Aziama dropped her pen and looked away from the flickering flame of the candle.

She could barely think straight. A lump formed in her throat when she let herself fully realize that it had been hours since she’d sat down at her pine wood desk. Hours since she’d allowed herself to get lost in the terror of unleashing all of her worst demons into words... furious, untouchable words.

For the first time since she’d opened the notebook that evening, she flipped through it to figure out how many pages she’d darkened with frenzied arcs of black ink. A significant clump of paper sat between her fingers when she reached the starting point, marking her crime for the night. She’d outdone herself. She would have to find herself a second notebook soon. A bitter laugh formed behind her lips at the thought. She swallowed.

Shaking hands pinched the book shut, and then pocketed it.

Wearily, she forced herself to rise up from the desk. It was late, too late, and she couldn’t afford to lose any more sleep if she expected see herself through the next day. She held up the candle, ready to rid the room of the hint of light that illuminated it.

Movement in the corner of the room caused her to falter. She froze in place, her eyes darting towards the source.

It was no one. Of course. Just the mirror, displaying her own movement in the dark. Aziama almost allowed herself to let out an exhausted breath of relief. She glanced at the image in the mirror, her reflection poised to send the room into darkness with the blow of a candle.

Inexplicably, she lowered the candle onto her desk again. She walked toward the reflection.

In a world of ruses and half-truths, the mirror would always reveal the reality of what was in front of it. Beyond the glass, a girl halted in her steps, chin rising to face the image that, in turn, faced her. There was her dark hair, framing her face before spinning away into hues of soft red and blue. Stiff shoulders, clasped fingers, and immaculate posture, all enough to paint her a statue of fear and grace. Her pale skin a hint too light, her violet eyes a hint too dark. Those eyes. They were a Deceiver’s eyes.

Aziama let out a thin breath of air. For a dreamlike moment, she wondered what could be if her reality were a different one. If destiny had bent to the will of troubled souls not unlike her father’s. Or her own.

She hadn’t thought of him in a long time. And it was better kept that way. Still, her gaze locked itself on her reflection, as if she couldn’t let go of the mirage in her mind.

No one was immune to deception, she knew.

Not even herself.

Slowly, before her actions caught up to her, she stared right into the deep, purple eyes of her reflection, hardly daring to breathe.

Right in front of her, the image almost seemed to warp itself into something impossible. The reflection shifted into the same girl, yet a different girl entirely. This girl’s expression was warmer. Her shoulders were slackened, and her posture, somewhat kind.

Her eyes, a golden shade of amber.

And then, in both reflection and reality, those eyes slowly traveled down to the swirled pendant hanging at her neck.

The image in the mirror shattered.

The amber color vanished from her eyes, and the statue of fear and grace returned once more. Yet Aziama couldn’t help but observe how the mirror captured the sudden un-statue-like fashion in which her chest madly rose and fell, or how her reflection in the glass candidly depicted the very ungraceful way in which she trembled like a leaf in a hurricane.

Torn between a sting of disillusion and the sickening knowledge that perhaps the mirror knew how to lie after all, Aziama promptly turned on her heels and steered herself to the candle at her desk. She welcomed the blackness that took over the room when she blew out the flame.

Aziama stumbled into bed. She was uncomfortably aware of her amulet pressing into her neck as she lay down, making it hard to breathe.

She closed her eyes and let herself drift off into an uneasy rest, one where she knew that her treacherous blots of ink would spring up from the pages of her notebook and haunt her until dawn arose.