The Mysterious Door

Chapter 22

"The dragons said they won't be able to risk assisting us," Ella says the next day during training, "Some of them are with child, so it's too dangerous for them to leave their nests unguarded."

"That's understandable," Liam says, "At least we'll still have Zal. And the witches of course."

"Martyn and his pack will definitely help too," Aimee says, "The werewolves aren't afraid of anything."

"It's a shame we couldn't convince the mermaid queen," Kyle says, "We could have really used her help."

"Didn't Jake tell you," a voice says coming out of the woods, making all of us jump, "I decided to meet with the council and we concluded that aid will be given."

"Thank you, your majesty," Kyle says kneeling in front of the mermaid queen and the rest of us follow his lead quickly.

"Rise, children," she says, "I didn't like that stunt you pulled," she looks at me, "But I have never been one to hold a grudge. Consider this as a sign of good faith," she hands us three paintings, "We have a lot of trust in the lot of you. Know that we will be keeping our eyes on you in the battle to come."

"This is very generous," Aimee says, "Please do send the council our sincerest gratitude."

"Now that that's been settled," she smiles, "I have some more preparation to do before the Instructor arrives. May the gods be with you all." She walks back into the forest and disappears just as quick and silently as she arrived.

"What good are a bunch of paintings," I ask once I'm sure she's out of earshot, greeted by the loudest laughs from the four of them.

"You might want to look again," Kyle says, "What you're holding is the results of one of my favorite spells." I examine the pictures on them again, but now that I'm actually looking I can see they're not pictures at all. The queen gave us three large mirrors, each reflecting the image of a different ordinary-looking young adult.

"What is it," I ask.

"Bring them into the day side," Liam says, "You'll see." I follow them along the path between the trees and within minutes we step across the dark threshold. The mirror I'm carrying begins to vibrate intensely and I have to do all I can not to drop it. There's a bright flash of light and once my eyes adjust again, the three figures are standing in-front of me, their reflection erased from the mirror.

"Sure feels nice to give the limbs a nice stretch again," the dark-skinned boy says, "Been ages." I feel my jaw drop.

"The queen has been charged with keeping both the strongest enemies and strongest allies that the council has had throughout history," Kyle tells me, "Witches can trap a person in a mirror for the duration of the full moon with a very powerful spell. Lucky for us the moon is always full in the queen's castle and time doesn't move forward in the mirror dimension."

"So the three of you have just been waiting for the queen to free you for who knows how long," I ask, "That's horrible."

"We volunteered to be put in the mirrors," the boy laughs, "Like your friend said, time doesn't move in there so it really only felt like we've been gone a couple of minutes."

"Does that mean we can get Anthony out like this too?"

"Unfortunately not," Liam says, "The queen's mirrors contain the physical bodies of those trapped. Anthony's body is out here so there's no way to reach his soul."

I look down again, the flicker of hope I felt dying again, "So you guys must be pretty powerful then?"

"In a way," one of the girls, the one with spiky black hair says, "There was a time when PEACE attempted to use halflings to destroy our world. The three of us, with the help of some of our friends, stopped them and disbanded that faction."