In Which Objects in Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear
The Casa Grande domes were most definitely haunted. Tala had little reason to think about the place despite its proximity to Invierno, because the unofficial consensus of people in town who’d actually gone to visit was that there was nothing to see there but the smell of urine and walls filled with rough caricatures of people’s junk—two of her least favorite things.
That didn’t explain the moans she was now hearing, as another tore through the air.
“It could just be the wind passing through the trees,” West suggested.
“This is a desert,” Loki replied. “There aren’t any trees.”
“I know what’s making that noise,” Zoe said, glaring at the dome as if it could collapse from her gaze alone. “And I really wish he would shut up.”
Another wail bounced off the walls in response, as if trying to wring maximum sympathy for anyone still listening in.
“We’re wasting time,” Alex said. “Tala, we need your help.”
“What exactly do you want me to do?” Tala began, Alex already tugging her toward the largest of the domes.
“It’s easier to let you handle this than have Zoe dispel the illusion,” the boy said.
“Handle wha—” Tala felt something solid brush against her palm despite there being nothing physical in front of her. She reached forward again, and a strange rippling effect spread across the space, the dome in front of her warping and twisting until a tower now stood before them, old and decrepit and made of interlocking stone and tightly packed sand. There was no visible entrance, save for a smooth slab of rock blocking their way.
“Holy crap,” Tala said.
“Now comes the hard part.” Ken rapped against the uneven surface with the hilt of his sword. A voice rose from inside the rock, thin and wavery.
“Password?”
“Open sesame, Cassim!” Zoe snapped. The sounds of battle were drawing nearer. The titos and titas were reluctantly giving ground, fighting off arrows of ice with their fans but unwilling to attack the Deathless that were starting to close in around them. The firebird was bringing up the rear, sending retaliatory jets of flame in the ogre’s direction.
“Wrong password!” the voice squealed, sounding terribly pleased with itself.
“Open sesame, Cassim, and you’d better open up or I’m shoving a sword up where the sun doesn’t shine so hard, you’ll spend the rest of your life like a pig on a spit.”
There was a harsh grating sound, and the heavy stone slid sideways, revealing a cadaverous-looking man with large eyes and a wild bristly beard. He was hunched over and made odd, involuntary jerking motions with his shoulders. The path behind him was lit by torches lining the stone corridor, filling the crude hallway with a ruddy, orange light.
Zoe pushed her way past him. “We’re in!” she yelled back. “Hurry!”
One by one, the rest of the group retreated into the opening, Lola Urduja and the firebird the last to slip past.
“Close sesame,” Zoe instructed.
“The password is not—”
“Close the goddamn sesame, Cassim!”
The slab slid shut. Something large and powerful slammed itself into the walls from outside, sending the place shuddering.
“There is no need for threats,” the man accused, with another quick, convulsive jerk of his head.
“You’re not playing by the rules either, Cassim,” Zoe reminded him. “You’re here to guard the place and grant safe passage to anyone who asks.”
“But I smelled ogre on you,” the man whispered with a conspiratorial smile. He wore his dirty blond hair long, his clothes disheveled but otherwise intact. But to Tala, the rest of him felt off, a feeling that grew as he continued to speak. “Ogres and shades, ogres and shades. Never to the sanctuary before, never come. Lurking everywhere. Perhaps the sanctuary they will attack—” He broke off, staring toward Alex and the firebird.
The man slid to the floor with a hoarse moan, prostrating and gesturing, a look of such abject terror on his face that the young royal shrank back without thinking.
“Prince,” the man groveled. “Oh, good prince, young prince. Remember old Cassim when you ascend the Winter Throne and rule the world. Remember old Cassim when you grasp the Flame and Ice, and purge the lands of all that is evil and good. Remember old Cassim, the first of all men to honor you. Avalon’s salvation, Avalon’s damnation, all that is to come. And firebird, lovely firebird!”
“Here we go,” Ken muttered from behind Tala. He stepped past the group, then pointed his blade at the man, who was right on the verge of pawing at Alex’s knees, attempting to reach the firebird. Cassim recoiled.
“You know the rules, Cassim,” Ken told him. “No touching.”
“Ignore him,” Zoe murmured, as they shuffled past the kneeling man. Cassim, still muttering to himself, reached up again, defying Ken’s command, to grab at Alex’s pants leg as he passed, but Ken had his sword leveled, keeping him at a distance.
The staircase at the end of the passageway smelled of damp and rust, and spiraled upward. Leaving the still supplicant Cassim singing feverishly behind them, Ken began to climb the winding stairs, motioning for the others to follow.
“What’s wrong with him?” Tala whispered, torn between revulsion and pity.
