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Chapter 1: Nightmares

Someone wanted me dead.
The feeling clung like a scent, irrational though it must be. It made me flinch from strangers. It made me flinch from non-strangers, in a way I knew wasn’t healthy.
But I struggled to question how I felt.
Someone wants me dead.
My jaw tightened. The words felt true, even prophetic.
I knew how crazy they sounded. I would never have admitted them to anyone else.
I glanced around the garden where I stood, having just walked through the squeaky iron door by the tall iron gate. It was getting light out now. I’d lost track of time, been out much longer than I should’ve, but I avoided sleep sometimes, if only to avoid the nightmares that came with it. I needed to go upstairs, have a shower and change, but I didn’t want to wake my brother yet, and the pipes rattled loudly whenever we used the hot water.
It was still too early to start breakfast.
So I stood in the garden in the cold, rubbing a pain in my chest, a hard, glass-like ball that formed there with more and more frequency.
I tried to shake the uneasy feeling that wanted to linger.
I felt like I was being watched. I felt it all the time now.
Worse, there was that feeling that someone wanted me dead––desperately, with an intensity that entered my dreams, colored my waking view of the world. It felt like I’d never not known it. But realistically, it must’ve started when my parents were murdered at a tube station in London, right in front of me.
Take it, the wind whispered. Take it. It’s time.
I frowned. I looked around carefully, my fingers white where they clenched around my thighs over my black, form-fitting jeans.
No one was there, of course.
No one. Nothing. There wasn’t even any wind.
So how did I know exactly what those words had meant?
Seconds later, I was in a different part of the garden. I knelt before the makeshift grave I’d fashioned for my brother and I in an overgrown corner of our aunt’s garden. My fingers smoothed over the grey-white stone I’d carved, not long after they’d died.
My brother watched me do it with my clumsy, ten-year-old fingers, using a sharp stone I’d found in another part of the overgrown sprawl of flowers, fruit trees, and gone-to-seed lawn. It was just their names, nothing more: Robert and Clotide Shadow.
I hadn’t thought to put a date.
Anyway, maybe the date didn’t matter.
I was well over nineteen, and I couldn’t imagine ever needing to be reminded.
As much as I couldn’t wait to get out of there, out of Southampton, away from my aunt’s house, on to university, I struggled with the thought of leaving the grave behind.
Even knowing nothing was buried there.
Even knowing it was just a stone with names carved sloppily by a ten-year-old hand.
Take it, the voice whispered. You must.
Louder that time. More insistent.
Take it, darling.
A hotter, sharper pain stabbed at my chest. The familiarity there hurt so bad my eyes stung, my vision blurred. That time, though, I obeyed.
I reached out with both hands. I grasped the stone tightly, and lifted it.
I don’t know what I expected to see.
A part of me thought it would be gone, that it would no longer be there.
But it was.
The green crystal lay just under the stone, exactly like the day I placed it there. The bronze chain shone unnaturally bright, as did the crystal itself. No rust or moss had grown on either. Neither looked dirty despite rain and snow and spring and fall for over nine long years.
It didn’t make any sense.
It looked brand new. Spotless.
Like I’d placed it there minutes ago, instead of nine and a half years in the past.
I only stared at it for a minute.
Then I reached out, scooped my mother’s crystal up in one hand, and put it in my pocket.

Chapter 2: Ankha

“Breakfast!” I shouted up the stairs. “Arch! Get a move on! I have a French test! If you want to eat, you’ve got ten minutes!”
My brother’s face wasn’t the one that appeared at the top of the stairs.
My Aunt Ankha, who’d barely shown an interest in me or my brother, Arcturus, in all the years we’d lived in her house since my parents got murdered at a tube station in London, walked down the stairs and right past me, ignoring my gaping stare.
“Good morning, Leda,” she said primly.
“When did you get here?” I asked.
I never knew where she came from, honestly.
More to the point, I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen her in over six months.
