Four
THIA FELL THROUGH THE SKY, PLUMMETING TOWARD THE LUSH incline.
Sharp wind tore at her braid, whipping it into her face.
She was spiraling, unable to tell which way was up and which was down.
A hard object cracked against her ribs, and a screech split the air.
She ricocheted in the other direction, something warm and damp splattering her face.
The substance stung; she hastily wiped it away, blinking.
Her fingers came away black. It smelled like blood, but it was thicker and sticky, staying put as she attempted to clear her cheek with the sleeve of her hoodie.
An expanse of green loomed before her. The ground. Her stomach rolled. She was going to die. She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch the end approach.
Then she was yanked from behind, like someone had grabbed hold of the back of her shirt and halted her descent. The air was knocked from her lungs, and she let out a guttural bray as her chest compressed. She hung like that, no longer falling, but in pain.
When she could breathe again, she opened her eyes.
She was barely twenty feet above the ground, floating along as though the wind itself was carrying her.
A large forest covered the earth to her left, and that same green hill sloped below her.
A woman in a pink velvet dress emitted a rainbow of sparks from her hands—sparks that were, in that moment, hovering under Thia and carrying her safely to the ground.
When her feet finally touched grass, they disappeared.
She stumbled with relief, her hands falling to her knees, and she took a giant, heaving breath, running her tongue over parched lips. “I’m alive. I’m alive.”
A laugh tinkled behind her. Thia managed to push herself upright and turned as the woman approached, gliding gracefully over the uneven ground.
She was beautiful, with long, sleek blonde hair and plump pink lips the same shade as her bodice.
Her irises were a metallic silver that glinted in the bright sunlight, matched by pale skin that also seemed to shimmer as she moved.
She inclined her head graciously. “Hello, dear.” Then she paused, head tilted slightly as if she was unsure how to continue politely. “Are you—are you quite alright?”
“I—I…” Thia had no idea what she was. She opened her mouth, then shut it again. Had she just…fallen through a mirror?
More likely, she was suffering from a sudden case of psychosis.
“Where am I?” she asked instead.
The woman raised a perfectly groomed brow. “Why, you’re in Eldris, of course.”
“Eldris?”
“The Kingdom of Eldris, encompassing all the lands of this here realm from the borders of the Drakelands to the Gilderung Mountains of the Nutherlunds.” She frowned. “Perhaps you struck your head harder than you thought. You are bleeding…most profusely.”
Thia suddenly remembered the black substance on her fingers, the sticky wetness on her face.
She lifted a hand to her forehead and tentatively began pressing her cranium.
She didn’t expect to find signs of injury, when her own blood was red, not black—but then, nothing about the last five minutes was expected.
“It’s not mine,” she told the woman after a moment. “But I hit something on the way down.”
To her surprise, the woman laughed again, the high clinking of a bell. “Yes, you certainly did. And it was supremely helpful.”
Thia blinked. “Helpful?”
“Indeed,” the woman said in her twinkly voice. “My n?gens were fighting a witch. She had just escaped on her broom when you knocked her down. Look there.” She turned around and pointed back over her shoulder. “They are feasting on her now.”
Only then did Thia notice the sight behind the woman.
What she had originally thought to be a handful of boulders at the edge of the great forest were actually a dozen or so creatures covered in dull gray-pink scales, shuffling contentedly where they clustered.
About the size of a large dog, they were rather rat-like, except for their distinct lack of fur and strangely humanoid hands.
As she watched, an odd string of red was tossed over the gaggle, sparking a wrestling match as it found its way back down.
“What are they doing?” Thia asked.
“I told you,” the woman said, smiling. “They are feasting.”
“Feasting….” Oh god.
Entrails. They were tossing entrails into the air.
The woman smiled at her amusedly. “Yes, it is rather grim, is it not? But, what else can you expect from n?gens? They worship me as their goddess, you know.” She laughed again.
