Gerta shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m not powerful enough. In her fantasies, she was always the stronger sorceress.”
“Why did she leave you here?”
“I could feel her fighting against something, trying to hold on to herself.” Gerta turned toward the empty frame of the mirror.
Talia’s throat tightened. “I know.”
“She told me to help you.” Gerta stared at the wall. “I could feel her ripping memories from her own mind. She hid me from herself as she closed the door, sealing me into the darkness. Even through the door, I felt her lose the battle. She stayed down here for a long time. I couldn’t use magic to warm myself until after she left, for fear of drawing her attention. I waited as long as I could, and then… the door wouldn’t open. I tried climbing down the steps, but the cold grew worse.”
Talia sheathed her knife. Keeping Gerta in her vision, she retrieved a small, locked chest from the corner of the room. She pulled a silver key from a chain around her neck and opened the lid to reveal a dirty red cloak lined in wolf fur. She bundled the cloak under one arm. “I should get you upstairs where it’s warmer.”
“Thank you, Talia. I wouldn’t have survived much longer.”
“Come on. You can tell Danielle and Father Isaac what you’ve told me.”
And hopefully Isaac would be able to tell them all exactly what Gerta was.
Danielle had spent her childhood learning to shield herself from the torments of her stepmother and stepsisters, building armor that their cruelest jabs failed to penetrate. But exhaustion had weakened that armor, and Armand shattered what remained without even raising his voice.
His hands were shackled, and two armed men stood watching him. Father Isaac’s magic would prevent him from physically harming anyone so long as he remained inside the chapel, but it couldn’t stop his verbal assaults.
“Without my mother to guide you, you’re lost. You allowed our son to be stolen from within your own home. You’ve failed, Your Highness. Both as a princess and as a mother.”
Danielle was tempted to order him gagged. Instead, she turned to Father Isaac. “Whatever magic infects my husband, it came from Snow’s broken mirror. Can you use that same magic to find her?”
Isaac shook his head. Neither he nor Trittibar had been able to explain Armand’s behavior, let alone find a way to counter it. Everyone else cut by Snow’s mirrors had been moved to the dungeons, by Danielle’s orders. Twenty-two people were now locked in the dark, cliff-side cells, many of them her friends. But it was the only way to keep them from harming anyone else.
She had ordered Armand brought here to the chapel. The smell of incense was stifling. The grassy smoke was enchanted to dampen violence within the church. The air was warmer here, as though each of the candles mounted along the walls was giving off the heat of a much larger flame. But so far, the magic of the church hadn’t been strong enough to free her husband.
Nobody had seen Snow or Jakob since they entered the candlemaker’s workshop, and thus far, no magic had been able to locate them. The gates were locked and guarded, and Danielle had ordered every available man and woman to search the palace, but given Snow’s power, she held little hope.
“He’s not possessed,” said Trittibar.
“Or if he is, it’s no form of possession that we’ve ever heard of.” Father Isaac tapped his crucifix against his chin.
“It’s the mirror.” Talia strode into the church, side by side with a barefoot girl in a wool cloak. Danielle had never seen the girl before, but something in her walk was familiar. “With every cut, a tiny splinter breaks off and enters the blood. Snow took the worst of it when her mirror was destroyed, but Armand and the rest each suffer from a smaller portion of that same power.”
“It’s how mirror magic works,” said Talia’s companion. “Even the smallest piece can channel the power of the rest.”
“Who is this?” Danielle asked.
“I was hoping Father Isaac could answer that.” Talia beckoned Danielle closer, away from Armand. In a low voice, she explained how she had discovered Gerta below, as well as the girl’s claim to be Snow White’s sister. For Gerta’s part, she appeared more interested in Armand than anything else.
Danielle cut Talia off. “Gerta, if you know what happened to my husband, can you reverse it?”
Gerta approached the prince. Danielle signaled with one hand for Talia to stay close, but Gerta merely studied Armand.
“Keep away from me, you filthy witch,” snapped Armand.
Danielle tightened. This wasn’t her husband. He would never speak so to anyone.
Yet even as she defended him to herself, she wondered. Did some part of Armand believe those words? Was this cruelty merely an aspect of himself he kept hidden… an aspect that reminded her so much of her own stepmother?
“Look at his hand.” Gerta pointed to a pair of dark bruises on the back of Armand’s hand. “You’ll find others where the sliver cut him from the inside as it moved through his body.”
“Can it be removed?” asked Danielle.
Gerta chewed her lower lip as she stared at Armand. She moved away from him, out of earshot, and gestured for the others to follow. “It would be dangerous. The splinter isn’t the problem. It’s what that splinter carries.”
“Tell me.”
“Have you never wondered where the mirror’s power came from?” Gerta looked from one face to the next. “All magic has a cost. Minor spells like your priest’s incense take most of their strength from the ingredients of the potion. He can prepare a new batch and feel no more fatigued than a man who spends an afternoon chopping firewood. But an artifact like our mother’s mirror, one with the ability to show anything its master commands? Not even Rose Curtana was powerful enough to create such a thing on her own.”
“So where did it come from?” asked Danielle.
“I believe our mother enslaved something within the mirror. Forced it to serve her.”
Something which had broken free when the mirror shattered. “Snow never spoke of this,” said Danielle. “You told us Snow created you, formed you from her own thoughts and memories-”
“She never spoke of it,” Gerta agreed, “but she used to lie awake at night, wondering about the price of Mother’s magic. As she grew, she learned not to question such things. Much of our mother’s magic was best left to the shadows. Snow was a child. Had she allowed herself to dwell on the torments our mother inflicted, the rituals she wove, it would have consumed her. So Snow locked those fears away, burying them so deep they couldn’t reach her even in dreams.”
No wonder Snow had imagined a companion for herself. For a child to face such nightmares alone… the thought made Danielle wish she could somehow go back and whisk Snow away when she was first born. “And then yesterday, the mirror broke.”
“Releasing what?” Isaac asked.
“We once encountered a mermaid who trapped human souls and used them as slaves,” said Danielle. “Could the mirror have done something similar?”
“No human soul would be powerful enough.” Gerta shook her head. “If any were so strong, my mother never would have been able to enslave them.”
“A demon.” It was Father Isaac who spoke. “No minor fiend, but a true denizen of Hell.”
“Snow didn’t know,” Gerta said quickly. “Even had she tried to discover the truth, it was impossible to be certain, short of shattering the mirror.” She gestured toward Armand. “She never intended any of this.”
Talia whispered a curse in Arathean. “Snow gathered up every last speck of glass. If each splinter is a reflection of the demon’s power, she could infect half of Lorindar.”
Danielle was watching Father Isaac. “Is Gerta telling the truth?”
“I believe so,” said Isaac. “Strange… in some respects, she appears a construct, yet her flesh is human.”
Gerta reached out and tugged the curls of his beard, earning a yelp. “Is that real enough for you, Father?”