when you realize you can’t walk away. I felt both as I faced the Mirror Seal in my new threads. The wavy, smoky glass reflected flowing pants in eggplant, an flower-embroidered vest in an amethyst shade over a whisper-soft lavender sweater, and, in the same color as the pants, a lightweight cape with a hood. Lily had turned Peaseblossom into a character that wouldn’t have been out of place sneaking across roofs, robed in purple shadows like a thief at late sunset.
Poppy, as Mustardseed, had been fitted with a long-sleeved buttercup yellow tunic and shamrock green slacks. Instead of a vest, a wide fabric belt embroidered with mustard flowers provided definition. Her cape was also shamrock green, although the hood lining was yellow. The color combination highlighted her eyes, which were wide with wonder and anticipation as we stood before the Mirror.
The fabric Lily had chosen for Daniel’s clothing was black, shot through with faint and wriggling threads of white like he’d walked through a thousand cobwebs. This spidery fabric made up his tailored slacks, vest, and coat; a solid black fabric for his collared dress shirt. The only color was the cape lining in blood red. It made the red in his eyes even more gem-like. Inhuman.
But still gorgeous, whether I trusted him or not.
I couldn’t think about that now, not when I had to concentrate. Instead, I nudged Berron. “You could have provided your own costume, you know.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” He raised his arms and turned, slowly, enjoying the attention.
His clothing, on the day he revealed who he was, was far more what I would have imagined to be “Gentry.” All brown and green and gold, Robin Hood and Renaissance fairs, unsurprising and safe, in a way. But this…
This was different.
In a way it was the opposite of Daniel’s outfit. The underlying color was white: creamy white slacks, white greatcoat. Layers of fluttering, wing-like capes crowned the shoulder of the coat. The piping along the edges was black, in contrast, and the slacks had black piping down the outside seams. Lily had affixed something like a moth wing’s eyespots to the back of the greatcoat, so that when Berron turned away, he seemed to be looking at you still.
How like him. Always, always watching. I had to remind myself: No matter how young, how human he appeared to be, Berron was far older and other than any of us.
He caught me staring, and smiled. “Do you like it?”
“It’s perfect.” It was. It was a perfect reminder to be on my guard, to take nothing for granted. And I wondered if, on some level, Lily was sending me that message whether or not she understood it herself.
I got closer to the Mirror. It was the same as I remembered it. Workmanship that rivaled anything in a museum. Carved birds and sparkling crystals, twisting vines and branches entwined. I laid a hand on the frame, brought my face close to the clouded silver surface. It was here that Poppy had seen a vision of the original enchantment, of the coming together of witch and vampire and fae magic that sealed the peace. The peace I had slashed open with my new chef’s knife, to stop Lord Prospero. To save a dying realm. To uphold my grandmother’s legacy.
Everything in my body drew me forward, threatened to pitch me forward through the Mirror and into the beyond. “Let’s go,” I said.
Before I lost my nerve.
Berron approached, drew me away from the silvery surface, positioned himself first. He held out his hand.
I took it, meeting his gaze with what I hoped was determination. Then I reached back for Poppy’s hand. Fire magic swirled into one hand and Gentry magic into the other. The combination was dizzying.
Poppy took Daniel’s hand. Chained together, we followed Berron, who stepped over the bottom part of the frame and into the Mirror itself. The silver fog swallowed up his foot, then his leg, and finally the rest of his body as he moved all the way through.
I stumbled a little, though he had moved slowly, and clasped his now-disembodied hand as I lifted my foot over the frame. There was a resistance, not of force, but of sensation, like cold air billowing out of a walk-in freezer. My leg slid into the cold and my heart skipped a beat as momentum took me the rest of the way.
My foot struck the ground on the other side, found it solid. Then the other foot.
I was through.
Around me, trees soared to heights I’d never seen before except in pictures. Sickly green light filtered from a sky hidden by leaves and lit only with flashes of golden heat lightning. Only oncoming hurricanes had ever given me such a sense of unease. A sky crawling with power. The air itself telling you something’s wrong.
Berron still had my hand. “Don’t be afraid,” he said.
