The veil between the mirror worlds was open, leaving this one once more vulnerable to the tricks and machinations of the Permanence. Shiva had to put a stop to Pearl’s magic at once.
“Take Ra to the inn,” she ordered Ahr, her eyes fixed on the hole in the veil.
“To the inn?” Ahr rose, indignant. “Can’t you see what he’s done to her? You have to help her!”
Shiva turned and gave Ahr an icy stare that shut her up. “You are not a child, you are Meer. You deal with her. I have other business to attend to.”
“Business? What business? Where?”
“Under the hill.” Without another word, Shiva walked through the mirror. Like gelatin, it gave with a thick wobble against her shape, snapping in around her as she came through on the other side. Beside the boy stood Hraethe, his eyes on her with fury and desire. He could say nothing to her. She ignored him. The other standing in the dancing light and shadow of Pearl’s glittery emanations was one she knew.
The woman smiled, with too much of a look of triumph to it for Shiva’s taste. “MeerShiva. How kind of you to come to see us after all these centuries.”
Shiva inclined her head as though they were polite acquaintances. “Mnemosyne. How did you manage to lure this boy here to do your dirty work? I suppose you induced someone to bring him to the brink of death.”
Mnemosyne’s smile dripped with disdain. “You might have felt the jeopardy he was in were you not preoccupied with your own narcissism. But when Pearl attempted to connect with your emanations in the flow, you cut him out. Who else did he have but us? The ones, after all, to whom you ought to be grateful for giving you our gift.”
“Your gift.” Shiva nearly spat the word at her. “You mean your game. You’re no better than the ordinary man who gave Pearl life for a game of his own. Stepping through the glass to spread your seed and then retreating to your safe little kingdom to watch and entertain yourselves as the ones you bred were hunted and slaughtered like animals.”
“It wasn’t our place to interfere. It was not our world.”
Shiva laughed with a pitch that threatened the mirrored walls around them. “Not your place. And yet you did nothing but interfere. Gifting humble peasants with magical children because it amused you. But it isn’t your world. You’re right about that. And you have no business trying to enter it.”
At Pearl’s side, Mnemosyne stroked the glossy lengths of the boy’s silvery hair, but he moved away from her, shuddering slightly at the touch. Little wonder, given touch was something the boy had never learned. Mnemosyne came closer to the glass where Shiva stood, the fabric of her flowing, tunic-like garment glittering with a multitude of glass sequins no larger than the head of a pin, as though she were a mirror herself.
She stretched her fingers past Shiva and wriggled them in the pliant substance through which Shiva had come. “As you see, our Pearl has rendered your vindictive curse null and void. His talents are unique, and they’ve come along nicely. We’re quite pleased.” She drew back her hand and held it up, as if to show that it was whole. “The mirror roads are once more passable. The Permanence can come and go as we please.”
Shiva casually widened her stance, resting a hand on her hip. “I think you’re mistaken.”
Mnemosyne laughed. “Your words no longer hold us. Do you think you can keep us in with a curse now that we have Pearl? His will shapes matter. His magic exceeds your word. The mirrors are permeable, and there is nothing you can do to seal us behind them.
Shiva tilted her head. “Where is your little trinket?”
Mnemosyne turned about, her feathery flaxen eyebrows drawing together in irritation as she came full circle. “Where’s he gone?” She paced toward the center of the mirrored hall, noticing at last that the other three walls were no longer glass, but instead ornately carved marble. Her demeanor was no longer amused. “Caretaker!” Her compatriot came hurrying at her call. “Where is Pearl?”
The Caretaker gaped at the solid walls. “But how can he have? I didn’t hear a thing.” She turned back, eyeing Shiva with outrage. “You! What have you done with him?”
“It is your job to know that,” Mnemosyne snapped at her, fuming.
Shiva shrugged. “I’ve done nothing at all. I believe he must have grown tired of you and has simply gone home. Which is what I intend to do.”
Mnemosyne’s colorless eyes were hard. “You can’t stop us using this mirror. Pearl has left it open.”
Shiva turned her attention at last to Hraethe, glaring daggers at her since her dismissive glance. He was truly a god of a man, just as hard and lovely as he’d been the first time she laid eyes on him. She grabbed him by the lapels of his robe and swung him with her in a parody of dance, hurtling through the mirror.
“Impermeable!” She flung the word out as they tumbled onto the snow outside the mill, and heard one last furious shriek from Mnemosyne before the glass solidified and then shattered around them, taking the portal with it.
Hraethe was on his hands and knees above her when they landed, fists digging into the shards of glass littering the hard packed snow beside the frozen river. Impotent rage boiled in the molten bronze of his eyes.
“Speak,” she said, and loosed his tongue.
“I ought to kill you,” he snarled, and kissed her instead, and she fell, tumbling, into the indescribable infinity of the Meeric embrace.