“Someone,” he said, “has fed mirror-food to this beast.”
“That was me. I was testing the apple for poisons.”
“That was…” I couldn’t tell if he was pausing for effect, or searching for a word. “…unwise.”
“Oh?”
He’d said that about me eating the apple, too. I was hoping he’d explain himself and add another scrap to my growing store of knowledge, but he didn’t. Another inch of tail began to flick.
“Won’t it wear off eventually?” I tried.
Grayling sniffed haughtily. “Certainly, if you wait for a year or two.”
“I didn’t know the apple was from the mirror when I did it,” I said apologetically. Inwardly, I was cheering.It won’t wear off right away!“Does that mean you can talk to him now?”
“No. He’s still just a rooster. They aren’t bright.”
“No, they aren’t.” I set down the dish of cream. The tiny clink of ceramic on wood was all that was needed. Grayling turned his back on the rooster—who charged the bars in impotent fury—and leaped up onto the table to devour his tribute.
I watched the rooster, who still seemed unharmed by the apple. “Their brains are smaller than their testicles,” I said absently.
Grayling paused, his tongue still in the cream. “Come again?”
“Roosters. If you dissect them.”
He muttered something that sounded like “figures” and went back to his meal.
He drank it all and licked the dish twice, his small pink tongue scouring away even the memory of cream, then cleaned his whiskers, jumped down from the table, and headed toward the door.
“Will you answer my questions tomorrow?” I asked hopelessly.
“Promises are human inventions,” he said pleasantly, and strolled out, tail held high.
I told myself that this was an opportunity. I was, for all I knew, the first person in history to communicate with a nonhuman intelligence. Alongside the mirror, it was an embarrassment of scientific riches. I should be excited. I should begrateful. I…
Had a feeling that Grayling was going to string me along to get as much cream as possible out of the deal, actually.
“Snakes,” I said to thin air, “are much easier.”
I walked back to my bedroom as fast as I could without exciting comment.
Despite Grayling’s obstinance, he’d told me one very useful fact. (Two, if you counted that the apple’s effects would last for a year.)Real things don’t usually dissolve.Granted, I would have appreciated a little more certainty, but I’d take what I could get, particularly if it meant that I could explore more widely beyond the mirror.
The sheer delight of exploration was so intense that my hands shook as I shoved my pen, penknife, and notebook into my pockets. I felt a pang of guilt at that. I should have been working on how to cure Snow. And yes, if the apple had come from the other side of the mirror, I was following up on that lead, so itwaswork, but it certainly didn’tfeellike it.
I thought briefly about leaving a note, in case something went wrong, but what could I possibly say? It wasn’t as if anyone would be able to come after me, except Grayling, who may or may not have been able to read. Even if he could, would he bother? How useful did my cream-wrangling skills make me?
In the end, I didn’t leave one, simply because if someone found it, they would assume that I had gone mad. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped through into the silver.
The mirrored bedroom looked exactly as it had, fortunately without the frozen shape of the maid. I glanced around once, quickly, then made my way toward the door.
As soon as my candle entered the band of gray, it went out.
I turned to the lamp, planning to relight the candle with it,only to find that the lamp in this world had no flame and gave no light.Huh. That’s odd.
I went back out, relit the candle with a spill, brought both spill and candle through the silver, and took a step into the gray.
Both flames went out simultaneously.
