by Kris Black
Face up, with a face reflected in it. An impossible face. One that couldn’t possibly be near the castle.
How - how was Christian’s face showing reflected in the mirror? It was inconceivable.
Alina had stopped concentrating on her poise and her destination, hyper-focused on the devastating face that she saw. In a moment, it had gone. Had she imagined it?
Her shin struck something hard, her leg twisted at a strange angle and then Alina crashed to the ground. Her elbow collided with the hardwood, the thud echoing in her head. The pain followed the sound, shooting from her elbow straight up to the shoulder blade. Her leg throbbed and stung where it had impacted with… Alina glanced over. A stool that hadn’t been there was toppled over on its side.
Ella looked jarred, her eyes darting back and forth between Alina and the queen.
The queen scoffed. “I thought your kind was supposed to be graceful?”
It took Alina a moment to register what her step-mother had said. A full moment. Then another to process it, her brows furrowed. “I’m sorry. My kind?”
“You know what I mean. Faeries.” The queen waved her hand as though she were waving off a fly. “Tall, ethereal and full of grace. It’s clear you take more after your mother. Except for the grace.”
Alina’s eyebrows shot up in shock. She opened her mouth, baffled what to say. She had called her beautiful. Alina might have accepted the compliment had it not appeared an underhanded critique, as though being half-faerie were something that she should be ashamed of. Alina must’ve looked dumbstruck for a moment as she tried to come up with a proper response to the queen. Ella stood across from her, hands clutched tight before her - not daring to speak up against the queen.
“Perhaps I took after my mother,” replied Alina finally. “I am a bit clumsy. But at least I have the humility to admit it. I’m trying to learn. Perhaps you should try to teach me instead of belittling me?”
The queen squinted her eyes at Alina in anger and Ella hid a smile behind her hand. No one often spoke back to Calista, not here where her word should be the law. But it wasn’t - not to Alina. Perhaps that’s what angered her the most.
“We’re done here for today.” The queen said, standing. Ella curtseyed low and Alina kept her back straight. The queen stared her down for a moment before allowing a small dip to the princess.
“Your Majesty,” Alina said in dismissal.
“Your Royal Highness.” The queen replied through gritted teeth and with that, swept out of the room.
With her hands in the soil, Alina finally began to calm. It had shaken her, being dismissed by the queen. So much her hands trembled and her heart thundered. Instead of retreating to her room, she had wandered to the greenhouse. The humidity and musky smell comforted her like a hug. It enveloped her, consumed her, and gave her a sense of serenity. It wasn’t long before she found herself in one of the off-corridors, sitting on a stone wall near the pond thumbing the leaves and looking down at the fish. Her breathing evened out and trembling began to soothe.
“Your Highness?” Brigit’s voice called out breaking the silence. Alina jumped, she had spaced out and didn’t realize anyone had been around her.
“Oh, hello Brigit.” Alina stood, drying her hands on her skirts. “Sorry about walking in the soil. I - I just needed to collect my thoughts.”
“Not to worry, Your Highness. It’s your garden. If you want to have a ball in the shrubs, that’s your prerogative.”
“Just Alina, please.” Alina stepped back down onto the cobblestone pathway, joining Brigit. Brigit had her hair pulled back from her face and wore a long apron over her simple, tawny dress. She carried a pail of water in one hand and a spade in the other. “Do you - do you need any help?”
“Help, Your Highness?”
“With the planting and watering. I’d like to help take care of the plants.”
Brigit beamed at her, showing slightly crooked teeth. “Of course, Your Highness. Let’s take you to the shed and get you equipped with your apron.”
“My apron?” Alina asked as she followed Bridget down the pathway towards the back of the left corridor off the main greenhouse.
“Well, it wasn’t originally yours. It was Queen Breena’s. We never had the heart to dispose of it and left it on the hook where she last hung it. I suppose it’s yours now. She’d want you to have it - to use it. She loved these gardens.”
Brigit stopped in front of a small, well-kept shed in the back. Inside were tools, supplies, pots, and soils. They hung the aprons on the wall to the right, just inside the door, all sturdy and tawny with a multitude of pockets. Brigit pulled one off the hook and passed it to the princess.
It was beautiful. It was the same material as the rest, but with small embroidered flowers all over it. Alina was in awe as she thumbed over the flowers.
“Your mother embroidered those in the last months of her pregnancy with you, when she wasn’t able to kneel in the soil any longer to work. ”Near the edge of the bottom right corner, elegantly stitched, Alina spotted the name, Rhiannon. Her name. Her birth name.
“Brigit what are you doing over there loitering?” A voice called down the corridor. “We have work to do!”
Alina pulled her head through the top of the apron, her mother’s apron, and bound it around her middle. “Give me a task to do.”
“Brigit.” Sarah, the gardener from before, had joined them. She stopped dead, eyes wide when she saw the princess standing in the gardener’s shed tying her hair up and an apron affixed to her. “Gods above, it’s like looking into the past.”
“Seems like we need to find work for the princess.” Brigit beamed, and they got to work.
