"Forgive me." Christopher's voice suddenly turned stern. He yanked himself free of me, fighting against some unseen force that held him there with me. He fled the room, slamming my bedroom door shut behind him.

I flung myself at the door. "Christopher?" I cried, not understanding what was happening. "What are you doing? Let me out!" I pleaded, fear strangling my voice.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I ever brought you here." I heard him repeat again and again from the other side. I could hear the tears clearly in his voice. "She's commanded me and I must obey. Forgive me for being such a cruel liar. I don't deserve your kindness. Any of it." He sobbed. "Forget about me, Isabel. Hate me. Hate me and refuse her and all of her gifts. Leave this place. Forget I even exist. It's...better this way." He growled into the door. Nails scraped down it as he turned away. I heard heavy footsteps soften as they descended down the staircase then they became the scratching of claws against the floorboards. Then he was gone and I was alone again in the dark.

I tugged at the doorknob, but the door would not open. "Christopher! Come back!" I screamed until my throat burned and my voice became distorted. I banged at the door, clawed at it until my fingers bled, the skin turning black and blue.

I sat in front of the door. My head rested against it as I stared up at the white ceiling overhead. Oddly, there were no tears. I accepted the fact that I had become the very thing that Christopher swore I would never be. A captive. Really, I was ashamed that I hadn't been expecting it.

He said he only wished to protect me, but this did not seem like protection. Keeping a bird in a cage may keep it from being eaten by the pet cat, but it will never know the joys of flight. What kind of life is that, really? I had spent my entire life like that, never free to go anywhere without someone with me, be it my father, a tutor or a maid. As a child, I had rebelled against such restraints. I begged my father constantly to let me go into the market alone or to at least allow me to venture into our small garden without Mrs. Blackmoore. Yet that freedom had always been denied out of fear of me being found by the one woman whose roof I now slept under. Captivity was the last experience I ever wanted to feel again. Yet, here I was. I don't know exactly when I fell back to sleep, but exhaustion finally took me again into the blissful nothingness of sleep. I didn't dream and I was glad of it.

The next morning, I was stirred awake by a servant. It brought me a meal and helped me to dress before escorting me down to the dining room where my dear Aunt Rosalyn awaited. New books were laid out on the table, their spines already spread open to a new spell.

"How was your night, My Dear?" Rosalyn cooed. She sat in her chair dressed all in pearly gray, her golden hair twisted into bountiful ringlets.

The words that burst from my lips were as cold and unyielding as steel. "Why did you command Christopher to seal me in my room? Are you afraid of what I might do with my newfound gifts?" I demanded. My hands curled into tight fists at my sides.

She smirked at me. "You may believe that if you wish, but the fact of the matter is that you have proven yourself untrustworthy, so until your admittance to The Smoke and Mirror's Club, you will be contained to your room. The only time you'll be allowed outside of it is to attend our little tutoring sessions." She made a slight gesture with her hand, a flickering of her fingers, and a servant appeared at her side to fill her teacup. She sipped from it, sighing at its taste and warmth. "As for Christopher, you needn't worry about him any longer. You won't be seeing him again."

Everything shuttered to a stop. My heart stilled. My lungs refused to fill with air. My knees shook so violently, I sank down into my chair at the end of the table. "What have you done to him?" I gasped.

The tea in Rosalyn's cup began to boil. It bubbled and popped. Steam billowed out. She smiled at that. She sat it down with a chuckle and kissed her burned fingertips. "Let me finish," She laughed. "You will not see him again, at least not until your initiation party. You've grown too close to him. He is still just a servant, far below your station, and it just wouldn't be proper to have a young lady occupying the same close quarters as a man like him, especially since you're soon to be a married woman. Ashton is so excited to have a new bride, but I'm making him wait."

Bile rose to the back of my throat. "I never agreed to that." I shook my head in denial.

"Oh, but you did." She said. "Your deal with The Mirror Spirit was that should you fail to free Christopher you would marry Ashton like he wants. You've failed. And now you're engaged. Really, The Spirit is one of my closest friends. You didn't think he'd keep that a secret from me, did you?"

