Nyx Hollow's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

Nyx carries the locket and ledger back to her usual corner of the library, where Darkness waits in the shadows between shelves. She sets both items on the floor in front of her and studies the locket's broken face under the dim light. The initials engraved on the back are worn but readable: E.H. She knows those letters. Her aunt Emily had a letter box with a brass J on the front—J for her married name, not H. But before that, Emily was Emily Harrow. E.H. Nyx remembers the box because Emily showed it to her once, said it held postcards from people who'd promised to stay in touch and never did. Emily smiled when she said it, like it was funny instead of sad. That's when Nyx first learned people could wear faces that didn't match what they meant. Emily taught her how—taught her by example, every visit, every smile that said everything was fine when Darkness showed Nyx it wasn't. The locket must have been Emily's too, from before she learned to hide. Nyx closes her fist around it. The stranger's people crossed Emily's name out three years ago, which means Emily came here once, saw Darkness, and ran. Nyx always thought Emily left because of her, because being around a kid who traveled with shadows was too much. But Emily ran from her own reflection, just like everyone else. The difference was Emily knew how to pretend she hadn't. Nyx walks to the abandoned portrait gallery three blocks from the library, where Emily used to take her on Saturdays. Empty frames hang on peeling wallpaper in patterns Nyx still remembers. Emily would point at the blank spaces and describe the portraits that used to hang there—beautiful faces, she said, that people paid to have painted just right. This is where Nyx first understood that faces were something people constructed, not something they were born with. A broken mirror leans against the back wall, its fractured glass catching her reflection in pieces. Emily stood in front of that same mirror once and fixed her lipstick, checked her smile, made sure everything looked right before they left. Nyx watches her own face split across the cracks now and sees what Emily must have seen—proof that the surface can break and still show you back to yourself. She drops the locket on the gallery floor beneath the largest empty frame. The chain coils around the broken pieces. Nyx doesn't need to keep it. She already knows what Emily taught her: that the mask matters more than the truth beneath it, and some people get so good at wearing masks they forget which face was real. But now she understands something Emily never meant to show her—that masks have patterns, just like the frames on this wall. Emily smiled the same way every time she lied. She touched her necklace when she was about to leave. She called Nyx "sweetheart" right before she said something that would hurt. The stranger wants someone who can control Darkness, but what they really need is someone who can see past what people show. Nyx turns and walks back to the library. She's going to watch the stranger the way she watched Emily, catalog every gesture and phrase until the pattern shows through. She won't trust their face, but she'll learn to read it. That's the difference between her and everyone who runs—she's willing to study the mask until it tells her what's underneath.