Chapter Seven
Christian
Later that evening Felix informed Alina that they would be borrowing the mirror from the queen. At first, Alina had a twinge of guilt that she was conspiring to steal - to borrow - the mirror from her step-mother. Now, she was righteously justified. Alina couldn’t change what she was, or who she was. And she didn’t wish to either. Being judged for that was more than ridiculous. It was petty and mean and said more about the queen’s character than her own. She shouldn’t have a mirror powerful enough to spy on people.
And it made Alina wonder if Calista shouldn’t be on the throne either; shouldn’t be the one making decisions for all the different types of people in the kingdom. But that wasn’t for her to decide.
“I convinced her to go horseback riding with the court ladies,” Felix explained. “It’s such a fine day. I doubt she would chance taking the mirror. That should give you long enough.”
“I didn’t realize you had so much sway with the queen. Thank you.” Alina stood to follow him, brushing her skirt off. She still had dirt stuck under the bed of her nails from turning soil earlier. “Where would she keep it?”
“The most likely spot is in her rooms - which are locked when she’s away. Lucky for us, I secured a key.”
“How?” Alina asked. People don’t just give out keys to the queen’s private chambers. Only a select few in the castle would have one, herself and most likely her maids. Felix grinned in response but offered no reply. Alina decided perhaps she didn’t want to know.
“It’s all right, she’ll be with me,” Felix said to her guard, Thomas this time, as he ushered her out the door. Alina hurried along with him. “Can we have some time alone together if we promise to stay in the castle?”
Thomas hesitated and Felix had the audacity to wink. It was clear poor Thomas was torn. Felix was the Ward of the King and clearly someone trustworthy.
“It’s fine, Thomas,” Alina insisted. “I’m safe with Felix in the castle. Take a break and we’ll be right back, I swear.”
“Ar-Are you sure, Your Highness?” Thomas stuttered, checking up and down the hallway.
“Very sure. I promise you I won’t get into trouble.” Alina shooed him with her hands before he relaxed a bit and bowed.
Thomas didn’t move to follow them as
they retreated down the hall.
“There will still be people around with eyes and ears that report back to the queen, we need to be careful,” Felix leaned down and whispered into her ear. “It’s risky.” He said as they hurried through the corridors. “And I’m still not entirely sure why, of all the mirrors in this castle, you need the one the queen is the most attached to.”
“Have you ever wondered why the queen is so attached to it?”
“Because she’s vain, and the mirror is beautiful?” Felix offered as though no one had put any more thought into it than that.
And perhaps they hadn’t. Would Alina herself believe the mirror enchanted if she hadn’t lived in an enchanted castle for months? If she hadn’t seen the replica of that hand-mirror and known someone enchanted it? Most people in this kingdom seemed to forget that faeries and magic even existed after nearly two decades of their previous queen’s death and the rest of the fae folk retreating to their own world.
She wondered briefly if Felix would think she was mad if she told him. Should she tell him?
At the same thought, he was risking himself to help her get this mirror. Perhaps she should tell him what for, at the very least.
“What would you say if I told you I believed the mirror is enchanted?”
“Enchanted?” Felix stopped up, halting in the middle of the hallway. Alina quickly grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side. His face contorted in confusion before a light sparked and his eyes moved fast, back and forth as though putting all the pieces together for the first time, as Alina had.
“I’m almost certain she uses it to spy on the court, and possibly even the rest of the city. It acts like a looking-glass, it shows her whoever and whatever she wants to see.”
“But, how do you know that? What makes you think a hand mirror owned by the queen is enchanted? That seems like quite a leap, just because she has a vast network of spies.”
Alina took his arm and continued walking down the hall slowly, as to not look suspicious. Her voice lowered as she replied: “Because I’ve used one, nearly identical to the one the queen has. It was enchanted the same way. I can’t prove that this one is too, but I suspect it is.”
Felix’s brows furrowed as he thought, his jaw tightening. Perhaps the queen had used the mirror to learn some of his secrets as well. “It… it makes perfect sense, actually. The queen has always had a preternatural way of knowing what’s happening within the court. Everyone else has chalked it up to tell-tales, spies and intuition. But it is definitely more than that.”
Felix stopped them in front of a door, presumably the queen’s, and began fumbling through his pockets for the key. It was almost funny, seeing the usually put together Felix fumbling around. Or it would’ve been if Alina hadn’t heard shuffling down the hallway. She glanced up to see three ladies sauntering down the hallway towards them.
Alina’s heartbeat went from a dull throbbing to galloping horses. She and Felix were clearly standing in front of the queen’s door looking suspiciously like they were about to break in. Thinking fast, Alina grabbed the back of Felix’s shirt and pulled him away from the door and across the hall into a semi-hidden alcove. It no longer looked like they were forcing entry into the queen’s private chambers.
However, now it looked like something different altogether. They were not hidden but looked like they were trying to find a secret place away from prying eyes. Alina’s back was to the wall and Felix was close enough that their chests brushed together with each hurried breath.
An eternity passed, but the ladies finally passed by them. It was clear they spotted them, with the catty whispers back and forth between the women. The news would spread through the castle like wild-fire soon that the princess and Lord Felix had been seen in a compromising situation together.
