It was like falling through the frozen surface of a pond into freezing water in the darkest of nights.

Max’s heart hammered in his chest, pounding a frenzied rhythm as he flailed blindly in the all-consuming darkness. The glowing mirror he had been touching was gone, with absolutely nothing in its place. The resulting darkness was so absolute, Max couldn’t see even his own body.

A wave of panic surged through him, his breaths coming in short sharp gasps. He reached out, thrashing wildly, desperate for something—anything—to anchor him to reality.

But his hands grasped only emptiness. His legs kicked in a vacuum. The stone floor was gone, leaving him with a floating sensation, like he was adrift in an endless void. The cold that enveloped him was bone-chilling, similar to but far more severe than the brief shiver he normally experienced when he shadow hopped. This cold seeped into his very marrow, threatening to freeze him from the inside out.

A voice, eerie and disembodied, slithered through the darkness, a whisper that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere:

“Free me.”

The words were an unsettling mixture of seductive plea and implacable command, making Max’s skin crawl.

“Mirrorkin? Is that you?” he shouted back, his voice straining against the oppressive silence. His words didn’t echo as they previously had in Mirrorkin’s stone chamber. Instead, they seemed absorbed by the smothering blackness.

Max felt as vulnerable as a blindfolded newborn discarded in the woods at midnight, and the unsettling voice enhanced the feeling exponentially.

Frantically, he groped for his only semblance of defense, the iron poker he had put down at Mirrorkin’s behest. It should be within arm’s reach.

But the poker, like the floor itself, was gone. It was as if Max had been dumped into outer space, a lone speck in an infinite expanse of nothingness.

Max’s mind raced, terror mingling with confusion. This felt like the shadow realm that he entered when he shadow hopped. But he hadn’t consciously activated his powers. And even when he did activate them, he was in the shadow realm for the briefest of moments. Never this long.

He found himself shivering. If he stayed here much longer, he feared he would freeze to death. Or simply go mad. He felt his sanity already fraying, like his mind was a cloth being slowly, inexorably, irreparably ripped apart.

The eerie voice came again, more insistent, more demanding:

“Free me!”

The words echoed inside Max’s head, a ghostly chant that seemed to pull at his very soul.

“Who’s there?!” Max cried.

There was no response. But Max did get the sense of something very powerful, very dangerous closing in, the tremors of an approaching giant about to step on an ant.

Max clenched his fists, struggling to control the rising panic as he felt his consciousness fraying. If he really was in the shadow realm, he thought, all he had to do was shadow hop back to Mirrorkin’s chamber.

He activated his power, willing himself back to Prometheus Academy.

It didn’t work. He was still stuck in the shadow realm.

“Free me!!!”

The voice slithered into his ears, feeling like tentacles worming through Max’s brain, threatening to rip it apart. This time, an image accompanied the voice in Max’s mind’s eye. It was some sort of symbol, its stark blackness broken only by faint, ghostly streaks. The symbol’s contours hinted at a face. It seemed as though a visage had been distilled into an emblem, abstract yet eerily familiar.

Whatever it was, it stabbed at his brain like a frigid ice pick.

Max covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the insistent voice, trying to blot out the symbol in his head that ripped and tore at his consciousness like a bear at a deer carcass.

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Shivering with cold, his brain pounding like it would explode, he tried to concentrate, to visualize the shadows in Mirrorkin’s chamber, to feel the chamber’s cool stones under his skin, to force his power to work, to make it return him to Prometheus Academy.

With a scream that tore from the depths of his soul, Max exerted every ounce of his will. The darkness that ensnared him seemed to resist, a tangible force pushing back against his desperate escape attempt. But Max’s determination was adamantine, fueled by fear and the raw instinct to survive. His scream was a lone, defiant cry against the oppressive silence.

Abruptly, Max materialized back in Mirrorkin’s chamber, shrouded in one of the dim room’s many shadows.

He was on his hands and knees, drenched in sweat despite feeling like he was freezing, his breaths coming in ragged gasps. He was disoriented by the sudden transition from the chilling void to the familiar surroundings of the chamber. The dim light here was almost blinding compared to the total darkness of the void. Its cold lingered in his bones, a chilling reminder of the darkness that had threatened to consume him.

“What on earth is wrong with you?” Mirrorkin was looking down at Max from the reflection’s perch on the wall, wearing a look of perplexed curiosity. “Having some sort of fit?”

