Some of the girls wore modern clothes like Marion did – jeans and t-shirts, sweatpants and tank tops. Others wore old-fashioned dresses with bustles, petticoats, and corsets. Still others wore simple tunics, leggings, and no shoes at all.
The wraiths chattered with nervous energy, churning closer to the girls but they kept their distance. They must have still been under Lady Ingrid's claim.
"We've been awake all this time," one girl said with short, dark curls and a sailor's jacket.
"You kept us conscious as you fed on our souls for years," another girl said, with a white cap and an apron over her plain, homespun brown dress.
Lady Ingrid held her ground. "I promised you wouldn't become wraiths. I was true to my word. If you wish to be angry at anyone, it's Marion. She's the one who broke the mirror. She's the one who took away your only chance to return to the world of the living."
One by one, the girls turned to look at Marion. They regarded her openly, looking her up and down. But their expressions remained neutral and unreadable. Were they angry? Did they blame her?
Marion didn't know what the future held in store for her anymore. She'd been so focused on finding the mirror and getting home that she hadn't considered the alternative. What would she do now that she was stuck in The Hushing forever?
Standing face to face with the monster who held her captive, a calm came over Marion. Before, Lady Ingrid had filled her with dread – all sharp teeth and black blood and an insatiable hunger for power, controlling her subjects, controlling Marion, draining the souls of dozens of girls for what looked like centuries.
Now, Marion wasn't afraid anymore. Lady Ingrid was a creature of nightmares but she wasn't scared to face that nightmare anymore.
"Looks like we're stuck together for good," Lady Ingrid said with a smirk. "But you will waste away in The Hushing while I will remain. With my caskets broken, my mirror shattered, I can't do anything to save you. This time, you're on your own. You should have been grateful to me when you had the chance. You should have surrendered."
Slowly, she started to approach Marion. But the wraiths didn't part for her as they usually did. They stood firm, watching her with their hollow pits for eyes. The mirror had given her power. The mirror had given her souls stronger and warmer than the common wraith was ever able to gain access to. Now that the mirror was broken, was Lady Ingrid's position in the kingdom slipping? Was she no different than a common wraith?
Then Lady Ingrid came to a stop just outside the ring of broken mirror, forming a silver halo around Marion.
"I remove my protection and my claim on Marion Price's soul," Lady Ingrid declared with a wicked gleam in her eye. Her voice echoed in the chamber of the crypt. "Her soul is fresh for the taking."
Marion squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable swarm of wraiths to descend. For several seconds, she held her breath. She waited for the cold to slam into her and freeze her lungs from the inside out. But...nothing happened.
After another moment or two, Marion opened her eyes. The wraiths had turned toward Lady Ingrid, pressing in around her. They didn't make a sound, their steady, silent creep like a cat after a mouse. The hairs on the back of Marion's neck rose. When the wraiths had hunted her in the forest, their screams of hunger had haunted her. But this was worse. This was deliberate, calculated, years – decades – centuries in the making. Lady Ingrid had kept her wraiths too hungry for too long in favor of feeding her own appetite.
"What are you doing?" Lady Ingrid demanded. "I am your queen."
One wraith hissed, low and dark. Followed by another. And another. Until the room was full of them. Lady Ingrid retreated.
And her shoe caught on a shard of mirror.
She shrieked as if she'd been burned. And when she drew her foot away, the shoe had been cut clean through, revealing the mark of black blood on the stone floor.
When Marion had driven the knife into Lady Ingrid's neck, she had bled then, too. But this was different. Lady Ingrid was in pain this time. The mirror had caused her to feel.
Crouching down, Marion picked up a shard of glass. The sharp edges bit into her palm, marking her skin with thin lines of her blood. She passed the shard to the girl nearest to her in a pink crop top and blue pajama pants. The girl nodded and closed her fingers around it before passing it on to the next girl. Piece by piece, Marion distributed shards of the mirror until every girl in the crypt was armed.
Marion placed a hand on Lady Ingrid's shoulder and when Lady Ingrid turned, she pressed the mirror's shard into her ribs. Lady Ingrid's breath hitched on a whine of pain. When Marion yanked the shard of mirror free, Lady Ingrid delicately touched the wound with her fingers.
"My mirror," she whispered.
"It wasn't just any mirror, was it?" Marion said. "You enchanted it with your power. You made it magical. And now that power is the only thing that can destroy you here in your own kingdom. Wielded by the hands of the girls you lured here with your lies."
