“Let’s go! Show us something new!”
Mirror-Alice held tight to Alice as they hurtled through the darkness, shattered mirror fragments spinning all around them. Alice wanted to shut her eyes, but the things she saw when her eyes were closed were even more horrible than when they were open. She wanted to cry out, but the wind stole away her voice. She wanted to shiver in the frosted-glass grip of her reflection, but she was held too tightly to even do that.
And then they crashed through glass and tumbled over each other into a new strangeness. Alice did cry out, now, as she was scraped over sharp rocks, her sleeves tearing, wounds opening, blood painting the dark walls.
When they came to a stop, her reflection barely upright, barely in control, both of them gasping for breath, they looked up at the same time, both their eyes drawn to…
Light. The only light in this place was a thin line high above them, like a crevasse that had opened up in a dark sky, revealing daylight within it.
“What… is this…?” mirror-Alice asked, looking around the rocky landscape they were in. It was so close, so narrow, so deep, it was hard to understand.
But then Alice gasped. She understood it, in a sudden, shocking moment of realization. And she fought all the harder against her reflection’s grasp, to no avail.
“Ah, so we finally find something you know,” mirror-Alice said, grinning. She looked around, and as she did so, Alice could feel the mirror’s will probing the depths of her mind, searching for the answer it so craved.
And found it.
“This… is a Fracture,” mirror-Alice said, gazing up at the fissure of light in the sky. “They’re so hard to find. And if you fall into them, you never come out. You’re swallowed by the blackness. This rocky space within…” She looked around in awe. “How did you come to be here? This isn’t some conjuring of your imagination. It’s memory. But how? What mysteries lie at the core of that child’s heart your bear?”
Alice just screamed, wordless panic erupting from her. She couldn’t be here, it was all wrong, it was all the worst, it was —
“The worst?” asked a voice. But it wasn’t mirror-Alice.
Alice turned, her heart pounding in her chest. The Fracture was gone. They were back in the endless emptiness of the mirror, and there, smiling at Alice and her reflection, was…
A girl. A girl with long blonde curls, bright blue eyes, a curious voice, in a dress and stockings and bolero jacket. The spitting image of Alice, only…
“You can’t…” Alice said in a taut whisper.
The girl held up a finger to her lips. “Impossible things happen every day,” she said. She giggled, and vanished.
“Who was that, pray tell?” mirror-Alice asked, eyeing Alice closely. Alice could feel the mirror’s will in her mind, and shook her head vigorously.
“No!” Alice cried.
Glass shattered, and Alice screamed, and the ground gave way beneath their feet. They were falling, tumbling, through the hidden, scattered depths of Alice’s mind.
And in the midst of it, Alice heard Sheena gasping for breath, felt the suffocating waters closing in around her. She heard Guinevere crying out for an end to the new nightmare the mirror had pulled her into, felt the terror clutching her heart, a terror so similar to Alice’s own. She heard Tobias struggling against his reflection, felt the intense battle in his heart as he fought to keep the secrets of his past from the mirror, the same fight that Alice was trying to wage herself.
I’ve kept hearing them… feeling their fears, their pains, from a distance…
We’re all in here… all together…
If I could just reach them… just find some help… I could…
“Ah-ah-ah,” mirror-Alice chided, her frozen fingers digging deeper into Alice’s skin. “You can’t go expecting others to help you. They have struggles of their own. You may hear them, but that doesn’t change the truth. You’re just a small, frightened child, all alone…”
Mirror-Alice laughed, and the darkness closed in.
——
Back, back into the past Tobias tumbled. But each new memory, each reflection of his past, shattered swiftly, before it could fully take shape.
“Stop fighting!” his reflection said, gripping him tighter. “The truth always comes out, Tobias. Why hide who you are?”
“You know who I am!” Tobias said, struggling in vain against mirror-Tobias’ grip. “A Knight Jouerve, protecting Alice, trying to reach Elysia. What use is my past to you?”
“The past defines the present,” mirror-Tobias said, lips curling in a knowing sneer. “Something you know better than most. We can feel it, Tobias. Who you are is a direct reaction to who you were. You’ve intentionally hidden where you came from, what life you lived, what kind of boy you were. The only way to truly understand you is to understand your past.”
Tobias felt his concentration slip, and in that tiny moment of weakness, he and his reflection landed in the next memory, rather than shattering it.
Tobias was standing beside a lake, the same lake he’d momentarily been plunged into within the mirror. Here on its shore, the forested mountains were more visible, the placid waters stunning in the golden sunset.
There, in the center of the lake, several ripples were flowing outward from some impact. The Tobias of the past — a Tobias from eight years ago, just seventeen years old — stood on that shore, watching those ripples. But he didn’t stand there alone. Beside him was Flynn, and with them were a red-haired boy about his age, more than half a foot taller than him, with a thin, lithe build, and another dog, Wonderian chiba like Flynn but larger, stockier, with a somewhat messy coat of deep blue fur.
“You’re sure about this?” the redhead asked in a warm, gentle voice.