“The same thing wrong with every criminal punished to guard the sanctuaries,” Lola Urduja murmured. “It’s a lonely place. We’re probably the first humans he’s seen in a while.” She stopped, spotting Tala’s horrified expression. “Ah, I’d forgotten. You don’t know much about sanctuaries yet.”
“Why is he being punished like this?”
Zoe shrugged. “Only convicts who have committed the most heinous of acts are sentenced like this. I asked a Cassim once what crime he committed to deserve this punishment, but he grew hysterical. I asked this Cassim, and he reacted the same way. Something about staying here turns them this way. Avalon doesn’t have the death penalty, and this is the harshest sanction they administer.”
“Cassims?”
“It’s the name they all have to answer to. A spell binds them to the place, and they can’t leave on their own until they finish their sentences. This Cassim’s a little too obsessed with some of the absurd prophecies flying around, I think.”
“What were all those things he said? About the Flame and Ice?”
“I don’t really know either,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. He doesn’t strike me as someone with a solid grasp on sanity.”
Tala forced herself not to look back and watch the wretched figure they were leaving behind. What kind of horrific crime had he done to warrant such an eternal, lonely punishment? She didn’t want to know. There were far too many things happening today that she didn’t have time to process yet. The firebird, the ice maiden, Ryker’s betrayal…the Scourge.
She couldn’t even look at her father.
A wooden door awaited them at the top of the stairs; slightly decayed, it looked to Tala like it could crumble any second. The smell of mildew grew stronger. “The looking glass is inside,” Ken said. “Protected by enchantments.” He winced when another tremor rocked the place. “As you can probably guess by now. The invulnerable and invisibility spells help keeps ogren and other uglies from getting near the place.”
“Has an ogre ever gotten inside a sanctuary?” Alex asked warily.
“None that’s been successful, to our knowledge. We’re safe inside. When anything attacks the sanctuary for too long, it triggers a spell that’ll turn the whole rock from outside into flames. And then it’s ogre flambé, usually.”
“Doesn’t sound very safe for the Cassim,” West said.
Tala glanced around at the old stone walls and at the unkempt conditions of the place. It didn’t look like a place that had a lot of spells to its name.
The room they entered was simply furnished. There was a lumpy-looking cot at one end, and a rickety wooden table at the center, gray from disuse. A tiny window looked out over the grounds, one not even large enough for a small child to fit through, and crisscrossed by metal frames.
A worn world map hung from the farthest wall—an outdated world map, torn and drawn in faded ink, with the country of Wonderland still intact on its yellowing paper. A large floor-length mirror stood several feet away, as golden and as ornate as the rest of the room was not.
“I can understand why all the Cassims turn violent,” Ken said. “This isn’t exactly a five-star hotel. There’s barely enough room here to swing a cat.”
“Why?” Loki asked.
“Why what?”
“Why would you want to swing a cat?”
“That’s a mean thing to do, Ken,” West said, reproving.
“It’s called a figure of speech, Loki,” Ken said resignedly. “We’ve talked about this before.”
He made a beeline for the golden mirror. Tita Teejay and Tita Chedeng followed after him, both tsking and shaking out handkerchiefs to start cleaning the centuries of dust and grime that marked its surface, almost from impulse. Cole leaned back against the door and crossed his arms, grim and impassive. General Luna very gently set the still-unconscious Lumina down on the small cot. “She’ll be all right,” Tita Baby promised Tala gently. “But she needs some rest. Let Urduja work her magic.”
Tala wanted to crawl into the cot with her mother, but knew she was right. After some hesitation, she approached the decrepit-looking map instead, trying to distract herself. Strange names were scrawled across it, labeled in fading ink.
“Albion,” she read aloud, tracing marked areas with a finger. “Altai. Scythis. Esopia.”
“They’re the four main regions of Avalon,” her father said quietly from behind her. Tala stiffened. “Each location has its own kind of magic. Almost like a regional flavor, if they could be compared to food. Lyonesse’s the capital over here at Albion, where Maidenkeep is. Tala…”
“Stay away from me,” Tala said.
Her father’s hand dropped. “I just want to say that I—”
“I said stay away!” Tala screamed, not caring when all eyes in the room turned to her. “You! You’re the Scourge of Buyan! And the Snow Queen! You were her…!” She couldn’t even force the word out without feeling like it might choke her. Kay, the Snow Queen’s consort, her most ruthless right-hand man. Kay had invaded countries at her command. Historians had lost count of just how many had died because of him. The Winter Scourge. The Butcher of Neverland.
And he was her father.
“Tala,” Lola Urduja said. “It’s much more complicated than that.”