The only interaction between us, if you could call it that, were the envelopes of cash I found on the kitchen counter every few weeks. I used that money to buy our groceries and pay the ramshackle Victorian’s bills, as well as pay for school tuition at the beginning of every term, the occasional movie, any things we needed around the house, and our clothes.
I’d been my brother’s de facto parent since I was ten years old.
Now he was turning thirteen, and I would be nineteen in six months.
“There will be no…” Ankha’s eyes raked over my uniform and backpack, a barely contained contempt in her stare. “…school today, girl,” she finished haughtily.
I’d just joined her in the kitchen, where I had a plate with fried eggs and toast out for my brother, along with a glass of juice.
Ankha’s appraisal of me included my muddy trainers and my silver watch, which had belonged to my father and rarely left my wrist. It ended on my long, black, and temperamentally curly hair, which was impervious to sun and bleach, would hardly ever do what I wanted, and which I’d mostly given up trying to tame.
I stared right back at her, bewildered at her sudden interest in my appearance.
I suppose I’d taken to viewing Ankha more like a rich, eccentric landlord than anything close to real family. She’d never been shy about letting us know she’d never wanted us, and couldn’t be bothered to pretend like she did. Whenever she showed up at the house, like now, it always felt like some kind of surprise inspection.
Even those had grown increasingly infrequent over the years.
They’d never, not to my memory, included an appraisal of us.
Usually she seemed mostly concerned about the state of her house, and whether we’d harmed or burned down any part of it. For the same reason, her sudden interest in my trainers and hair, and her even more bizarre announcement that I wouldn’t be going to school that day, not only irritated me, it came completely out of left field.
“What are you even doing here, Ankha?” I asked.
She gave me a hard look with her dark blue eyes. “This is my house.”
Leaning on the counter by the sink, I checked my watch. “I have to get Archie to school. What is this little visit about? I scheduled my and Archie’s doctor appointments for next month. Dentist on the twelfth. So whatever this is, I can assure you––”
“Arcturus,” Ankha corrected. “––Will be going to school. He already knows. He is getting dressed. You will not be going. You are coming with me.”
The hell I was.
“Where?” I kept my voice calm with an effort. “What is this about?”
I highly doubted it had anything to do with it Archie’s birthday.
Considering my aunt had never once mentioned either of our birthdays in all the time Archie and I lived there, much less given us a single present for any birthday or Christmas, or even visited the house on those days, I highly doubted she had any idea what day it was or why it might matter to me.
Her being there had to be a coincidence.
Still, I struggled to keep my voice polite. Financially, at least, Archie and I were highly dependent on our aunt and her envelopes of cash, even if they’d never come with even a modicum of affection or warmth.
Moreover, I was graduating in just two short months, and I had plans for the following fall. I’d already been accepted at my top choices for university. I’d also written out a long proposal to give to Ankha when I got the opportunity, whereby I would take Archie off her hands permanently if she would agree to help support us for the first few years.
I’d been offered a full scholarship at Oxford.
Despite all of my frustration around how long it took, and the three times the school offered to let me skip a year only to have my aunt bluntly refuse, (and refuse to so much as discuss it with me), I was finally going to be leaving Southampton.
Even with the scholarship, I would still need help with rent for a small place near campus, money for food, and, hopefully, tuition money for Archie to finish up somewhere nearer my university.
Ankha was richer than Croesus.
The fact that this particular house was practically falling down, had owls living in the attic, a weed-choked, overgrown garden, and antiques gathering dust, was all about Ankha’s indifference, and nothing at all to do with her financial means.
Money definitely wasn’t the issue.
Convincing her to give a tiny portion of that money to me might even be possible if I worded my request right. I was banking on her wanting to get rid of us both badly enough that she’d agree to my terms, and write me a generous check.
Which meant the last thing I wanted to do right then was piss her off.
I was determined to get free of this place, and of her. School was the only realistic way out I’d ever seen, which is why I’d studied to the point of obsession, every year I’d attended the posh boarding school in Winchester where Archie and I were enrolled.
All of this ran through my mind as I watched my aunt warily.
Like me, she seemed to be circling, deciding on her best approach.
