The man pressed a hand to his chest. “Do forgive me! I was speaking Rursus, the lingua franca of Vadus, the mirror realm.” He swept a bow. “Rorrim Drol, at your service. Welcome to the Hall of Sighs.”
Serafina thought fast. She knew now how dangerous it could be to reveal her real identity to strangers. “I’m very pleased to meet you,” she said. “I’m Sofia…and this is Noor.”
The man gave them an oily smile, revealing small, pointed teeth. “No need to pretend here, my darlings! You’re perfectly safe. I know who you are. Your fame precedes you,” he said. He nodded at Josephine. “I see you’ve been talking to my vitrina. So kind of you. They adore admirers. Simply can’t get enough compliments. Come, meet a few more.”
He walked over to a young woman wearing a damask gown with a square neckline and pointed bodice. Her face was deathly pale. “This is our darling Katharine. She ended up here because her complexion was darker than was fashionable during her time, and she feared it hurt her chances of finding a husband,” he said.
Katharine smiled and Serafina saw that her teeth were black. Rorrim ran a finger down her cheek, then showed them the tip. It was covered with a white, satiny substance. “Venetian ceruse. Used by Renaissance ladies to whiten the skin. And it did, my dears! Unfortunately, it also caused their teeth to rot and their bodies to wither. It was absolutely full of lead and it poisoned them,” he explained happily.
He moved to another woman. She wore a high-necked dress with puffy sleeves. Her eyes, sunken and empty, were like two black holes in her head. “And of course there’s the lovely Alice, who ate arsenic mixed with vinegar to improve her complexion. She was getting on in years—all of twenty-three!—and feared losing her beauty. Arsenic was all the rage in the nineteenth century. The vomiting and convulsions it brought on were a bit daunting, but I’m happy to say that Alice persevered and succeeded. There’s nothing paler than a corpse, is there?”
Smiling, he glided over to a third vitrina. Her blond head lolled sickeningly on her shoulder. “And we musn’t forget our sweet Lydia. Bel-la-don-na,” he said, relishing each syllable. “It means beautiful lady. Lydia feared losing her beau to another, so she put drops of belladonna into her eyes to make her pupils dilate. Victorian men found doe-eyed women oh so alluring, you see. Though, I must say, it wasn’t so pretty when she lost her eyesight to the poison, fell down a stairwell, and broke her neck.”
Rorrim smiled at Serafina. He circled her. “I wonder, little principessa, what do you fear?”
Sera felt a chill and realized Rorrim was running his cold fingers down her spine.
“Oh, this is no good at all,” he said. “Much too strong. I’ll have to soften this up or I’ll starve.”
“Stop it!” Serafina said angrily. “Take your hands off me!” She tried to swim away from him but found she couldn’t. Her tail was suddenly as heavy as stone. The liquid silver held her fast.
“Neela, I can’t move!” she cried, panic-stricken.
Neela started toward her.
“No! Don’t come near me! He’ll get you, too!”
“Hang on, Sera!” Neela said. She cast a depulsio, a songspell used to move objects, hoping to push Rorrim away, but nothing happened.
“You’re wasting your breath, my dear,” Rorrim said. “Early mirrors were made of polished iron. There’s a great deal of it in the Vadus, I’m afraid.”
“Find the way out, Neela! Hurry!” Sera urged.
Neela hesitated, torn, then she swam off.
“Wait a moment…what have we here?” Rorrim said, probing the spaces between Sera’s vertebrae. “You hide your fears well, Princess, but I’ve found one. Ha! Got you!”
Sera felt a strange popping sensation in her back, and then Rorrim swam out from behind her. He had something soft and dark pinched between his fingers. It was fluttering and squealing.
“What is that?” she asked, horrified.
“It’s called a dankling. It’s a little piece of fear. They burrow into backbones. A few of them will infest a nice strong spine, and then as the bones weaken, more come,” Rorrim explained. He put it in his mouth and swallowed it. “Mmm! Simply divine!” he said, licking his fingers. “There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, as tasty as fear. Doubt is delectable, of course. Insecurities, anxieties—all delicious, but fear? Oh, fear is exquisite! And that one was especially piquant…fear for the luscious Mr. Blu! That was a rather bad injury he sustained on your behalf, wasn’t it?”
Desperate to escape, Serafina struggled harder to break free.
“Don’t bother. It’s pointless,” Rorrim said. “There’s a lot of mercury here, too. The older mirrors are full of it. It weakens you.”