I needed to deliver a comeback, something to show I hadn’t been rattled, but the words died in my chest and I had to remember to close my open mouth.
“The others,” he murmured.
“Right.” I was still holding Poppy’s hand. Berron let go of mine and I turned fully to face where I’d come from.
The Mirror was exactly the same on both sides.
Before I had time to really marvel, Poppy came through. “Ooh,” she said, stopping immediately in front of the Mirror, letting go of my hand, and letting her gaze travel over the forest.
“Watch out for Daniel,” I said.
Poppy turned to face the Mirror and used her free hand to stabilize Daniel’s arm.
Daniel emerged, wary, his brows coming together as he took in the strange environment. “Nice place you have here.”
Berron’s half-smile could have sliced a tomato. “Thank you, Daniel. I’m sure when your world dies, I’ll have a similar remark for you.” In the sad green light his costume looked even more surreal, startlingly white-gold when the lightning flashed, a canvas for the underwater green when it didn’t.
“We won’t let it die,” I said. “That’s why we’re here.” I knelt, touched the grass. It was cool and dry, but supple. It wasn’t dead, at least not in the way the grass in Florida turned brown and crispy during a drought, but the color had faded like cut herbs left in the refrigerator too long. “Does it grow?”
“It’s asleep,” said Berron. “Like everything else.”
“Is it supposed to be this color?” I gestured to the sky. “Is any of it?”
“No.” He knelt, too, while Daniel and Poppy looked on, and gently placed his hand on the grass. Golden magic drifted from his fingers in slow motion, shining star pinpricks. The grass underneath flickered true green before fading into again. “See?”
I imitated Berron, placing my hand over the grass and allowing my borrowed Gentry magic to bathe the grass like rain. Green played over a few blades before disappearing, like a fire that wouldn’t start.
Deep in my awareness, Patty Melt the fire mouse twitched, rolled over, and went back to sleep.
I stood, shook off the chill and the dreams of sleepy fire creatures. “Where to now?”
“Through the Forest of Emeralds.” Berron turned away and started walking. His moth eyespots watched us follow.
We walked in silence, our footsteps muffled by the soft grass. No bird sounds or wind disturbed the still air. Nothing in sight justified the sparkling green name of this place. Certainly not the silent lightning that stole across the sky.
Then Daniel spoke. “Berron?”
“Daniel,” he replied, without slowing or looking back.
“Where are we, exactly?”
I almost expected Berron to make a smart remark in response. Instead, he was like a graduate teaching assistant explaining a concept to a freshman class, suddenly the Berron I’d met that first day at the restaurant. “You’re familiar with the concept of parallel universes, of course.”
“Is this a reflection of our world, then?” Daniel asked. “Are we standing in Central Park right now?”
“Why does it always have to be a reflection of your world? Who said you were primary?” Berron stopped, and laid his hand with tenderness on a tree trunk. “If anything, your world is a pale reflection of this.”
“But do they overlap? Are they linked?” Daniel continued, a little too intensely.
Poppy caught my eye and raised an eyebrow.
Berron, who missed nothing, calmly replied to Daniel: “Why do you ask?”
“Just curious, I guess.”
Berron scoffed. “‘Just curious’? ‘I guess’? How many times in your life have you said those words?” He came a step closer to Daniel than would have been considered polite. “You want to know where you are? You’re still stuck in Manhattan. The borders closed here when they closed outside. You’re not getting out this way, Danny Boy.”
Daniel looked like he wanted to lay Berron out on the cold grass.
Berron spun, setting his black-edged capes aflutter, and continued ahead without a backwards glance.
Poppy leaned close to me. “So it is the same. Only with different things in it. We could be standing in Central Park. Or in that gelato place on Columbus Circle.”
“No gelato here, I’m afraid,” Berron called back. He must have had exceptional hearing, or something about the silence carried whispers to his ears. “But we won’t starve. Not immediately,” he added, cheerfully.
Daniel rolled his eyes, the only comment that couldn’t be overheard by the Prince.
I wanted to share Daniel’s annoyance, share a private laugh, like we always had—but then I remembered who he’d been talking to, and the chuckle died on my lips.