“Don’t touch me.” She stood on the edge, eyes hard set on the drop below. “I can’t bear it if you touch me.”
He crept closer, nervous of the drop. The ocean clanged below, slamming against the cliff walls, dragging rocks to the depths. The cliff could go at any moment. They both knew that.
“Please, just come back inside and we can talk.”
Brine gathered in her hair, sweeping in then sweeping out like the slow exhale of human breath. Sand clung at her golden curls in a race against the sea. Her still fingers lay curled in the smoothed dunes, half-buried.
She tasted of sea salt and red wine.
Waves crashed against rocks, creating a cacophony of crackles all along the bay, but her lashes did not part to show the blue brilliance of her eyes. Almost shrouded in sand, the bottle by her hand had been finished a long time ago. Dawn light crept rose tinted across her cream skin.
“Bailey’s ’n ice,” he muttered to himself, staring through the heavy duty pane into the freezer. The frosted glass was scraped away in places, allowing him to see his new possession.
The glass was specially imported. He didn’t want any way for water elementals to slip in through the reflections. He smiled to himself, cold eyes burning through the window to the young man frozen there. It wouldn’t take long before she would come too.
He understood that that was how love worked having never tried it himself.
She heard his screams from the other side of the mirror, but she couldn’t go back. Going back would rip her to shreds. The pieces were simply too small to pass through.
There was no way to save him from there. Without another mirror nearby or a pool of water, her elemental powers trapped her in the field. Fevered eyes stared back into the glass. A kaleidoscope picture flashed and died as the power of the other mirror finally broke into nothingness.
He had to make it.
