Page 24 of House of Ydril

“I…” Moswen breaks off as she just stares at me.

“But there’s a slight problem with that theory,” I add, ignoring her dumbfoundedness and pointing at the last two fae-blooded people featured in the family tree.

“I see,” she replies in a voice that’s barely more than a whisper. I wait for her to continue, but she just keeps staring at the wallpaper with a funny look in her eyes.

“Well?” I ask, not even trying to hide my impatience. “What do you think is going on here?”

She slowly walks up to the wall to inspect it. “I see magic residue,” she says, seeming to have snapped out of it as she traces her finger over a blank spot on the wallpaper, just below the last two portraits.

“So there’s something there that we can’t see?” I hear Nuala giving voice to the question in my head.

I draw in a breath.

“Yes,” Moswen replies under her breath. “However, the magic is too strong for you to break it,” she says as she turns to look at me.

I feel my heart sink into my stomach, but I protest regardless. “I know I’m shit with my runes, but can I at least try?”

“You want to die?” she says in a tone that actually sounds scared, giving me the chills.

And all of a sudden, after finding a single glimmer of hope, I find myself in the dark again, my shoulders slumping.

“Is there nothing else she can do?” I hear Nuala ask and I turn to give her a weak but grateful smile. “She just wants to know who her parents are.”

My head snaps back to Moswen, who’s looking at me with such a pained expression, I’m sure she’ll say no.

And she doesn’t sound pleased, but she gives a quick nod. “I guess there’sonething you can try.”

“What is it?” I blurt out, hopefulness straining my voice.

She points to a spot left of the door. “What’s on this wall right here?” she demands.

“Um, nothing.”

She shakes her head. “Incorrect. Look at it and think of the Mirror.”

“TheMirror?” I ask, confusion pulling my eyebrows down.

Nuala cuts in, frowning at Moswen. “As in… the Snow White Mirror?”

Moswen nods.

“You’re joking, right?” I ask, even though she looks dead serious.

“Look,” she starts, ignoring my surprise, “your House was always stirring up the pot, which meant a lot of enemies…”

I raise my eyebrows, hungry to learn literally anything about them.

“So sometime in the ninth century, one of the members created a magical mirror to serve as sort of advisor to the Olarel family. One who knows all the family secrets and would never spill them to anyone else. One only an Olarel would see, of course, with the help of Sight.”

“Right,” I drawl, still skeptical, “so I won’t just be having some mirror lie to me that I’m the fairest of them all?”

Nuala lets out a chuckle, but Moswen doesn’t think I’m being funny. “No, that fairy tale grossly misinterprets what actually happened. But that doesn’t matter right now,” she waves at me impatiently. “Turn to the wall and try to see it.”

“Alright,” I mutter as I do what she tells me.

“Go, Quinn,” my friend cheers me on.

And it all feels a bit stupid, but I still close my eyes and try to picture the Mirror, at least my own version of it.

---