I picked at the worn fabric of my black dress, my bruised digits tearing the already present holes wider. "You are putting off the...wedding," I had to swallow down my breakfast again at that word, "until after my initiation into your little club?" I asked. "When exactly is that? How long do I have to prepare?"

"Three days."

I nearly choked on my own tongue. "That is hardly enough time. I know next to nothing about magic."

"Neither did I until I devoted myself to the mirror spirt and became a member of...my little club." A dark chuckle bubbled out of her throat. "And you are a Craft. Which means it'll be all the more easy for you to grasp. It'll be more than enough time for me to teach you the few spells you will need for the ceremony." Her red lips peeled away from her teeth as the white tablecloth beneath her teacup began to catch fire. Little flames licked at the porcelain cup and scorched the wood of the table beneath it. "You say you know little of magic, yet your call to it so easily. Our magic manifests in different ways. Each practitioner has their own...specialty. Mine is transformation." She waved her hand over the table. From the wood of the table itself, as if dormant seeds had been awoken, branches sprung up, stifling the flames and shattering the teacup. They sprouted leaves and grew up and up until they brushed the ceiling. The table's legs became roots that snaked their way around my feet. "My husband's was thorns. Ashton's is poison. Yours, " She chuckled, her mouth a sinister red slash across her face. "is fire."

I touched the nearest branch, felt the new green leaves, the rough bark of the growing tree, felt the wrongness of it. "What was my father's?" I asked.

"Water, funnily enough." Rosalyn picked up one of the spell books that had fallen from the table and sat it in my hands. It was open to a page filled with that strange other language and illustrations etched into the old paper with red ink. It showed a mirror with candles and a small bowl sitting in front of it. Something was being poured into it. I couldn't tell what it was. "This details how to call on the spirit." She turned back a few pages. "I will be teaching you that tomorrow. For today, we'll begin with how to keep your magic in check." She took the book back from me and set it on the table. The table that now was a normal table. It had changed or the mirage had faded within the span of a blink. " Stand." She ordered.

I did as I was asked and followed her out into the middle of the dining room. We stood a few feet apart, facing each other. "Our magic can be influenced by our emotions. Anger most of all. Control can be obtained. The trick is to disconnect your thoughts from your feelings." She said.

"How exactly do I do that?" I asked.

"By severing the ties that bind them." She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. "Concentrate. Block out everything else but the sound of my voice."

I closed my eyes. Listened.

"Imagine your mind and heart as two hands bound together by a single string."

Slowly the image formed. Two hands, one male, one female reached towards each other in a black void. Between them, connecting them by their ring fingers, was a string of bright golden light. "I see them," I muttered.

"Good. Now, look closer." The image grew. I could now see the smaller threads that made up the string. "Find the thread of magic. Find it. Sever it."

I looked closer, into that bright ribbon of light tethering the two hands together. Within the bundle of interwoven threads, one burned a fiery red. I reached for it in my mind and took hold, tugging at it until I felt it give way. The thread snapped. The severing of the bond rumbled through my bones, burned my blood.

I cried out as my eyes opened. Rosalyn smiled with pleasure towards me. The floor at my feet was scorched black, the hem of my gown was burned nearly to my knees, leaving tattered, singed edges. My scream echoed through the house, the sound circling me like a vulture.

"Good," Rosalyn said, nodding her head. "Very good. Now, let us see if you can command it." She snapped her fingers and one of the shadows left the line of servants that watched us from the room's edges to come stand at her side. It tucked its white-gloved hands behind its back and waited, watching me expectantly. "Burn it," Rosalyn commanded, stepping away from the shadow.

"W-what?" I huffed, still shaking.

"Burn the shade." She repeated. "Call upon your magic. To use it, to cast spells, you must be able to call it forth with the sheer force of your will. Now that your magic's connection to your emotions has been severed, you can no longer rely on anger or fear alone to wield it."

"No." I stared at the shadow, gritting my teeth. "I-I can't do that. I can't destroy it." It was once a living person, a person like poor Christopher. Trapped. Hurt. By this disgusting woman. This witch. My teacher.

