“What he said,” Gwyneth adds. Her hand presses against my lower back, urging me forward. I blink at myself getting closer and closer. The trident’s forked tip touches the mirror, igniting a golden beam of light that radiates up the handle and over my hand. My heart thrashes as my reflection’s lips curl into a smile,one I know I’m not wearing as I’m yanked through the surface. My body squeezes around my organs, and for a split tempo, I think I might implode. The tension releases, and my feet slide out from underneath me. Got to start this adventure like I mean to go—with a calamity.
My ass thuds onto something hard, and I yelp as my tailbone twinges in protest.
“Ow,” a male voice exclaims.
My face heats as I scramble to my feet and off the strange man below me. Mist surrounds me, and I appear to be walking on a lake or a pond.
“Sorry, I slipped. I didn’t see you there.”
His silver eyes glint like moonlight on water, and his dark hair falls in artful waves to his collar. He’s dressed to the nines in tailored breeches and a topcoat, the navy fabric embroidered with silver thread that practically screams his importance.
“Well,” he says, his voice smooth but tinged with mock indignation, “this is not how I expected our grand meeting to begin. Do I at least get a formal apology, or should I start composing my list of grievances?”
“I… I’m sorry?” I stammer.
“Ah, repentance at last,” he says, springing to his feet so smoothly it makes me feel like a klutz in comparison. “You must be Daphne. You’ve made quite the impression.” He leans in conspiratorially. “Although I’m thinking of renaming this spot ‘The Field of Splat’ in your honor.”
My cheeks flame. “I didn’t mean to?—”
“Oh, don’t apologize again,” he interrupts, waving my words away with a dramatic flourish that nearly takes out a small mirrored bush. “Let’s start over. Welcome to the Land of Reflection!” He sweeps his arms wide, barely missing another bush. “Home of wonders, beauty, and… me. But let’s not get distracted by my charm just yet.”
Is he serious? I can’t tell. Where is my mirror man? This guy’s face is all playful arrogance, but those silver eyes have a flicker of… something. Mischief? Sanity on vacation? Either way, I decide to roll with it.
I spin, finding the mirror behind me, with my knights and my sister staring through with frowns.
The mirror is identical to mine.
“Did she make it through? I can’t see anything but her reflection,” Gwyneth asks.
I wave at them. “Hey, I’m fine.”
“They can’t hear or see you, unless you are a mirror person,” he says.
“Who are you?”
“I am your mirror man, the original, as I’ve explained.”
“But you are not a floating head.”
He throws said head back and laughs. It is a rich sound that sends tingles down my spine. If my heart wasn’t through a mirror with four knights, this mirror man might be very capable of sweeping me off my feet. “No, fair Daphne, I am not. Appearances can be deceiving.”
“You got my name right,” I marvel. This is definitely another world.
His hand wraps around my back, and he ushers me across the sparkling water, which ripples underneath my feet. “I get a little confused sometimes. You have my greatest apologies.”
“It makes no difference to me. I find it rather endearing. Perfect and polished is so last annus. I find beauty in the unusual and awe in the imperfections.”
“That is why you are the most fair,” he declares.
There’s something that has been niggling away at me since my conversation with the genie. “Do you have a name?”
He glances at me. “I do.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“There’s power in knowing someone’s name.”
I shrug. “Who am I going to tell? The Stirlings and my sister perhaps, but they don’t mean you any harm.”
