Mirrored Snow [novel]

Chapter Sixteen

She summoned me back to her room later that afternoon. "Where is he?"

I shrugged, my pulse racing. "Not a clue. I was at the ball all night." Be calm. Keep your breathing controlled. I stared at my nails, inspecting them for imaginary mirror-world dirt.

"Sometimes, I think you are more hassle than you are worth, Mirror. Your parents, too." I shuddered at this open threat. Fear pricked my heart at the thought that I might be doing the wrong thing; picking a side that would put the people most important to me in danger. "Never mind. My potion will be ready soon, and in the meantime, I don't need you to find him," she continued, luckily glancing over my punishment. She went over to the set of drawers by her bed, the train of her crimson dress trailing behind her.

Fresh panic flooded my body as I felt my stomach drop through to my toes.

I knew those drawers well. Nothing good ever came out of them.

The top one creaked when she opened it. She reached inside at pulled out a bottle of vermilion powder. The one below it screamed, the high pitched and terrified wail of a newborn child. From it, she took a vial of cerulean liquid. The bottom was the worst. A piercing wail full of a grief so profound my heart ached just to hear it. From this drawer she took a bowl of blackest night. The mirrored surface inside shone, tauntingly, at me. I had never tried to appear in the bowl.

She placed these items on the dressing table in front of me and went over to the bookcase, returning with a thick, leather bound tome which she opened up on a map of the kingdom.

The powder and liquid went into the bowl, combining as she swirled it in her right hand, muttering lyrical words under her breath so that I couldn't hear. After a minute of incantation, she placed the bowl back on the table and drew a small dagger from within the folds of her dress. She drew it across her palm in an action that eerily echoed her stepson's. Drops of crimson fell into the bowl below with a hiss. A violet vapour was released from it immediately and hovered in the air before us. "Show me the prince," her voice was a low, loving caress and the vapour drifted over the map, eager to obey. It collected over the woods in a spiral which covered too large an area for her to be certain where he was hiding. "Show me more!" she demanded, forceful this time and the vapour transformed into a spiralling vortex, swirling faster and faster until it cleared suddenly, leaving a window where the faded pages of the map should have been. A window into the cottage where Snowdon was pacing across the bare wooden floor.

"You're going to wear a hole in the carpet," Zeus told him dryly. He was out of shot, but I recognised his voice immediately.

Snowdon glared at him. "I need to get him out."

"We need to keep you safe." This sounded like an argument they'd already been through a few rounds on. "We'll work on a proper plan to help Murphy escape. You need to work on a plan to retake your kingdom."

The vision dissolved, causing the queen to tut. "They were just getting to the good stuff," she said with a sly smile in my direction.

I was too stunned to respond, and had to swallow three times before I could lubricate my lips and throat enough to as, "If you can do that, what do you need me for?"

She raised an eyebrow. "As you just saw, the magic only lasts for a short amount of time. Besides, the window is much too small – I couldn't even see who he was talking to. Then there's the toll such magic takes – I couldn't repeat it as often as I'd need to in order to keep an eye on all of our fair countrymen. You are a much simpler solution. Sometimes it is nice to see things for myself though, I'll admit, and that little demonstration was certainly most illuminating. Not only the prince but an accomplice? Hoping to stir up rebellion within these walls?"