The Tobias of the past nodded, resolute. He opened his mouth to speak —
“That’s enough,” Tobias said, wrenching hard at his reflection’s grip. Past-Tobias’ voice came out garbled, unintelligible, as Tobias and his reflection fell out of that memory and back into the darkness of the mirror…
But only for a brief moment. They soon landed in a new memory.
“You can’t fight this,” mirror-Tobias said, looking around, eyes wide and bright with curiosity and hope. “Just let the truth come out. Show us who you are, Tobias. What do you have to fear from the past?”
“I don’t fear the past,” Tobias said, and then shuddered. Because he hadn’t said that alone.
The Tobias of the past in this memory, from six years ago, said the exact same words.
“I understand that,” said his red-haired friend. The pair of them were standing at that same lakeshore, a little older, their dogs a bit farther down the shore, running and playing with each other. Past-Tobias had in his hand his obsidian sword, and was gazing along the blade’s length. “I’m not saying you’re afraid,” his friend continued. “It’s just that this life you’ve chosen… this sword you’ve chosen… I don’t believe it’s the right way to go.”
Tobias struggled against his reflection’s grip, but it wouldn’t be so easy to break away from this memory as the last. There was something wavering inside him, icy fingers reaching inside of him, slowly pulling apart the tightly-woven strands of his resistance.
“You agreed this is what we should do when we started,” Past-Tobias said. He sheathed his sword in one swift motion and looked up at his friend, a steely challenge in his eyes.
“I understood,” the redhead said, returning that steely gaze with a warm, gentle smile. “And I knew we had to make a choice quickly, and if that was what you needed in the short-term, I could go along with it. But continuing on like this for so long —”
“We’re still too far from stopping them,” Past-Tobias said. “We haven’t found who’s really behind this. As long as they’re free to do as they please, she remains in danger.”
“You’ve heard more than enough!” Tobias said. With a desperate force of will, he pushed, rather than pulled, at his reflection. They fell together into the lake, sinking rapidly into the depths. Tobias struggled to breathe, not having taken a breath before plunging into the water, not thinking it held any danger for him after his past experience underwater in the mirror.
His reflection didn’t have the same troubles. “That’s right, Tobias,” he said, smiling. “This memory is no good to us, after all. It’s too recent. It all comes back to that fateful day, when your parents were murdered by a boy you thought was your friend, to who you were before that, leading up to it, and how you responded immediately after. Come! Farther into the past!”
They burst out from the bottom of the lake, water exploding all around them in a wild mist of glittering droplets. They fought, for a moment, but Tobias’ sudden advantage was swiftly washed away by mirror-Tobias’ icy chill. They fell into the past once more, Tobias slammed back against a wall, mirror-Tobias holding him firmly against it, a triumphant gleam in his eyes.
Sunlight shone beautifully over this memory. A boy’s laugh rang out across the courtyard, but when Tobias and mirror-Tobias looked, there was no boy.
There was, however, a dog. A puppy, young and small and joyfully rambunctious, gamboling across the grass, pouncing at every flower, leaping up at every fluttering butterfly.
“Flynn,” Tobias gasped, blinking at sudden tears at the sight of his faithful friend as a puppy.
“This is the day you met,” mirror-Tobias said, breathless with anticipation. “So where are you? Surely he’s running to you, isn’t he?”
The boy’s laughter rang out again, joyous and free. Mirror-Tobias pulled Tobias away from the wall so that he could turn in a full circle, surveying the scene. The boy’s voice called out, “Flynn!”
And puppy-Flynn went darting to the center of the courtyard, and, tail wagging, popped up to place his front paws against…
Nothing.
There was nothing there, no one there. But Flynn had his paws up against something, like there was an invisible boy crouching down to pet him.
“What is this farce?” mirror-Tobias asked. He turned an icy glare on Tobias. “How are you hiding him from the memory? What would be the point?”
Tobias said nothing, just stared, enjoying this small moment of reminiscence, this small gift of a beautiful memory made real — and grateful for whatever miracle it was that hid the details of himself from the mirror.
“You didn’t do this,” mirror-Tobias murmured. “Then how… ah. You’ve run so far from your past, walled so much of it off, that if we go back too far, the details will be invisible. It seems there’s so much more to discover. So much more to —”
“There you are,” said a voice. Another boy’s voice. A voice that was happy, and friendly…
And turned Tobias’ blood to ice.
Into the courtyard strode an auburn-haired boy, about twelve years old. He was a few years younger than the boy they’d seen before, but mirror-Tobias knew him instantly, and Tobias himself could never forget him.
He was the very same boy they’d seen in a previous memory — the boy who had killed Tobias’ parents with his own hands.
“Seems you’ve made a new best friend,” the boy said, kneeling down by Flynn, but looking instead at where Tobias must be, invisible though he was to the mirror-bound observers. The boy pouted slightly, but there was a playfulness to it.
“I can have more than one best friend,” said Tobias’ voice, Tobias as a twelve year-old. Tobias could hear the smile in that voice, could hear the laughter that came so easily.