“I can’t explain it to you,” she said, brusque. “I can see that brain of yours working, looking for some point to negotiate with me, to walk around me, to ignore my words, but it won’t work, niece, so save your breath.” The large, pointed nose angled higher. “They only test once a year, and I won’t have you missing another, not now that you qualify––”
“Test?” I blurted. “What kind of test?”
Ankha’s eyebrows formed an annoyed line.
There were elements of my aunt’s appearance that reminded me of my mother at times. In a certain light, at certain angles, I could absolutely see my mother in Ankha’s face, despite the wide gap in their ages. The dark blue eyes, the shape of her mouth, the high cheekbones, the straight black hair, the oddly fluid hand gestures, even her voice––all of those things had belonged to my mother in varying degrees, and would surface jarringly in my memories.
But on Ankha, it was as if those things had been sharpened and hardened and stripped of every softness and curve.
It made her appear gaunt rather than elegantly angular.
It made her voice sound less like melodic bells and more like breaking glass.
Even her black hair lacked the life I remembered in my mother’s. Whereas my mother’s always flowed down her back in a perfect, elegant wave, with just the slightest curl at the ends and around her face, Ankha’s hung lank and tired, cropped in a strangely-layered, unflattering bob that never grew past her jawline.
It was our mother’s warmth that I missed most, though.
“Frankly, it should have been done years ago,” Ankha complained sourly. “It’s a travesty that I’ve been kept in this…” She glanced sharply at me, as if remembering I was listening. “…situation for as long as I have. One more thing I have to thank my darling sister for. This never-ending indignity to our family name…”
I stiffened.
Another part of me wanted to laugh, or maybe roll my eyes. As if Ankha had ever been here often enough to be able to complain about feeling trapped.
Now she had the audacity to simply show up with no notice, start barking orders and making shitty comments about our mother, like––
“Oh, do not get your hackles up, girl,” Ankha spat warningly. “She’s my sister. I’m entitled to my opinion. None of this has been right for years. Which you’d know if you weren’t so entirely ignorant of anything to do with the family.”
Again, I fought to remain silent. Any ignorance I had about my mother’s family certainly fell on her now, didn’t it? Not me? Or my dead mother?
Anka’s harder stare shifted inward.
“There are always those who revel in the fall of the great families,” she muttered. “I’m sure the Ethnarch himself is positively gleeful to see our lineage sunk so low…”
Her voice held a sharp, bitter note by the end.
“…But no, I must pretend that this is somehow reasonable. That the Tribunal’s conclusion to wait until you are nineteen, ‘to ensure the greatest chance any latent abilities might mature’ is meant to be somehow fair, even generous. Like I should be groveling on the ground they did not send me to the Pyramid, too––”
I opened my mouth, baffled, but Ankha wasn’t finished.
“––But that is the end of that.” The bitterness in her voice grew. “Unless you embarrass me utterly in front of those jackals today, and they decide I must maintain this charade at the same level of scrutiny until your brother is of age.” She glared at me as if this had already occurred. “Assuming they decide you’ve been properly cared for all these years, I should get my freedom of movement returned to me, at least. Once your brother is finally gone, perhaps then they’ll leave our family alone, and this ugly chapter will be at an end.”
As for me, I could only raise my eyebrows at this little speech.
Freedom of movement? The Pyramid? What was an Ethnarch?
And again, when had Ankha ever had any restrictions placed upon where she went?
Her blue eyes grew briefly distant. Then, seeming to remember herself, she looked back at me, and her raptor-like gaze sharpened.
“I tried to gain an exception for you,” she added. “It’s always been clear you’ve got more shine in you than that brother of yours…”
Again, I stiffened.
“…But they wouldn’t budge,” Ankha continued bitterly. “And frankly, I could only push them so far. You’ll just have to sink or swim, best you can.”
I opened my mouth, but again, Ankha’s harsh voice cut me off.
