the cushions, this was none of the Brownies' doing, nor Aleksia's — this was the Palace itself, responding to the change.

With a mental shake of the head, as she wondered just how much the Palace could do on its own at need, Aleksia took her seat on her throne and brought the ice-mirror to life with a flick of her hand. She felt both apprehensive at this moment, and excited. Her Palace was finally entirely her own again after getting rid of Kay. This was a time she usually savored — and instead, she was actually going to leave this place and head into what could very well be a great deal of physical danger for her. She would probably be facing the false Snow Queen herself. Godmothers were not trained in magical combat. She wondered, briefly, if too much isolation had made her a little mad….

Then again, it seemed to her that this was something that was absolutely necessary. Well, that was what getting other peoples' opinions was for, wasn't it?

After sending the message to Elena's mirror-slave that she wanted to speak to the Godmother, she called up the images of the two questing Sammi women. She found a good viewpoint from one of the harness-brasses. They were still under deep forest canopy, still beneath the shadows of the thick evergreen boughs, in a semidarkness that had gone from cold and threatening to — somehow…protective. Even through the veil of the mirror she could feel that. This was not the shadow that hides menace. This was the peace of twilight, that promised a restful night to come. The transformation was startling, but Aleksia did not spend time contemplating it. Instead, she sent the mirror searching, darting from reflection to reflection — a drop of water, a bird's eye, a glistening line of sap along a broken branch — until she found something high above the women, out of the shadows and up into the highest tops of the trees, so that she could see just where in the forest they were. It must have been another bird's eye — by the way the viewpoint glided and circled, and from the astonishing clarity of vision, she suspected it was a hawk of some sort. But the important thing was that she could see the edge of the forest from here. She estimated the distance by eye, allowing for the fact that their progress would be helped, not hindered, by the forest spirits. After a moment, she reckoned that they would reach it in a day or so.

She looked for another viewpoint, higher this time, and found another bird circling a dizzying distance about the earth. Here, the edge of the forest looked like the place where a thick, green carpet had been cut and laid on a bare wooden floor. Beyond that edge, looking across meadows and more normal patches of forest, she spotted the distant fires of the village that had been Veikko's destination, where his mentor, the Warrior-Mage Lemminkal, had lived. And beyond that…the start of the wide sweep of th e glaciers, and the mountains that looked so very much like the ones where Aleksia's Palace stood. This was where the mystery began, where the Icehart had killed entire villages, the wilderness where three men, all of them warriors, all of them magicians — even if one of them was only half-trained — had vanished.

And she was planning to go into that. Maybe she was mad.

It would take the women some time to get that far, but Aleksia did not want to put further obstacles in their way at this point. They were drawing too near to the place where the Icehart was, and given what had happened with the forest spirits, Aleksia did not want to chance them encountering the Icehart until she knew exactly what it was and what it could do. The name suggested a lot of things, but of course, a name could be completely deceptive. That it was some creature of the false Snow Queen, she had no doubt at all. And that made a very dangerous creature for the women to approach without help.

She also made note of the dark clouds ahead; those were snow clouds, and heavily burdened ones; she also paid close attention to the leafless state of those few trees that were not pines and other evergreens. The women did not know that this lay ahead of them. When they emerged from the forest, they would move from Autumn to Winter. And if the false Snow Queen shared Aleksia's powers, that would mean she would be stronger as the Winter deepened.

She looked up at the sound of soft footsteps. Several of the other Brownies filed into the room, following Rosemary. Aleksia nodded a greeting to them, and turned her attention back to the mirror. Even as she surveyed the clouds, trying to judge how long it would be before the snows fell, the image clouded over, and was replaced with that of Godmother Elena. This was much sooner than she had dared hope; Elena must assume this was very important.

Elena raised an eyebrow, and smiled. “Rid of your brooding brat, are you? You have more patience than I do, my dear.”

Aleksia laughed. “That tale is safely ended, and I hope there will not be another to follow it. The lovers are united and rewarded and I think both have thoroughly learned their lessons.” Then she sobered. “However, it appears I must interfere more directly in the other tale of which I spoke to you. There is a false Snow Queen, and she is creating great deal of harm. I think that this calls for me to deal with her directly. And perhaps even confront her.”

Elena nodded. “I had the feeling you might have to do just that.” Although the mirror through which she was speaking was not large enough to show more than her head and shoulders, it was clear that she took this as a cue to settle back in her chair. She was prepared for a long discussion on this. “All right. Unfold this tale for me. Tell me how it goes so far.”

This time Aleksia recounted every tiniest detail, even though she knew she had already told Elena some of this. Elena's very expressive face reflected interest, agreement and surprise in turn as Aleksia continued, although she did not once interrupt. Recounting all this served any number of purposes: it helped her to put her own thoughts in order, it reminded Elena of how all the events had tied together and it gave the Brownies a good summary.

“That is why I believe I am going to have to take a direct hand,” Aleksia concluded.

“These women are brave and resourceful, but the fact that this false Godmother probably has similar powers to mine leads me to believe they will meet with failure if they have to deal with her.” She frowned a moment. “And ordinarily that would be tragic, but not insurmountable — except that the business with the forest spirits leads me to think that there is enough going on with them that we need to be very cautious about anything happening around them.”

“I am in agreement with you.” Elena's eyes were dark with thought. “There is something new going on here — or something old. I am not sure which. There was no reason for the forest spirits to converge on them like that, for instance. If they were men, yes. But those creatures tend to leave women alone, if my memory serves me correctly. Something is moving up there, some magic I am not familiar with, and it is interacting with The Tradition in ways I don't think we can predict. In order to react to this in time, you are going to have to enter the tale. But that does not mean you have to go on in there entirely without support behind you. I can watch you, and I can make sure there are others who do so as well.”

“But the reason the Snow Queen — that is, my Tradition — is so effective is because of the mirror-magic,” Aleksia objected. “We can see things that you would never catch. None of you are nearly as good at this as I am.”

“You forget, there are more ways of watching than through the mirror-magic,” Elena admonished. “Yes, it is

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