Legend has it, if you stand in front of a mirror, shuffling an enchanted deck of cards, you can open a doorway between dimensions.
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Prince Teodric of Springport remembers the promise he made his father: to *not* try to reenact the legend of dimen...
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We had no means to protest. Otho made his will known, loud and clear—bring Jack back, or else.
I did my best to keep a composed face as they hauled us out of the guest room, but within my chest my heart thumped so audibly it surprised me no one commented on it.
I felt exposed, naked. Otho wouldn't permit me to put the veil and cloak back on—"they're not yours, you fraud"—and so I had to walk through the corridors without my usual mask on.
Everyone would see me, the foreign woman who'd been posing as someone else for five years. The supposedly deceased queen who hadn't asked for this, who'd been hauled through a mirror against her will. Who'd been tossed into a new destiny she couldn't control, and now had to face one of her biggest fears: using magic without direct access to the fabric that enabled it.
Technically, I accessed a portion of power. When wearing the cloak and veil, one became Arden, if one contained the right elements inside. While I was a non-magical human when I arrived in Efura, I was apparently meant to wear Arden's magic over my skin. The cloak and veil had adjusted to me, morphed to fit my figure, keeping my shape undefined for those around me. To keep me hidden. And I sensed the energy infusing me, seeping under my flesh and filling up my veins. It was there, still, even without the accouterments to cover me up—but I doubted I'd harbor the amount of power necessary to manipulate that mirror.
Teodric grunted as Luned grabbed him, keeping his arms behind his back. She was stronger than he expected, I could tell. Her wild energy, flowing through him, gave him no choice but to obey her as she guided him out into the hallway.
Otho maintained a firm grip on me, squeezing around my lower arms—but I had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. In my minimally magical state, he'd overpower me with barely a blink of his eyelashes.
Ysac's wrists were still bound, but he followed us of his own accord. He didn't need to—and frankly, I'd have preferred it if he'd worked to distract Otho and Luned, to give us all time to escape—but he padded along behind us, his chin lowered, his shoulders hunched.
The regret and pain I felt from him invaded my senses. His suffering hurt me on a personal level, but I couldn't show it to him. He lied. He spied. And he was blackmailed by the man who'd orchestrated King Hendry's death and started all this chaos.
And yet...my eyes creased as I kept an eye on the jester, who marched beside me as we rounded corridors and made our way towards the indoor garden. He'd disappointed me, disappointed Teodric—but he wanted to make up for it. He wouldn't have come with us if he didn't think he could figure something out at the last minute to save us all. Ysac was, if anything, resourceful, and incredibly smart.
Smart enough to set his sights on my boy.
I side-eyed my son, whose face kept scrunching as he muttered under his breath. He fidgeted, and seemed poised to elbow Luned at any chance he got, but her strength was unparalleled. The mermaid gifts ran deep through her veins; now that she was close to me, I could smell the salt-water in her, coating her bones. Seaweed swirled around her muscles. I even got a whiff of her mermaid tail, blended underneath her legs, under her heavy layers of skirts. We'd all doubted her for years, but it was true—she was half mermaid.
