“Am I dreaming? Or hallucinating?”
Fine, all right, the cat probably had a reason for being so snide. I decided not to mention Grayling right away. Javier was having a hard enough time without adding a talking cat to the mix. “No, I thoughtthat,too, but this is real. It’s really happening. The mirror isweird.”
His throat worked as he swallowed. “Is this witchcraft, then?”
“I don’t believe in witchcraft,” I said primly. “There’s always an explanation if you’re willing to study it.” I paused, then admitted, “I grant you, the explanation on this one is taking me a while.”
He shot me a glance, quick and sharp as a pinprick, and I realized belatedly that the question had really beenare you a witch?I didn’t know if my answer had been correct or not. It was too late to turn back now, though. I was almost manic with the need to share my discovery.
Damn it, I have to get him through the mirror. Then he’ll understand, I’m sure of it.
In order to pass through the mirror, I’d eaten a mirror-apple. Did it have to be the apple, though? Grayling had said something about feeding the rooster mirror-food, which might mean that any food would work, as long as it was from the other side.
“Here,” I said, reaching into my pocket. “We can fix this, I think. You just have to eat this.”
“You want me… to eat… araw potato?”
“I suppose we could cook it,” I said doubtfully. Heat destroys a lot of substances, but could it really destroy being from the other side of the mirror?
“It’s apotato,” he said again.
“It’s amirror-potato! Look!” Its passage through the glass had rendered it pale tan, not silver, but a strange iridescence still shimmered over its skin.
Javier took the tuber from me, with the expression of a man who had stormed the gates of heaven and discovered a public privy on the far side. “Are you sure about this?”
“Of course I’m sure. Who ever heard of an iridescent potato?”
He made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a sigh. “Okay, that’s… fair. Somehow.” He pulled out his belt knife and carved off a slice. The potato flesh was chalk white, just like the apple had been.
“Err—” A thought occurred to me. “There’s a chance that if you eat it, you’ll be sick tonight. Like I was. It passes, though? I had toast this morning.”
“This hasgotto be a dream,” Javier said, almost to himself. He popped the potato into his mouth and chewed.
“What does it taste like?” I asked, leaning forward.
An expression of bafflement crossed his face. “It tastes…cold.”
“Yes! Exactly! Like mint or wintergreen, except not like that at all, right?”
“No. But also yes.” He pinched the bridge of his nose as if warding off a headache. “And this is poisoned?”
“I don’t think it’sactuallypoisoned. I think it’s just that the mirror-food doesn’t combine well with real food. That’s my current guess, anyway. I didn’t get sick until I ate something, and then you saw what that was like last night.” Another thought suddenly occurred to me. “Hang on, why are you in my room now?”
“I came to help with the letter,” he said. “When you didn’t answer the door, I was afraid that you’d taken ill again. I thought I’d just glance inside, and then you stepped out of the mirror.”
“Right, the letter.” I’d nearly forgotten.In fairness, it’s not like you haven’t had some distractions.“Thank you.”
He grunted. I assumed the strategic word mines were starting to run low.
“Now close your eyes and let’s see if this works.”
It was probably a measure of how thoroughly confused Javier was that he let me take his hand and lead him to the mirror again. There was a very slight resistance as I pulled him through, as if the surface went briefly spongy, and then I was through and he was stumbling over the lip of the mirror after me.
I caught him before he could fall face-first onto the floor. He regained his footing, mumbling an automatic apology, and stared at the colorless walls. “What…?How…?”
To give Javier credit, he accepted things much more quickly than I had. I tried to explain everything I’d figured out about the gray, and by the time I reached the end, he was nodding slowly. Possibly, he was quicker on the uptake than I was, or maybe he was simply chalking the whole thing up to magic. I suppose it’s easier to accept things if you don’t know they’re impossible.
“Isn’t itamazing?” I said, when I’d run out of explanation. Then I giggled. It was a perfectly normal giggle for a scholar who’s just discovered something fantastic, but it was a bit more maniacal than the average person was used to. I clamped my hand over my mouth and hoped he hadn’t noticed.
