The cold from the windowpane burned worse than any fire Seraphine could conjure. Six-year-old Alaric stood frozen before the gothic window of his bedroom, his small fingers clutching the velvet drapes. Outside, impossibly suspended in the night air, the creature wearing his twelve-year-old sister's face smiled with too many teeth, all too sharp.
"What's wrong, little brother?" The voice perfectly mimicked Seraphine's but carried a metallic echo that rang unnatural. "Afraid of your own sister?"
The Treatise on Lost Miracles on Alaric's bed began violently flipping its pages before stopping at an illustration that hadn't been there before: an antique pendulum clock with thirteen numbers instead of twelve on its face, its hands spinning backward as drops of thick red substance fell from its gears.
*"Do not open. Not her. Mirrors always lie when they strike thirteen."*
A sharp knock at the door made both Alaric and the creature turn toward the sound.
"Alaric!" The real Seraphine's voice boomed from the hallway, accompanied by pounding. "Open this door right now or I swear to all gods I'll break it down!"
The false Seraphine at the window tilted her head at an impossible angle, like a bird of prey studying its victim, her smile stretching until it nearly split her cheeks.
"What an interesting dilemma," she whispered, her voice now dripping with malice. "Which sister will you believe, little Alaric?"
**First Chime**
The sound emerged from the palace walls themselves, deep as a sleeping giant's sigh, resonating in Alaric's bones and making the windowpanes vibrate. The creature mimicking Seraphine released an ear-piercing shriek before disintegrating into a swirling black dust that lingered for several seconds before vanishing completely.
The bedroom door burst open, revealing the real Seraphine, her shortsword drawn in one hand while the other cradled a small blue flame dancing across her gloved fingers. Her normally carefully pinned silver hair hung disheveled around her shoulders, and her golden eyes burned with a mix of fury and concern.
"By the old gods and the new!" she exclaimed while scanning every corner of the room. "What the hell was that sound, Alaric? And why was your door sealed? I tried opening it for nearly a full minute."
Alaric pointed a trembling hand toward the window, but no trace of the creature remained. Only the quiet night and, in the distance, the palace's first clock beginning to chime what now seemed an entirely ordinary hour.
**Second Chime**
This time the sound came louder, more insistent, as if rising from the palace's very foundations. The flames of the bedroom candles froze mid-air, droplets of wax suspended like amber tears. Seraphine, demonstrating the reflexes that had made her the top magical combat student of her year, instinctively moved to shield her younger brother, pressing her gloved hands over his ears.
"They're striking thirteen!" Alaric shouted over the cacophony, though he knew perfectly well how impossible that was. "The Treatise predicted it!"
The book on the bed flew open by itself, revealing a new message written in what appeared to be congealed blood:
*"When clocks lie, when they toll the forbidden hour, the sleepers will rise from their eternal slumber. Seek the shattered mirror in the sealed room where your mother hid the truth she couldn't bear."*
**Third Chime**
The entire world seemed to tremble beneath their feet. The family portraits lining the halls turned their heads to follow the siblings' hurried steps, their once-solemn expressions now twisted into grimaces of pain or fury. From the garden, hundreds of golden lights blinked in unison like eyes opening after centuries of dormancy.
Seraphine grabbed Alaric's arm with the protective strength only an older sister possesses, her fingers sure to leave bruises on the boy's skin by morning.
"The west wing," she hissed while pushing Alaric behind her, her sword cutting protective arcs through the air. "Mother's room. And hurry, before the next one sounds."
**Fourth Chime**
They ran through hallways that stretched and contracted like the guts of a living beast, shadows chasing them while whispering in languages Alaric had never heard yet somehow understood in his core. He noticed something horrible: with each chime, he lost another memory from his past life. His best friend's name... the exact color of his previous mother's eyes... even the title of that web novel he'd been reading when it all began... all vanishing like smoke between his fingers.
"Here!" Seraphine stopped before a door Alaric had never seen, sealed with thick planks and marked with prohibition runes that glowed a sickly hue. "Stand back!"
With a fluid motion showcasing years of training, Seraphine traced a complex symbol in the air with her sword before launching a small blue fireball at the seals. The controlled explosion shattered the planks to pieces, revealing a dark entrance that exhaled stale air smelling of withered roses and static electricity.
**Fifth Chime**
This time the sound hit so hard Alaric fell to his knees, hands pressed to his ears as he felt something else break inside his mind—this time it was the complete memory of his first school day in his previous life, dissolving like sand through fingers.
Inside the forbidden chamber, illuminated only by faint moonlight from a high skylight, an oval mirror with a golden frame rested on an ebony pedestal, its perfect surface split exactly in half by a single fracture.
The glass exploded with a sound like a dying man's scream. From the cracks emerged first skeletal hands, then complete arms, followed by figures shrouded in misty shrouds murmuring in that same forgotten tongue.
"Don't look at their eyes!" Seraphine shouted while spinning Alaric around and wrapping him in her cloak, pressing him against her chest with one arm while keeping her sword raised with the other, its tip trembling slightly. "Close your eyes and don't open them until I say!"
But the warning came too late.
In the broken mirror, among the fragments falling slowly like crystalline tears, Alaric saw his own reflection smile with an expression he'd never worn—a mix of malice, ancient knowledge, and infinite sadness. And when it spoke, it used the unmistakable voice of that web novel author he'd criticized right before dying, the same voice that had spoken in his feverish visions:
*"Remember what you wrote, armchair critic? 'An ending this poor deserves rewriting.' Well congratulations. Now's your chance. The trouble is, to rewrite the ending... you'll have to live through it first."*