How am I going to breathe this stuff? she wondered, panicking. I’ll suffocate!
She held her breath for as long as she could, then inhaled fearfully. The silver was cold and heavier than seawater, but her lungs accepted it. Relaxing a little, Astrid looked around. The hallway stretched into the silver in both directions, as far as she could see. Its walls were hung with mirrors of all shapes and sizes. Sparkling chandeliers dangled from the ceiling.
Vitrina moved through the hallway. Some idled in chairs or sat slumped against the walls, heads lolling, bodies limp—like puppets whose strings had been cut.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Astrid muttered, wishing, as she did a dozen times every day, that Desiderio was with her.
She missed all her friends, but him most of all, because he’d become more than a friend. The memory of the kiss he gave her right after he saved her from the Qanikkaaq, a murderous maelstrom, still made her catch her breath. Just before he kissed her, he’d told that he wanted to be with her. And she, too surprised to speak, hadn’t said anything. She regretted that now. She would tell him the same, and more. Much more. If she ever made it back to him.
Astrid was looking up and down the hallway, wondering which way to go, when a voice—oily and sly—spoke from behind her.
“!olleh, lleW” it purred.
Astrid whipped around. A man, heavyset and bald, was standing a few feet away. His hands were tucked into the bell-like sleeves of his magenta dressing gown.
Astrid thrust her sword at him, catching his chin with its point. He lifted his head, placed a fat finger on the sword, and gingerly pushed the blade away.
“.rittodsnnifloK dirtsA, emocleW”
“I can’t understand you,” Astrid replied, her sword still raised. She’d deciphered her name—probably because the bloodbind had given her some of Ling’s language ability—but she couldn’t make out the rest of the man’s words.
“Ah! Pardon me,” said the man, in mer this time. “Not everyone speaks Rursus, do they? Welcome to the Hall of Sighs, Astrid Kolfinnsdottir. I’m Rorrim Drol. I’ve been expecting you.”
Astrid stiffened. “How do you know my name?”
“My dear friend Orfeo told me about you. We’ve known each other for years, he and I. We deal in the same”—Rorrim smiled, revealing a mouthful of pointed teeth—“commodities.”
Astrid tightened her grip on her sword. “Orfeo’s here?” she asked warily. “Where is he?”
Rorrim steepled his heavily jeweled fingers. “Let’s just say he’s in the neighborhood.”
“Can you take me to him?”
“For a price.”
“I have currensea,” said Astrid, lowering her sword. “How much do you want?”
Rorrim shook his head. “Trocii, drupes, cowries…they mean nothing to me,” he said. “It’s danklings I want.”
“What are those?”
“Your deepest fears,” Rorrim replied. As he spoke, he moved closer to Astrid. She suddenly felt a liquid chill run down her back, then a tearing pain.
“So strong,” Rorrim said unhappily, his eyes on the dark, squealing creature now pinched between his fingers.
“Did that…that thing come out of me?” Astrid asked, horrified.
“Yes,” Rorrim sighed. “But it’s so small, it’s barely enough for a snack.”
Astrid backed away from him. “Touch me again, and you’ll lose those fingers,” she growled, hefting her sword.
Rorrim popped the small, squealing dankling into his mouth, then swallowed it. “There’s not much you fear, is there?” he asked her, his eyes searching hers. “Only one thing, really, and he can remove it, if you let him.”
“There’s nothing I fear,” Astrid blustered. “Definitely not you and your weird mirror world.”
Rorrim smiled knowingly. “Not true. Not true at all,” he said, wagging a finger at her.
Then he spoke, but not in his voice.
“Who wants a mermaid without magic?” he said, mimicking her father’s voice.
“She’s a freaky freakin’ freak!” That was Tauno, a bully from back home.
And then: “Where are you going, Astrid? To your friends? Do you really think it will be any different with them?” Those words were spoken in Orfeo’s voice. A cold dread gripped Astrid at the sound of them.
“You fear those voices are right, Astrid, though you tell yourself otherwise,” Rorrim said, in his own voice now.
Astrid felt painfully exposed, as if the mirror lord could see deep inside her. “N-no, you’re wrong,” she stammered. “I don’t believe them anymore. I—”
She gasped at a sudden sharp pain in her back. Rorrim, cunning and quick, had gotten behind her and torn another dankling from her spine.
“Oh, this is much better! So plump and juicy!” he said, greedily gobbling it.
Astrid swiped at him with her sword, but he ducked the blade and beetled off down the hallway, still smacking his lips.