Past the Looking Glass

Since she was little, Kady could see more than what normal people viewed when they looked into a mirror. On first glance, the mirror's reflection wouldn't look different than normal. A patient observer, she started noticing that her reflection would move differently than her body did. An odd flicker of her hand called for further scrutiny. As time went on, Kady noticed more prominent things in the reflection. She even learned to communicate with her reflection on the other side.

While at Brakebills she had seen something horrifying, something that she had never told anyone. In the mirror, she saw the Beast eat the girl, her doppelganger on the other side of the mirror. He took big bites, the blood spurting onto the floor and coating some of the moths around his face, causing some of them to fall to the floor from the weight of the carnage. When the Beast had stood over her after his immobility charm, her heart had stopped and she was sure that the Beast would eat her alive. Alice jumped in helping her escape and Penny smashed the mirror. She had brushed the dead moth corpses from her clothes as she stood. Since working with Julia and Reynard, she started to feel some pride and security in performing magic after leaving Brakebills.

Since she had become close to Julia, she had been staying in her second bedroom occasionally. She heard someone at the door and flinched. Kady still freaked out not being in familiar surroundings after Brakebills, but she was slowly getting accustomed to being around her new group of friends. She walked to the door and looked through the peephole. As she saw them, she slowly cracked the door open. She was staring at Quentin Coldwater, Alice Quinn, and her ex-boyfriend, Penny, along with Eliot and Margo. She instantly felt guilt when she let her eyes linger over Penny's face. He couldn't look her straight in the eye.

She focused on Quentin, acknowledging him with a nod. "Hey Quentin, Julia isn't here. She left a few hours ago, but I'm not sure when she will be home."

Quentin's face dropped a little. "Well, okay... we are actually here, ah, to see you."

Her eyes quickly scanned the rest of the group, and then she slid aside in the doorway to make room for them to come in. While she wasn't sure how Julia would react to her old friend being in her home, she didn't want to let Penny out of her sight right now. Seeing him here, alive, gave her some relief that she had done the right thing, even though it killed her to see that he was unable to even hazard a glance her way, like by looking at her, he would trigger something malevolent to occur.

The group was silent for a few minutes. Eliot pulled out a flask and started pulling glugs from it, trying to pass it around. Kady rolled her eyes and said, "So, why are you here to see me?"

Alice spoke up in her quavering voice. "We are here to learn about battle magic. How did you learn it?"

"You got a couple years? It takes a lot of meditation and practice. You can't just learn it overnight or something. It's impossible," Kady said.

"That's why we came to you. Give us the SparkNotes version," said Eliot.

"Let's go. She's not going to help us anyway. I told you this was a fucking waste of time. I told you this was a fucking dead end. Yet, of course, Lover Boy had to drag us over here," ranted Penny angrily, through gritted teeth.

"Stop bitching just because she left you high and dry," Margo said matter-of-factly.

Eliot snickered, but he placed a playful hand over Margo's mouth. "Why don't we all play nice, darling? Have some liquor. It will make everything better."

"Will you two to shut up for a minute please?" Quentin said, rolling his eyes. "Listen, Kady, what they mean to say is that we are fighting the Beast once and for all. But we need some battle spells to get ready for defense so that we can even get a fighting chance to get close enough to the Beast. Do you have anything that is worth trying out?"

Kady hesitated, but then she told them about some potions that Hedge Witches used to perform battle magic. She told them that she cautioned them against using it, just because they would have to confront many bottled up emotions after several hours of harnessing their powers. "How about this? I'll help you practice and we'll try a few lessons without the bottles. If you need them, then we'll look into that option at a later time."
"Stop being the high and mighty judge of battle magic and just give us the spell. We know how to handle our magic. We aren't the beauty school dropouts you know," she said with a cruel smirk.

Quentin pushed Margo away gently . "Sorry about her. They were drinking all the way here, he said, indicating Eliot and Margo. "Are you going to help us or not?"

"Fine. But I'm coming with you. The last thing I need is you getting killed on my conscious. I know something. We've all met the Beast. In a past life. I can see the future, the past, in some ways, and we've fought the Beast before. We were younger, but we were all there. Quentin, Alice, Penny. In that time or dimension, whatever, my name was Amanda. The Beast was supposed to eat me, or Amanda, that day. So everything was so off. It's hard to explain it, but I saw it like a vision or déjà vu or something."

"You were so rattled that day," Penny said, remembering.

"So, we've been here before then? This shit keeps getting weirder by the minute," Quentin said in a meek voice, with a confused shrug of his shoulders.

*

After training with the Brakebills gang, Kady had decided that Alice, Penny, and Quentin were ready to go without the bottle. Eliot and Margo decided to utilize it as added insurance. Kady figured they probably could have picked up more if they hadn't been drunk or high through the majority of her instruction. They had worked their way through the Neitherlands and gotten to Fillory. Penny had even started talking to her and looking at Kady like a normal human again. However, things were still strained between them. Luckily, Alice and Quentin were keeping things together and strong for the group.

They entered a manor house and walked into what Quentin called the writing room. "This house is fucking spooky," Penny said. "What is this guy's problem anyway?"

Suddenly, they heard footsteps coming down the hallway and their hearts started to pound in their chests. Kady took a deep breath to brace herself against her fear. She had always believed in past lives and she could almost feel how Amanda felt as the Beast approached her, immobile and targeted as prey. She was sure that Quentin felt the same preparing to stab this evil being with a moonstone knife, one of their only hopes for defeating the Beast.

They could hear the Beast's shuffling footsteps as he slid in as though he were dancing. The moths flew around his head and Kady winced at the sight of them. "Now," she yelled. And the army of them started to tut to send off a spell that sent out three identical orbs, three chances to make slashes at the Beast. The Beast started to cast some spell of his own. "Ah, Quentin Coldwater and his friends. This is the 28th time you've tried. But who's keeping count? It never grows tiresome, killing you, Quentin." He started to whistle a jaunty tune that resembled "The Farmer and the Dell."

He brought his hand up and cinched his fingers together, directing his gaze to Alice. "Poor little thing." Next, the Beast's spell tossed Margo and Eliot across the room, knocking them unconscious. Penny shot off his own spell, only to lose his hands. Kady gasped. The Beast focused on her. "What a tasty treat. Would you get caught in my teeth? I just hate to floss."

Quentin tried to stab the Beast with the blade from the side, but the Beast stopped him, and put him into a chokehold spell, choking the life from him. Kady tried to stop the spell, as she ran over to Penny.

The Beast deflected with his other hand. "Spunky, raw. I like that in a girl. I think I'll keep you around for a while." He sighed as he dropped Quentin's lifeless body to the floor. "My cravings are unpredictable. One minute, human flesh. Next minute, Cocoa Puffs." 

"Fucking creep," Kady said, tears falling as she held Penny. 

"Now," he said walking over to Kady, running a finger along her jawbone. "How do you feel about ice lollies and playgrounds?"