Chapter 19
Sky
The minute Moerrven introduced himself, she lost it.
“It is you! Runhilda sent word, but I did not let myself believe it, because of the disappointment, if it were a mistake. I am Kethilda, I have all fourteen of your novels, I have two copies of The Highwayman’s Bounty because I read the first one until the spine gave out.”
“That’s the one I never got through,” I said. “No offense to the author. I got kidnapped by actual highwaymen my first day in Qoksmere, and they looked hot from a distance, but up close the teeth were a crime scene. Every time the book said highwayman, all I could see was the teeth.”
Kethilda gasped like I’d insulted the Queen. “Oh, no, these are handsome highwaymen. Dashing ones! The captain’s smile gets an entire page in chapter three. Not a bad tooth in the whole gang, I promise you.”
“That is very kind.” Moerrven was rapidly turning the shade of blue he only went when someone praised his work to his face. “I am told you keep a collection of accounts of travels from other worlds or dimensions.”
Kethilda squealed, then quickly covered her mouth. Someone had just asked a serious question about the one thing she had cared about her whole life, the thing everyone had gently suggested she stop caring about.
“I do,” she said, making a valiant effort to look serious and composed even as she bounced a little. “I do keep a collection. Do you need to get settled first? How long do you plan to stay? Do you need lodgings?”
I glanced at Moerrven, remembering the bunkroom situation. “Do you have lodgings?”
Kethilda bounced again and made another little squeak, then cleared her throat.
“We do have a cottage out back that you’re welcome to.
I mean, Moerrven Mossren in our cottage, imagine!
It belongs to my brother, the co-librarian, but he is off on a book-buying trip to Farrend.
Surely he would not mind someone as grand as you staying! ”
Instead of leading us inside the library, where I wanted to be, she firmly closed the door, and waved us around the back, where there was a small barn and an even smaller cottage.
“It has a thermal spring with a tub out back, of course, for bathing, though it’s unfortunately not indoors. Quite rustic, but—”
“It’ll do. Thank you for your kind hospitality, it means a lot to us,” Moerrven said, already turning and stalking across the yard to where Clover was still standing with the wagon.
I knew damn well that he always gave Clover a full and tedious rubdown, and she fully deserved it for all of her hard work, but I couldn’t imagine waiting a moment longer.
I turned back to Kethilda. “Hi, I’m Sky, while he does that, would you mind showing me the books?” I asked, already three steps toward the library.
Moerrven made a little sound, and I spun, finding him standing there, Clover’s tack already slung over the wagon’s rail.
Kethilda looked from me, to Moerrven, and back. “I’ll let you two decide,” she said, drifting toward the library, not quite going inside, talking to herself about soulmates.
“We’ll go to the library later,” Moerrven said.
“It’s cute how you think you’re in charge.” I narrowed my eyes at him, then tugged him down and stood on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Especially when she’s giving us a cottage with walls so thick that no one will hear the wicked things I do to you.”
His cheeks flushed a pretty blue. “I need to tend to Clover. She has worked hard to get us here.”
“Okay,” I said. “You do the animals, because you love them and you’re good at it, and I go look at three centuries of portal knowledge with Kethilda, because if I have to stand here and watch you re-park a cart one more time I am going to start screaming, and not in the fun way.”
He looked at me. The corner of his mouth shifted upward.
“Go,” he said. “Don’t touch anything she tells you not to touch.”
I gasped, shocked. “I would never.”
He raised one disbelieving brow, so adorable I had to jump up into his arms and plant a kiss on his lips. Behind us, Kethilda was audibly swooning. He firmly set me down, then headed off to deal with the horse and wagon, and Kethilda waved me toward the library.
“Come, let’s find those books you’re looking for!”
The library was one large room, stuffed to the gills with books. There were shelves all of the way up to the rafters, ladders that slid on rails, a table buried under open books, and a smell I would have bottled if I could: old paper and candle smoke.
I may have sprinted toward one of the ladders and done a Beauty and the Beast ladder slide, singing a little bit of the song. But seriously, who could blame me? When I finished, Kethilda was staring at me, head tilted.
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. That’s a classic book-lovers situation you have going on right there,” I said, pointing to the ladder. “At least where I’m from.”