Thia looked away from the mess. “Are you?” She didn’t believe in gods. But she also didn’t believe in magic mirrors, and that hadn’t stopped her from tumbling into one.
She decided to revisit the psychosis theory.
“Fair Havens, of course not,” the woman said. “Forgive me. My name is Callista.”
“You’re a witch too,” Thia guessed, thinking of the gold sparks. She wondered if now was a good time to run, if this woman—Callista—so clearly delighted by her pets’ disembowelment of the dead witch, would consider Thia a fitting second course.
“Sothis. Don’t you know anything?” The statement should have been mocking, but the woman’s voice retained its warmth.
She giggled again before Thia could respond.
“I am a sorceress, dear one. I do not eat human flesh as that one did.” She gestured over her shoulder at the half-masticated witch.
“Asha Würmheart. A plague on the people of Eldris, as though the Mage King’s conquest wasn’t terror enough,” she continued, oblivious to Thia’s apparent confusion.
“But then you came tumbling out of the sky and knocked her down. So thank you kindly.” She beamed.
“For that I owe you a debt. Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Um…” Thia inspected a rogue flower, feeling numb. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a cure for delusion.”
The woman frowned at her. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Then her gaze caught on something. “What’s that in your hand?”
“What?” A shard. A single shard of the mirror had somehow accompanied Thia through her fall, the glass cool and hard against her palm. “It’s nothing.”
To her surprise, the woman bent, inspecting it with a clinical air. “It has a strong aura.” She held out a hand. “May I see it?”
Thia hesitated only a second, then placed it in the woman’s palm. “What do you mean?”
Callista’s eyes narrowed. “It feels weightier than this realm.” She held it closer to her dainty face. “Is it from a looking glass?”
“A mirror,” Thia answered, vaguely recalling they were the same.
“You came through it.”
Thia’s breath caught. “Yes.”
Callista whispered something under her breath, and the shard flashed blue. She let out a soft sigh, as though the light was confirmation. “It is a portal. Or—it was.”
A portal. Impossible. Well, maybe not impossible, but improbable. A number of scientists posited the existence of other universes. But more likely the stress of her grandmother’s lies had unhinged some dreaded corner of Thia’s mind.
And yet. Get away from that thing. The terror on her grandmother’s face had been real. Like she’d known what it was, what it could do. Did that mean…did that mean Thia really had fallen through a portal?
That thought was too outrageous to entertain.
Callista was staring at her, an odd look on her face. “You must be very powerful, to command such an object.”
Thia smoothed her hair. Loose tendrils stuck to the blood on her face, making her feel itchy and claustrophobic. “What? No. It was an accident. I didn’t mean to come here.”
Callista traced the shard again. “Then tell me, dear, how did it happen?”
Unable to take the sensation any longer, Thia pulled out her elastic and shook her curls, then began smoothing them back into a neat braid.
The process required picking hairs out of the drying blood, and she winced as her nail scraped her cheek a touch too enthusiastically.
“There was a storm,” she said. Her finger dripped with a mix of her own red blood and the strange black substance, sending a jolt of anxiety through her as she considered the probability of infection.
“The mirror was glowing. When I looked into it, something…tugged me through.” That was exactly how it had felt: like something had gotten hold of her chest and pulled.
Callista’s gaze was still on the shard, her hands glowing again as she whispered strange words and traced its broken edges.
Thia stared. “You’re magic,” she blurted, brain finally catching up. “Can you send me back?”
Callista clenched the shard in a delicate hand. “Back where?”
“Kansas.”
“Kansas.” She said the word like it was too big for her mouth.
Then she waved her wrist, murmuring something that sounded like, “Fey galle,” and the shard jumped into the air.
Twine appeared out of nowhere to wrap around the edge of the glass, before slithering into large loop around Thia’s neck. A necklace, the shard its pendant.
“Never heard of it,” Callista said.
“Oh.” Whatever hope had briefly bloomed in Thia’s chest wilted.
“I’m sorry. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t help you. My power only reaches as far as this realm.”