“He was your friend,” mirror-Tobias murmured, grinning gleefully. He spun, taking Tobias with him like a dancer and his partner, and they left the memory-courtyard for the depths of the mirror once more. Mirror-Tobias gazed at Tobias, his attention entirely on him. “The boy who killed your parents was one of your best friends! The betrayal that scarred you so deeply, that changed everything for you… to think we’d get to the heart of it so soon. But what happened? How did things go so wrong?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Tobias said, but he couldn’t muster the fire in his voice he wanted. He was crushed by a weight of sorrow, dredged up by the mirror’s wicked manipulations.
“You want to know why he did what he did, too,” mirror-Tobias crooned, far too excited about this fact. “So your exile, your lonely journey for so many years… it’s all been to find him again, has it?”
“That’s right,” Tobias said, heaving a sigh.
There was a pause, and then his reflection leaned in, a manic, mirthful gleam in his eyes. “Nice try, Tobias,” he said. “Quite clever — but not clever enough! We see your heart, and we know, though you try to hide it, the many layers behind your quest. You do hope to find him again. But it’s not even among your three highest priorities. So, then — what, pray tell, are those highest priorities?” Before Tobias could respond, mirror-Tobias cocked his head to the side, smiling as if he'd seen something new and wonderful. “But of course — you travel to Elysia. Then there’s really only one question we need the answer to, one answer that tells all about you: what is your wish?”
——
“An astute question, that,” mirror-Alice said. She landed lightly on an empty mirror shard. Alice could hear the others more clearly than ever now, here in the darkness of the mirror, outside of any memory or imagining. “What is your wish, hmm, Alice? You’re journeying to Elysia, too, after all. All of you are — how serendipitous that you should cross paths in the Queen of Hearts’ domain. And I can see that you’ve been the most eager to share of your merry little band, always so grumpy at the others for being closed-off. So share, then. What is your wish?”
“To be through with this place,” Alice said. But the fire she wanted had no spark to feed off of, and never lit. Her strength was waning, her will slipping away from her.
“Well, you’ll tell us in time,” mirror-Alice said, smirking. “Come on, then. There’s an equally important question, one that we’re dying to know the answer to. Who are you, Alice? Who is Alice? Because we see all these pieces —” She shoved Alice, and the two flipped upside down, through the mirror shard to stand upright in a new memory — one Alice didn’t recognize. “But we can’t form a picture out of them. Won’t you help us?”
Here they now stood, together at the top of a tree — or rather the bottom — or was it the top? It was hard to define, since the massive tree, with branches thick enough to serve as walkways, was upside down, its roots digging deep in an earthen sky. And down below them, through gaps in the branches, was a whole upside-down forest, and farther below all of that, a vast lake, with giant birds plunging into its depths and flapping back up again, scooping sea monsters into their massive beaks.
“Well, this must be Wonderia,” mirror-Alice said, “But we certainly have no knowledge of a place like this. Nor birds like those. Yet this place lives in your memory. What is this? Where does it come from, and how is it a part of you?”
“If I knew, I might actually tell you,” Alice said, swaying on her feet. She was so tired, so heavy. It was getting hard to concentrate.
“You just might,” mirror-Alice said, grinning. “Don’t worry, Alice. We’ll let you rest. Come on. Let’s get out of all these confusing, stressful memories, shall we?” She took just one step, and Alice stepped with her, out of the memory, back into the dark emptiness of the mirror.
——
Guinevere’s heart seized with fear as she gazed up at the shadowy man upon the towering black throne. “No,” she said in a small voice, trying in vain to pull away from her reflection. “No, this… stop this. Stop this!”
“Well now, this is interesting,” mirror-Guinevere said, holding Guinevere fast and gazing up at the shadow on the throne. “Where does this come from, hmm? What memory is this?”
“Stop it!” Guinevere cried, tears filling her eyes. She fought with frantic abandon against her reflection’s grip until her wrists started to bleed, and even then she kept on struggling, oblivious to the pain. The shadow stirred, and Guinevere screamed, desperate to block out what he would say next, the words that always tore her apart.
But —
“A moment, Mirror,” came the hateful voice of Saoirse. The reflected memory shifted, and a moment later Guinevere and her reflection weren’t standing in it, but looking towards it, embedded on a pane of glass like a tapestry, a single image frozen in time. Saoirse appeared beside them, flickering and ghostly like she was made out of fire. She puzzled over the memory, and then turned to look at Guinevere.
Guinevere sniffed, fighting back all the tears, all the terror. She couldn’t believe she’d lost control of herself so quickly, so completely, in the presence of her enemies.
“You don’t have to pretend to be brave,” Saoirse said, her voice surprisingly gentle. “It’s terrifying, isn’t it? And you can’t explain why, but…” She looked back at the pane of glass. “It’s like… it cuts down to the core of who you are, and shatters everything you knew about yourself. Until you don’t know who you are, or who you want to be. You’re… unmade.” She shuddered, her fiery form wavering. Then she looked back at Guinevere, studying her with a furrowed brow. “But how?” she asked. “How can you have the same dream…?”
“What…?” Guinevere asked, blinking away tears she couldn’t wipe away, since her hands were held captive. “You… you’ve dreamt this same nightmare?”
