There was a long pause, and Aidan could tell Celia was thinking. At last she asked, “Why did you become a vampire?”

Aidan laughed. “I didn’t exactly have a choice. It was the last thing I wanted.”

“Oh.” She was silent again for a while, then opened her mouth to ask another question. Before she could they both heard footsteps and voices in the hall outside. A moment later the door opened and someone was literally thrown into the room. Aidan and Celia both gaped, for it was the mirror Aidan. He picked himself up gingerly from where he’d landed. “You big oaf,” he muttered at the minotaur who was already closing the cell door.

Celia stared at the mirror Aidan, the terrified look back in her eyes. She got to her feet and, staying as far as she could from where he stood in the center of the room, she made her way around until she was standing by the other Aidan’s side. “You were telling the truth, you really are his twin,” she said.

“Yes,” he replied, and put his arm around her protectively.

His double looked at them wordlessly. Then he crossed the room to the corner Celia had jut vacated and sat down. He looked downright depressed. Aidan, rather puzzled by his double’s presence asked him, “What are you doing in here?”

“I’m in the dog house with Flame,” came the reply. “I’ve gone and let slip our little secret, ruined our little game, and she’s not at all happy about it.” He sighed. “There are days when I wish fervently I’d never met her, and this is definitely one of them.”

Aidan smiled wryly. “I can second that motion. I wish I’d never come here.” Then a thought occurred to him. “How was my wife when you last saw her? I presume she’s the one that got the secret of how you’ve been spying on Drago out of you.”

Well…” a haunted look came into the mirror Aidan’s eyes. “I… I have to confess she wasn’t well. You’ll probably want to kill me, and I wouldn’t blame you. I’ve… I’ve done some things I find myself regretting a great deal.”

His twin’s eyes blazed and he got to his feet and stepped forward with anger in every line of his body. “What did you do to her?”

The dark Aidan hung his head. “I’m sorry,” was all he said.

“If you killed her, you’re right, but I’ll more than want to kill you, I’ll do it!”

“No. She… she’ll live, though not through any action of mine. I…” he looked up and Aidan was surprised to see tears gathering in his double’s eyes. “I could kill myself for what I’ve done. I hurt her badly, and I didn’t even think. I didn’t even recognize real goodness when I saw it. I’ve fallen so far, and I somehow never saw, never realized what I’d become. And then I saw what I’d done to her and I knew. I’m lost. I’ve lost myself and I don’t know how to find myself again.”

Aidan’s expression softened. He suddenly found himself feeling pity for his twin. “I… I guess I won’t kill you then. Though maybe I should.”

The mirror Aidan sighed. “Maybe it would be better if you did.”

Celia spoke up in the silence that followed. “I don’t understand. Who are you talking about?”

“My wife,” answered Aidan. “She’s the mirror of his,” he motioned towards his double, “and she couldn’t be more different. She’s the most amazingly wonderful person in the world. She’s the one who turned my life around, gave me something worth living for.”

His twin looked up again at this and laughed bitterly. “You could say my wife turned my life around too, though not in a good way.” At his double’s questioning look he said, “I suppose I might as well tell you the whole story. Time is one thing we have plenty of.” He sighed softly and settled himself into a more comfortable position against the wall as he began his story.

“I was living in Aerievale, making a respectable living as a mage when I met her. I was bored, to tell the truth, and she played on that. I don’t think I’d ever done an illegal thing in my life before then, but she showed me how to have a good time, and in more than a few ways that were outside the law. She fascinated me. She was wild, seductive, beautiful, and exciting. She reeled me in like a fish on a line.” He shook his head wryly. “I can see now how skillfully I was manipulated, but then I was so innocent. She got me to do first one thing, then another, and the next thing I knew I was up to my eyeballs in evil, and I reveled in it. I thought I’d been set free from the ‘limits’ of society.

“It wasn’t long before I started playing power games. She had me firmly under her thumb, but I wanted to think I was in control. So I looked for ways to get power over her. That was how I ended up becoming a vampire. I decided that it would give me the edge I needed, but all it did was give her another thing to use against me. By that time I was fully into her evil. We enjoyed terrorizing the locals, and we began to make a game of hunting down ‘do-gooders.’ And I guess you know where that led. Drago brought you here, and now…” he paused. “Now I find myself thinking of might-have-beens. I thought I wanted power, I thought I wanted the thrill of freedom from the constraint of law, or goodness, or whatever, but now I’ve seen what I gave up by wanting so-called freedom.” He sighed again and said, “All of the sudden I see that what I really want… what I really want is what you have. And I’m afraid I’ve gone too far to go back. I’m afraid I’ve lost my soul completely.”

There was a long silence. The mirror Aidan put his head on his knees and wrapped his wings around him tightly. His double sat back down and leaned against the wall, thinking. Celia looked back and forth between them, as though she were trying to see the differences that lay in their hearts, invisible. After a long time Aidan spoke. “You know, my story is almost an exact reversal of yours. I guess we really are mirrors of each other.”

“Would you mind telling me?” asked his twin.

“Why not? Like you said, we’ve got plenty of time.” He looked at the ceiling for a moment, remembering. “I was in Aerievale too, but I wasn’t making a respectable living, quite the opposite, in fact. I was a scruffy little thief. I’ve always had a touch of kleptomania, and I was letting it run wild. I got into a lot of trouble, even spent some time in jail, but I’ve always had a gift for locks, and they couldn’t keep me in. Mage locks now, that’s another matter, which is why I’m still in here. Anyhow, one day I stole something I shouldn’t have. This,” he tapped the iron collar around his neck. “You’ll have to tell me someday how you got yours. Well anyhow, I thought I could get away with it, but I didn’t. I got caught. And for once I found myself in a mess I couldn’t weasel out of. Then Flame turned up. She rescued me, brought me to her home, and nursed me back to health. She didn’t look down on me for being a thief. She just cared for me. And I came to care for her. I had thought I would never find anybody who could love a nobody like me, but she did. And I loved her. She helped me turn my life around. She made me want to be the best I could be. I had to somehow live up to her, to what she was. The vampirism… well, that wasn’t my idea. But that’s another story altogether.