Amanda stared at her reflection even after the voice was gone. The mirror was clear again. Her face was still her own.
But it didn't feel like it.
Her jaw ached. Not pain, tension. Something in her bones that didn't belong. Her eyes itched. Not from sleep. From pressure behind them. Like something watching from inside.
Lucan hadn't moved since the mirror cleared.
"You need to rest," he said.
Amanda turned toward him slowly.
"I'm not tired."
"That's not what I meant."
She crossed her arms. "Then say what you do mean."
Lucan looked at her now. Fully.
"You're changing."
Amanda didn't answer. Not right away. Then:
"You said I was a door."
"Yes."
"What am I now?"
Lucan hesitated for the first time since she'd met him.
"I don't know yet."
Amanda laughed sharp and humorless. "You always know."
"Not this."
She stepped closer. "Then why aren't you afraid?"
Lucan's voice was low. "Because I don't fear what I've already buried."
Amanda froze.
"You think this is your fault."
Lucan didn't respond.
"That voice, it didn't come from me. It came for me."
"Yes," he said. "Because of me."
Amanda turned away, moved to the sink, splashed water on her face. The pressure didn't ease.
She grabbed a towel, wiped herself dry.
Then stopped.
Her fingertips.
They were bleeding.
She stared at them. No cuts. No wounds.
Just blood. Seeping.
Lucan crossed the space fast. Took her wrist, examined the hand. No scent of silver. No trauma. Just a slow, unnatural flow from beneath the skin.
He met her eyes. "This isn't psychic anymore."
Amanda shook her head.
"I don't feel hurt."
Lucan released her hand.
"No. But something inside you is making room."
She backed away. "Room for what?"
Lucan didn't answer.
Because he knew what the Entity wanted.
And it wasn't possession.
It was presence.
Lucan stood at the threshold, coat in hand, eyes cold but not distant. Amanda sat on the couch, hand still wrapped, the bleeding slowed but not stopped. Her pulse was steady now.
She didn't look up when she asked, "Are you going again?"
Lucan didn't answer immediately.
Then: "Yes."
Amanda's jaw clenched. "You keep doing this."
Lucan stepped forward, voice low.
"You need to be alone."
"That's not the same as safe."
He didn't argue. Just watched her for a long moment. The quiet wasn't tension. It was unspoken choice.
"You think you're protecting me," she said.
Lucan shook his head. "No."
"Then why?"
His voice didn't shift. But something behind it cracked.
"Because staying would mean I have to name what this is."
Amanda blinked.
Lucan turned. Opened the door.
And left without another word.
She didn't move for a long time.
Didn't cry. Didn't scream. Just sat there, eyes fixed on the wall. The silence filled the space he'd left like water rising in a flooded room.
Then, from the hallway, the mirror spoke again. Not with words. With a warm and welcoming feeling. Amanda turned toward it, slowly. Her footsteps didn't echo. The hallway felt... soft. Like it had been waiting for her.
She stood before the glass. Her reflection smiled. This time, it smiled with her.
"He leaves because you matter."
Amanda didn't recoil. She just stared.
"Not because you're weak. But because you're not."
Her throat was tight. "You don't get to comfort me."
"I'm not comforting. I'm witnessing."
Amanda's fists clenched.
"I'm not letting you in."
"You already did. But I'm not here to take."
"Then why?"
"Because I remember what it felt like to be left behind."
Amanda stepped closer. Almost touching the glass now.
"Are you me?"
"No. But I could be."
The reflection didn't vanish.
It stayed.
Soft and steady.
And when Amanda whispered "I'm not ready," it didn't press.
It just listened.
-----
He stood on the edge of the river.
Not a real one.
The memory wasn't sharp enough for details. The sky had no stars. The ground had no scent. But the river, it was still there. Still moving, slow and thick and silent. Not water.
Something colder.
Lucan didn't know how long it had been since he remembered this place. A thousand years, maybe more. But the air hadn't changed. It pressed into his skin like expectation.
He had come here once. When he was younger. When death still intrigued him instead of followed.
The body he'd dragged to the water had been nameless. Just bones and silence. He hadn't known necromancy then. Not the real kind. Just old words, broken glyphs, rituals half-translated from tribes who'd vanished before his first breath.
He'd wanted to know what waited beyond death. So he asked.
He didn't speak.
He offered.
A piece of himself. A cut across the palm. A drop of blood into the corpse's mouth and something answered.
Lucan stood on the edge of that memory now, not walking forward, just... standing. Watching.
The corpse was there again. Not decomposed. Just still.
Then its fingers moved.
Then the jaw opened.
Not wide, just enough.
A breath escaped.
Not from lungs, not from memory, but from something older than either.
"You weren't supposed to look."
The words weren't loud. They didn't echo. They didn't accuse. They just... were.
Lucan didn't speak.
He hadn't then, either. He'd just stood there, letting that presence inside the corpse whisper.
"You're not one of mine. But you could be."
Then the bones snapped.
Not broken, just used.
The corpse stood and Lucan had turned and walked away.
He hadn't run.
He hadn't fought.
He'd just left it behind.
Buried the memory like the body. Now, in the present, Lucan stood alone in the woods, eyes closed, wind moving past him like water.
He exhaled.
He hadn't thought of that moment in a thousand years.
Hadn't dared.
But Amanda's reflection wasn't new.
It was familiar.
Not because it came from her.
Because it came from what he left behind.