Chapter Eleven

"Um, Ms Faragonda? Has anyone reported anything stolen recently?" It had been a couple days since my picture had gone missing, and I was getting nervous. Whoever had taken it obviously wanted it for something, if they'd gone to all that effort to find it, and I was more than a little scared of what they were going to do with it. There was no way it could be good from me, what with the damage potential that simple little image held.

"Not that I know of," Ms Faragonda said, looking up from her papers. "Why? Did something go missing from your room, Alyssa?"

"Um… yeah," I said, fidgeting nervously. If that picture fell into the wrong hands, it could be dangerous. "A picture of mine was stolen a couple days ago."

"Just a picture? Not anything else? Well, that's nothing. You can replace that easily, can't you?"

"It wasn't just any photo, Ms F. It was that one you gave me of Mom, Dad, and me."

She straightened her glasses and looked away, as if finally understanding the importance of this situation. "Well then, Alyssa, exactly what would you like me to do about this? I certainly can't go ask who has it… that is, without telling everybody who your dad is, which I'm sure you don't want me to do."

I paused. I hadn't really considered that. "Um…"

She laughed. "Didn't think that far ahead, did we?" My cheeks burned as she winked. "I will keep an eye out, my dear, and ask the others to do the same. But my best guess is that you just misplaced it somewhere in your room. Teenage girls aren't the best of housekeepers." Before I could protest, she added, "Here, let me give you another one just in case." She snapped her fingers and a new photo instantly materialized in my hands.

I stared down at my parents' smiling faces, wishing more than anything that I could just believe her when she told me not to worry. But there was a niggling suspicion in the back of my mind, that was getting harder to ignore with every passing day. "I'll see you later, Ms F."

I started heading back to the room, but stopped short in the common room as I heard the high-pitched whine of Taylor's voice. Quickly, after peeking inside to see if she was there (she was – sigh – along with her two little acolytes), I ducked behind the door, not wanting to go in and face them.

This is ridiculous, that I'm letting her drive me out of my own room. I have as much a right to be in there as she does – and I have to study for Magical Theory.

I'd just about made up my mind to go in there regardless, when I heard a voice say my name. My heart stopped, and I strained to hear better, but the door was too thick.

Wait a minute… what about that spell Palladium just taught us yesterday?

Quietly under my breath, I chanted, "Mirror, mirror on the wall; reflect for me, answer my call." The air in front of me shimmered, and a vision-like image of my room appeared before me – the mirror image of the scene going on inside, complete with full audio capacity (thank God for Taylor's vanity). With this, I could see and hear everything perfectly, and no one else on the other side would ever know I was there. I held my breath and watched, like some sort of sick reality show.

"I always knew there was something fishy about her," Taylor was saying, pacing back and forth with a piece of paper in her hand. I strained my eyes to try to see what it was, but she was holding it with the relevant side facing her; all I could see through the mirror was the plain white back. "And now that I have proof, there's nothing stopping me from getting that trashy little upstart kicked out of here so fast her head will spin."

"And then you'll have a single, right Tay?" Chloe piped in, clearly not the brightest crayon in the box.

Taylor's eyes flickered in annoyance (most likely at Chloe's stupidity), but she just nodded. "You know what girls? I think this calls for a little celebration." She bent down on the floor and started digging through the bottom drawer ofher dresser. "I know I've got a few bottles of the good stuff stashed in here somewhere; I just gotta find them," she muttered under her breath. The paper carelessly fluttered to the floor as she continued her search, and I wanted to scream when it landed white side up. If I could just see what it was…

(A little voice in the back of my head whispered that I already knew what was on that paper, that all of this waiting and watching was just delaying the inevitable. I told it to shut up.)

Nikita floated over from the other side of the room and picked up the paper. I only caught a quick flash of red and gold before it was turned backside to the mirror again, and I bit my lip to keep from growling. "Wow," she remarked, running her long, impeccably manicured nails over it. "It's just so… incriminating. How in the realms did you find this, Tay? Don't tell me you doctored it or something. If you did… wow. Do you really hate your roomie that much?"

"Of course I do, Nikki." Taylor's voice was sharp, like a knife. "And you know very well why." There was a pause, and then her words took on a lighter tone. "But this is real. And all I had to do was go through her things. I knew I'd find something I could use; I just didn't know exactly how useful it'd be." A cruel little smile spread across her face, as she finally found what she was looking for: a bottle of champagne and three crystal champagne flutes. Effortlessly, without even the slightest regard for the numerous rules she was breaking, she uncorked the bottle and poured some of the bubbling gold liquid into each of the glasses.

"Ooh, yummy," Chloe squealed, lifting the glass to her lips practically the second Taylor put it in her hands.

The blond slapped her hand. "Not yet!" she insisted, handing a flute to Nikita. "First, a toast. To revenge!" she announced, raising her flute in the air.

"To revenge!" Nikita and Chloe echoed, clinking their flutes together and then downing the contents in one long swill.

"Poor, poor Alyssa," Taylor mused, pouring more champagne into her flute, and refilling Chloe's and Nikita's as well. "I almost feel sorry for her. Almost."

"Almost," Chloe and Nikita agreed, and all three of them collapsed into a fit of semi-drunken giggles.

At that point, I had heard enough, and cut the feed from the mirror. Even still, I could hear them giggling in the other room; laughing at the thought of ruining my life.

Because two things were absolutely clear now

Taylor had taken the picture. And she was going to use it to destroy me.

Crap…