“How?” He’d betrayed her. And her mother had lied to her too, for all her talk about honor. They couldn’t leave Invierno, but not because she was crap at negating magic. They couldn’t leave because her father was the world’s most wanted man and for good reason, and her mother and Lola Urduja and everyone else were helping to hide him when they should have taken him to the International Criminal Court and hanged him with the rest of the terrorists. How could anyone else in this room stand to be here with him? Tala felt sick to her stomach. “What can he possibly do to make any of this better? Offer an apology? I’m sorry for masterminding the genocide of millions of people around the world? Is that enough to unmake everything else he’s done?”
There was a pause, no one able to answer. It was her father who finally spoke again, sounding defeated. “No,” he said. “There is nothing forgivable about what I’ve done.”
She turned her back, refusing to meet his gaze.
“We’ll still need to leave,” Lola Urduja said softly. “I understand your anger, hija, but let’s all wait until we are somewhere safer. Baby, how fares the looking glass?”
“It’s been banged up some, but it still works, even after all these years.” The tita traced an odd pattern on the surface of the now-clean glass, leaving a silver streak wherever her finger made contact.
“Can you contact the Gallaghers this way?”
“I think…yes. Just a few more seconds…”
The golden mirror gleamed brightly, their reflections disappearing as the surface shimmered, then faded, revealing a dark-skinned, doe-eyed boy with curly brown hair and a nervous grin.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall,” Ken called out. “Tell me I’m the fairest of them all.”
“You do this every time,” the boy complained, by way of greeting. “Zoe? Loki? West? You guys there?”
“We’re here, Dex!” Zoe told the mirror, relieved. “Is everything ready?”
“A cuh-couple more seconds. This sanctuary’s looking glass hasn’t been used in about…well, f-fifty-eight years, from the feel of it. It won’t take you all in at once, but I think I can oh crann’i santua, is that the firebird?”
The inquisitive creature had approached the mirror. Its beak touched the surface, warping the boy’s features for a few seconds. By the time it cleared up again, the boy had his face pressed up against the mirror in his eagerness.
“Of course it’s the firebird, Dex,” Ken drawled. “That’s the whole purpose of the top-secret mission we’re on that no one else knows about, remember?”
“A real f-firebird,” the boy in the mirror breathed, staring in awe, and then looking absolutely goggle-eyed when he spotted Alex. “Your Majesty,” he squeaked. “I-it’s an honor! My great-great-grandfather fought yours at the Caucasus Front—I mean, he fought with yours against the Ottoman—”
“Thank you,” Alex said politely. “I know of you Gallaghers. My father had nothing but high praise. Severon Gallagher is your father, right? The inventor of the fortune splicer?”
“There’s very little time, Mr. Gallagher,” Lola Urduja said, stepping forward.
Something like a squeak escaped Dexter’s throat. “Y-you’re th-the Captain Urduja of the Lost brigade! And the Katipuneros!”
“Yo,” Tito Boy signed.
“But that m-means…” The boy was now staring at Tala. “And you, y-you’re a Makiling, aren’t you?”
“Guilty.”
“It’s very nice to meet you. I-I’m Dexter Gallagher, r-represent!”
“Represent?”
“Oh, is that not the customary greeting in America? Hom-mies, to represent? ’Sup, Gee cheese doodles? To th-throw one’s hands in the air and wave them in clockwise or counterclockwise motions to express nuh-nonchalance?”
“Susmaryosep,” Lola Urduja growled. “Dexter.”
“Sorry, sorry. You guys better suh-step back for a minute. The looking glass hasn’t been used in a while, so I c-can’t tell you what to expect activating this twice in so short a time.”
“Activated?” Tala echoed. “He can do that?”
“Like Zoe pointed out,” Ken said. “Gallagher’s a spellforger. The first eighteen-year-old category one spellforger, I might add. They’d put him down in the Guinness Book of World Records if they knew he existed. His family claimed asylum in Norway, but you know what they say: You can keep us out of Avalon, but you can’t keep Avalon out of us.”
“It’s a very precise science,” Dexter said proudly. “All quite muh-mathematical. Like a…a Tardis! See, I’ve watched many of your American and British television series, and I know s-some things. I know what a Tardis is, and operas in space, and what many of your countrymen refer to as a gym, a tan, and a laundry.”
Zoe lifted a hand to her face in resignation.
“What’s a Tardis?” West asked.
“I’m going to regret wading into this,” Ken said, “but it’s from a television show, West. Doctor Who.”
“Doctor who?”
“Exactly.”
“Which doctor?”
“Doctor Who.”
“That’s what I want to know.”