Max’s eyes darted around the room. They locked onto where he had left the iron poker.

He staggered to his feet, snatched up the poker, and stumbled toward the mirror. He waved his weapon at Mirrorkin with shaky hands.

“I don’t know what game you’re playing, but you better start talking!” Max’s voice was raspy from his earlier screams. His head pounded with the mother of all headaches. “What the hell just happened?”

“What in Shadowholme’s name are you talking about?” Mirrorkin demanded. “One moment I was talking to you, the next you were across the room, shaking in the shadows like you were having a seizure.”

“Who’s voice was that?” Max snarled, angered by Mirrorkin’s lies. “What does ‘free me’ mean? Free who? What did that symbol mean?”

Mirrorkin’s confused look deepened, mixing with mounting apprehension. “Stop waving that poker around before you hurt yourself. Or worse, me.”

“You have until the count of three to explain, or I swear I’ll smash you to bits!”

“How many times do I have to tell you, weirdo? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“One . . .”

“You are but a lowly first year and I am Mirrorkin. I’m ordering you to put that thing down.”

“Two . . .”

“There’s been some kind of misunderstanding!”

“Three!”

Max raised the poker.

Mirrorkin shrank back, throwing his arms up defensively. “Aaaaaaargh! I’m only 151-years-old! I’m too young to die!”

Max stopped himself right as he was about to smash the mirror. Mirorkin’s eyes were squeezed shut as he cowered within the mirror. He was whimpering in fear like a wounded animal.

Mirrorkin wasn’t pretending, Max realized. Nobody was this good of an actor. He really didn’t know what had happened to Max. Whatever had happened, it was beyond Mirrorkin’s awareness or control.

And Max, overcome by fear and rage, had been about to destroy him. Even if Mirrorkin was just a magical entity, he had consciousness. He was alive.

Max had been about to murder someone.

His arm lowered slowly. His grip loosened on the poker as his adrenaline began to ebb.

“Sorry,” he said to Mirrorkin, his voice unsteady. “I . . . I made a mistake.”

Still cowering, Mirrorkin cracked an eye open. “You’re not going to smash me?” His tiny voice was plaintive.

“No.”

“Promise me,” Mirrorkin wheedled. “I know how much your word means to you.”

“I promise.”

Mirrorkin opened both eyes and straightened. He eyed Max warily.

“Maybe you should join the Anarchy Division after all,” Mirrorkin huffed indignantly, smoothing the lines of his rumpled jumpsuit. “Because you’re a blithering lunatic.”

“I apologize,” Max muttered, with shame now mixing with his complete confusion. “Life’s been crazy for me lately. I must’ve been hallucinating or something.” He wasn’t able to meet Mirrorkin’s gaze as he lied. He knew what he had experienced wasn’t a hallucination. He had been in the shadow realm. The cold, the darkness, that voice—they were all too real, too visceral to be mere figments of his imagination. But he didn’t want to tell Mirrorkin the truth. In the normal world, they said the truth set you free; but here, the truth would probably just be used against you. This was a school for Villains. For evildoers. He didn’t dare trust anyone.

“You should report to the infirmary then,” Mirrorkin sniffed. “Maybe they can prescribe something to help. A brain transplant, perhaps.” His swagger seemed to be back now that he believed he was out of danger.

“Maybe,” Max mumbled.

Max knew he needed to return the poker to where it belonged before returning to the servitors, or else they’d know he had broken the rule about first years not using their powers. But he hesitated. He’d have to shadow hop again. He shuddered at the thought of traveling through the place he had just escaped.

What was the alternative? Never using his powers again? That was not an option, especially if he was ever going to escape Prometheus Academy.

If a Band-Aid had to be ripped off, it was best done quickly.

Steeling himself, he shadow hopped back to the adjacent room.

Other than the act giving him the willies, he teleported normally, spending but an instant in the shadow realm. He returned the poker to the fireplace stand, then hopped back to Mirrorkin’s chamber.

Again, he made the jump without incident.

After pounding on the exit, a servitor let him out. Mirrorkin disappeared from the mirror and reset, ready to regenerate when the next first year entered for her Division choosing.

In the darkest corner of the room, practically invisible in her black ensemble, completely unnoticed by both Max and Mirrorkin, Stiletto looked at the door Max had exited from.

Underneath her mask, she was smiling.