“Over and over again,” Saoirse said. She paused, thinking, then looked at Guinevere’s reflection. “Don’t show her this, Mirror. Don’t touch any of it. She’ll shatter completely, and we’ll gain nothing.” She turned away, and her fiery form swirled, spiraled, and then vanished into the darkness.
“So, we finally find what unmakes you, and it’s too much to confront,” mirror-Guinevere said, sighing. “Well. That’s a disappointment. But you did this to yourself, you know. Now, then — don’t be too quick to dry those tears. We can’t go to your nightmares, but I’m sure you have memories that can reveal just where this paralyzing fear comes from, don’t you?”
“Just stop it,” Guinevere said, but she couldn’t muster any fire, any courage. Mirror-Guinevere gave her the smallest tug, and Guinevere followed her like a kite on a string in the calmest breeze. They stepped through glass, and Guinevere shuddered at the cold, emerging onto…
The pages of a book. They stood upon the book, a book larger than a house. Spread across the pages was an illustration, a beautiful painting of a golden land with a great shining beacon blooming from its core…
“This is it,” murmured a voice. Guinevere and her reflection looked up and gasped. High over them, bigger than a castle, was fifteen year-old Guinevere, and beside her, Ava as a puppy, but just as astonishingly gigantic as Guinevere. They were gazing down at the book excitedly, hopefully. Past-Guinevere stroked Ava’s ears, and the pup leaned into her hand happily. “This is how we make everything right.”
“Elysia, hmm?” mirror-Guinevere asked, looking down at the illustration. “An awfully quaint artistic depiction, don’t you think? So simplistic. Grandiosity without nuance. But this is a perfect place to come to. Just months after the funeral for Artorius and his parents, you found this part in your book, and it made you feel like everything had hope again. So what is your wish, promise-princess? To bring your beloved back to life?”
“Shut up!” Guinevere snapped. “He’s not my ‘beloved.’ And he isn’t dead!”
“But it all comes back to him, doesn’t it?” her reflection asked, grinning. “He’s everything to you, isn’t he? If you’re convinced he’s alive, then… oh, but you don’t wish to be reunited with him. Intriguing. Then what is your wish? What could reveal all that you are, all that you desire?”
“More than you could understand,” Guinevere said. She yanked at her reflection’s grip, eager to burst free of this memory, but when they did and crashed into a new one…
“Stop!” Guinevere shouted, pulling hard, but she couldn’t change their course now. They landed in Guinevere’s room, just days after the news arrived that the Promised King had been murdered, along with his parents, bodyguards, and all others who had been in the secret Wonderian compound with him. Only one man had survived, a knight who had simply had the fortune of being on his way back to the compound from Ars Moran when the attack was launched, arriving only after it was all over to find the remnants of the horrific tragedy — along with a manifesto from some unnamed organization that rambled about the virtue of breaking the Promise and other such nonsense.
Here, fifteen year-old Guinevere was slamming her fists against the locked door of her room, while Ava could just barely be seen from under Guinevere’s bed, ears drooping, whining softly.
“Let me out!” past-Guinevere yelled, pounding on the door. “You can’t do this to me! I’m your daughter! I’m your Queen!”
“You are in danger, Guinevere, darling,” her mother said from outside the door. “This isn’t about power or pride. It’s about your protection. Don’t you see? If Artorius could be killed when surrounded by knights —”
“He’s not dead!” past-Guinevere screamed. “There was no body, and he couldn’t die, he wouldn’t leave me behind, I would have felt it, and I haven’t! He’s alive, and he’s out there, and you can’t lock me up while he’s still in danger!”
“It seems I must protect you even from yourself,” her mother said with an overly dramatized sigh. “In time, you’ll understand this is all for your good, Guinevere, darling.”
Her footsteps receded down the hall, while past-Guinevere pounded in vain on her door, screaming and crying, completely betrayed by her parents, her knights, even by Artorius, her dearest friend.
“He left you alone,” mirror-Guinevere said, “and your whole world shrank into a tiny cage. You have a bit of anger towards him, don’t you? A bit of animosity, hmm?”
“It’s important to know one’s alone,” Guinevere said, not giving into tears and screams like she had ten years ago. This mirror-prison was one she would not be trapped in for very long. “Then you can focus on self-reliance, rather than putting your faith and trust in others who will only turn on you when it’s convenient for them.”
“Now, that’s not entirely true, is it?” mirror-Guinevere asked. She turned Guinevere around, holding her arms pinned to her sides from behind. “There’s at least one person you still trust and rely on, isn’t there?”
Guinevere gasped. There was Rosalie at her desk, poring over reports about the nocturne she’d mentioned the last time they’d seen each other, the one she couldn’t leave her lieutenants to face alone.
She was tired. She reached for a mug, found it empty, and sighed, then yawned, as she placed the mug back on her desk and fixed bleary eyes back on the reports.
And then, out of the shadows behind her… emerged a cloaked figured with a pair of daggers in his hands. Guinevere cried out, but her voice was stolen away. Rosalie didn’t look up, didn’t even know she was there.
And then the assailant had his daggers to Rosalie’s throat. “Tell me where the Promised Queen has gone, and I’ll spare your life,” he said in a cold, dark voice.