Somewhere deep within its shadowy form, looking out at me through those empty eyes was that person's soul, screaming for help.

Rosalyn sighed with frustration. "You're not going to destroy it for good. It'll reform itself." She assured me. "It won't feel a thing."

"What about the person inside of it?" I asked, swallowing hard.

"Does it matter if it does?" Rosalyn shrugged. "As part of our deal, I am to teach you magic and this is how I choose to do it." She sauntered towards me and whispered into my ear. "Need I remind you? The shadows are already dead. Christopher, however, is not. A condition I can certainly correct if you prefer to reject my teachings."

"What did you do to him?" I spat, meeting her cold eyes with a hateful glare. "Where is he?"

"He's still here." She smiled. "Hiding. From you." She pet my cheek, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "Poor thing. He's so ashamed of himself." She laughed cruelly. "The simpleton honestly thinks that he can save you by making you hate him."

Christopher's painful sobbing echoed through my head, hollowing out my chest. "Yes, he is stupid for thinking that I could ever hate him. Tell him I said so."

Lifting my fingers towards the shadow, I reached into myself, for that bright red thread and grasped it. I howled at it, tugging and commanding it to obey. It obliged.

"I'm sorry." I mouthed to it.

The shadow before me, the sacrifice, burst into flame, raining ashes down onto the blackened floor.

"Very good, my girl. You are, indeed, a natural. A Craft to your core. Your father had a much harder time grasping his power, but you command it as if you've always known it was there." She snapped her fingers again and another shadow stepped into place where the other had just been moment prior. "Now do it again." She commanded.

And so I did.

Again.

Again.

And again. Each time, imagining my teacher in their place, her body going up in smoke, her scream ripping through my chest in the place of theirs.

My body felt like it was made of led by the time she finally allowed me to stop slaughtering the servants and return to my room. I lost count of how many I had burned. The furthest I got was seventy-seven. The minute my feet crossed the threshold of my room, the door slammed shut and locked itself. I didn't even try to fight it this time.

I stripped out my destroyed dress and eagerly climbed into a tub of steaming water. I scrubbed at my skin and hair, cleansing myself with floral scented soaps. Yet, no matter how hard I scrubbed or how many times I washed my hair I could still smell it, the reak of smoke lingering in my nostrils. I only got out of the tub when I began to shiver and my fingers began to numb. The water had gone cold an hour before.

Once I was dressed in my nightgown, I buried myself beneath my blankets. I let Foxy beneath them with me. She curled up against my side, resting her head on my arm. She snored softly, blissfully asleep within moments.

As tired as I was, I couldn't keep my eyes closed. I laid wide awake, listing to Foxy breathe. My eyes shifted, darting around the room before settling on the bedside table. I hadn't gotten a proposal letter since the last one, days ago. The old ones were piled messily on top of my writing desk. The words written so desperately across their pages were ingrained into my mind. Most of my roses were drooping without Christopher to bring me fresh ones. All except for the original one. The red rose still stood straight and tall in its green vase, its petals tightly coiled. I reached for it, let my fingers brush against its soft petals.

The memory of soft lips brushing mine bubbled up. His kiss was questioning, sad, bitter. But warm. Gentle. I still remembered how it had tasted. The wine and salt. I licked my lips wishing I could taste it again. I recalled as well his embrace, how tightly he had held me the night before, pressing me to his chest, clinging to me as if I might vanish if he let me go. How warm he'd been. How strong he'd felt. In his arms, I'd felt safer than I ever had since my father's death. I wished he would come back and hold me like that again.

The minute I realized what I was doing, my face heated and I buried it in my pillow. A girl shouldn't be thinking of such immoral things. However, I did not feel shame. No, the heat spreading through me was anything but shame.

I sat up with a groan, my muscles protesting my every movement. I rubbed my cheeks with my hands, trying to rid myself of my blush. What was wrong with me? I had never thought of Christopher in that way, never even thought of that kiss since it had happened...not much anyway. I brushed my fingers across my chapped lips. His lips were warmer than my fingers, somehow softer. After he kissed me, he had tried to wipe it away with his thumb. I could feel the roughness of his calluses, the divet of a scar where thorns had once ripped his hand open. I wished, not for the first time, that I had opened my eyes and seen him. Seen him as he was truly meant to be, with his human face. Maybe then, these feelings would not be so frightening or wrong feeling as they were.

