The Kell he could see turned to smile at Lorzok and Jubilee. The Saeldian he could see smiled too, all their subtle little illusions still there—the tiniest shifts to their true face that made them eye-catching and magnetic. But their bodies were strangely stretched. The whole room was. Why?
Saeldian pressed both hands to their cheeks. They covered their mouth.
“Think!” Kell cried. “Where are we?”
They bent their head—to hide from Kell’s sight? “It was amagical trap. It got you. I think this is an abjuration spell. We’re in…the ethereal? No. I can still feel me, but it’s faded.”
“Me too. If it’s not the ethereal, where are we?”
Saeldian looked to the illusion they had set in front of the watching spells. They were still fooled into gazing at their reflection. Then they nodded. “Look at the angles. We’re in the mirror.”
“How do we get out?”
“I don’t know!” Saeldian shouted.
The Saeldian they could see shook their head, as if a fly buzzed by their ear.
“You heard that,” Kell said. “I saw you react. We’re connected. Cast something that will make you stop!”
“The mirror was my last big spell, I said.” Saeldian pounded their fist into their thigh. “I only have cantrips.”
Smiling Kell and Smiling Saeldian held the gem together as they moved closer to their friends.
“We can’t let Jubilee and Lorzok touch that gem,” Kell said. “Try anything.”
Saeldian put up a hand and pointed it at Smiling Saeldian—no, at Lorzok. “Through copper, hear me—it’s a trick!”
Lorzok didn’t even blink.
“Hear me, by my will.” Saeldian tried casting the message cantrip again. “It’s a trick!”
Still nothing.
Saeldian looked like they might cry. “I can’t. It needs actual copper—which is stuck on my real body right now. I can’t send him a message without it.”
Saeldian was drained of the power to cast impressive illusions and clever escapes. The spell was a good idea; if they could tell Lorzok, he could help them. But Saeldian couldn’t reach him. Their spell needed a physical focus.
But Kell could. Kell knew a spell that didn’t need a copper wire, or a magic gesture, or even time to rest. But that spell would—
Outside the shadow, Lorzok lifted his hands.
No. They couldn’t all get trapped in here, unable to stop their smiling selves from doing whatever the trap was compelling them to do. Kell would apologize later.
He gathered his will, gave a theatric snicker, and cast: “Lorzok, you weird, unloved son. Do we looknormalto you? It’s a trick!”
Smiling Kell’s mouth opened and spat the vicious insult at his best friend, who flinched away from his words. Kell’s heart clenched with the apology he couldn’t utter.
Lorzok backed up one step. But Jubilee swung her head to check on Lorzok. Her body twisting. Her fingers—
“No!” Kell and Saeldian shouted, but Jubilee’s fingers brushed against the jewel, and then Jubilee appeared here, while he and Saeldian gasped at the Jubilee outside the mirror.
Jubilee stumbled and stared at the Jubilee out there, who smiled and moved in step with the others closer to Lorzok.
“We’re in the mirror,” Saeldian said. “I can’t cast anything, but Kell could; I didn’t have copper wire—”
All three of them smiling. Lorzok backed up a step. He was too close to Saeldian’s mirror. If he broke through it…
But instead, he sang, “All the stars are smiling while you watch them play,” and stroked the air in front of their faces. They stopped smiling. The Kiss fell from Kell’s fingers—
