4. Verena
Verena
I scream, slap my hands over my tits, and whirl around, ready to kick the gorgeous intruder's balls to kingdom come.
But there's no one else in the room.
"What in Eidengrau are you shrieking ab—" the mirror ghost begins.
Someone pounds on the double doors I just locked.
"Your Majesty?" a man's voice calls. "Is something amiss? I heard a scream from my station down the hall."
"N-no, I'm good," I call back, not wanting another guy in this room. "Go back to your post."
It makes sense that the queen has guards, but it's not a comfort to have a strange man standing guard down the hall when I know the queen has already been poisoned in her own castle once before.
I spin back to face the first guy. Snatching up the ratty blanket, I cover myself again so I can stare unabashedly at this…
"Holy shit. It is a magic mirror," I realize out loud. "Holy fucking shit."
"My, how your language has cheapened since your Favored tried to kill you," he murmurs.
His gaze has narrowed into something like suspicion as he examines me, but he's not the only one examining.
How is it possible for anyone to be this beautiful and otherworldly? From his killer bone structure to his lips to his multicolored, opalescent eyes…and my god, his hair. It's like something from a L'Oreal commercial, falling in luscious silver waves with prism colors dancing throughout it.
Mesmerizing. That's what he is.
The loose poet-style white shirt he's wearing gives a delicious glimpse of his toned chest. I only realize I've been staring at it when he taps on the glass between us, startling me and confirming that he's inside the mirror.
"Enough. You know how I loathe it whenever you ogle me."
"Sorry, but wow. Just…wow," I repeat stupidly. "This will sound crazy, but I feel like I've seen you somewhere before. Like in a super sexy movie or once upon a fever dream or—wait. You know about those guys trying to kill her—me? How?"
"I was here when it happened, of course," he says, air-drawing his fingers in a rectangle to indicate the mirror around him.
"So you just watched while they poisoned the queen? That's fucked up."
"What else was I to do? I can't leave, as you've ensured. And it seems you survived as you always do, red-haired cockroach that you are, so what does it matter?"
The detestation in his voice is clear. If the queen has somehow been keeping him captive in a mirror, I guess it makes sense that he wanted her dead.
"If you say so, Michael Jackson," I shrug, since it doesn't have anything to do with me, anyway.
He's perplexed. "Michael…?"
"You know, he sang Man in the—" I start to explain before cutting off with a groan.
"I just realized I'm the only person in this entire world who knows who that is, and now I just pity all of you.
I can't wait to go home. Speaking of which—since you're the magic mirror, you should have answers. How do I get back to my world?"
He tilts his head, the colors in his iridescent hair shifting slightly. "Your world?"
"Yes. Can't you spy it with your pretty magic mirror eyes? I'm not the real Queen Rhinestone."
"Reinhilde."
“Gesundheit. No, I’m Verena. Vera, for short.
I'm just your average thirty-year-old remote freelance fashion designer who leads a quiet, comfy life that I'd love to get back to.
Not that your fairytale world isn't completely fascinating," I add.
"Odds are, this place is probably way easier to stomach than my hot mess of a world—and if I woke up as anyone else, I might've been tempted to stay.
But I'd rather not die horribly as the evil queen or keep paying for how much of a bitch she is. So, tell me. How do I go back?"
While I've been rambling, the Adonis's opalescent eyes have been mapping my features as if he's seeing me for the first time. The detestation on his face softens slightly as he weighs my words.
Finally, he lifts his chin. "Prove it."
"What?"
"If you're not the true Reinhilde pulling another of her many intricate, cruel tricks, prove it."
"Aw shucks—too bad I left my picture ID in another world, or I would."
Not that it would really help, since I look exactly like the queen. Plus, it would be a fake ID anyway, showing a different name than the real one I just gave him.
His lips twitch slightly. "There is another way to prove yourself, but it requires your blood. Coincidentally, your hand appears injured."
Is this a DNA test or something?
Lifting my right hand, I study the crusted-over cut from the glass headstone. All it takes is clenching and flexing my fingers a couple of times for that wound to reopen enough that it starts oozing again.
I make a face and hold it up for the mirror to see. "Ta da. More grossness."
"Smear it on the glass."
I do. It stings.
"This isn't a Bloody Mary thing, is it?" I check. "Because I already tried that at a sleepover in middle school, and all that happened was me getting my first period. Worst legend ever."
"Either you've devolved into speaking nonsense, or those are truly references to another world that I don't understand. Now, repeat these words exactly. By this fair blood by which thou'rt bound, I free thee from this mirror's ground."
Fuck it, why not? I repeat after him.
The instant the last word is out of my mouth, the gorgeous ghost vanishes like smoke in the wind.
"Did it work? Hello?" I check with the glass.
This room stays silent. The only thing in the mirror is me, clutching the blanket around myself with a perplexed line between my brows.
"Yoo-hoo."
Still no answer.
"Mirror, mirror, what the fuck?"
I'm starting to think that Adonis just pulled one over on me, somehow. What a waste, because I was really hoping he'd have the answer for getting me home.
