A past love, a partner, hung her head into her hands and wept, openly, shamelessly, silently. I stood in the door frame, wanting to speak but unable to find the words. She lifted her hand and pointed a long slender finger like an arrow and screeched like a wounded animal. 

No more, she wailed. No more, no more. Her red-rimmed eyes lifted to meet mine and her fury was as deep as her sorrow. I fled before I could taste the steel of the knife on her belt. 

In front of me, in a steel and tarnished frame, a mirror rests against the stone of my prison. I see myself, but not my reflection. The surface is a cold window into a realm I do not know, showing myself as I would not be. 

I’m alone, in a cold room with an open window. The night breeze blows in, but I do not care, and I have not refueled the burning embers in the fire. 

Three silver coins, tarnished like the mirror, lay before me on the table next to the wine bottle. My hands shake as I pour the last remaining drops into the glass before swiping all onto the floor. 

The mirror before me shatters as the wine bottle hits the floor and I cannot see the reflection. 

The mirror has mended itself and shown me a new scene. I am at a party, dancing, laughing, a lady on my right arm, a gentleman on my left, and a crooked smile on my face. 

I dart between partners, laughing, dancing, and sliding my fingers into silk-lined pockets and purses. 

My stomach churned as I watched myself kiss and be kissed and feel prick on my skin as my mirror-self enjoys in hands in darkened places. 

The mirror before me is filled with smudged handprints and smears of lipstick and I cannot see the reflection.

The mirror has ripped and become as the surface of a lake at night. I see myself again, stirring in slumber and dreaming in moving shadows upon the walls behind me. 

I watch the shadows and I know, somehow, which is mine and which is hers. Her shadow approaches mine, knife and vengeance at hand. Behind her a Lord, one of the revelers, shaking his head, what’s to be done? 

My shadow begs and pleads, but the lord, his finger like an arrow, points to me and she strikes. 

The mirror before me is cast in shadow and I cannot see the reflection. 

The frame before me gleams and sprouts into a filigree of gold and diamonds and I see myself, still asleep as I was before. 

A large man, the Lord from the dream, covered in fine silks, jems the size of eyes, and gold chains as delicate and thin as spider’s silk, stood over me as I slept. 

Silently, he reached into a purse and retrieved a single, gold coin. Around him the gold and metals of the room seemed to sparkle and even I, through the mirror, could taste the cold, blood-like, metal in my mouth. 

He placed the Numisian coin on the nightstand and left the room. I am a marked sacrifice to a dying god. 

The mirror before me shines too bright and I cannot see the reflection. 

What is done, is done, and will not interfere with what fate has chosen for myself. 

I watch as I consume the coin upon waking, then consume all that is given to me, and then as I am consumed in holy ritual to the god of Value. 

There is nothing left of myself when they are finished and when they are gone, I rise from the reflection of the golden altar and steal myself away into the night. 

I visit her, once I had my bearings, and I kneel upon my knees and beg her to forgive me. 

I was not myself, I tell her. 

She does not want to believe me and fingers the knife. 

There is nothing of value to gain by killing me, I reason and plead. 

She sighs and holds her hands out like a cup, and takes mine in hers, and does not notice my missing finger on the wrong side.