Front row seats. 

Yet Violet wasn’t shocked. Holly had been talking about the magician since he emerged in popularity in their freshman year of college. She was nothing short of obsessed with the self-titled “Elias the Great”. 

And surprise, surprise.  

He was putting on a show. 

In their city.  

On Holly’s birthday. 

Violet knew, with absolute certainty, that Holly was going, so she forfeited six hundred dollars to buy tickets to the show.  

Sitting in those front-row seats funded by her summer retail job, Violet was embarrassed at how starstruck she found herself. Two years of Holly shoving viral videos down her throat had not done Elias justice. He claimed the stage with grandeur, and his presence filled up the entire circus tent. His eyes shone as if he had stolen them from the brightest stars the universe had to offer. When he spoke, she could’ve fooled herself into thinking he was whispering in her ear, with that unfamiliar, heavy accent. Strangest of all, he frequently referenced past shows in cities that didn’t exist. After the third unfamiliar city, she peeled her eyes off him to google the names, finding a defeating zero results staring back at her. 

His tricks were unlike anything she’d seen before, and none of them had plausible explanations. The show began with him emerging into sight between one blink and the next and earned a chorus of gasps from the crowd. His tricks ranged from turning his human assistants into wolves that foamed at the mouth, to water flooding from behind the backstage curtains, only to end up as a small rainstorm that dampened her clothes. Violet wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. It was so overwhelming that she wished he would pull a rabbit out of his purple top hat instead.  

The show slowed time. Colors drained from her peripherals in favor of saturating him. After what had felt like both days and mere minutes, the finale came.  

And what was a magic show without a request for volunteers? Within mere seconds of Elias asking for a lucky volunteer, the audience roared to life. 

Holly practically launched out of her seat with the force of raising her hand. Her other hand gripped Violet’s arm hard enough to leave purple fingerprints on her skin. Holly waved her arm high, her voice joining the chorus of other eager volunteers, begging Elias to pleasepleaseplease choose her.  

He walked the length of the stage, his polished shoes leaving indented footprints in his wake. 

“Jacob Thatcher, would you like to join me?” 

Violet ignored Holly’s defeated groan to turn and see who was picked. The spotlights illuminated a man in the far-right corner of the audience. He was already out of his seat and halfway to the stage by the time Holly turned to look as well. 

Jacob joined Elias in the center of the stage where the mirror was set up. 

Elias addressed the audience. “For this trick, I will cast an enchantment on your reflection. Rather than seeing yourself, you will see the changer of your fate. This person could affect you in a multitude of ways, but after you encounter them, your life will not be the same.” 

Jacob was too enraptured by the mirror to respond to the magician. While he was distracted, Elias put one hand over his eyes and the other on the mirror. His mouth moved, but unintelligible gibberish met Violet’s ears. 

“What is he saying?” she leaned over and whispered into Holly’s ear. 

Holly didn’t peel her eyes off Elias. “He’s performing the spell.” She said it like it was common sense, but Violet didn’t recognize even the smallest syllables. 

By the last word, the reflection in the mirror rippled as if someone had dragged their hand through it to distort the image. When the glass cleared again, the reflection had changed. 

The reflection of Jacob’s body in the mirror remained the same. He still wore a Vanderbilt sweatshirt and gym shorts. However, from the neck up, there was another face in its place. It appeared to be an old woman. From where Violet sat, she could make out the woman’s kind eyes and curled grey hair.  

When Jacob’s mouth dropped open, the woman’s mimicked the movement. They wore the same stunned expression. Their eyes blinked at the same rate, and even their eyebrows raised to identical heights. Strangest of all, the bruise that bloomed on his face before coming onto the stage was in the same place and position on hers. 

“What a kind face,” Elias declared with a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “I predict that the changer of your fate, this woman, will be a positive impact on your life.” 

Jacob, without hesitation, turned away from the mirror and threw his arms around Elias. The magician stumbled back a step, stunned.  

“I’d pay millions to be able to do that,” Holly mumbled and drew a snicker out of Violet. She doubted that Holly would last a second into hugging Elias before passing out from sheer exhilaration. 

It took three assistants to pry Jacob off and lead him back to his seat. The entire way, he kept stealing glances at the mirror. 

Elias smoothed out invisible wrinkles from his suit and addressed the audience again. “A night like this doesn’t come around this often in Nashville, does it?”  

The crowd cheered, Holly the loudest of all. Even Violet found herself clapping with a grin that made her cheeks ache. 

“I’m feeling rather generous, so I’ll ask again. Would anyone like to see the changer of their fate?” 

Like last time, Violet didn’t raise her hand. Yet, his eyes locked onto hers, causing her rushing blood to freeze solid in her veins. Before she could fool herself into thinking he was staring at Holly, her name was cast out into the crowd. 

“Violet Adler, would you join me?” 

That particular arrangement of letters propelled her onto her feet.  

Her name. 

That was her name. 

How did he know that? 

When she didn’t move from her stunned position, Holly jumped up from her seat. With both hands on her shoulders, she gave Violet a shove in the direction of the stage and hissed, “he called you. Go!” 

Eyes trained on him, she only knew she had made it onto the stage when she was craning her neck up to look at him. He gave her a dazzling smile full of too-white teeth and gestured toward the mirror. The reflective glass was like a pool of water, and she was almost tempted to see if her hand would pass through. Just as her fingertips neared it, she caught a glimpse of her face. 