I jolted as heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. They grew louder and louder until shadows danced on the floor at the bottom of the door. The person paced, going further down the hall before turning back and lingering outside.

I slipped from the bed, moving so carefully that Foxy didn't even stir. I tiptoed towards the door. My heart raced so loudly I could feel my pulse in my ears. I laid my hand against the door, then pressed my ear to it.

I could hear him breathing, the unmistakable rasp of his breath escaping through his sharp teeth. He continued his pacing, leaving for a moment only to return. "Christopher?" I whispered, speaking so close to the door that my lips brushed against the wood.

I heard him suck in a breath, his steps fleeing.

"Wait!" I pleaded. "Please come back!"

I heard him groan. Slower this time, he returned, nearly dragging his feet. The door seemed to creak against me as he touched the other side.

"Thank you," I said. "I've been wanting to talk to you all day. I was worried."

"You're wasting your time." He growled. Claws dug into the door. "I am nothing but Rosalyn's obedient pet. Nothing more." He paused. The door creaked again as he pressed harder against it. "I'm not worth your sympathy or affection, Isabel." His voice was little more than a sigh. "I'm not worth anything at all. I never was. Did I ever tell you about my father?" He asked.

I swallowed. "No."

"He's still alive out there, somewhere. Working on some ship or in a port on a faraway island. He left me at the orphanage the day after he buried my mother. My own father didn't want me. I am that...worthless."

"Stop," I begged him.

"No, I'm going to make you understand." He snarled. "I am trash. Human trash. Stop trying to protect me. As soon as you are able, the moment you are strong enough, escape this place and don't look back. Let her kill me. It'll be a relief."

"No, it's you that doesn't understand, Christopher!" I roared back, pounding my fist against the door. "It's not you that's worthless! If your father abandoned you, it's he that has no worth! You are important! If not to anyone else then to me! It doesn't matter what you say or believe about yourself! It's my own feelings! I love you!" I shouted. My breath shuttered in my throat. I leaned away from the door, staring at my bruised hands. I could feel him move away from it, practically feel his gaze on me through the wood.

I hadn't meant to say that. I hadn't even been thinking it. Yet it felt right on my tongue. No regret filled my chest.

"You...love me?" He breathed, rattling the door with the rumble of his baritone. "Do you mean that, Isabel?"

Nerves seized my throat. Embarrassment taking hold. Helplessly, my tongue fumbled to correct itself. "Y-you're my family," I said, playing it off like I meant love in a different way. Like a brother. I wasn't entirely sure what I actually meant. I slid to the floor and pressed my hot forehead against the cool wood. "I can't see you hurt or know that you suffer, Christopher. I want to see you happy and...whole again." I said. I felt him move to sit on the floor, mirroring my own actions. "I mean to make that happen even if I have to destroy myself to do it."

"I don't want you to." He said softly.

"I know, but I'll do it anyway." I smiled. "And once its over, once we're free and your curse is lifted, we'll go and do whatever you wish. We could use my inheritance to buy a ship, sail around the world, see all the far-off places my father told me so many stories about. I've always wanted to. Now I mean to do it. There won't be anyone telling me I can't." I pressed my ear to the door and drummed my fingers against it. I wished I could see him. Touch him. "What about you? Is there something you want to do."

He was quiet for a long moment. All I could hear was the beating of my own heart. Finally, he answered, his voice low and rumbling. "I'd make you my wife."

I blinked at the door, again feeling his silver eyes on me, gazing at me through the door. I felt naked. Raw. My thin nightgown was too heavy against my skin.

I felt him move away, heard him stand. "But some dreams can't ever come true." He backed away. His shadow disappeared from beneath the door. "I'm her captive and there's nothing that can set me free." His hand finally slipped away. I missed its warmth. "Not even you, Isabel."