“Is there no other way?”
Callista watched her for a moment. “There is one…” Then she shook her head, smooth blonde waves bouncing. “No. Forget it.”
Thia clutched the shard. “What?”
Callista grimaced, the expression too harsh for her pristine features. “It is too dangerous. I should not have mentioned it.”
“Please,” Thia said. “I want to go home.” Her voice sounded small and pathetic. She rubbed a clammy palm down her cotton pajama shorts.
Callista considered her. Then she sighed. “There is one who could aid you. The Mage King.”
Thia inhaled sharply. “The one you called a terror?”
Callista laughed. “He only punishes those who stand against his rule. You have nothing to fear for wishing to return home. And he is a great mage.”
“He’ll be able to help me?”
“I cannot say that he has helped many people,” Callista said lightly. “But his power is vast indeed. He could create a portal.”
Thia’s grip on her calm threatened to desert her with every passing second. She chewed the inside of her lip, letting the pain steady her. “How do I find—”
Behind Callista, there was a wild shriek as one of the n?gens succeeded in ripping what appeared to be the witch’s brain from his brethren’s claws.
Callista spun. “Fersvera!” she shouted. The n?gens froze, mid-movement.
“I beg your pardon,” she said. “Disgusting little things, are they not, with their scales and snouts? And those beady little red eyes…” She smiled, and there was no disgust at all in her face. In fact, she seemed rather pleased.
Thia cleared her throat. “It’s the hands for me,” she said mildly, and the sorceress laughed.
“Indeed. What is your name, then?”
“Thia.”
Callista gave a little bow. “A pleasure, Thia. To the Mage King then?”
Thia dug her toes into the ends of her slippers. “He’s the only one who can help me?”
The woman inclined her head. “Undoubtedly.” She ran a delicate finger over shard, where it rested against Thia’s breastbone.
Thia shifted, uncomfortable with the proximity. “You’ll take me to him?”
“It is a long journey,” Callista responded. “I will guide you as far as—”
Thia never learned how far exactly the sorceress planned to guide her because, at that moment, the sky ripped in two, and a cloaked figure tore through the crack on a broomstick. Its body and face were obscured by the robe, but a pair of poisonous green eyes glowed beneath the folds of its hood.
The figure bore down on them, cloak billowing behind it. Its voice snaked through the air. “Murderersssss!”
Callista paled. “Fair Havens. I was afraid of this. You must go.”
“Go?” Thia said, staring. “Where?” The hair on the back of her neck bristled as the creature’s green gaze landed on her.
“Into Black Forest,” Callista yelled, sweeping her long arm in the direction of the trees beyond the n?gens. “Quickly. I’ll hold her off.” Silver sparks danced on her fingertips.
“Her?”
“Asha’s sister, Xercae. She’ll be in want of vengeance.” The woman offered Thia only a quick glance. Whatever light demeanor she’d had was gone, as her face became a mask of steel. “Go!” She struck upward with her palm, releasing a ball of white fire at the witch.
Xercae rolled out of the way, the flames narrowly missing the tail of her broomstick. “You shall pay, Callisssssta!” she hissed.
Thia’s jaw dropped. “You know each other?”
She never got her answer. A ball of green shot from the witch’s hands, and Thia had no choice but to dive out of the way and down the hill toward the forest. She rolled to her feet as another blast of heat landed just where she had been.
“Go, Thia!” Callista yelled. “To Cyning, the Mage King’s capital north of the wood. When you reach the end of the trees, follow the pillar of light that flashes just after sunset. I will meet you—”
The witch launched herself off her broom and tackled Callista, hood slipping back to reveal crusted gray skin, patches of white hair, and two deadly fangs.
“GO!” Callista yelled, holding the witch off with a shield of pink magic. “Find me in the mirror if you need me!”
“How do I—” But the sorceress was already yelling her next spell. A gust of wind rushed down the hill toward Thia, something in it so foul her nostrils burned. Covering her nose to stifle a gag, she ran.