was about the only good thing I could say about where we landed. We could have been anywhere else: the Forest of Emeralds; the New-York Historical Society; even the bleak ice field of the Arcade.
But no.
We had landed in a Victorian time capsule of couches, delicate side tables, lace, and antique knick-knacks. Warm, thick air. Cozy bordering on stuffy. Next to the couch, a porcelain stand with an assortment of walking canes. Satiny old wallpaper around a picture window. A wingback chair faced the window. Outside, tree canopies rose like balloons from a locked garden.
I knew this place. I knew that garden. The tasteful Oriental rug beneath my feet was the one that had cushioned Daniel’s limp body as I sank my newly-grown canines into his neck.
A metallic taste flooded my mouth. Memory—or fear.
“Prospero,” I said.
Poppy and Berron flanked me, Poppy to my left and Berron to my right. I didn’t need to tell them where we were. Poppy had seen it in my thoughts before, and Berron had heard enough of the story to instantly recognize Prospero’s home.
“Oh, my,” Poppy said, surveying the room. She shifted her weight and opened both hands. Flames burst into life in her palms.
Berron seized a cane from the stand and pulled the handle away from the shaft, revealing a sword within. He smiled to himself, discarded the shaft, and took a second cane, removing the sword and throwing the second shaft aside. He whipped the two blades through the air. “Let’s find out how ‘Blessed’ they really are.”
“Stop waving those things around before you stab someone,” I said.
“Stabbing someone is entirely the point.”
“A pun! Oh, I love a pun,” Poppy said. She nudged me. “‘The point’? Get it?”
I would die for these people, if I didn’t kill them first. “We should go,” I said. “Before Prospero and friends show up.”
“I’m not leaving the Mirror,” Berron said.
The Mirror stood directly behind us, looking right at home in Prospero’s living room, almost as if it had never been anywhere else. Seeing it here was like opening a kitchen cabinet and finding a gerbil circus inside. “The Mirror was hanging in the museum,” I said. “I mean—it was just there. How can it be here?”
“They stole it, obviously,” Poppy said. “While we were inside.”
“How did they know to steal it then?”
“There are plenty of normals who work there,” Berron said. “Any one of them could have been paid to tip off the Blessed.”
I considered that. Pushed it aside, because we had bigger issues. “If the Mirror is here,” I said, slowly, “and we’re here… where’s Daniel?”
The three of us looked at each other.
Poppy’s eyes widened. “Did they… do something to the Mirror?” The flames in her hands flickered like dying candles before surging back to life.
Berron’s expression turned grim. “Hold these,” he said, handing me the swords. He went straight to the Mirror and felt around the edges, as if to see how it was hung. It wasn’t hung at all. It only leaned against the wall. He pulled it forward, looked behind it. “I can’t tell. But it’s certainly suspicious the Mirror didn’t lead to where it’s supposed to go, right after we entered it.”
“Right after they stole it,” I said.
“What should we do now?” Poppy asked.
“We,” Berron said, carefully tipping the Mirror down onto its long edge, “are going to steal it back.”
“You’re not serious,” I said.
“Got any better ideas?” he said, easing it all the way to the floor, where it lay horizontal, on its side, propped against the wall. Ready to be carried away.
I looked at Poppy, who shrugged. “I don’t think the Mirror will fit in the elevator,” I said. “It’s tiny.”
“Then we’ll carry it down the stairs.” He removed a lace tablecloth from a table and draped it over the Mirror.
“Oh, great camouflage,” I said.
“Grab the other end.”
“I would, your Princeliness, except for these cocktail skewers.” I lifted the swords and waved them.
“I’ll hold them.” Poppy extinguished her flames and relieved me. “Hey, how do pirates know they’re pirates? Eh?” She brandished the swords. “They think—therefore they arrr!”
I put my face in my hands, briefly, before letting out a breath and picking up my end of the Mirror. “Whatever’s going on, we’ll figure it out later. We have to get this out of here and go rescue Daniel.” Or kill him for making me worry, I didn’t add.
Suddenly, there was a small sound.
I froze. The Mirror wasn’t light, but my enhanced strength was enough to hold it under one arm while using my free hand to put my finger to my lips, gesturing Poppy and Berron to silence.
I had thought we were alone. Until I heard that involuntary gasp. Like the tiniest fizz of carbonation leaving a bottle of soda.
At Daniel’s name.
I gave the room another look. Everything was in order, still the same overstuffed Victorian candy box, the fussy knick-knacks and the wildly outdated wallpaper, the overall effect a residence just this side of haunted house territory.
Except—
There was something.
Above the wingback chair, the one facing the window overlooking Gramercy Park, a faint crimson halo. So faint it could have been sunlight refracted by the antique window panes.
“Hang on,” I said, trying to sound casual. “My boot’s untied.” I gestured for Berron to set the Mirror down. When we had it propped against the wall again, Poppy silently passed him the swords and relit her magical flames.
