I looked at Puck, smirking. “I think you offended him, Goodfel ow.”
He snorted. “If I ever worried about that, I'd never open my mouth.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
REFLECTION
The door past the sphinxes opened to another narrow corridor, empty of fire-breathing dragons this time, but no less strange. It stretched away into the darkness, lit only by orange candlelight, f lickering against wall s. The f lames seemed to f loat in the air, ref lecting off the surfaces of hundreds of ful length mirrors lining the corridor on both sides.
Glancing at my own image, I paused, faintly surprised at the stranger in the mirror. The pale, dark-haired ref lection stared back grimly, clothes tattered around the edges, eyes touched with exhaustion. I barely recognized myself, but maybe that was a good thing. After all , that was why I was here; to become something else, someone else. If all went as planned, Ashal ayn'darkmyr Tal yn, third prince of the Unseelie Court, would no longer exist.
What will it be like as a human? I wondered at my ref lection. Will I still be myself? Will I remember everything about my life in the Winter Court, or will all those memories disappear? I shook my head. It was useless to wonder about that now, when we were so close, but stil ….
“Come on, handsome.” Puck put a hand on my shoulder, and I brushed it off. “Quit preening. I think we're almost there.”
As we started down the corridor, wary of traps and pits and ambushes, I thought of Meghan, back in the Iron Kingdom. It would be dreadful y ironic, I mused, if once I earned a soul, I forgot everything about being fey, including all my memories of her. That sort of ending seemed appropriately tragic; the smitten fey creature becomes human but forgets why he wanted to in the first place. Old fairy tales loved that sort of irony.
I won't let that happen, I told myself, clenching my fists. If I have to have Puck tell me everything, even if he has to go through our entire history, I will find a way to make it back to her. I will not become human only to forget it all.
The hal way went on. The f lickering candles cast strange lights in the opposite mirrors, endless rows of f lame, stretching to infinity. From the corner of my eye, I saw my own dark ref lection, walking along beside me. Smirking.
Except, I wasn't.
I stopped and slowly turned toward the mirror, dropping my hand to my sword. In the glass, my reflection did the same…but it wasn't me. It was someone who looked like me, pale and tal , with dark hair and silver eyes. He wore black armor, a tattered cape and a crown of ice rested on his brow. I drew in a slow breath and I recognized him.
It was me, the me I'd seen in the dream, the Ash who gave in to the darkness. Who kill ed Mab, claimed the throne and cut a bloody path through the Nevernever and the other courts. Ash the Winter King.
He was smiling at me, that same cold, empty smirk that showed the madness behind it, but otherwise our movements were the same, identical.
Backing away, I looked to my companions, who had also discovered the new ref lections in the mirrors. Behind me, Ariel a stared in horror at herself, pale and statuesque in an elegant court gown. Her slender hands gripped an icy scepter. But her eyes were empty and cruel, her face without emotion. A circlet glittered on her forehead, not unlike the crown of the Unseelie King. A Queen of Winter, she stared with cold, impassive eyes until Ariel a turned away with a shudder.
“Prince,” Puck murmured, coming up beside me, standing so that he faced my shoulder, his back to the mirror. His voice, though light, was curiously shaken. “Are you seeing what I'm seeing, or is it just me?”
I glanced at Puck in the mirror behind us and had to stif le the urge to shove him away and draw my sword. Puck's head gazed over my shoulder, lips pulled into a vicious grin that was almost animalistic, teeth gleaming in the firelight. His eyes were narrowed gleeful y, but it was the kind of mad glee that sent shivers through you, the type of glee that found humor in drowned kittens and poisoned cattle. This was the prankster whose jokes had turned deadly, who put adders in pil owcases, let wolves in with the sheep and made all light go away at the edge of a cliff. He was shirtless, barefooted and wild looking, the Robin Goodfel ow I'd seen glimpses of when he was truly angry and out for revenge. The Robin Goodfel ow that everyone worried about, because we all knew Puck could turn into this.
“You can see it too, huh?” Puck murmured when I didn't say anything right away. I nodded, once. “Wel , your ref lection isn't too encouraging either, ice-boy. In fact, it's kinda weird seeing us like this, because you look like you really, really want to cut my head off.”
I pushed him away, and our images did the same. “Ignore them,” I said, walking toward Ariel a. “They're only ref lections of what could be. They don't mean anything.”
“Wrong.” Grimalkin appeared, trotting up and sitting down in front of a mirror, curling his tail around his legs. His golden eyes observed me lazily. “It is not what could be, prince. It is what already is. You all have that ref lection inside you. You just choose to suppress it. Take the dog, for example,” he continued as the Wolf came loping back, his ruff standing on end.
Ariel a gasped, shrinking against me, and Puck muttered a curse under his breath.
The Wolf 's ref lection was enormous, fil ing three mirrors side by side, a huge, snarling monster with blazing eyes and foaming jaws. It stared at us hungrily, red tongue lol ing between huge fangs, eyes empty of rational thought.
“A beast,” Grimalkin said calmly as the real Wolf curled a lip at him.
“A beast in its truest, savage nature. With no intel igence, no clear thoughts, no morals, just raw animal instincts and the desire to kill .