Her face broke out into a huge grin. “About where you’re from. Runhilda’s missive said you came through a passage from another world,” she said. “Is that true?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think I accidentally discovered a magical mirror. Or my friend Pip did, really, and then I fell through while searching for him.”
Kethilda sat down, not gracefully. She found a chair with the backs of her knees and lowered into it like the news had stunned her.
“You crossed between worlds. I have waited nearly two centuries to meet someone who has crossed, and you just walked right into my library!”
“Your cousin said this was an area of interest for you?” I asked, taking a seat across from her.
“Oh yes! Can I ask how it happened? Wait, let me get paper. I should write this down word for word. You are a primary source. A good librarian would document your account for the records.”
“Of course,” I said as she shoved a stack of books out of the way and laid out a paper and a quill. “So, you’ve heard about this happening, but I’m the first you’ve met?”
“Oh yes. Up until now I’ve collected rumors and second-hand records from Liminia. I only have one account that could point to portal travel in Qoksmere, and that was far on the east coast, along the water.”
Her quill paused, and she pointed it at my feet. “Are those the shoes of your world?”
“Sneakers. Well, Vans.” I lifted one so she could get the full effect of the blue. “Everyone has them where I’m from.”
She wrote that down, too.
“Where is Liminia?”
“It’s another country, a few days’ sail across the eastern sea. Did this mirror of yours appear magical in any way?”
“I mean, it was huge and gaudy. Someone had covered the frame with rhinestones and pink metallic paint, which, okay, iconic, but I’m not sure that was the original look. I think it was original to the building? Secured to the wall.”
“And where did you land?”
I tried to give her my arrival location for her notes, but between my catastrophic sense of direction and the fact that I’d spent my first day in this world as the highwaymen’s hostage, the best I could offer was “a field, near a farm.”
“Tell me more about the mirror, then. Where was it located?”
I told her the story — the men’s room at Club Vortex, packed wall to wall on opening night, and Pip disappearing, and the way I couldn’t figure out where he’d gone until much, much later, when I gave up and leaned against the mirror.
“I’d been trying to get a view from where he was standing when he vanished. Because I was turned around for the twerking, and I didn’t see it happen.”
“So this mirror looked normal until you turned away from it?”
“Yes. Felt normal, too. I poked and prodded at it thinking there might be a secret door behind it. But when I was looking the other direction, it got… squishy.”
“So you didn’t see Pip fall, either?”
“No. It was so weird, one minute we were dancing together, and we did a spin. The next, he was gone! I convinced myself that I was too focused on my dance and hadn’t seen him slip out of the bathroom. It was the only explanation that I could think of.”
She chuckled. “I’d be confused too. No one leaps straight to magic mirror.”
“Right? Anyway.” I shrugged. “Why do you think it only works when you’re facing away?”
“During my research I’ve found references to the Liminal Order, a secretive sect of Liminian wizards who travel in unnatural ways.
They guard their methods like dragons, but one detail surfaces again and again: the doors are spelled to be invisible to the common observer.
Perhaps the trick is that they only open when no one is looking?
It seems like a simple solution to hide their existence, they only become what they really are when no one can see them. ”
“Shut up.” I sat forward so fast the chair squeaked. “That’s why all my poking and prodding did nothing. It waited until I leaned.”
“Which would be very clever, if it’s by design. What exactly is a men’s room, though? Is it a public place?”
“A public water closet, in a nightclub, which, I suppose is a bit like a tavern. A very busy one, with hundreds of people in it.”
“That seems quite risky,” she said, frowning.
“Well, before it was a nightclub, I suppose the space was just basement storage for the shops above it. The strip mall it’s in has been around for probably fifty years, but the basement was only just renovated. I think someone said they couldn’t figure out how to remove the mirror?”
“Ah, fascinating. So circumstances beyond the creator’s control put this portal more in the public eye. What did it feel like, passing through?”
I thought for a moment. “It was like I was being pulled through wet mud, except not wet feeling. A little like that kinetic sand stuff, I guess? You probably don’t know what that is, but it’s like clay but very soft and pliable.”
“No, but the rest of your description sounds quite similar to other accounts I’ve read.”
She set down her quill and stood, walking over to a shelf in the back, pulling volumes off shelves.