“This isn’t real!” Guinevere cried, her voice breaking through whatever had stolen it away. “It can’t be! You can’t show things you can’t see, and you’re not… it’s not…”
But she wavered, and stared in a dread panic, as the image lay poised, frozen on the precipice. In her heart, Guinevere didn’t know which would be worse — Rosalie to refuse to betray her, and die before her eyes? Or Rosalie to value her own life over Guinevere’s, and tell her everything she knew to save her own skin?
“Betrayal, or tragedy?” mirror-Guinevere murmured in that loathsome facsimile of Guinevere’s own voice. “Which one cuts deepest, hmm? Shall we find out together, then?”
“No,” Guinevere said. But she couldn’t fight. She hadn’t the strength, not anymore. She struggled a moment in her reflection’s grip, but an icy chill was washing over her, lulling her into a sleepy surrender…
——
“It’s all better this way, isn’t it?” mirror-Alice asked. The same icy chill that was causing Guinevere to contemplate surrender was also washing over Alice, and it was so hard to fight against. Here in the darkness of the mirror, it would be so easy to just lie down and sleep…
But no! She couldn’t close her eyes, because everything was worse with them closed. But she couldn’t keep going through this, dragged through the labyrinth of her mind, a mind she didn’t even understand, even though it was her own, and facing sudden fears that should never have resurfaced, fears she’d thought gone for good.
“It doesn’t have to keep going on and on,” mirror-Alice said. She cradled Alice now — when had she stopped standing? Alice hadn’t felt her legs give out underneath her. Her reflection must have scooped her up at the perfect moment, laying her down so gently… she really was much more kind than she’d seemed at first…
“Wait,” Alice said, shaking her head slowly, too slowly. It was hard to move. “This isn’t right. This isn’t…” She shook her head again, with a bit more vigor, and managed to sit up. “I can’t stay here. I can’t! I have… to go to Elysia.”
“Yes, you do,” mirror-Alice said. She stroked Alice’s hair, and Alice felt herself fading, drifting back down. It was too much effort to sit up, too much effort to fight all of this. “You have to go there to make a wish. Now, do you remember what that wish is, Alice? Can you tell me?”
“No,” Alice said. That was one thing she held tight to. She knew the value of a wish. She couldn’t dare give it up to this evil mirror.
“Tut-tut,” mirror-Alice said, frowning. “It’s all right. That won’t be your final answer. We have all the time in the world…”
——
Sheena was drowning. Deep in the river, thick with blood, trapped in an illusion born of her greatest fears… she was trapped. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. No escape.
“That’s right,” whispered her own voice, from that wicked reflection of herself. “Give up. Give in. Let it all go.”
And Sheena heard the voices of her closest comrades and friends, saw their eyes glaring at her with hurt and anger. “Traitor,” they said, over and over. “It’s all your fault.”
It should have ended her. But instead, something awoke within her.
Because in the midst of all of that, she saw a different face. One amongst the crowds, a young man, with violet eyes, was smiling at her.
“I’m waiting for you,” he said, his voice clear and beautiful amongst the cacophonous crowds. “I trust you, with all my heart.”
Sheena gasped, and she was gulping in air, not water. Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself lying on the bank of the river, gazing up at the blue, cloud-strewn sky above Taiyoushi — a Taiyoushi that wasn’t burning, wasn’t crumbling, wasn’t gone. There were thousands of people in the streets and fields, laughing and smiling, playing and traveling. The golden statue of the Dragon Devas stood tall and resplendent in the midday sun.
Mirror-Sheena pulled Sheena to her feet. But despite the return to reality, rather than the illusion born of Sheena’s fears, mirror-Sheena didn’t seem at all perturbed by her failure. “That man,” she said, smiling at Sheena. “Your… brother?”
Sheena gazed levelly back at her wicked reflection. “Yes,” she said. Why hide it? If the mirror had seen that far, then it would surely find the deeper truth about him.
And I… don’t have to be afraid.
I will save him.
“Save him?” mirror-Sheena asked, malicious glee surging at this new discovery. “From what, pray tell?”
Go ahead. See the truth. I won’t fear it. It won’t break me.
Sheena and her reflection were flung into the past. Ten years ago, in their family’s manor in Taiyoushi, when her brother, one year older than her and on the cusp of his coming-of-age ceremony, came to her late at night, waking her up in a panic. The conversation was in Kisetsugo, Sheena’s native tongue, but it was clear the mirror understood it just as well as Sheena.
“What is it?” past-Sheena asked, rubbing bleary eyes.
“I had a…” her brother started, then faltered, looking away. Sheena knew that look in his eyes — mingled with this startling fear was embarrassment.
“Everyone has nightmares,” Sheena said. She sat up on her futon, now wide awake. “What was it about?”
Her brother sat across from her, staring at the floor. “I was… wearing a mask,” he said. “A mask I couldn’t remove, no matter how hard I tried. But I had to get it off, because the mask, it was… it was changing me.” His voice cracked, and he swallowed. “It was like another me, a different me, was fighting to take over who I really am. I was… I was being unmade.”