Violet wore a dazed expression. Her deep brown eyes were glassy, and her skin was oddly blanched. The long black hair that framed her face gleamed unnaturally under the spotlights. 

Elias addressed the audience again, but she still watched herself. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from her face, too enraptured by her own image to hear him. 

Violet’s vision disappeared without warning. Her mind caught up to the present, and she realized that it was his heavy hand that was placed over her eyes. The same lines of gibberish spilled from his mouth and boomed through the tent. From up close, the deep timbre of his voice rattled her bones. 

Her eyes burned, a fire searing straight through her corneas and to the back of her skull. She stumbled away from his touch, ready to give him a piece of her mind, but all words fell dead. She saw no stranger in the mirror. 

Only her furious face.  

It didn’t work. 

Elias’s nervous laughter echoed through the hushed tent. He wrung his hands and turned back to the crowd. “As you all can see, we have a very special case on our hands.” He threw an arm around her. “Violet, the changer of your fate is you.” 

In the Uber back to their dorm, Violet’s mind replayed his pathetic excuse like a broken record. No matter what hopeful justifications Holly tried to thread together, it was over. To her, the magic was ruined.  

The disappointment wore off eventually, of course. She would look into the mirror each morning, never noticing the minuscule changes in her face. Holly would bring Elias up, but never as frequently as before.  

His name was a sore spot for Violet now. She had turned herself into a starstruck fool that night, and her ego hadn’t quite recovered from the letdown. And just when she thought she was over it, the carpet was ripped from beneath her feet once again. 

Three months after the show, her reflection got a haircut. 

Standing slack-jawed in front of the mirror, Violet tried to convince herself she was dreaming. She rubbed her eyes, splashed her face with ice-cold water, and even twisted the skin of her forearm between two shaky fingers. 

Nothing changed, and her reflection’s hair was still chopped to her shoulders. Violet grabbed the ends of her own hair, which remained at her elbows. She raked her fingers through it. Her reflection mirrored the movement perfectly. Even when her fingers reached the ends of her reflection’s short hair, the tension in the strands remained until her fingers were freed in her actual hair. 

Violet inhaled deeply. The bathroom air filled her lungs and exhaled as stale morning breath. She studied her face to try and quell the rising panic. It didn’t look any different from the last three months. 

Sure, there had been instances where she felt like she was staring at a stranger, but she attributed it to pulling all-nighters for the upcoming exam season. 

Panting, Violet turned on her heel and bolted for Holly’s bed. She shook her awake. Words rushed out of her mouth too frantic and too fast for her freshly awakened roommate to decipher. When it was clear that nothing was working, she pulled her out of bed and to the mirror. 

Painful silence stretched between them. 

Holly stared blankly at the mirror. Her eyebrows scrunched together, lips twisted to one side in deep thought. She scoured every inch of Violet’s face in the reflection until her face cracked with a sardonic laugh.  

“Elias’s trick worked after all. I can’t believe you ever doubted him!” 

It was the least helpful thing she could’ve said. 

“That’s still me!” Violet cried with an accusatory finger pointed at the short-haired girl in her reflection. 

Holly clicked her tongue. She braced a hand on the counter and leaned in toward the mirror to thoroughly examine Violet’s reflection. 

“No, this person’s nose isn’t like yours. Remember when you broke it playing kickball that one time?” 

Violet pulled hard at the long ends of her hair. Air didn’t seem to fill her lungs as well as it did earlier. The room began to spin in dizzying spirals.  

“You’re adopted, right?” She pointed to Violet’s reflection. “Maybe this girl,” she tapped the glass, “is a long-lost twin.” 

The edges of her vision began to fade. 

“This is serious!” Violet exclaimed. Usually, she loved Holly’s jokes, but she needed solid ground to stand on at the moment. 

“I am being serious!” Holly defended. She unplugged her phone from where it was charging on the counter. “Smile,” she prompted. 

The camera’s flash went off, stinging her eyes. Holly’s face lit up with a shade of triumph. She flipped her phone around so that Violet could see herself on the screen. 

In the picture, her hair matched what she knew: Long. As it should be. As it always should’ve been. She looked as unsettled as she felt, skin donned in a sweaty sheen, matched with wide, frantic eyes. 

Violet couldn’t breathe. She sucked in greedy gulps of air and managed to stammer out, “I need some air.”  

Holly called out her name, but it was cut off by the door slamming shut between them. Her entire body felt heavy, frantic steps hitting the ground harder than usual. She raced through the dorm, down five flights of stairs, and out to the street.  

With no destination in mind, she knew with absolute certainty that she needed to clear her head. Maybe the gravel digging into the bare soles of her feet would snap her back into a reality where Elias’s magic didn’t work. Into a reality where she could look in the mirror and see a face that was entirely her own. 

A car’s horn pierced the air, and the squealing of brakes slammed too late joined the cacophony. Violet froze to the white-painted lines of the crosswalk like a deer in headlights. 

Time slowed. 

Her focus tunneled in on the white Jeep mere feet from slamming into her. Behind the wheel, illuminated by the only hint of color, was the short-haired girl she’d seen in the mirror.  

Her terrified face, nearly the same as her own, stained the final seconds of Violet’s mind.