“Can we postpone the interesting discussions until we’re back at the Cheshire’s, gentlemen?” Lola Urduja asked tartly. “We compromise revealing the duke’s location in England with every second we delay.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I m-mean, Sarge. I m-mean…” Dexter flailed, then abruptly disappeared. A strange humming noise whirred through the room before the mirror pulsed and glowed again, but with a brighter, steadier light.
“We’re going inside the mirror?” Tala asked.
“O’course,” West said. “How else are we gonna get to the Cheshire’s?”
“R-ready when you are,” Dexter’s disembodied voice reported from somewhere behind the new portal. “You’ll all have to hurry. I can’t hold this up indefinitely.”
“Get Lumina through first,” Tala’s father suggested, his voice low.
General Luna lifted her mother gently, nodded at the others, and stepped through the mirror. The light faded slightly as they passed through, becoming almost translucent, but soon regained its brightness a few seconds later.
“We got them,” Dexter announced. “Who’s next?”
A loud boom echoed through the tower, strong enough for Tala to lose her balance. There was another thunderous barrage, and then came the sound of rocks breaking apart.
Cole yanked the door open, took a look outside, and slammed it shut. “Shades,” he reported tersely, taking a step back. “Sanctuary’s been breached.”
“What?” Zoe shouted, dashing to his side. “But that’s impossible!”
The tower shuddered again, and a familiar roar crackled through the air.
“The ogre,” Loki volunteered quietly.
“The ogre got through the barriers?” Ken was stunned. “But the enchantments specifically prevent them from—”
As if in answer, a singsong voice, high and mocking, wafted up from below. “The queen’s army comes, the queen’s army comes! Yes, yes, my pretties, the prince is upstairs, the Snow King, the Flame and Ice. Upstairs; upstairs and downstairs, in my lady’s chamber, ho-ho!”
“Blast!” Ken cried. “It’s Cassim! He let them in!”
“What’s guh-going on over there?”
“We’re running out of time, Dexter!” Lola Urduja said sharply, as the door shuddered. “Mga hijos at hijas—alis!” She stepped away from the mirror, drawing out her fan, and the other Katipuneros did the same. Tala’s father took his position beside them, hefting his axe. The door burst open, and swarms of shades began crawling in through the passageway.
“What are you doing?” Tala sputtered.
“No time to argue,” her father said tersely. “Get to the mirror. We’ll be right behind you.”
Tala wasn’t sure. There were far too many shades. Hundreds. “But…”
“I said go!” her father roared, swinging his ax and shattering two of the shadows with one mighty cleave. “We’ll be all right. Now off with you, lass!”
Still Tala hesitated, but West took matters into his own hands by seizing her arm, his grip strong despite his lanky frame. The firebird had the same idea in mind, latching on to Alex’s collar and dragging him forcibly toward the mirror.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Ken yelled over the din as more shades slithered out from the cracks in the walls, the breaks in the ceiling, hissing, cackling.
“Wait!” Dexter yelled, frantic. “Give me a couple of seconds to—”
That was all Tala heard. The last thing she saw was the roof above them ripping open and the baleful glare of an ogre’s eye staring menacingly down at her father and the rest of the Katipuneros, before the light from the mirror grew so intense, she had to close her eyes to shut out the glare.
Then she was landing, face-first, on to rough ground, a chilly wind and the smell of cold mist fierce against her nostrils. Behind her a different mirror, presumably the one she had just popped out from, was glowing fiercely. No sooner had Cole, the last one out, landed nearby than a sharp, cracking noise whipped through the air.
The mirror shattered.
Everyone dove for cover as shards flew. For a couple of minutes nobody moved. Then Loki hoisted themself off the ground, looked around, and signaled that the danger had passed.
“Well,” Ken said. “Not the destination we planned for. But we’re alive, at least.”
“No!” Tala scrambled to her feet and limped toward the broken mirror. But try as she might, she could find nothing of the sanctuary within her splintered reflection. Where was her father? Lola Urduja and the others?
“Did they make it?” she asked, her voice rising in panic. “Did they?”
“I think,” Loki said, “that we have another problem on our hands.”
They were no longer inside the sanctuary. Instead, they were standing outside the remains of a burnt-out cottage, long since taken over by heavy snow and sleet. The firebird soared above them, and Tala followed the path of its flight with her eyes until it plummeted low to disappear behind the gnarl of barren trees. Several mountains were visible on the horizon, frosted with the worst of winter, receding into the far distance. The tips of what was unmistakably a castle loomed somewhere up ahead, gray and solid and real. The cold gripped her, fingers already numb, her clothes no defense against the chill.
There was a low cry. Alex fell to his knees, staring around him in disbelief. “Impossible,” he said, voice cracking. “Impossible. This place. We passed through the frost’s barriers. This is Avalon. We’re home. I’m home. I’m finally home.”