“––You’ve been suppressed,” she added, looking me over critically. “Technically, the block should’ve been lifted already, since you’ve been of age since November. But the day before you would’ve turned, it was determined… again, against my strongly worded objections… that they’d leave it in place until you arrived at the testing facility. They wouldn’t give me even a week to prepare you. Not even if I brought you in early to do it there.”
I fought to make sense of any of this, but the longer my aunt spoke, the more nonsensical her words sounded. She didn’t seem to notice my reaction. Or care, perhaps.
Her thin lips tightened.
“You should hear them speak to their high-minded ideals,” Ankha finished viciously. “Oh, they wax on eloquently of ‘fairness’ now, of global and inter-dimensional security… but where was the fairness to our family, I ask you? Where was our security?”
Inter-dimensional? I thought, bewildered. What on earth is the old bat on about?
Was Ankha having some kind of schizophrenic break?
My aunt sniffed, and folded her wiry arms.
“It’s really as if they want me to fail,” she added bitterly. “Or perhaps they simply think you’ll be a lost cause, regardless, so they might as well do it this way and be done with it. They clearly want to keep me on here as your jailer for the rest of my life. The more they can humiliate our family, the better…”
Ankha glared out the kitchen window.
My mouth closed. My brow furrowed.
I was now more than half-convinced dear Aunt Ankha wasn’t of sound mind. Maybe that was the real reason for the neglect and the disappearances and her shoddy building maintenance. Maybe that was how she could dump two kids in this big house and think it was enough to leave them cash in envelopes and eventually, once she remembered, enroll them in a posh boarding school that meant a thirty-minute bus ride in either direction.
Oh, did I not mention that?
Because that was another thing dear, sweet, Aunt Ankha did. She completely forgot to put either of us in school until I was almost thirteen. Thanks to that little mental hiccup, I’d be the oldest student in my class to graduate in July.
That was another reason I’d been furious when she refused to let me skip years. I might’ve at least managed to catch up to my actual class, if she’d only signed off on the offers to skip me, but for some unimaginable reason, she’d flatly refused.
Ankha glanced at her odd clock, the one hanging over the kitchen table.
I’d long been fascinated by the workings of that clock. I used to stare at it for hours when I was little, trying to figure out what the hieroglyphic-type markings meant.
I still couldn’t read it.
Even after scanning books on cryptography and ancient languages to try and puzzle it out, I had no idea what time it told, or if it told any kind of time at all.
The few recognizable symbols I’d found had been printed backwards and upside down on the clock’s round face. Moreover, there were five arms instead of two, and all five sometimes moved backwards instead of forward, often independently of one another, with some moving forward and some backwards at the same time.
The one time I thought to ask, Ankha pointedly refused to answer any of my questions about it.
“We must go,” Ankha huffed. She began bustling around the table, picking up Archie’s plate and my coffee mug and his glass full of juice and tossing them all in the sink. She didn’t so much as flinch when a few of those things shattered. “We cannot be late. We cannot.”
I scowled at the dishes, which I’d likely need to either glue together or replace.
“Arcturus––” I began coldly.
“Can get to school perfectly well on his own.” Ankha gave me a disdainful look. “You’ve been managing for yourself since you were younger than him. How do you expect him to grow up, with how you baby him?”
I opened my mouth, closed it.
There were so many absurdities in that one statement, I didn’t know where to begin.
“It’s his birthday,” I said finally, maybe out of desperation.
My aunt leveled another hard stare. “He’ll manage that without you, too.”
I frowned. “He won’t manage it without me. I’m all he has. And I’d really rather spend it with him, if it’s all the same. He’s been looking forward to it, and he’ll wonder if I––”
“Leda Rose Shadow-La Fey,” Ankha snapped. “Did you hear any of what I just said? Or are you really as daft as that brother of yours?”
My face swiftly grew hot. “He’s not––”
My aunt cut me off. “This is not a discussion. We are leaving. Now.”
I opened my mouth to argue. Then, realizing it was futile to ask, I got up from the table and simply began walking in the direction of the staircase. I would say goodbye to him, and happy birthday, and remind him of the places to avoid on his way to the bus stop and on the school grounds, even if it did no good. I’d barely made it two steps however, when Ankha caught hold of my arm.