Sheena took her brother’s hand in hers. “You are who you are,” she said. Her brother looked up, his violet eyes doing frantic little darting motions, unsure where to focus. The panic of the nightmare remained. “You are about to change, moving from childhood to adulthood. But you’ll still be you. So don’t be afraid. Mother, father, and I are with you the whole way. The entire city is here to support you.”
Her brother gave her hand a soft squeeze, a sign of his gratitude.
The memory morphed, the glass shifting, revealing a later memory: her brother’s coming of age ceremony. There he stood upon a great stage on the grounds of their family’s estate, in front of very nearly the entire city of Taiyoushi. He stood tall and composed, dressed in the white-and-gold ceremonial kimono, waving at the cheering crowds with a serene smile on his face. Past-Sheena stood with their mother and father, to the back of the stage, smiling at him.
But that was all they saw of the coming-of-age ceremony. The glass shifted again, to a new memory, five years later. Past-Sheena, now twenty-one, spent much of her time in the huge complex that housed and trained Sword Dancers, and from where they were dispatched on missions. But here she was, coming home. Not on a joyful or casual visit, no. Her usual Sword Dancer attire was traded out for black kimono, and in her hands she carried a bouquet of kuroyuri flowers, or “midnight lilies” — the traditional bouquet of mourning in Haruo.
It was the day of her mother’s funeral. She, a Sword Dancer like Sheena, had died on a mission of the highest secrecy — died when the mission went wrong, sacrificing herself so her squadmates could escape. She would receive a hero’s funeral, but no matter the posthumous honors she would receive or the way all who had fought with her would praise her bravery and sense of duty…
Sheena had lost her mother. A world that had been so bright, so full of hope and promise just days earlier, had suddenly gone dark. Everything had changed, and she had no idea how to process it, or if she ever would.
But the memory skipped past so much of the funeral. Because the focus was on later, after all the officials and dignitaries and throngs of guests had gone, when her father, exhausted, had retired early for the night, when it was just Sheena and her brother.
Her brother, who was more lost, more broken, by far than Sheena. There was a gaunt hollowness to the face that had been so full and lively five years ago, a vacant horror in his eyes, a jumpiness at all sorts of things. He’d lost so much weight, hiding it as best he could under numerous layers — but Sheena couldn’t fail to notice. She’d been noticing this steady diminishing over the past several years, so she knew this wasn’t just about their mother’s death.
“I’m here,” Sheena said, taking her brother’s hand as they sat on the veranda, a soft breeze making the lotus flowers sway in the pond.
A long silence stretched between the siblings. Her brother’s hand was frail and cool in her grasp, not reciprocating her touch.
“It doesn’t stop,” he finally murmured, in such a wispy, faint voice it broke Sheena’s heart.
“What doesn’t?” she asked.
“The nightmares.” Her brother shivered, and his hand twitched, as if he almost grasped her hand tightly, and then decided against it.
The reflection shifted, and it was clear Sheena was trying to comfort her brother, trying to find a way to reach him even as she ached for comfort, too, in the wake of the loss of her mother. But whatever conversation passed between them…
It bore no fruit.
There was a flickering of moments, images from the next several years. Sheena spent more time at home, more time with her brother, trying to understand him, to reach the emptiness inside of him and fill him once again with light.
But it was not to be.
Glass shattered, over and over again. A million memories, a million moments, all crumbling to dust, until Sheena and her reflection were left standing on a beach of glassy sand, gazing upon Taiyoushi’s Academy for Political Arts, where her brother was being educated and instructed to take his father’s place when the time was right as the heir to the family and the next Lord of Taiyoushi.
But that all came crashing down. For the Academy was rent in two, a great yawning chasm opening up in the center of it, swallowing up half the Academy — including every instructor, student, and administrator who had been in those parts at the time. That great chasm fed only into a bottomless darkness, a terrifying emptiness that echoed the Fracturing that had so radically transformed the world ages ago.
Only one being survived that sudden wound to the world — the one at the epicenter. The one who had created it.
Sheena’s brother.
But he was transformed, mutated, into a horrifying, grotesque monstrosity beyond the cruelest, most terrible nightmare anyone could imagine. He was only recognizable as Sheena’s brother by his violet eyes which now burned with an all-encompassing rage, and a single ring that was now cutting into his monstrously enlarged index finger, fusing with the skin. A ring with a carved diamond upon it in the shape of a crescent moon around a lotus flower. Their family crest.
It was all a blur from there, for the details of what followed mattered little for this reminiscence — her brother, violently transformed, fled from Taiyoushi, from Haruo entirely. Sheena was part of numerous meetings that combined all of the various investigative and combative agencies of Haruo — meetings that she found herself standing alone in, the sole voice of dissent against the unifying, clamorous call.
Her brother must die.
That was what they all agreed on. All except Sheena. Vilified even by her closest friends for insisting on curing her brother rather than killing him, on rescuing him from what he had become rather than giving up on him, she left all of them and sought out doctors, healers of all sorts of magical methods, and researched any clues she could on her brother’s condition.
In the end, she found only one man who was willing to help her — an elderly physician, who had also been a close friend of the family and had tutored Sheena in the sciences when she’d been a child. He had been the one to tell her the painful truth, laced with one distant, tiny star of hope:
“There is no magic or medicine that can cure your brother. What he needs now is a miracle. In other words… a wish.”