Perturbed, I stick around for another second just to see what happens. When it becomes clear that I'm really alone, I drop the blanket and head for the washbasin. The water is cold as ice, but at least I finally get all the damned blood off of me.
My first night in Queen Rhinestone's room sucks ass.
Over the years, I've spent countless nights getting out of bed to triple and quadruple-check my locks and security cameras. I know what it's like to try to fall asleep when the last thing I feel is safe.
I've just never done it in another world before.
Here, I had to check the magic mirror, the massive windows, the doors, the entry to the secret passageway—you name it, I got up at least ten times to check it.
So when I finally wake up to a beam of cold morning light streaming between the heavy curtains onto my eyelids, I'm anything but well-rested.
Wrapping the silky dark sheets around myself, I curl up and sigh. Maybe I can just go back to sleep again. I'm the evil queen, after all. Surely if I say I don't want to get out of bed, everyone will leave me alone out of fear for their lives or something.
A loud knock on the locked double doors breaks my morning solitude.
"Your Majesty?" a man calls.
"Not today, Satan," I call back through a yawn.
It's quiet for a second. "What? My queen, open the door. There is someone who has urgent business with you, and we have many other matters to discuss."
If only no rest for the wicked wasn't so literal.
With a lot of grumbling, I leave the warm bed and search through the wardrobe for something to throw on top of my tattoo-less body. I settle on a long, ugly green dress.
For all her supposed vanity, either the real evil queen doesn't give a rat's ass about fashion, or she just doesn't know better. Either way, if I don't find a way back to my world pronto, I'm going to have to fix her depressing wardrobe.
On the way to the door, I check the giant ornate mirror. It's still free from the Adonis-like mirror ghost, but I see that my dark red hair is a frizzy mess coming out of the braid. I untangle it, letting the queen's hair fall almost to my hips before I unlock and open the door.
A middle-aged man with a mouth wide enough to swallow Frisbees whole smiles back at me without any warmth. He's dressed in tailored wool robes, a cap, and long pointed leather shoes. Some kind of animal fur is draped around his neck.
He sweeps into the queen's room. Just walks right past me without a word, as if he owns the damn place.
I gawk after him in disbelief so hard that he notices and raises his eyebrows.
"Is something amiss, Your Majesty?"
"I'm sorry, I just hallucinated," I quote one of my favorite movies of all time. "What the hell are you doing, wandering into a queen's room without asking first?"
"Am I not your chamberlain? I always enter first thing in the morning to discuss your day."
Aha. So this fucker is Schultz.
"And as I said, there is someone urgently seeking—" he begins.
"Stop."
"He's seeking—"
"Ah, ah, ah. No."
I have to keep interjecting every time Schultz tries to talk over me until he gives me an irritated look. Then I gesture toward the door, which is still wide open.
"Go back out. Let's try this again."
He gives me a dead-eye stare. "You cannot be serious."
"You cannot be serious," I mock in the same patronizing tone.
Maybe I sound immature to this asshole, but I don't care. Few things get my blood boiling faster than a condescending man. Pair that with the awful day I had yesterday and my lack of sleep, and I'm not exactly Miss Sunshine right now.
The chamberlain is stewing as he walks back out of my room. I shut the door behind him, wait for him to knock impatiently, and open it with a saccharine smile.
"Why, yes, Schultz?"
"There are some things for us to discuss before you speak with your visitor, Your Majesty," he says through gritted teeth. "Not to mention, your breakfast will be here shortly as usual, so we haven't much time. Let me in."
"No. These are my private quarters, so we'll talk business right here," I declare, staring him down.
Schultz scowls at me. Clearly, he's never experienced the queen drawing boundaries before. Just how much license did she give this guy to boss her around, when she's the entire reason he had this position in the first place?
The chamberlain takes a deep breath in like he's about to berate me, so I interrupt him.
"Who's here to see me?"
"The Huntsman of the North. One of your Favored went out to seek this northerner, but it seems he has returned on his own. He says you are expecting him."
That gets my attention. If the Huntsman hired by the evil queen to kill Snow White is back, maybe I can ask him where she is.
I'm not sure how faithful to the old fairy tales this world may be—but if she's hiding somewhere with seven little people who are protecting her from me, maybe I can apologize profusely and bring that poor girl home.
"Speaking of the Favored, three of your men are strangely missing," Schultz goes on, eyeing me. "They were last seen entering this hallway to tend to you the night before yesterday. Do you know where they might be?"
I open my mouth to tell him they're rotting in a cemetery, but I pause.
"Come again? Tend to me? What do you mean, was the quee—was I sick or something?"
He half-laughs, half-coughs, like I've made him uncomfortable.
"Come, Your Majesty, don't make me speak of your activities with the men you've selected. What you do with your Favored playthings is no one's business, as you have made abundantly clear."
"Playthings?" I repeat.
And then my brain finally starts to catch up with all the other references to the queen's Favored. When I first heard the word, I assumed it was some kind of inner-circle thing—like the queen's most trusted advisors, or something.
But if they're all men she's selected, and they're all good-looking like the Three Stooges were, and she has activities with them…
"Oh, fuck. I have a harem," I realize out loud.