The iron-like grip squeezed, startling me, and catching my breath.
I didn’t think, but turned, glaring at her. “Let go of me.”
“I will not,” Ankha bit out. “Do not disobey me, child. You will regret it.”
“I’m not a child,” I snapped. “And I only need one minute! I’ll go with you, if you’d just––”
“And I haven’t asked much of you, Leda,” Ankha warned. “I’ve required even less. But I’m requiring this.” Her eyes grew probing. “I’ve explained to the boy why you won’t be going with him. He understands.”
I gave her a skeptical look. Even so, I realized this was likely her attempting to be reasonable. It was also likely as much of an overture as I’d get.
My mind returned to my impending graduation.
Spending a few hours with her, even if it involved navigating her crazy, meant I’d get a chance to convince her my proposal was the best option for everyone. I could explain how we might make the money a personal loan, if she wasn’t comfortable paying outright, one involving interest rates and payment plans.
Or I could kick and fight over these few minutes to speak with Archie, and basically ensure she wouldn’t give us anything at all.
Ankha could legally boot me out of her house now. She could stop paying for my school. She could separate my brother and I, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing I could do about it.
It was all too close to blow up everything now.
I relaxed the muscles in my arm.
When Ankha tugged on me next, I followed her to the front door. I didn’t protest as she walked me outside, or when she shut the door behind us. When Ankha finally released my now-bruised arm, I continued to follow her up the gravel driveway to the iron front gate.
Archie would just have to evade the roughs on his own that day.
We’d celebrate his birthday when I got back.
I’d make sure of it.

Chapter 3: Mirrors and Tunnels

We were most of the way to the gate before it hit me that I might finally learn the mystery of how my aunt got in and out of our house grounds.
Arcturus and I had long speculated about this.
Ankha’s dusty, fender-rusted, silver Jaguar rarely left the detached garage. I’d only seen it twice without the canvas cover on it. I’d never seen any other car parked on the road or in the drive, the rare times Ankha dropped by for one of her “inspections.” I’d never even seen her open the front gate, although I’d definitely seen her walk right up to it.
Now I trailed a few feet behind as she walked briskly up to the elaborate iron gate again. Before she reached it, however, she took a sharp right, and disappeared into the tall hedge that lined that side of the paved drive.
I looked for an opening there, some hint that Ankha might’ve squeezed between two of the densely growing bushes, but I saw nothing. Then a large-knuckled hand, adorned with rings decorated with different-colored stones, emerged straight out of the center of the leafy wall, and grabbed the edge of my sweater.
The fingers yanked, and I yelped, and stumbled through.
I’d barely blinked when I found myself on the other side.
Nothing scratched my arms or face on the way through, and, even stranger, I now stood well away from the hedge, somehow crossing seven or eight feet in a single stride.
I stared down at myself, then around at the weed-choked courtyard with its sad little bird bath, and the gothic, stone structure I’d never discovered a precise purpose for. Its sharp gables and spire pointed towards the sky, with three stone steps leading up to an iron-hinged door. The inside couldn’t have been much larger than a portable toilet.
Like the side gate, that door always remained locked.
Now Ankha was unlocking it however, using a gold key that hung on a chain around her neck. She twisted the locking mechanism to the left, jerked on the handle, and the heavy door swung outward with a squeal on rusted hinges.
I moved closer to peer within.
I blinked and flinched when two green eyes stared back.
I was gazing at my own reflection in a floor-length, gold-framed mirror. The frame was gorgeous, and looked old, covered in gilded roses, gilded butterflies, and writhing gold snakes. The glass surface shone like it had been recently polished. It stood on the otherwise-empty stone floor on a gold stand, surrounded by dingy walls half-covered in cobwebs.
Mirrors had always been one of the oddest things about our aunt’s Victorian house.
Odd, in that there were none.
