The room was eerily silent, the only sound being the distant, muffled footsteps of the guards cleaning the blood from the dining hall floor. Shadow-Isla stood before the full-length mirror, her fingers tracing the cold surface of the glass. With a slow, deliberate flex of her will, the gray, misty void inside the mirror cleared, revealing the real Isla.
The real Isla looked like a ghost of herself. She was huddled on the floor of that inverted dimension, her eyes red-rimmed from crying, her clothes the modest top and shorts she had been wearing when she was dragged in. She looked up, her face twisting in horror as she saw her own body standing on the other side—wearing the expensive clothes of a Blackwood favorite, her skin marked with the dark bruises of the triplets' obsession.
The Sha
