Then, a whisper.
“Don’t panic,” I told my reflection. The woman in the mirror smiled back a beat too late. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, dreamy, utterly at peace. That wasn’t me. I don’t smile.
Except now, three hours—or was it three days?—later, I stood in a suite I didn’t recognize, wearing jewelry I’d never seen, and my stomach felt… different. Not sick. Not full. Occupied in a way that had no business existing.
I had no memory of any book.
“Coming, darling,” I heard myself say. And I meant it.
The masquerade had a theme this year: Hypnos’s Gala . Every invitation bore the image of a poppy-wreathed figure with fingers pressed to smiling lips. Everyone joked about it. “Don’t drink the punch unless you want to wake up married.” “Careful, the DJ is actually a neurologist.” Just party chatter. Rich people’s Halloween with better tailoring.
The last thing I remember before the door opened was the whisper’s final gift: a single memory surfacing from the trance. Myself, kneeling on a floor of rose petals and pocket watches, lifting a silver chalice to my lips, and whispering, “I consent. I consent. I consent.” Masquerade Hypnosis -Before I knew it- I-m Preg...
A knock at the door. Three slow, rhythmic taps. Then a voice, low and amused, with an accent I couldn’t place. “Love? The midwife is here. She says the heartbeat is strong. Both of them.”
I tore off the mask. My pupils were blown wide, and in the irises—just for a flicker—I saw the shape of a spiral, turning slowly.
I just didn’t know to whom.
Before I knew it, I was standing in front of a cheval mirror in a gown I didn’t remember picking out.
Both?
The silk was deep midnight blue, embroidered with constellations that seemed to shift when I blinked. My mask was a delicate thing of silver lace and tiny, faceted obsidians that caught the candlelight of the masquerade hall behind me. I didn’t recall putting it on, either. In fact, the last clear memory I had was standing in the coat-check line, holding a champagne flute I hadn’t been old enough to drink from. Then, a whisper
I looked down. The gown’s embroidery had changed. Where before there had been a single star over my womb, now there were two. And they were pulsing faintly, in time with a flutter I felt deep inside.