Whoever’d designed and furnished the two-story monstrosity did it with no mirrors anywhere. The bathrooms had no mirrors. None of the walls, doors, or closets had mirrors. Stranger still, the few mirrors I’d brought home mysteriously disappeared, usually by the following morning, but sometimes within the hour. Even the kitchen appliances were all of a dull yellow or cream, leaving no reflective surfaces.
Most of the windows were stained glass with iron frames.
Now here, in a locked gothic tower in Ankha’s front yard, was an enormous mirror that looked like an honest-to-God antique, possibly framed in solid gold.
My aunt caught hold of my arm. Her deceptively strong fingers tightened, and began pulling me roughly towards the mirror’s glass.
I tried to slow our progress, confused and now, disturbed.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Just do as you’re told,” Ankha sniped back. “No questions. I won’t be able to answer them, anyway.”
I struggled against my aunt’s fingers a few heartbeats longer.
My eyes widened sharply when she pushed her way through the mirror’s smooth surface. Her front-marching foot, wiry arms, and long nose went first. Her second foot and leg went all the way through next, breaching the glass as if it had been a still pool of water.
I might’ve made a squeak when my own arm and leg followed, pulled by my aunt’s insistent grip. As I passed through the opening, I glanced around at the gilded frame, the coiling snakes, the perfect-looking roses and birds.
Then I was on the other side.
My aunt released my arm.
I stood, panting, in a dark space. I gazed down the length of a dimly lit, dank-smelling corridor, which very much felt underground.
I stared around at the high, stone walls. Flaming torches stood in iron brackets, one roughly every eight feet until they receded in the distance.
After a few breaths, I looked behind me at a silver-framed, full-length mirror that looked identical to the other one, in everything but color. It even stood on its own stand, its silver frame covered in the same pattern of roses, snakes, birds, butterflies, and twisting vines.
There was no logical explanation for this.
I knew exactly what lay on the other side of that gothic structure in Ankha’s garden.
It was another stretch of weedy lawn, scattered rose bushes, a small pond choked with lilies and frogs, and eventually the wall with my parents’ grave stone. Nothing about us being beneath the garden made sense, either. I’d taken barely two steps. The height of the walls around us meant a fall would have hurt us badly, if not killed us outright.
The only explanation had to be supernatural.
Or a science so advanced, it might as well be.
I looked behind me a second time, but the silver mirror only glinted in the torchlight.
Nothing but a tall, blank wall of rough stone stood behind it.
I faced forward to watch tiny torchlights twinkle in the distance along the faintly curved wall. Some other light-source tinted the walls and floor a greenish-gold.
“Come along, come along,” my aunt tutted. “We’re late. How many times must I say it?”
My feet followed mechanically as Ankha led us down the corridor.
After we’d been walking for a number of minutes, a brighter light appeared at the end of the passage. It grew steadily larger as we approached.
Ankha continued to mutter under her breath, but I scarcely paid attention. Her words ran too close together for me to make them out, anyway. Every now and then, she’d raise her voice to urge me faster, and my legs obeyed the command but I barely heard that, either.
After the mirrors, she stopped us only once.
By then, the light ahead had grown to roughly the size of a cricket ball.
She turned on me sharply, forcing me to come to a dead stop.
“You’re not to speak when we arrive.” Ankha held up a menacing finger. “Do you understand, girl? No foolish questions about where we are, what is happening, who is this or that, where I am taking you, why did this thing happen or that thing. Keep your mouth shut.” Her lips thinned. “They’ll only use it against us.”
My eyes continued to stare at the green and gold light up ahead.
“But where are––”
“No,” Ankha snapped. “Did you not just hear me? No questions. I still can’t answer them, and it would be the irony of all ironies if I got arrested for divulging too much now. You will obey me. Remain silent, until I say otherwise.”
I bit my lip, but my eyes finally went to hers. “Ankha, can’t you just spend one minute, while we’re alone––”
“No. Now vow it! Say you’ll obey, or we’re not taking another step! I’ll take you back to that wretched world, and you can spend another year being a witless fool.”
I felt my frustration twist into anger.
Still, by then, my curiosity burned hotter.
