We stepped through the double doors. “Healer Anja, Your Majesty,” said the armored man, in his flat, distant voice.
On the king’s side, this had been a waiting room of sorts, longer than it was wide, with several comfortable couches. On this side, there were no couches, only a single chair at the far end. As close to a throne room as one could manage, given the circumstances.
In the chair sat the Queen.
She was wearing a scarlet dress that stood out like blood on burnt ground, and her skin was shockingly white. Her eyes looked black. As I went closer, driven by the sword prodding the small of my back, I realized that they were mirror-stuff gray. So was her hair.
Snow sat at her feet, leaning against the Queen’s legs.
Oh,I thought, and so many things were suddenly falling into place that I couldn’t grasp them all at once.Oh. I see now.
“Healer Anja,” said the Queen. Her voice had the same flat quality as my captor’s. “Snow has told me so much about you.”
I didn’t answer. My eyes were flicking from Snow’s face to the Queen’s and back, seeing the resemblance, remembering the little portrait of the sweet-faced chestnut-haired woman in Snow’s room.
The queen is dead,I’d said to Snow, and I hadn’t been wrong. But the queen’s reflection, by some terrible alchemy, lived on.
Five paces from the chair, my guard pulled back on my elbow, and I stopped. I could already feel the bruises forming under his fingertips.
“You did well, pet,” said the Mirror Queen, stroking Snow’s hair. She wore white gloves. Snow turned her face a little, into her mother’s leg. Her mother’s reflection’s leg.Oh Saints, what have I gotten myself into?
“Nothing to say?” the Mirror Queen asked. Her lips were very red.
“Ceruse,” I said.
She seemed faintly nonplussed. “What?”
“You’re wearing ceruse. But not mixed with egg white, because there’s no cracking.” I licked dry lips. “I assume it’s to cover the mirror-gray color. But everyone knows that it’s dangerous now, so you must not have to worry about lead poisoning.”
A line formed between her eyes. “After all the time you’ve spent chasing your tail through my realm, all you can talk about is my makeup?”
The gauntlet dug a little deeper. I lifted my chin. “I don’t know what else to say, Your Majesty.”
Those red lips curved upward. “Aren’t you going to beg for your life?”
I considered this. “Sure, if it’ll do any good. Will it?”
“No, but it might be amusing.”
There really wasn’t anything to say to that. I studied Snow instead. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes were screwed tightly closed.
“I have to go back,” she said in a small, childish voice. “They’ll come looking soon. I had to lock myself in the bathroom, and Nurse will think I drowned.”
“Yes, of course.” The Mirror Queen bent down, and for a moment,their hair mingled, white and gray together. She kissed Snow on top of her head, and Snow bounced to her feet.
“Tell me, pet,” said the Mirror Queen, “do you think you can put the healer’s reflection through the mirror?”
Snow scowled, studying me like a buyer at a slaughterhouse. “Too big,” she said. “Even Lady Sorrel’s still too big. But maybe soon.”
“I know you’re trying, pet. Just keep eating your apples.” The Mirror Queen nodded graciously, and Snow scampered away. I heard the door close behind me, and the Mirror Queen’s smile grew wider and lost some edge of restraint that I hadn’t realized was there.
“Is that why you’re feeding her the apples?” I asked. “Because you think it’ll help her push things through the mirror?”
“Oh, it does,” the Mirror Queen said. “She’s already done some quite extraordinary things.” She tapped one gloved finger against her lips. “Of course, it would be helpful to have you as well. A healer appointed by the king has so muchleeway,doesn’t she?”
Not enough to matter, apparently.I grunted. Javier would have been proud of that grunt.
“I suppose I’ll just have to settle for the old lady who runs the place.”
