Page 109 of The Iron Dagger
Hara clutched Gideon’s arm in a vice. It was difficult to tell where the mock-Seith was looking, for its painted eyes had the unsettling quality of following them no matter where they stood. Hara trembled against him.
“It’s not real,” he breathed to her, hardly moving his lips. “It’s like the two-headed monster. It’s just a conjuring.”
“It’s real enough,” she said, unable to tear her eyes from the thing.
They now knew that deep fears could manifest as physical beasts within the stone, but the mock-Seith did not seem to represent Desidiera’s fear; she clung to it almost desperately.
Hara remained silent beside him. Perhaps she realized that it was of no use to try and convince her mother that the thing was a conjuring of her own mind. Gideon was unsure if it was dangerous or benign, and so they had to tread carefully. He did not want to upset her mother and in turn upset the thing at her side.
“Desideria, are there any other people in here besides Seith?” he asked her in a carefully neutral tone.
“Yes, of course,” said Desideria. “But we must go to them. They cannot come here on their own.”
“Why is that?” asked Gideon.
“No one’s Sight is as strong as hers,” said Hara. “For her, it’s as easy as walking into a room to enter someone’s present. But for others, it might be dangerous or difficult.”
Gideon turned her so their backs were facing Desideria and the mock-Seith.
“I don’t want that thing to hear us,” he whispered. “Is there anyone else’s mind we can go to to plan our escape?” Secretly, he thought he would also like to talk to someone who was more sound of mind than Desideria.
Hara nodded in agreement, and then her eyes lit up. “Alcmene. My old tutor.” She turned and said, “Mother, is Alcmene in here?”
“Let us see,” said Desideria. She stepped out of the mock-Seith’s arms and toward an empty room. “She will be so happy to see you all grown up.”
Gideon and Hara each took one of her hands, and Gideon stole a glance behind him. The mock-Seith stood there with its hands at its sides, staring and silent. It seemed harmless enough, but Gideon still felt uncomfortable turning his back. They stepped through the doorway together.
Blinding light cut across Gideon’s eyes, and he blinked several times to adjust them. The sky above was a brilliant blue, and he squinted as he looked up. Something wasn’t right, but he could not grasp it. As he craned his neck, he realized that no matter where he looked, he could not find the source of the light, for there was no sun.
Then Gideon started at the crowd of figures surrounding them. He turned, alarmed, but his heart slowed when he realized they were their own reflections.
They were standing in a courtyard with several long mirrored halls branching off in every direction. Orange dunes peeked over the towering walls. Light blared from the empty blue sky, giving no indication of the direction that they faced.The only distinct feature was the dark doorway that they had just walked through, leading back into Desideria’s realm.
“How can we find our way through the mirrors without becoming lost?” muttered Gideon.
“She should be close,” said Hara.
And then Gideon saw a face peering out from behind a mirror. Hara stepped forward. “Alcmene?”
“Desideria?” the woman said, looking from Hara to her mother. “What is this?”
“Angharad has come to find a way out,” said Desideria, moving to the woman’s side to pull her forward.
“Angharad?” said Alcmene in confusion. She studied Hara’s face in wonder. Then her smile faded. “How long have we been trapped in here?”
Hara began to explain. Alcmene was a stout older woman with cropped brown hair and a plain, weather-beaten face, decidedly more stoic and less dreamy than Desideria.
While Hara talked, Gideon glanced around nervously. At any moment, he expected another monster to materialize out of the mirrors, but there was only a restless wind that echoed eerily through the halls. Sometimes he thought he saw a wisp of white flashing across the reflections around them, like a figure in a shift, but when he looked, it would whip out of sight.
He lingered on his reflection in the closest mirror, and as he watched, his mouth began to widen at the corners ever so slightly, though he had not moved a muscle. His pupils grew large, overtaking the whites of his eyes.
With great effort, he tore his gaze from the mirrors and concentrated on Hara’s back. He would go mad if he had to be trapped in this place.
“I’ve shifted tons of sand, I’ve practically dug a mine with how deep I’ve gone, but there is nothing,” Alcmene said. “It just goes on and on, the same sand no matter how deep you go.”
“Is there anything here besides the mirrors and the dunes?” asked Hara.
Alcmene shook her head. “My Sight is weak. The only thing here for me is earth. The mirrors are unbreakable.”
