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5

AMETHYST

By some miracle, my head didn’t throb incessantly when I next woke up. The room was still dark, the small window only letting in a fraction of light, the sky a pale gray beyond its glass. Sloane lay beside me, goosebumps covering her arms and legs where she’d kicked the skirt of the dress above her knees. Without thinking, I pulled the thin blanket tucked at the foot of the bed and spread it over her. She groaned and turned over, tucking her hand under her chin without opening her eyes. The color was back in her cheeks. The sight eased some of the dread away from me.

With a sigh, I eyed the small pot in the corner of the room.

What was actually even happening right now? We’d gone from walking that shoreline in Maine during an extended weekend trip to having to use chamber pots. I tried to not think about it too hard.

I was just sitting in front of the nearly extinguished fire, cursing every last possible person that could have made this whole thing possible, when the lock on the door slid away and the door eased open.

The same woman stepped into the room. Her hair was pulled back today, the black dress replaced with a gray one of the same shape and style. The new hairstyle revealed pointed ears that extended nearly to the edge of her skull, thin and exaggerated. They were almost as disconcerting as her bloodred eyes. I couldn’t help but swallow through the unease flooding me.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” she said with a small smile. “I should probably have woken you earlier, but I didn’t want to interrupt your sleeping if it could be avoided. That translation spell can leave behind quite the headache.”

Her eyebrow rose as she took in my position. I rested my cheek against my knee, still tired, my head beginning to ache again. Though we’d apparently slept longer than intended?

She draped two pieces of fabric over the edge of the bed as she asked, “Is your head feeling better?”

I weighed if it was better to be compliant with this woman or become a menace. Her look was so earnest, I felt the aggression slowly melt from my limbs.

“Much,” I offered, my gaze flicking to my sister for a heartbeat.

“Good!” Her smile lit her entire face, making her seem younger than me. Was she? “That’s very good. Can I take a look at that wound just to make sure it’s all sorted?”

I frowned as I gave a quiet assent. She set down the tray she’d had tucked against her waist on the ground beside my feet before finger-combing my hair and twisting it out of her way. Her finger traced the same part of my scalp.

“Yes, it’s completely healed now. Lucky Hale had a bit of salve left over from his last trip to the city, or it might not have closed up quite so cleanly.” She clicked her tongue, a clear disapproval. “The Archmage is powerful to boot, but he’s stingy as can be with the magic, and he just doesn’t care to understand a woman’s desire to keep her hair in good shape. Kiera above, your black hair is simply stunning, like the women in Varím’s⁠—”

My stomach growled, and she cut off.

“Oh, of course, go ahead and eat!” She pulled the tray closer to me in invitation. “Let me wake up the other woman and get you both ready for the Archmage. He’ll be here soon, and you’ll want full bellies for the trip.”

As she stepped away toward Sloane, I risked a question.

“Where are we going?” My voice cracked from disuse.

“Magefall, of course!” She didn’t look over at me. “Well, technically, you’ll be staying along the shore of the Passage until tomorrow when you’ll go to Magefall.”

That… didn’t help any of my confusion at all. I eyed the still-open door, but I didn’t see any of the armed men. I risked showing more of my ignorance. She held no dagger, no sword. The worst she could do was mock me, right?

“The Passage? Is that near here, or closer to Maine?”

If I assumed she knew where Maine was, maybe she would give up more information than typical. That was a tactic, right? Let the other person reveal their own beliefs by assuming you shared the same set? I couldn’t remember. My eyes were beginning to ache.

She stopped and turned back to me, her hands pressed to her stomach, her eyebrows furrowed.

“Do you mean Marish?”

I slowly shook my head without lifting it from my knee. “No,” I said. “Maine. The state in America?”

Her head tilted as her eyes narrowed in puzzlement.

“I’ve never heard of that place,” she admitted after a minute. “Is that part of the Far Lands? I don’t know much about them. They are a long trip by boat across the Surmeda Ocean, and not many from our kingdom risk the voyages. Mostly only the traders who deal in fur and jewels and the occasional diplomat. My friend that works for the Varím crown says more people there travel across the ocean, but it is still not a common voyage.”

My throat closed in unadulterated panic.

Just what kind of mirror had we found? Because it certainly seemed like we weren’t somewhere on Earth anymore. Even if I could believe we’d somehow fallen back in time like some strange Outlander spin-off, there wasn’t a civilization I could bring to mind that had called any of the seas the Surmeda. And this Varím was entirely unknown, too. I traced the laces running up my spine, trying to keep my heart from racing and failing miserably.