it.
A flicker of movement in the mirrored walls. A faint tremor along a pane she'd glanced at the day before. The House—or whatever watched from within—was watching them. And it wasn't pleased.
They stood in one of the larger chambers, where shattered mirrors scarred the walls in webbed patterns. Pools of faint moonlight pooled on the floor, casting long shadows. Their breath rose in silent clouds.
Then Jace moved.
He'd been quiet for most of the night: shoulders tense, jaw clenched, eyes red-rimmed. At Elara's soft prompt to rest, he hadn't looked up. He had nodded once. But this quiet game—this pretending—cracked him.
A long moment of stillness snapped as he jerked upright.
"I'm done pretending!" he shouted. The sound was sharp and brittle as splintered glass. Two words loud enough to shatter calm.
Everything froze.
Harper's crossbow lowered, knuckles white. Dorian's stance locked tight, muscles coiled. Kemi's head snapped up, eyes darting. Coyle's gaze sharpened like a blade.
Jace paced forward, strides uneven, voice raw. "Pretending we can survive by holding hands and singing kumbaya!" He spat the last words like venom.
Harper flinched, as though hit. The amber light trembled across her face.
"I—" she started.
He cut her off with a laugh that rang hollow. "Don't even. Spare me the tears-in-your-eyes, we're-a-team crap." His eyes flashed. "I get that you all feel guilty. Hand wringing, second guessing, blaming. Fine. But I refuse to waste another breath pretending that resolves anything."
Dorian's jaw tensed further, and for a moment his eyes glowed with unshed anger. He leaned forward. "You'd be alone, then?" His voice was grim. "If you leave us, you'll only survive longer enough to burn in your own regret."
Kemi sprang to her feet, voice icy. "We're straining at the edges of alliance. The House is using this tension. We don't protect each other by fracturing."
Coyle crossed his arms, silent. His eyes were calculating—watchful—like the House has taught them to be.
Elara's heart pounded, a sudden storm in her chest. Words piled up on her lips—reassurance, something to steady trembling hearts. She inhaled.
"Jace—"
"No!" he barked. His fists clenched at his sides. "You don't get to tell me what to do anymore. None of you do." He glared around the room. "We're exhausted from dancing around each other. You talk about threads. I talk about snapping."
The mirrors along the walls pulsed, shimmering in response. Crack lines spidered—widening, jagged—like old wounds reopening.
Their reflections jerked in the shards, splitting their faces into too many fragments.
The Silent Watcher's presence weighed heavier—oppressive—its unseen gaze unfaltering.
Harper tried again, voice trembling but firm. "We need each other—"
Dorian cut in cold as steel. "We'd be better off alone. One truth to hold. No cross-talk. No sentiment."
Kemi shook her head, lips pressed into a thin line. "Alone, we die sooner."
And then the argument spiraled.
Each voice rose, slicing across the others with accusation:
Jace: "We're weak. We apologize too much. We drown in what-ifs!"
Harper: "You barely listen when people feel!"
Dorian: "The only way we survive is by doing what must be done—no talk, no questions."
Kemi: "You think that coldness keeps you alive? It's what the House wants."
All the while the mirrors flexed like living things, watching.
Elara's voice cut through the chaos, urgent, cracked: "Stop! This house is feeding on what we say. On what we don't say. We're playing right into its hands."
They all paused. Four pairs of eyes slowly turned to Jace.
But Jace's face was gone. Replaced by imaging in the mirrored wall—one reflection, then two, then dozens, each Jace more frantic than the last, screaming in silence.
Then a thunderclap crack.
One mirror ruptured loudly behind them. A white-blinding fracture jagged across the glass.
They turned—just in time to see Kemi's reflection flicker then shatter into shards. Her face appeared in one shard, a single eye frozen wide in panic.
In the next breath, one shard broke free from the frame and spun outward. It sliced across the air, humming with unearthly cold.
Jace stumbled backward as it passed him—barely grazing his arm—yet the slash burned like ice, and red bloomed instantly where the glass bit.
He hissed and fell back, leaning on the wall.
The crackling mirrors buzzed with menace, the shards trembling on the brink of collapse.
Harper dropped to her knees to help Jace, pressing a hand to his bleeding arm. Dorian rushed forward, dagger drawn, scanning the darkness.
Kemi stared at her shattered reflection, face drained of color. Elara felt bile rise—cold dread curling in her gut.
The House shattered a bond they'd only just begun to rebuild. It tested them—ambushed them—but not with monsters. With each other. It amplified every mistrust, every fear, every slight.
The air thrummed with psychic energy. The only light came from flickering shards and the shattered reflections above.
Elara knelt beside Jace, pressing her palm to his wound. His blood was ice-cold. The shard's edge hummed darkly, as if alive.
"We can't... fight each other," she said, voice hoarse. "Not here. Not now."
Kemi knelt across from her, voice barely above breath. "That shard… it's still alive. It's listening. Feeding."
Coyle edged forward slowly, coiling like a predator forced to hold back. "The House isn't content with just pain. It wants to make us its weapons."
They were pinned in that chamber, half crouched, half standing, wounded and shaken.
And the mirror shards cracked again. A tremor in the wall. Another mirror overhead shattered slowly—like a primeval scream held underwater. Tiny fragments rained down, chiming on the floor.
Jace gripped Elara's shoulder for support, chest heaving. "What next?" he rasped.
Elara looked up at the shredded mirrors. "We don't—coordinate. We hold. Together."
Harper's voice was shaky but resolute. "All for one, one for all—"
Dorian's knife sliced through the nearby mirror's reflection, meaning to sever a shard. It splintered instead, fracturing deeper.
He looked at Elara, tension still there—but something new: reluctant respect.
"We don't stop. But we don't tear each other either."
Kemi scrubbed a shard off her forearm—blood mixing with glass dust. "If this place wants unity, it'll have to earn it."
Elara nodded. She scanned the group—broken, bleeding, battered—but still breathing. Still here.
Outside the chamber, the mansion seemed to groan.
Mirrors clicked, panes trembled, faint echoes slithered down the corridors.
They were marked. Wounded.
But not yet defeated.
Jace inhaled sharply, voice softer. "No more pretending."
Harper helped him stand. "None needed."
Dorian sheathed his dagger. "Truth doesn't require softness."
Kemi pocketed her shard-fragment. "Memory lasts."
Coyle stepped to the center of the group. "We rebuild again. With shards, if we must." He gestured at the broken glass underfoot. "Use the reflection. But don't let it fracture us again."
Elara touched the wound at Jace's arm, then looked at the shattered mirrors. "The House tests our breaking point. We show it ours is not yet broken."
They limped from the chamber as one unit, slower, more sober, but unified.
The silence behind them was no longer empty.
It thrummed with something new: resolve.