I STEPPED THROUGH THE MIRROR into a dark and unfamiliar valley, not the library as I had expected. Rain fell strangely upward; flowers grew sideways. Something like clouds floated past my knees, only they had ears and tails and wore tinkling bells around their cottony necks, giving the impression they were some kind of cat-cloud hybrid.
Mokosh, suddenly beside me, gave a delighted squawk and snatched at my sleeve. “Echo! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I’m so glad you stepped through my mirror. My mother has given me permission to bring you home for a few days! We can go riding and fishing—I can show you all the secret passages in the palace. We can eat sherbet and stay up late into the night and oh it will be just wonderful, what do you say?” She seized my shoulders and whirled me around, the rain plastering her silver hair to her smooth forehead while the cat-clouds purred about her ankles.
I was more than a little irritated that she had taken me away from Hal. “Mokosh, I—I can’t.”
She let go of me. Her whole face fell. “Why not?”
“The wolf needs me, and the house is shedding rooms, and I’m already nearly late for dinner—” That wasn’t quite the whole truth, of course, but I wasn’t about to tell her she’d interrupted my moment with Hal.
Mokosh waved an impatient hand. “That’s all you’re worried about? I’ll just have my mother bend time for you, a little, and have you back the moment you leave.”
The rain was warm on my skin and tasted sweet as candy. I hated to see her staring at me with such drooping hope. But I could still feel the prints of Hal’s fingers, still see the haunted sorrow in the wolf’s eyes. I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Mokosh.”
She sagged in the rain, whispered a word to the sky. The outline of a mirror shimmered into being. “Just for an evening, then? An hour? I swear to you it will be like you never left. Please, Echo. You’re my only friend.”
The word pierced me, more powerful than Mokosh could have known. “An hour, then. But I must be back before midnight.”
Mokosh squealed with delight and grabbed my hand, pulling me through the mirror.
We stepped out onto a wide terrace, the last glimmers of a sunset tracing lines over a glittering sea. Behind us loomed a huge white palace. Below us, endless ocean.
Far below us—there were no waves lapping against the shore.
“A floating island,” I said. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s one of the twelve wonders of the world.” Mokosh beamed. “My mother made it.”
“She made it?”
Mokosh nodded. “When she was younger than I am now. I haven’t even half her ability. I’m hoping I grow into it.”
I was too awed for words.
“I’ll show you my room. Come on!”
And then she was tugging me across the terrace, through a tall green door, and into a grand hall. We traipsed up stairs and down a corridor—I felt like my whole life had narrowed to stairs and corridors—then into an airy suite, its windows flung wide.
We sat on silk cushions and drank tea as light as perfume. We nibbled seed cake sprinkled with sugared roses. Mokosh babbled on and on, about her endless lessons and the tediousness of her daily life—that’s why she was always reading, she confided.
At one point, she leaned back on her elbows and fixed me with a knowing grin. “I’ve been meaning to reprimand you for abandoning me completely at the ball the other night, but I’ve decided I don’t blame you. Your partner was very handsome. You must tell me all about it!”
I blinked at her, and traced the designs etched into my glass with one finger. I still didn’t want to tell her about Hal. He was a secret I didn’t want to share.
She must have seen as much in my expression. “Echo! You’ve been keeping delightful things from me!”
I flushed. “He’s a reader, too. I’ve met him a few times.”
“Another reader! What’s his name? Where’s he from?”
Starlight flashed out over the sea. I thought of fencing lessons and a rainy wood and dancing close enough to feel his heartbeat. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I stood. “I’m sorry, Mokosh. I really must get back.”
She fixed me with a shrewd glance, the laughter in her face shifting to something hard, and dangerous around the edges. But then she smiled, and that sharp expression melted away. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t press you to share if you aren’t ready. Thank you for coming.”
I relaxed, relieved that she wasn’t angry. “I’ll come back soon. You can show me the rest of the palace.”
“I’d like that.”
She hugged me, quick and tight, and then spoke a mirror into existence, right there in her bedroom.
I stepped into the library and ran right back into The Thief’s Field, my heart in my throat.
It was still that blue-black dark of faded twilight. The sky was streaked with stars. The field danced with fireflies.
But Hal was gone.
Dejected, I returned to the library.
I popped into a half-dozen other book-mirrors, looking for him, but he wasn’t anywhere to be found.
But out in the hall, the wolf was waiting for me. I was glad to see him, and impulsively dropped to my knees and wrapped my arms around his neck.
He whuff-laughed into my hair, and I knew he was glad to see me, too.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
IN THE WOOD BEYOND THE HOUSE, the trees had turned from green to gold. Swallows danced in the currents of the air. Bees sparked like yellow-bright embers among the waving grasses. Time was slipping away. I still didn’t go back to the room behind the obsidian door, telling myself I was sure to find the answers I needed in the book-mirrors soon. I couldn’t shake away my nagging fear of that room, like splinters deep under skin.
We were opening the cages of the gold dragon-birds several weeks after the venomous garden had been unbound, when it happened again.
The room started to shake. A crack splintered through the floor.
The wolf was further from the door than I was, and I lunged for him, grabbing the scruff of his neck and hauling him over the crack as the room shuddered, and fell into the void.
We tumbled together into the hallway just before the door melted into the wall, the ragged remnants of the binding shimmering for a moment in the air before also vanishing. The wolf shook himself, and growled. “That was too close. We have to be more careful.”
I studied him, my hand still touching his neck. He was bound to the house—was he going to start unraveling as well? “Wolf … Are you really going to die, when the year is up?”
Slowly, carefully, he extricated himself from my grasp. “I will be worse than dead. I will belong wholly to her.”
“You told me before that you welcomed death—that it would make you free.”
His ears flattened back against his head. “I lied.”
He stalked off down the corridor and I followed at a distance, watching as he disappeared into the bauble room. I didn’t follow; whatever magic was bound behind that obsidian door made my skin crawl. And I couldn’t shake away my fear of the library becoming unbound.
So I left him to his remembering.
I FOUND HAL IN AN outdoor market by the sea, where merchants were selling their wares under brightly colored awnings. Ships gleamed white on the horizon. The sun was warm; the wind was cool. He was haggling with a dark-haired young woman over a pair of daggers, while she smiled up at him under long lashes. She was very beautiful. I tried to ignore the jealousy that took root inside of me and started to sprout. I hadn’t seen him in some weeks.
“Hal?”
His eyes brightened when he saw me. He paid the young woman for the daggers, and tucked his arm through mine. Together, we walked down to the shore.
“Shall we get some fencing practice in?” He laid the daggers on his coat in the sand, and rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, loosing his sword from its sheath.
“Hal, will you try something for me?”
He must have heard the seriousness in my tone. He grasped my hand. “What’s wrong?”
“The house is unraveling. I don’t want you to be unraveled with it. Will you … will you try to come back to the library? You can stay with the wolf and me. We can figure out how to get you home.”
The wind smelled of salt and fish and damp. The sea washed over the shore, crawling up to greet us.