The Lion, the Witch, and the Werewolf

by Amy Sumida

  “Hey, Narc, thanks for the save,” I whispered before I passed out.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I was too tired to dream, but that didn't matter when a dream god was involved. Morpheus strode into the misty bleakness of my blank mind and shook me until I became aware of him.

  “Vervain!” Morpheus shouted.

  “Morph?” I frowned at him and looked around groggily. “Where are we?”

  “Nowhere,” he said. “This is a blank deamscape. What the hell is happening in that mirror that you're too tired to even dream?”

  “The Mirror is trying to force us to kill ourselves.” I focused on him until I could think clearer. “Did Fenrir give everyone my message?”

  “Yeah, and we found Nemesis.”

  “You did? Fantastic!” I perked up. “Is she working on breaking the curse? Why are we still in here?”

  “That's the thing.” He grimaced “She can't break the curse.”

  “Whatchu talkin' bout, Willis?” I growled.

  “Aunty Nem created that curse to make sure Narcissus never got out,” he said. “She can't break it. At least not from outside the mirror.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nemesis says she can't break it, but she put a safety clause in the curse in case anyone else was sucked in by mistake.”

  “Wonderful!” My hopes lifted again. “What is it?”

  “It won't be easy,” he warned me. “You'll need to find the Mirror's weak spot. Nemesis says there's a tiny imperfection in the glass and that's the only place where the anti-curse will have an effect.”

  “How do I find the weak spot? Is it in the portal's glass?”

  “No; not the portal. It's in the curse itself; in the one place the Mirror can alter,” he said. “Look for a mirror within the Mirror, one with an imperfection. It will be a black spot like those that appear on antique mirrors. That shadow is its vulnerability. You must stand before it and say the word; diakopi.”

  “Diakopi,” I repeated. “Got it. But Morph, the Mirror has ways of forcing me through it or keeping me where it wants me. I don't think it will let me anywhere near its weak point.”

  “Nemesis said that it can't block you from it.” He shook his head. “It's a fail-safe she worked into the curse. As soon as you set your intention to seek the weakness, it must open the way.”

  “She thought of everything,” I murmured.

  “She does this a lot.” Morpheus grimaced. “It's kind of her thing, and she's been caught in her own curses enough times to have learned how to cast them properly.”

  “I suppose if you're a goddess of vengeance, your curses should be perfect,” I huffed.

  “Odin told her what you said about the Mirror feeding on humans,” Morpheus went on. “Aunty Nem said if it's been taking energy, it's probably grown beyond what she originally created but no matter how strong it gets, it can't go against its own nature. It can build upon its foundation, but it can't change it. She said it shouldn't have been able to kill those humans because one of the first laws she wove into it was that it couldn't kill. She wanted Narcissus to suffer for eternity so she made sure the Mirror couldn't kill him or anyone else.”

  “It didn't kill the humans,” I explained. “They died from starvation. There's no real food in here.”

  “Oh, that makes more sense,” he said with relief. “And it also means that the Mirror hasn't altered itself too much. That's a good thing.”

  “I had suspected that it wasn't able to kill,” I said. “It keeps trying to make us kill ourselves or Narcissus.”

  “Oh! Don't kill Narcissus!” Morpheus said urgently. “If he dies, the whole curse will implode and take you with it.”

  “It's fortunate that he's been playing nice then,” I muttered. “So, it can't kill us and it can't bar the way to its weakness. Anything else?”

  “It can't release Narcissus,” he added. “But that's obvious.

  “It's been trying to get us to kill Narcissus,” I said. “We think it's because Narcissus refused to kill us and told the Mirror that we were getting him out.”

  “I suppose that would create an aggressive response in a curse,” Morpheus mused. “But I wouldn't think it would turn suicidal. If you killed Narcissus, you'd kill the Mirror too.”

  “Is it possible that the Mirror doesn't know what killing Narcissus will do?”

  Morpheus blinked. “I suppose. That condition is merely a part of the curse. It would be similar to the way a pancreas works in the human body; it's something you don't notice until it malfunctions.”

  “No one has tried to kill Narcissus before so it's never had that clause threatened,” I concluded.

  “Just so.”

  “I think I'll keep this information to myself,” I announced. “For now, it may be best to keep the Mirror at odds with Narcissus.”

  “Oh, and I asked Nem about your magic; why it wasn't functioning right and if you should try to use it,” Morph said.

  “And?”

  “She said that when you pass through the glass, the Mirror collects it. Sort of like a coat check for magic. You'll get it back if you pass through the glass again or if the Mirror is destroyed. Since you can't pass through the glass, the only way to get your magic back is to destroy the Mirror.”