That is what your ref lections show you—yourself in your purest form.
Do not dismiss them as having no meaning. You only deceive yourself if you do.” He stood and curled his whiskers at us. “Now, hurry. We have no time to stand around doing nothing. If the mirrors upset you, the logical answer would be not to look at them. Let us go.”
He lashed his tail and trotted off, back down the hal way into the dark.
As he padded away, not bothering to glance back, I noticed that the cait sith's ref lection looked no different from the real Grimalkin.
Somehow, I wasn't surprised.
As we hurried after Grimalkin, I glanced at my ref lection once more and received another shock. It wasn't there anymore, and neither were any of the others. The candles, the f lickering f lames, stil cast their ref lections, stretching away into infinity, but our images were gone.
“Hurry!” came Grimalkin's voice, echoing out of the darkness. “Time is running out.”
We broke into a sprint, footsteps echoing down the narrow corridor, passing hundreds of eerily empty mirrors. I could see the candles f lickering around us, thousands of orange lights ref lected in the glassy wall s. But other than the lights and the opposite wall s, the mirrors showed nothing else. It was like we weren't even there.
We came to a crossing, where another hal way stretched away in opposite directions, vanishing into the black. In the middle sat Grimalkin, calmly washing a front paw. He blinked as we stopped, gazing up with a bemused expression on his face.
“Yes?”
“What do you mean, yes?” Puck said. “Did your feline brain finally snap? You said to hurry, and now you're just sitting here. What's the deal?”
“The exit is farther down.” Grimalkin yawned, curled his tail around his legs, and smiled at us. “But I doubt you will ever reach it. I find it amusing that you can speak so freely of intel igence, when you cannot tel the difference between what is real and what is not.”
“What?” Puck looked startled, but the Wolf suddenly let out a snarl that raised the hair on the back of my neck. I drew my sword and looked up, searching for hidden attackers.
Robin Goodfel ow smiled at me from the mirror's reflection, arms crossed to his chest, a demonic grin on his face. I spared a quick glance at Puck, and saw him backing away, pul ing his daggers, different actions from his image on the wall . His ref lection waved cheerfully……and stepped out of the mirror.
“Where do you think you're going?” Goodfel ow smiled, drawing his own weapons as he faced the real Puck. “The party's just getting started.”
Movement rippled behind me. I spun, throwing myself to the side as the monstrous head of the other Wolf exploded from the frame and lunged at me. I felt its hot breath and heard the snap of its massive jaws inches from my head. Backing away, I drew my sword as it slid out of the mirror and into the hal , a monstrous creature with burning green eyes, drool hanging in ribbons from its teeth. It howled, making the mirrors tremble, and crouched to spring at me, and that's when the real Wolf hit it from behind.
I leaped aside as the two giant wolves careened past, ripping and tearing at each other, vanishing down the side hal way. The smel of blood fil ed the air, the roars and snarls adding to the din of chaos. I turned to see Puck locked in battle with his twin and a second Robin Goodfel ow stepping out of the mirror behind him, raising his blade.
An arrow streaked through the air, striking the second false Puck in the chest, causing him to explode in a swirl of leaves. Ariel a, grim-faced and determined, raised her bow again, but a tal , pale figure slid out of the mirror beside her. I shouted and lunged forward, but the false Ariel a raised her scepter and struck her twin in the back of the head. Ariel a crumpled to the f loor, dazed, and the false Ariel a loomed over her with a vicious smile.
Roaring, I f lew at the false Ariel a, but the Ice Queen raised dead, cold eyes to me and slipped back into the mirror. I swung at her retreating form, and my blade struck the surface of the glass, shattering it.
Shards f lew from the force of the blow, glinting in the light, and the entire surface col apsed in a ringing cacophony, scattering pieces over the f loor.
“My love.” The false Ariel a appeared in another frame, empty gaze boring into me. I slashed at her, shattering another mirror, but she slipped into the one beside it, her eyes beseeching mine. “Why?” she murmured, fading back, appearing in a frame on the opposite wall .
“Why was I not enough? Why could I not keep you from giving in to despair?” She slid away, vanishing from sight, and I turned warily, waiting for her to appear again. “I loved you,” her voice whispered, giving no indication of where she was. “I would have given everything for you. But you couldn't stop thinking of her. A human! You let a human replace me.” She finally appeared again, her face twisted into a mask of bitter hate, her eyes blazing with jealously. “So now you can die for her!”
Too late, I realized where she was looking and spun, bringing up my sword. Not fast enough. The point of a blade bit my shoulder as the other Ash stepped from the mirror behind me, slamming me against the wall .
I gritted my teeth as fire bloomed through my shoulder, nearly making me drop my sword. The other Ash smiled as he pushed the blade in farther, pinning me to the wall . Focusing through the pain, I switched my weapon to my other hand and stabbed at his chest, but he yanked his sword free and parried as if he'd been expecting it.
We circled each other, movements identical, almost as if I was looking through a mirror again. Other Ash smiled and lunged, a familiar attack I'd done thousands of times. I spun away and slashed at his head, but he was ducking almost before I had moved. We surged forward and met in the center of the hal , blue sparks f lying as we cut and blocked and parried, the din of swords ringing down the corridor.