Every possible way the story could have gone was here. If Rami had refused to accompany Hero, if Hero had never returned to the Library, if Andras had succeeded in his coup. Since he was a character, the book part of his nature made him keenly aware of how every story could turn on the knife-edge of any decision. But standing in a bubble, separated from all his other fates by a mere slip of time, he was terrified by the fragility of it. Reality took on an unstable quality, soap-film thin and ready to burst.
“Remarkable.” Rami swiveled his head around as if the impermanence of their own existence was not about to fall down on their damned heads. The angel shook his head in wonder. “If this is just a touch of the muses’ realm, then surely they’ll have the answers we need.”
“Yes. Confidence. That is exactly what I draw from this too,” Hero said blandly. He straightened his shoulders, not quite able to shrug off the sense of unreality, but he could make a good show of it. “We’ll need to gain an audience. I’m not fond of the idea of being trapped here or wandering into the wrong reflection.”
“Iambe said we would need to attract the muses’ attention.”
“And this is why you were clever enough to bring me,” Hero said. The smile he flashed was perfect and perfectly fake. “Attention is my specialty.”
Claire would have frowned, Brevity would have laughed, but all Hero received from Rami was a thoughtful nod. How infuriating. “Good point. Your charisma is an asset here, no doubt.”
Well, maybe not entirely infuriating. Hero blinked, trying to realign his world around an unexpected compliment. It was a feeling he was not accustomed to, especially from earnestly serious men like Ramiel. “Yes, well—”
“What do you propose?”
Hero scrutinized the question for cynicism, for mockery, but found nothing. Rami patiently waited for his lead. Him! Hero was more accustomed to having to wrest control of a situation out of other people’s grasps with trickery and guile. He abruptly strode toward the bubble surface, hoping that would cool the warmth in his face.
His reflection approached him in turn. This Hero was very similar to him, lip curled and cocksure. Behind the mirror-Hero, Rami’s reflection kept watch with a soft expression on his face. As if that version of their working relationship had the opportunity to be based on more than the resentful, grudging necessity of acquaintances.
Hero didn’t have the courage to glance over his shoulder to see if that reflection rang true. It would bother him if it didn’t, and then it would bother him that it bothered him. Instead, Hero withdrew his book from where he’d carried it—miraculously unshredded so far—in his vest pocket. He flipped to the first page—blank, of course, but that would do for this purpose—and began to recite out loud. “Once upon a time . . .”
He expected a snicker, at least a skeptical comment from Rami, but his audience remained quiet. Hero cleared his throat and began again. “Once upon a time, there was a rather devastatingly handsome prince who, through entirely no fault of his own, was trapped in a high, high tower by a horrible, misguided sorceress with an atrocious tea habit and questionable fashion taste.”
Rami made a stifled sound that interrupted him—which was good because Hero really wasn’t sure what should happen next. “The reflections,” Rami said in a whisper.
Hero risked a glance from his book. The mirror-Hero in front of him hadn’t moved, but there had been a slight shift in his neighbors. Each copy of Hero and Rami trapped in the surface of the bubble had turned to stare, intently, in Hero’s direction. The weight was unnerving, but Hero scrounged for more. “The prince, in addition to being devastatingly handsome and gifted, knew his kingdom needed him. So, one day he was horribly clever and escaped the tower without alerting the willful sorceress.”
“Keep going,” Rami murmured. Hero felt movement in the reflections, but he knew better than to look. He screwed his eyes closed in thought. “His quest to save his kingdom took him to a dangerous faerie realm known as Seattle, the denizens of which were too scruffy and its weather far too damp for the likes of his pages—er, delicate skin. There he met the lady of the lake, a fair goddess who the prince believed could save him from the sorceress’s evil spell. But the lady had been . . .” Despite himself, Hero paused, frowning to himself as he tried to pick a word. “. . . she’d been ensorcelled by the realm and forgotten her power. So corrupted was she that she rejected our prince, drove a dagger through his heart when all he was guilty of was being entirely too charming and clever. Then the cruel sorceress, more of a witch really—”
“Hero,” Rami interrupted.
“Shush, Claire will never hear this. It’s fine. I’m almost—”
“No, Hero. Look.”
His eyes snapped open in time to catch a blur of movement over the surface of the bubble. The reflected pairs were moving, swirling around the mirror-Hero in front of him like water down a drain. The movement threatened to make Hero ill, but one by one, the Hero and Rami clones shivered into a single pair.
Hero forgot his tale and studied the reflection in front of him. This Hero was certainly tidier than his current state. Familiar copper hair was trim and clean, and this Hero’s coat was not sliced by lioness claws. But the biggest change was in the alien differences of his face. This Hero’s eyes were soft, muddled somewhere between regret and pity. His cheek was smooth and devoid of scar tissue. This Hero had not been tortured by Andras for trying to defend the Library. This Hero