“I see,” mirror-Sheena said, grinning as she pulled Sheena out of the memories and back into the darkness of the mirror. “That’s your wish. To cure your brother.”
“Yes,” Sheena said, staring straight back at her reflection, undaunted by her cruel grin, the cold malice in her eyes, the festering desire to use this new knowledge to try and break Sheena’s will.
“What’s in a wish?” mirror-Sheena asked. “You love your brother, yes. But this is your deepest desire, above all other desires. No, more than that — it encompasses all of your desires. Yes, you believe this wish will accomplish all that you hope for. It will complete you.”
“Nothing can complete me,” Sheena said. “But it will accomplish all that matters to me in this life.”
“That one wish will do so much…” mirror-Sheena said. “Yes, I see.” She wheeled Sheena around, and suddenly she was gone. Sheena gasped. The absence of her reflection’s icy grip, to be replaced by the warm sunlight of Taiyoushi, to be surrounded by endless crowds all cheering and smiling, was too sudden a change to grasp all at once.
But then she saw that the people were not cheering for her, no. Not that she wanted them to. As she looked down the lane they formed, her heart skipped a beat.
The object of their affection was her brother. Her brother, healed, restored, made whole once more, the light returned to his eyes, the life and vigor returned to his face and body. He was smiling.
And she realized this wasn’t just a welcoming home, no. This celebration was marked by a garland of lotus flowers upon her brother’s head, and a golden pendant with the family’s crest hanging from his neck, dazzling against his chest in the bright sunlight.
It was a ceremony of succession. Her brother wasn’t just cured, wasn’t just returned to Taiyoushi, but was being celebrated as being worthy of governing this great city in the future, of carrying on his family’s bright legacy.
“Brother…” Sheena murmured, reaching out her hand to him. He saw her, and raced to her, and took her hand in his, in a strong, healthy, warm grip.
And all was right. All was bright. All was as she’d ever hoped it could be.
A tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered a warning. But what warning could there be here? What warning —
This isn’t real.
Sheena gasped. She tried to pull away from her brother, but he held her tight.
“Stop,” she said, shaking her head. “This isn’t real!”
“Must it be real?” her brother asked, his warm, rich voice flowing over her. “You’re the one who told me that dreams are more real than they seem. Nightmares brought us to ruin. Now, let dreams bring all back to right. It doesn’t need to be real to be all you desire.”
“No…” Sheena said, but her voice faltered. Her will faltered.
The bright sunlight, the joy of the crowds, the warmth of her brother, swept her away into a beautiful dream.
——
“You wish you could join that dream, don’t you?” mirror-Alice asked. “So bright, so lovely. A family reunited! A city cheering for them! How wonderful.”
Alice lay dazed in the dark, dazzled by the light in Sheena’s heart, the light that threatened to overtake her in the mirror’s fantasy. She was so tired, and that glimpse of beauty beyond her dark prison didn’t give the hope she might expect. It only made her situation seem more inescapable.
“That’s right,” her reflection purred, stroking Alice’s hair. “Why pine for a light that will never be yours? Why recall who you used to be, what you used to care for? What use is a wish, after all? Although…” Mirror-Alice leaned in a little closer, her big blue eyes captivating. “Yes, that’s it. Maybe the best way for you to finally abandon your wish is to tell us what it is. Give it away, let us carry the burden for you. Don’t be weighed down by those hopes and dreams. What have they ever done for you?”
“Led me… here,” Alice said. It was difficult — she felt so heavy, so tired. She shivered, at the memory of all the pain the mirror had dragged her through.
“That’s right,” mirror-Alice crooned. “So tell us, won’t you? Who is Alice? What is her wish?”
Who… is Alice? Who am… I?
I don’t… or maybe I’ve never really known. These pieces in my mind, these fragments in my heart… where have they come from? How can I hold memories I don’t remember? How can I know places that I don’t know? Am I even…
…real…?
“Don’t fall asleep just yet, Alice,” her reflection said, touching Alice’s face lightly with those frosted-glass fingers, startling a sliver of wakefulness out of her. “It’s almost over. Just answer the most important question, and we’re done. You can finally rest.”
I… don’t want to close my eyes. I don’t want to sleep, I don’t want to… to see…
“Yes, her,” mirror-Alice murmured. “If you can’t tell us about you, tell us about her. The other-Alice, or some such? Why does she frighten you so?”
“I…” Alice started.
Stop. This isn’t… this isn’t what I want to talk about. This isn’t where I want to be. I… I had a reason for all of this. And I had… I had a…
Alice gazed up, past mirror-Alice, to distant fragments wheeling overhead. He felt as if it was from each of them that she could hear her companions, that she could feel the pain and battle in their hearts, that she could…
…see them…?
