There was a terrible metal straining sound, and then the chains on the drawbridge snapped. The bridge fell forward and slammed into the trench. Henry stepped in front of his family and prepared to fight. Puck landed next to him and drew his wooden sword. Even Mr. Canis had his shaking fists in the air.
Suddenly, a woman stormed through the gate. Her frightening voice did not match her appearance: She wore a pretty black dress, milky pearls, and expensive heels. If Snow was the most beautiful woman in the world, this woman was a close second. It made sense. After all, she was Ms. White’s mother—a woman some called Bunny Lancaster, while others knew her by her more well-known name, the Wicked Queen.
“Mother?” Snow said. “How did you find us?”
“There are few things in this world that my eyes cannot see,” Bunny snapped.
“Bunny! You broke my drawbridge!” Charming cried.
The witch dismissed him with a wave. “I want everyone to follow me.”
Henry stepped forward. “We had some things we wanted to ask you, Bunny.”
“No questions! It’s time we got to work saving the world,” the witch replied.
She stepped over to Poppa Bear, and with the slash of her hand the ropes that held the magic mirror onto his back were magically severed. She eased the big mirror to the ground and leaned it against a cabin wall, then turned to Sabrina and pointed a finger at her. “You! Where are you keeping the other mirrors?”
Sabrina pointed toward the mirror and without a word the queen plunged through its reflection. Sabrina looked at her father, who was still holding her and Daphne tight, but he eased his grip and led them into the mirror as well.
“Hurry, now!” the witch demanded as soon as they broke the surface and entered the Hall of Wonders. Everyone followed them, eager to hear what Bunny was planning. “Which room is it? Time is wasting. Don’t you want to save Relda?”
Red rushed down the hall to meet them with baby Basil in her arms. “What’s going on?”
Sabrina shrugged. “I don’t have a clue.” Then she hurried ahead and unlocked the room in which they stored the other mirrors. Sabrina had barely swung the door open when Bunny pushed past her into the room. Once inside, the Wicked Queen looked around, bewildered. “Someone has not been taking care of these mirrors.”
“They were like this when we found them,” Daphne said.
The queen gazed closely at the shards that were glued to the walls, marveling at the different places they revealed. “Fascinating. These are pieces of other looking glasses.”
“The Master used them to spy on us and everyone in town,” Sabrina said.
“He could see into any mirror he wanted,” Daphne added.
“I know very well what he was doing with them, young ladies,” she said, and then walked over to the fifth intact magic mirror, which was empty as always.
“That one’s guardian has never appeared to us,” Mr. Canis said.
“That’s because it doesn’t have one. This is the one that resets them all to their factory settings. Ongegn!” Bunny cried, and a scarlet-red handprint appeared in the fifth mirror. There was a loud humming that seemed to shake the very air and then suddenly the broken shards peeled themselves off the walls and floated about in midair. Like bees to nectar, they darted into the correct empty frames and reformed themselves, melting into one another until their surfaces were clean and whole. When the mirrors were completely repaired and looking as good as new, the witch raised her hand above her head. Sabrina watched as it turned bright red, cracking and popping and smoldering like a charcoal briquette.
“Give it a second,” Bunny said. “They need to reboot.”
After a moment, the red handprints appeared in all the newly mended mirrors and just as quickly faded.
“Mirrors, I require your presence,” Bunny said sternly, and in the blink of an eye twenty-four different heads floated in twenty-four silver pools. Many looked as normal as any human being, but other guardians seemed more beastlike. One had a pointy nose as long as a yardstick, and another had eyes and lips as big as a trout. There were faces that were clearly human and a few that seemed as if they came from outer space. One was a huge iguana-like thing and another had the face of a beautiful woman with the antlers of a deer. One had the eyes of a crocodile and a smile to match. Sabrina was happy to see that Reggie, Fanny, Titan, and Donovan were amongst them, but she was especially overjoyed to see a familiar face—Harry, who had been the guardian of Prince Charming’s mirror, the Hotel of Wonders.
“Hello, Mother,” they said with great respect.
“Please, stop calling me that. Arden, I come seeking a prophecy,” Bunny said.
“Ask what you will,” the antler-woman said, and her reflection rippled and shimmied. The other mirrors followed suit until each guardian was now barely visible behind their churning silver. Daphne slipped her hand into Sabrina’s and squeezed. After a long, unsettling moment, the mirrors stilled and each guardian’s eyes glowed with the power of a full moon.