Late one night, not long after the banquet, Mina crept out of bed. She lit a candle, took up her mother’s mirror, and placed both on the ground near the frosted glass of her window.
Since the day by the stream when she had first learned she could manipulate glass, Mina had practiced using her power, finding that the more glass she had around her, the less the magic drained her, though the effect was always temporary. But her father’s rule of blood did not work for her. She had once tried to make a mouse again, but regardless of whether she used her blood to make it, the mouse was never truly alive—it never had a pulse. That didn’t matter, though. Tonight, she didn’t want to create anything with a pulse.
Bolstered by the glass window, she concentrated on the mirror, and the glass slid out of the frame to form a silvery pool on the floor. The pool lengthened, and slowly, a shape emerged: a human body, tall and lean. The glass figure was still transparent, but it had become solid, a crystalline mannequin.
She shaped him in her mind, careful to attend to every detail: the curl of his eyelashes, the calluses on his hands, the jutting of his collarbone. At the last minute, she remembered to clothe him, and the glass shifted into a tunic to oblige her. The glass became bone, flesh, and cloth, and when it was done, Mina bent down over it and whispered, “Live.”
Even with the window, Mina felt the breath knocked out of her just as his eyes snapped open.
He was beautiful, his eyes black, his hair dark and shining. Her one misstep was his arms. She’d wavered briefly in forming them, not sure if he should be muscular or lean, and as a result, his brown arms were lined with thin scars, like cracks on a mirror surface.
She leaned over him. “Do you know who I am?”
He blinked at her slowly, and then he beamed with recognition. “It’s you,” he said, and his voice rang out like glass. “I’ve looked on your face every day. And though I’ve seen others, you’ve always been the most beautiful of them all.”
His words were a caress, like the feel of cool glass against her skin on a hot day. “My name is Mina. Let me help you sit up.”
With one arm under his shoulders, she guided him into a sitting position. He copied her movements, learning how to move his limbs and his body until he was sitting like her, with his knees tucked underneath him. They sat face-to-face, studying each other. Mina bit her lip, and he did the same.
“My name is—do I have a name?” he said.
Mina hadn’t thought about a name. She considered it, tasting different options until she found one that felt like broken glass on her tongue. “Felix,” she said. “Your name is Felix.”
“My name is Felix,” he repeated. “What would you have me do,” he said, “if I can no longer show you your own face?”
“I need you to teach me what it means to be in love—what it looks like, how it feels. Love me, as best as you can, and I will learn from you.”
Her voice had started to break on those last words, and she went silent, wishing she hadn’t spoken at all. What did a piece of glass know of love? She could shatter him to pieces now if she wanted, force him back into the mirror frame and forget that she had ever tried this misguided experiment.
But then he placed each of his hands on her shoulders and leaned forward, his lips hovering over hers before moving to the patch of skin just below her jaw, right where her pulse should have been, and her breath caught. “That’s easy,” he murmured against her throat. “I’ve loved you since I opened my eyes and saw you.”
Mina’s eyes fluttered closed as her hands skimmed along his scarred arms. She pulled him close, marveling at the unfamiliar but comforting weight of his head buried in the crook of her neck. For a moment she thought, Maybe this is enough. Maybe she didn’t need the king or his crown—maybe all she needed was to shut her eyes and hold Felix tightly enough until she forgot that neither of them had a pulse, that neither of them could ever make the other truly human.
But she couldn’t shut her eyes forever, so she opened them again and gently removed herself from Felix’s embrace. “Hold out your arms,” she said.
The cracks were noticeable, but they looked like scars, the kind one might receive from dueling or hunting. She could have fixed them, probably, but she decided she liked him better this way. She ran her fingers over the scars, and the feel of them sent a thrill all the way to her bones. Mine.
“You have the look of a huntsman, my love,” she said, “and the king often goes hunting. When you leave here, you’ll go to the stables and ask for the marshal, and you’ll tell him you’ve come to join the royal huntsmen. Perhaps in time, you’ll accompany the king himself, and then you’ll come back here, to me, and tell me what you’ve learned about him. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I’m going to be a huntsman,” he recited, eyes wide with eagerness to please her.
She bent her head and pressed her lips against one of the scars on his inner arm, and he lifted her head gently, stroking her cheeks, her lips, with his thumb. She leaned in, unsure at first, but when he didn’t move away, she drew in closer, until her lips met his. Almost immediately, she drew back again.
Felix adapted quickly. He copied her movements, bringing his head forward to return her kiss. His adoration, his yearning, nourished her, and she understood now why gods were always said to be jealous.
She pretended it was the king she was kissing, practicing where on his back to place her hands, when to lean away so that he would be left wanting more. This is what it feels like to be held, to be loved, she told herself, but she was too aware that it was a mirror that loved her, and mirrors only saw the surface. Were people the same? If she shone brightly enough on the outside, could she blind everyone to what lay underneath?
Felix cried out. She had unthinkingly torn the flesh at the nape of his neck, and when she withdrew her hand, his blood was under her nails.
Had the cry been loud enough to wake her father? Mina rose from the floor, listening for the sound of footsteps. Felix remained on his knees in front of her, his upturned face radiant with devotion, and she forgot her worries at the sight of him. She didn’t think she would ever grow accustomed to this sudden wealth of affection.
“Stand,” she said, and he obeyed. “Did I wound you?”
“A little.”
“Do you still love me?”
“Of course.”
She leaned in to kiss him again, but the sound of her door slamming open made her jump.
It was her father, and he was livid.
“Get him out of here,” he said, his voice a low rumble.