Alice was stunned. She could see the others! But how? The mirror kept them isolated, and yet…
But it didn’t matter, did it? There was Sheena, being consumed by the dream of a wish fulfilled, by a dream that couldn’t be real but was all she ever wanted. There was Guinevere, dragged into lonely, aching despair, trapped by fear of what might happen to the only person left in her life she trusted. And the was Tobias…
Tobias… he’s…
She gazed at those memories, where Tobias only had parts of them still remaining, where unconsciously he ended up hiding truths. Maybe he’d even forgotten parts of what the mirror and Saoirse wanted most.
You’re…
…like me. Aren’t you?
Tobias was still fighting. But he was fading, just like everyone else. It was different for him, because Saoirse wanted to know everything about him, rather than make him submit and fall to his fears and sorrows. It left him fighting longer, more lucid, but even so, to Alice’s eyes, it looked like a futile fight.
But her new realization about him, about that tiny similarity between them, awoke something new in her.
That’s right. Tobias… you’re my Knight-protector. You have so many secrets, so many things you’re holding back. I didn’t realize…
Fate drew us together. Didn’t it? All those previous Knight-protectors, they were all failures. They just couldn’t match up right with me, they couldn’t make the adventure all that an adventure should be, they either tripped over themselves trying to be the most responsible and knightly of them all, or they tried their hardest not to show how obviously they found the company of a child boring and annoying. But you…
You’re perfect.
Not a perfect person, no. You have an awful lot of baggage, and you’re more impulsive than your stoic, reserved demeanor would suggest, but…
You’re perfect for me.
Alice reached up, past her reflection, grasping for the shard that showed Tobias, so distant, miles away, she’d never actually touch it.
But she sat up a little, still reaching, and raised her voice with all the strength she could still muster. “Tobias! Aren’t you shirking your duties? Is your assignment just a joke to you, or are you going to start protecting me properly?”
Tobias seemed confused, for a moment. Of course — even with Alice shouting right at him, she must still sound so faint, so far off. Alice sagged, and her reflection giggled, mocked the futility of her actions.
I had to try. I had to at least…
But then Tobias wheeled around. He stared straight at her, with those blue eyes, blue like a cloudless summer afternoon.
And he smiled.
It wasn’t a big, boyish grin, like the kind he reserved for when he played with Flynn away from the others. But then, how could Alice hope to match Tobias’ love for his dog?
If she could make him smile, even a little, that was enough for now.
For now.
Yes, that’s right. Because we’re only just getting started! We have a whole adventure ahead of us. No mirror’s going to stop us from getting to Elysia — together!
Tobias’ reflection was saying something, but Tobias didn’t even look back at him, kept on smiling, as he said, “Sorry. But I have somewhere I need to be.”
And, to Alice’s great delight, Tobias broke free of his reflection’s grip and leapt, straight through the mirror shard he was trapped in. He burst through it, but it didn’t shatter, and now he was diving straight towards Alice, hand outstretched towards hers.
“What is this?” mirror-Alice cried, glaring wide-eyed up at Tobias. “How can you find each other? How can you see each other?” But a second later, Tobias spun into a kick that sent her flying off into the darkness, disappearing.
Tobias landed beside the real Alice, and grasped her hand. He helped her to her feet, and then knelt before her, bowing his head. “My apologies for shirking my duties,” he said, and though Alice couldn’t see his face, she heard the smile in his voice, and she couldn’t help but beam back at him in return. “But I’m here, now. And I’m not going away again.” He looked up at her, and there was that smile, not just on his lips, but dancing in his eyes. “We’re going to Elysia. Together.”
“Yes we are!” Alice said. “And not just the two of us.”
“No,” Tobias said, and he stood, and together the pair of them looked up at Guinevere and Sheena. Together, they called out their names. Once, twice, then a third time.
It was the third time that did it. Guinevere turned, staring in amazement. Sheena turned, rejecting the lovely dream she was trapped in.
Together, they broke free of their reflections, burst forth from their mirror shards, and landed beside Tobias and Alice.
“Now, then,” Alice said, glaring into the mirror’s vast emptiness. “It’s time to end this, once and for all. The mirror, and Saoirse. Just like you said, Tobias. Today, Saoirse’s wicked reign comes to an end.”
Hope was bursting up around the four of them like a physical entity, like fires that didn’t burn but inspired. There was nothing that could stop them, not now.
But just then, a black butterfly fluttered across their path. It hovered, for a moment, as if staring at the four of them. And then it spun in midair, and vanished.
In the darkness, Alice heard, very faintly, a little girl giggling. A chill ran down her spine.
“End?” came Saoirse’s voice in the darkness. “How quaint, thinking you can actually prevail. It’s only right that your hopes should rise to their highest… right before the great fall.”
Into the darkness burst scarlet fire in a yawning, gaping mouth, and eyes above it — the face of the Mirror itself. A great roar shook the earth. Tobias and Alice, already hand-in-hand, reached out for Guinevere and Sheena, grabbing them just in time before glass shattered all around them, and they were falling, the four of them together, into infinite blackness, a fiery face pursuing them with mouth open wide, ready to devour them whole.
“You’re that desperate, are you?” Alice asked, glaring defiantly at the oncoming face.
“That’s right!” Tobias said. “This is just their last desperate play. Here’s where we end it! Everyone ready?”
They were. As the fiery face descended upon them, they rose to take the fight to the mirror, once and for all.