But it would be worth it. It would all be worth it so long as Alina got that mirror.
When Felix didn’t immediately move away, Alina looked up to see what the matter was.
She didn’t expect to see him looking down at her, his eyes jumping between her own eyes and lips. His eyes had darkened. He looked like a wolf who had just spotted its next meal. He reached up with one of his hands and caressed one of her cheeks.
Alina immediately stepped back as much as the space allowed, only half a handbreadth between her and the wall, and turned her face away from his hand.
He treated her well, he helped her. A friend, for sure. She didn’t want him having any misconceptions about where they stood.
“We should get the mirror before the queen returns.” She couldn’t look him in the face.
“You’re right.” He stepped away and went back to the door. He patted his pockets quickly, retrieved the key and opened the door. Alina followed behind him, close but not too close.
The queen’s rooms were as opulent as Alina would expect, especially from one renowned as being vain. The receiving area was a light pewter with gold inlay. All furniture plush and each piece worth more than what one of their people would make in a lifetime. Alina gritted her teeth at the lavish excessiveness. The golden chandelier hanging in the middle of the room looked as though it were shimmering with true diamonds.
It probably was.
Exotic perfumes permeated the air, incense burned still despite the queen being away. Alina’s nose wrinkled at the mixture of scents.
“It’s probably in her bathing chamber.” Felix motioned to a door to the left.
Alina nodded and followed him into the similarly extravagant bathing chamber. The furniture was an expensive cherry wood and inlaid, again, with gold. As though she had nothing more to spend money on besides this waste. Ointments and creams from all around the world covered the queen’s vanity top, some promising agelessness and beauty forever. Alina tore her gaze away from the cream and to the small hand-mirror lying face down in front of them.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Felix asked.
Alina nodded mutely as she reached out and picked up the heavy mirror. Its weight was a welcomed comfort to her, a reminder of home - her true home. With Christian and the pack, living in the castle. She hugged the mirror close to her chest.
“Why did you need this mirror so much?” Felix finally asked. “Other than the enchanted part?”
“It’s because of the enchanted part,” Alina explained. “My brother was incredibly ill when I left him.”
“Charles, yes, I remember.” Of course, he did. He was the one who sent by Belmont to retrieve her.
“I need to check on him. I can do that with this mirror.” She pulled it away from her chest. “Mirror, show me Charles Everston.”
Felix watched in amazement as the reflective glass of the mirror shifted and suddenly, they were looking at a different place in the world.
Charles was laying in bed, near-bare with no covers over him. He was feverish. His eyes were unfocused and hair wet with sweat. He was not, however, in the bed at home. The opulence and setup of the room was a mirror to her own room in the enchanted castle.
He had made it to the castle. He had made it to Christian. Charles had a chance, then. A fighting chance of surviving the shift that was undoubtedly coming.
“He doesn’t look like he is doing well. Should we send some physicians from the castle?” Felix frowned at the state of Charles.
Alina placed the mirror face down on the table.“No, we have the best care for him, I promise.”
Felix looked unconvinced.
Alina needed to check on Christian. She needed it like she needed air. She was here, with the mirror in her hands and yet, she didn’t want to share that moment with Felix. She didn’t want to share that moment with anyone.
“Do you mind if I have a few moments alone?”
Felix hesitated. “Okay. I’ll stand outside and keep watch.”
“Thank you.”
The door clicked softly as Felix shut it behind him. Alina continued to stare at the mirror, face down. She reached out twice, hands shaking, only to pull back. She steadied he
rself, finally reaching out and picking up the mirror. Only to be a coward once more.
“Show me Elizabeth.”
There was her best friend. Elizabeth was in her sitting room, reading a book with her legs up and on William’s lap. He was rubbing her feet, and she was lost in the pages - lost to the fact that William was looking at her like she was the only thing in the entire world. Perhaps more had happened on that front than Elizabeth had expected. A smile formed on her lips, her heart nearly burst at seeing her friend happy and with her mate.
But she felt like an interloper. Like she shouldn’t be spying on their private moment like this, something shared between the two of them and not meant for prying eyes.
“Mirror, show me my mate.”
The mirror blurred a little and swirled, as though confused by the request. It almost seemed to split into two separate images for a moment before blurring and swirling again. It was making Alina dizzy and nervous all at once. What was wrong with the mirror? Had she accidentally broken it? Run out of some magical time limit?
“Mirror, show me Christian,” she tried again.
Finally, the mirror cleared and showed Christian. He was sitting in his office - his ruined office. The desk was askew from where it had been, as though it had been thrown and then just righted wherever it had landed. Curtains were half-torn from the windows. In a broken heap in the middle of the floor, plush chairs lay in tatters from being thrown across the room. He sat behind his desk, hands in his dark hair as he leaned over. His face between his hands was covered by the shadows. He looked like a grieving angel with the light of day breaking through the rips in the heavy curtains. Like Hades on the spring equinox.
And beside him on his desk lay only one thing. The magic mirror.
Alina reached up and touched the reflection on her own mirror. Christian was right there. Her mate was right in front of her. Had he been watching her? Checking on her?