  “The Mirror has my magic?” I growled.

  “Your god magic,” he clarified. “That's what it's made to do; entrap god magic. Nem said Narcissus shouldn't be able to use his magic at all. If he can, it's because the Mirror is allowing it.”

  “So, maybe they did become allies of a sort,” I murmured. “And that would explain why I could start to feel my star but then it just fizzled out.”

  “Yeah; in there, all you are is a witch.”

  “And a dragon-sidhe,” I reminded him. “But without my star, I can't shift. If I do, I risk hurting my other beasts.”

  “Not if they're in the glass,” Morph pointed out.

  “I can still feel them.” I shook my head. “The Mirror may have taken my magic, but their links are inside me.”

  “Like a claim ticket,” he said thoughtfully. “You're right; don't risk using the Dragon. Her magic might travel down the line and hurt the others wherever the Mirror is holding them.”

  “I'll have to give this some thought.”

  “Whatever you do, be careful, V,” Morpheus said. “We're all waiting at Pride Palace for you. Well, except for me. I've been waiting in the Dream Realm for you to go to sleep. But I'll be heading back now.”

  “Thank you, Morpheus.” I hugged him. “We wouldn't have a chance of escaping without you.”

  “Just get out safely.” He kissed my cheek and faded into the mists.

  “Sure, no problem,” I muttered. “All I have to do is find the weak spot in a cursed mirror and shout the magic word to break the spell all while it tries to get me to commit suicide. Just another day in my life. C'est Lavine.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I awoke in the clothes I'd arrived in; a full set of underwear, purple heels, and a black, linen, over-the-knee dress that should have been horribly wrinkled but seemed to be freshly laundered every time it was returned to me. I sat up and yawned awake.

  I was in a frothy, white, four-poster bed, my body sunken into its down comforter and veiled by its diaphanous curtains. The rest of the room seemed just as feminine through the haze of white; a padded bench at the foot of the bed, a lace-covered dressing table to the right, and an Oriental folding screen beside it. There was a collection of dainty chairs set between the vanity and the bed, and Narcissus was sitting in one.

  Narcissus stood and approached me. “Vervain, are you all right?”

  I groaned as I pushed my way through the bed curtains. “Yeah. Thank you. You arrived just in the nick of time.”

  “I'm afraid the Mirror has learned viciousness and violence from its victims,” he said softly. “And from me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Please, sit down.” He waved at
a chair and waited for me to take it before he resumed his seat.

  “Have you seen Kirill or Trevor?” I asked. “I can feel that they're alive but beyond that, I don't know. Normally, my ring would be able to tell me if they were in trouble, but I suppose we're all in trouble.”

  “I saw Trevor briefly.” He grimaced. “He tried to kill me.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “He was acting upon an illusion.” Narcissus waved it away. “The Mirror, as I mentioned, has learned to be ruthless.”

  “What is it that you want to tell me?”

  “I knew you were coming,” he admitted. “A few weeks ago, a man summoned me to the portal with a spell. He spoke to me as you spoke to your husbands; through written messages. He told me that you'd be coming and that if I was able to get you to kill yourself, I'd become strong enough to break my curse.”

  I went still. “So, why didn't you do that?”

  “I don't trust that easily.” Narcissus smirked. “Why would this stranger help me? It seemed just as likely that he simply wanted me to do his dirty work for him. He said that he had a way of enchanting the Mirror so it would pull you in. Normally, the curse prohibits Gods from entering the Mirror, but he swore he had a way around it.”

  “Did he say what that way was?” I leaned forward.

  “No, but he was adamant,” Narcissus said. “I only nodded to him, and he left. When you showed up with your husbands, I didn't know it was you at first. He said you'd be alone. But then you revealed yourselves to be Gods, and I realized who you must be; the Godhunter.”

  “Yes. And now, someone's hunting me.”

  “It would appear so,” he agreed. “But it isn't me, Vervain. I don't know what that god was up to, but I know I can't consume your power; that's the Mirror's ability, not mine. Even if I could, I wouldn't do it. You've offered me a way out, and I'm going to take my chances with you.”

  “Thank you,” I said softly. “And I happen to know—” I stopped and looked around suspiciously. “I'll tell you in a minute. First, there's just one thing I want to talk to you about.”

  “What?”

  “I saw the collection of hair in your closet.”

  Narcissus nodded; completely unsurprised or guilty. “You want to know who they're from.”

  “I know who they're from,” I huffed. “At least, I'm fairly certain. They're from the people who died here, aren't they?”

  “Yes.”

  “What I want to know is why you have them.”

  Narcissus blinked in surprise. “To remember them by, of course. Memento Mori.”

  “Come again?”

