Chapter 2 #5
“I haven’t been there since I was six,” Ezra explained, as if that answered the question.
It often did, for most people. But he was beginning to understand that Celia Sinclair was not most people.
Her eyes hadn’t gone as sharp as a pickaxe—trying to pick out his European features from his mother’s—and she’d lasted at least ten seconds without calling him exotic.
For Ezra, this was, in itself, a small miracle. “I was exported to England.”
“An interesting word choice,” Celia noted.
Well, it’s a bit more delicate than abducted, isn’t it? “I like to keep things interesting,” he said instead.
“So I’ve noticed.” Celia performed a twirl that made her sequined gown flare sapphire beneath the gargoyle lights.
Just then, a bright silver light pulsed across the dance floor, swallowing all the revelers.
It had come through the mirrors, Ezra realized, as he glanced back toward the wall Hugo had vanished into.
Smoke still lingered there, but tendrils were starting to twist out, like the tentacles of some unwieldy sea beast. White fog blew through the dancers, wisping in one ear and out the other.
Those the mist struck stopped dancing, their faces a fugue.
Ezra watched warily as the cloud crept to where he and Celia stood.
“What’s happening?”
Celia let out a sigh as the cloud wormed through her ears. Up close, the process looked quite unpleasant. “This would be the invitation. The sons of the Order have now deemed us worthy to come and offer ourselves up to their insatiable appetites.”
“Appetites?” Ezra braced himself as the mist wreathed around his shoulder, but he felt nothing except for a slightly wet sensation in both ear canals.
“Don’t worry. It’s nothing like Jack the Ripper…
He’s why the Order has such stringent rules on how magic is practiced in Britain.
These lads just like to party. They encourage everyone to let it all out on a more magical dance floor.
Desires, dreams, lust, grief, and all the other byproducts of anima…
It gets a bit messy, but most people don’t mind losing themselves here. ”
Indeed, several dancers in the crowd now looked adrift. The energy on the dance floor was markedly slower—even a few musicians had set down their instruments to follow the smoke that had started retreating toward the mirrored walls.
“Anima?” Ezra felt as if he were starting to sound like a broken record.
“Oh, you must have a different word for it in Egypt. It’s the magical energy generated by every human soul. More advanced magicians collect it to create new spells. I’m surprised you haven’t had any encounters with them yet. How long have you been in London?”
“Three weeks.”
Not everyone was being summoned by the mist, Ezra noted.
Biz still stood with her crowd of admirers, Minnie among them.
Several couples had started slow-dancing, resting their heads on each other’s shoulders as the smoke drifted past. When the band’s trumpet player strolled into the mirror, they didn’t skip a beat.
Rose, however, seemed excited as she appeared by Ezra’s elbow—her cheeks flushed.
“Oh, Biz’s boy! I’m so glad you’re here for this game!
If you thought the treasure hunt was fun, wait until you see the Seek and Find!
Only true believers get to go, like me and Celia here.
And you! I knew you were one. You’d have to be, to go hunting for angels the way you do. ”
Both of Celia’s eyebrows rose. “Pardon?”
Ezra cleared his throat. “She means my doctoral dissertation. I don’t actually mount angels’ wings on my walls…”
“Well, you’ll find plenty of wings where we’re going!” Rose exclaimed as she threaded her arm through Ezra’s. “And tails. And horns. And dresses made out of dewdrops and cobwebs. And anything else you could possibly imagine! Come!”
She pulled him through the thinning crowd.
As they drew closer to the mirror, Ezra could see his own bewildered face again—only, the view over his reflection’s shoulders had changed.
Gone were the tables and cane chairs. The fountain sat in a different spot and was bubbling some sort of opaque liquid.
Instruments were playing away on the bandstand without a musician in sight.
A thick blanket of shimmery mist covered the floor, so that the dancers looked as if they were kicking their way through clouds of glitter.
The party inside the party…
“It’s never been inside a mirror before!” Rose exclaimed as they paused in front of the scene. She released his arm and tapped her pink fingernail against the glass. It rippled, just as Ezra imagined it would. “Just like some American speakeasy! How charming!”
The distorted reflection reached back out for the young woman’s hand, covering her wrist, arm, and elbow in silver. Rose stepped into herself, vanishing from Ezra’s side. He could still see the young woman in the mirror as she waved for him to step through.
He took a deep breath and followed.