The other girls stepped closer, placing their hands on Lady Ingrid just as Marion had done in gestures of comfort, of protection. Lady Ingrid had fooled them into thinking she was keeping them all safe in her kingdom when she was really holding them here, binding them to her realm until she could bury them alive in glass caskets and feed from them. Now she received the same two-faced comfort – a gesture of kindness in a touch, followed by her own mirror piercing her flesh.
One by one, the other girls sank their shards of mirror into Lady Ingrid's body. By the time each girl was done, Lady Ingrid lay on the stone floor, black blood pooling around her. And from each stab wound, thin tendrils of silvery light spilled out.
Then the wraiths surged forward, hands grasping at the light of Lady Ingrid's soul. Her screams echoed off of the crypt's walls for only a moment before she fell silent.
When the wraiths were finished, there was nothing left except the stain of black blood on the floor and a pile of ashes.
A heartbeat if stillness settled over the crypt as the wraiths regarded Marion and the other girls. She clutched her shard of mirror so tightly, it cut into her fingers. They were outnumbered – the wraiths could swarm at any moment and take them down. But she had a piece of the mirror left and it had served her well so far – the only weapon to cause damage in The Hushing.
The wraiths didn't move, murmuring and quiet. When one charged forward, the girl in the sailor's jacket lashed out, swiping with her shard of mirror. The wraith shrieked with fury, clutching its arm as ashes spilled to the floor. It scrambled back, whimpering.
The mirror still held power. But how long could Marion and the girls stave off the wraiths? And how long could they survive in a kingdom of the dead before they joined the ranks of the wraith?
Marion took a threatening step forward, holding the mirror shard out like a knife. The wraiths skittered back, bumping against each other in their haste to escape her.
A thrill shivered up Marion's back. The wraiths had never given Marion this kind of space before. They had lurked and hovered, waiting for the moment when Lady Ingrid would revoke her protection.
But now the wraiths were scared of Marion.
"Go," she barked. "Leave us to the crypt." She paused then added quickly, "And send the other living girls down here. They're in the orchard. If you touch a single one of them, you will answer to us."
The wraiths murmured amongst themselves, shifting in place for a moment before drifting in retreat. After filing back up the stairs, the crypt emptied out until only Marion and the girls were left. Suddenly, the room seemed even bigger and darker than before and the magnitude of their position finally settled over them.
"What are we going to do now?" the girl in the pink crop top whispered.
But no one responded. Marion didn't have an answer. She felt very small and very tired. The queen was defeated. The wraiths were held at bay – for now. And the mirror was in pieces.
After a minute or two of silence had passed, the girls from the orchard appeared, making their way down the stairs as quickly as possible. Marion recognized the girl in the lead as Septimus's daughter, Constance.
When Constance spotted Septimus's sword on the ground, half buried in ashes, she stopped short. Her eyebrows pinched together and she knelt, tracing her fingertips over the blade.
Marion's heart ached for Constance. It wasn't fair that Marion was the last one to see him alive. It wasn't fair that Constance was here now because of her father's sacrifice. Marion made her way closer and placed a hand on Constance's shoulder.
"Your father broke his allegiance to the queen," Marion said. "He helped me escape. And he vowed to the do the same for every human that Lady Ingrid lured into The Hushing. In your honor."
Constance turned her head to look up at Marion with the gleam of tears in her eyes. Marion knelt beside her and picked up the sword, laying it gently and reverently in Constance's open palms.
"Thank you," Constance whispered.
Marion stood and offered Constance her hand. Constance took it, rising to her feet.
"Look!"
The girl in the sailor's jacket pointed to the remaining shards of mirror on the floor. They shimmered and pulsed. Then they melted into silvery pools, bubbling and sliding through the cracks and dips of the floor. When one melted shard touched another, they molded together.
The mirror shard in Marion's hand grew scorching hot – too hot to touch. She dropped it and by the time it hit the ground, it was landed with a liquid splash. It raced across the stone floor to join the remaining pieces of mirror, now bubbling in a molten pool of silver that gave off waves of heat.
Carefully, Marion approached and reached out, her palm hovering just above the surface. She could feel the heat emanating from it – like a river of lava. Had the mirror ever truly belonged to Lady Ingrid? It seemed to have a life of its own, even without Lady Ingrid's command.
Within the span of a single breath, the mirror turned to solid, smooth silver. The heat vanished. Marion flexed her fingers then pressed her palm to the surface. Cool to the touch. Unmarred by cracks or scratches. The mirror was whole again.