The Mirror Queen wanted to bleed me to wake up reflections? I pictured it, being trapped in the mirror-world, dragged out occasionally so they could milk my wrist the way I milked the chime-adder’s fangs…Dear sweet Saints.I shuddered.
“She has more guards back in the city,” Grayling added. “Or else I would have broken my human out there. But she could only take so many with her across the desert.”
“Did you follow the Queen here?” Javier asked. “From Four Saints?”
“Didn’t have much choice, did I?” Another tail lash. “Cold and hard and dry, the whole way, and the only water what I stole from their horses.Shebled for each of those horses, too. The Queen had been going slowly, because there was only so much blood left in the old woman’s body, but she woke five horses in a single night to follow Snow here.” He shook his head, his ears flat against hisskull. “The Queen brought the woman here, hoping she’d regain her strength, but it was too late. She died waking Sorrel’s reflection, and the guards threw the body in the pit outside.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“I should have checked the stables,” Javier said. “If we’d seen the horses, we’d have known something was happening. I shouldn’t have put it off.”
Grayling rolled his good eye. “If I’d known I was going to set off such a spate of apologies, I’d never have said anything. The past is as dead as yesterday’s dinner. Now let’s get moving, shall we?”
Grayling assured us that the guard’s usual circuit took him out the front door to check the pit, then around the garden and back through. He strolled out the door with his tail up, while Javier and I slunk after.
“Whatisthat pit?” I asked.
“Mirror-geld work,” Grayling said. His tail fluffed a little as he spoke.
“There was one hiding in the cell earlier,” I said. “One of the guards killed it.”
“They like hidden places,” the cat said, “and no, he didn’t. You can’t kill them, only disassemble them for a time. This world is rotten with them.”
I shuddered, remembering the way the one had squirmed on the end of the sword.
We reached the end of the hallway. The courtyard was empty. Javier scanned it, then nodded, and we went forward. “We’ll have to find another mirror,” I said. “The one in the empty room we used before should work—”
And then the guard who had been sitting on the third floor above our heads, invisible until we were actually in the courtyard, shouted, “Intruders!”
Javier swore. I heard the front door slam and the sound of running footsteps.Oh, of course, they’d put the injured guard up high so he could raise the alarm, that makes sense…
Grayling vanished, a gray-on-gray streak. “Go, go!” said Javier, shoving me toward the nearest door. I opened it, and he flung himself after, slamming the door. There was a thick metal bolt on the inside of this one, to my surprise.Who has bolts like that in the villa?
Then I took a few steps down the short entryway, and the room opened up, and I knew.
The room was almost completely dark gray, like all the rooms, except for one thing. A single blanket thrown over a chair, woven in brilliant turquoise and scarlet and gold, blazing like the sun against the mirror-gray.
Lady Sorrel’s rooms. Of course.I could easily imagine why someone with her past would want the ability to lock out the world sometimes. Snow must have stolen the blanket at some point and brought it back here.
I heard the bolt shoot home. A moment later, blows hammered ineffectually on the other side of the door. “That’ll hold him for a while,” said Javier with satisfaction. “He’ll have to go out and up through the garden door. Once he’s gone, we can—”
The blanket moved.
Gray on gray hides a multitude of things. Even old women tucked under blankets. Lady Sorrel’s reflection rose to her feet, pulling the colorful blanket more tightly around herself. “My goodness,” she said, cocking her head to one side. “Do I know either of you?”
“Uh. No. I’m afraid not, Lady Sorrel.”Oh Saints, she’s awake. Blessed Saint Adder, I don’t want to fight her.“You know us—err—over there.” I gestured toward the covered mirror.
Javier followed my gesture, inhaled sharply, and darted toward it. He yanked the dustcover off, revealing—
Nothing.
An empty rectangular frame stood against the wall. He stuckone hand through it anyway, as if hoping there might be a mirror hidden within, then cursed softly.
“I’m afraid I got rid of that years ago,” Lady Sorrel’s reflection said apologetically. “I never liked mirrors. And no, the irony’s not lost on me.” She pursed her lips, her wrinkles rearranging themselves in the cold sculptural light. “Let me guess, you’re on the run from that awful woman who calls herself the Queen, aren’t you?”
“Yes?” I said uncertainly, grappling with the notion that one of the awakened reflections was not on the Mirror Queen’s side.
Mirror Sorrel nodded. “Dreadful, isn’t she? My Randolph would certainly never have marriedher,let me tell you!”