She’d read my mind. But Berron hadn’t, so all I could do was point to the far chair and make vampire fangs with my fingers.
He looked confused at first, then understanding washed over his face. He nodded and took a better grip on the swords.
I crept closer to the chair back. Poppy and Berron fanned to the sides. I raised one Doc Marten-booted foot, and with a shout, I slammed it into the top of the chair, flipping the whole thing forward and dumping its occupant onto the floor directly below the window.
I rushed forward, a cry of “Don’t move!” on my lips—which died away unsaid when I saw the curled up heap on the floor.
Jessica. Jessica, the arrogant vamp who’d taken Daniel to the brink of death. The one who’d met him in that Puerto Rican restaurant. Who left her French fries behind, unknowingly, for me. That Jessica wrapped her thin arms around herself and said, in dramatic tones, “Go ahead. Kill me.”
I blinked. This wasn’t what I remembered from before, when she rushed James at the New-York Historical Society like a rage-filled vampire valkyrie.
Berron gestured with the sword. “Get up and die on your feet.”
“No killing, Berron! What did I tell you?”
“They kill people, Zelda! This one nearly killed your ex-boyfriend!” He scoffed. “What did you expect? She’d make us a nice cup of tea?”
Jessica’s deeply shadowed gaze shifted from Berron to me.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” I said to Berron. I was still trying to line up this version of Jessica with the one I’d seen before. The near-killer. The berserker. Curled up on the floor unwilling to fight.
Poppy moved a little closer.
“Careful,” I said.
“I can handle it,” Poppy replied. Her gaze moved over Jessica, slightly out of focus as if looking just beyond her shoulder. “She’s afraid,” Poppy said.
“Yeah, I’d be afraid too, if some hulking dude was waving swords at me,” I said, with a pointed look at Berron.
“No—I mean, yes—but that’s not it. She’s afraid of… what is that?” She looked directly at Jessica and made a confused face. “Wrinkles?”
“Wrinkles?” I echoed.
“Stop looking at my mind, witch,” Jessica snapped. Still insolent. At least something was familiar.
But I didn’t have time for this. We needed to get the Mirror away. We needed to get to Daniel. And every minute we stood around here talking about the weather was another minute for Prospero and whoever else to return. “Get up,” I said. “You’re coming with us.”
Jessica buried her face in her arms and groaned. “Why? Just leave me here and let me die.”
“You heard her,” muttered Berron.
“Shut up,” I said. “I have an idea. Berron and I will carry the Mirror. Poppy, you bring Little Miss Goth. If she acts up, flame her like a creme brulee.”
“On it,” Poppy said. “Come along, missy. Up you get.”
Jessica got to her feet with an exaggerated eye roll and an even bigger sigh. “We’re all going to die.”
“Everything dies,” I said. “But not today. Now march. Wait,” I added. “Where’s Prospero? How long have we got?”
Jessica shrugged.
“I think we should just go,” Poppy said. She prodded Jessica into the lead.
Berron and I balanced the great Mirror between us. It wasn’t hard to carry, exactly—not with my borrowed strength—but damned if it wasn’t incredibly unwieldy, and very easy to smack into walls. “Open the door,” I said.
Jessica paused for a moment, probably just to show she could, then opened it.
We made our way into the dim hallway, lit with faded yellow light from ancient sconces. The cooler air woke me up like a wet washcloth to the face.
“Go, go, go,” I said to Poppy.
Poppy aimed her palms at Jessica and made a shooing motion.
Jessica dragged her feet down the hallway.
Berron smirked. “I told you I should have—”
“No.” I hefted the Mirror into a better hold and kept moving.
We reached the tiny elevator at last. I eyeballed the door. Thanks to years of stocking walk-in refrigerators and dry-goods pantries, I was a pretty good judge of size. Tilt the Mirror down, turn it on its side, take it in to the left before half-straightening it up, and it would just fit. In a horrible, claustrophobic way. With maybe one person. Two, if the second person could squish. You’d need two to maneuver it out again. Otherwise you’d just be stuck at the bottom, holding up the elevator while you waited for your partner to run down the stairs.
Except two in the elevator meant only one left to guard Jessica. And ride down alone with her. Since I needed Berron’s extra strength to lift the Mirror, Poppy would have to be the guard.
Poppy caught me looking at her. “What?” Her gaze drifted over my shoulder. “You think I can’t take her? Rude.” She tossed her hair back. “I have literal firepower, and I can read her mind before she even thinks of doing anything. Now stop faffing about and get that thing on the lift.”
We wrestled the thing in. The doors slid closed on Poppy and Jessica standing in the hallway. The machinery clanked, and the elevator lurched into motion. Down, down, down we went.
“So,” Berron said. His voice was muffled, half-blocked by the Mirror, but still cheerful in a gallows humor kind of way. “What are the odds Daniel betrayed us?”
I closed my eyes, inhaled. Opened them. Exhaled. “He didn’t,” I said firmly.
I could have sworn there was no oxygen left by the time we got to the ground floor.