  “The Mirror consumes them until there is nothing left,” he explained. “No body to bury and no memorial to their life. After the first few died, I felt as if I should do something for them. I couldn't do much, but I found that if I took a lock of their hair, the Mirror would let me keep it. So, I began to take the hair and label them like graves. I noted their names, the places they were from, and the year they came to me so there would be a record of what happened to them.” He stopped and swallowed visibly. “It seemed to be the least that I could do for them.”

  “Oh,” I whispered. Suddenly, he was less psychopath and more romantic.

  “I know you must think I'm a monster,” Narcissus whispered. “You must think that I've done horrible things to end up here, and you'd be right. I was so self-absorbed and arrogant that when humans killed themselves for me, I thought it was the proper way of things. The Gods are meant to receive sacrifices, after all. But now, I see that they weren't sacrifices. They were heartbroken people who I hurt. A sacrifice is given with love and respect. But my victims killed themselves out of despair. Nemesis was right to imprison me.”

  “If you truly feel that way, then you deserve a second chance,” I said gently. “And I'm glad to be the one to give it to you.” I dropped my voice to a whisper, “I know a way out, Narcissus.”

  “You do?” He leaned forward eagerly.

  “I'm setting my intentions to find the imperfection in the Mirror,” I declared formally.

  The room shook angrily around us, and Narcissus' eyes went wide. We got to our feet as the palace continued to rumble; our arms stretched out to steady ourselves as things fell off shelves and shattered. Then the room disappeared and a vast, mirrored chamber took its place.

  “What was that?” Narcissus asked in wonder.

  “The Mirror must open the path to its imperfection once we've set our intention to find it,” I said. “And once we find it, we can break the curse.”

  “What's the imperfection?”

  “I was told to look for a mirror with a spot of black on it,” I said. “Like the kind you'd find on an antique mirror.”

  Narcissus gaped at me. “I've seen that mirror. I know where it is!”

  Narcissus started running. The mirrored wall before him split open, and he plunged into the black void. I didn't hesitate; I dove into the dark after him.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Tima!” Kirill's cry brought me to a stumbling halt.

  I'd been blindly running after Narcissus down the dark hallway but then a light pierced the shadows and spanned out. A spotlight fell on Kirill. He was strapped to a stone altar several feet to my right. He was in his black lion form, and little giggling creatures swarmed over him with knives in their hands. They were spindly-limbed and skinny with pale flesh and bulbous heads. Their sharp teeth gnashed as they sheered Kirill's beautiful mane away; tufts of fur falling like sooty snow around him. He roared and shook, trying to dislodge them, but they held firm like tiny bull riders.

  “Kirill!” I cried brokenly.

  “Tima, help me!”

  “It's not him!” Narcissus shouted over the giggles. “Look at him; he's in lion form. He hasn't been able to shift here, has he?”

  “No,” I whispered. “And this is the exact thing he feared. That's a little convenient.”

  “It's the Mirror trying to stop you by reflecting your fears back at you,” Narcissus said. “Come on, let's keep moving!”

  “This isn't Narnia, you moron!” I snarled at the Mirror.

  I resolutely turned away from the image of my husband and the spotlight winked out. Mocking male laughter followed me down the shadowy, sinister hallway. I caught up with Narcissus and noticed how his eyes slid side-to-side as he ran. He was scared. He shouldn't be; the Mirror couldn't kill him.

  But the Mirror might not know that.

  Even as I thought it, Narcissus stumbled and a noose wrapped around his ankle. He fell backwards and the up, yanked into the air by his foot to dangle before me. A sword appeared at my feet. I stared from it to Narcissus.

  “Put him down; I'm not killing him,” I said calmly.

  “He is a murderer,” a hollow voice echoed around me. “The years have broken him, Godhunter. Narcissus is precisely the sort of god you kill. Do your duty; kill the evil god.”

  “No.”

  “Those braids aren't tributes, they're trophies,” it went on.

  “Liar!” Narcissus shouted. “You're the killer, not I.”

  “I cannot kill,” the Mirror said. “You killed them for me. You sacrificed them so that I would grow in strength and bind you to me in that strength. He is the liar, Godhunter. He has swayed you with his soft words. It was his idea to pull humans through my glass and then kill them. None of them died by starvation; they were all murdered by Narcissus on a mirrored altar. Their blood gave me power and in exchange for that, I shared my power with him.”

  “That isn't true, Vervain,” Narcissus begged me with his eyes. “I swear it. I have never murdered anyone with my hands, only my indifference.”

  “See how easily he lies?” The Mirror went on. “He is what humans call a psychopath; completely devoid of emotion. He has no sympathy or kindness in him. All he cares about is himself.”