“Fine,” I said. “I won’t say a word when we get there.”
“Not until I say?”
“Not until you say,” I promised stonily.
My aunt nodded, once, but still stared at me with dissatisfaction in her eyes. From her expression, she trusted me as much as I did her. She turned away a beat later, and immediately resumed trotting towards the light.
She moved faster now, as if to make up for our short back and forth.
I sped my own steps to keep up. My jaw ground at being talked to like I was younger than Archie, but I had to remind myself she didn’t know me. Not to mention, she had to be close to seventy, and she’d never had any kids of her own. Maybe nineteen and thirteen were basically the same in her mind. If it hadn’t been for the mirrors, the castle-like corridor, and the inexplicable gold light, I might have taken her up on her offer to return home, though.
I slowed my steps deliberately to lag behind her, and pulled out my phone.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t have a signal. The bar graph showed completely flat. Weirder, my screen flashed strangely after I woke it up, with lines running left to right in zig-zagging patterns.
When the electrical glitches didn’t get any better, I was about to stuff it back in my bag, but my aunt reached back before I’d noticed her looking and snatched it from my fingers. I watched, more shocked than angry even, as she put it in her coat pocket.
“No need for that,” she muttered in annoyance.
She glared at me, like I was a misbehaving dog.
I bit my lip, hard, and managed to refrain from snapping at her.
Thankfully, I was quickly distracted. We angled around the last of the sloping corridor, and beyond it stood a tall, stone arch, carved with what looked like runes. It struck me that they looked exactly like the symbols from Ankha’s kitchen clock.
The gold-green light came from the opening in that arch.
I followed Ankha through a cloud of the stuff. In the split second we were inside, it felt like breaking through a thin membrane, or maybe a sheen of water. There was a shock of cold…
…and then I was gasping as I emerged on the other side.
Sound exploded all around me.
Faces, murmured voices, bodies moving with purpose, holding briefcases and stacks of files, drinking from mugs and chatting loudly, sometimes to seemingly no one at all. The energy of this new place was instantly that of a crowded, office-like setting, one filled with people with strange-colored eyes, strange hairstyles, and even stranger clothes.
I watched them walk back and forth, barely noticing me, then my eyes tracked upwards in shock. I followed curved, black-tile walls to a cavernously high ceiling, lined with windows all around me in an unbroken circle. The whole thing stretched up what had to be ten stories, yet the entire structure still appeared to be underground. The sheer architectural improbability of that stuttered something in my mind. The floor area where I stood looked longer than two football pitches laid end upon end. Only one, thick, support pillar stood in the very center, stretching all the way up to that impossibly high ceiling.
My lungs struggled to work in what felt like a different kind of air.
The harder I breathed, the more light-headed I got.
Was there not enough oxygen? Too much oxygen?
My eyes started getting caught on individual faces. Cat-like eyes with vertical pupils appeared next to regular, human-looking eyes with pink irises, or a pair tinted an odd shade of indigo blue, or deep purple, or blood orange, or bright yellow. They all walked to and fro between long rows of what looked like windowed offices.
I had to be either in the lobby of a very large building, or some vast, subterranean structure, or possibly some combination of both.
Either way, the mere fact that the ceiling hadn’t caved in––
“Where in the––”
“Silence,” Ankha hissed. “And close your mouth. You look like an idiot.”
I obeyed without thought.
Ignoring my aunt, who obviously wasn’t going to be a source of information, or civility, or much of anything useful, I made a conscious effort to view this improbable place logically.
I also remembered my promise to her.
I couldn’t speak. Not to anyone.
My aunt elbowed me then, hard, and I looked over to see a group of people approaching where we stood. Two of the men walked slightly in front, while six or seven others trailed behind. Those following all appeared to be wearing suits, both the male and female variety, cut in styles that evoked both the late 1800s and, in a few cases, the 1930s and 1940s. The two people walking ahead wore outfits that evoked even older periods.
Seventeenth Century?
Sixteenth?
I wasn’t enough up on my historical costumery to be able to say for sure, and neither could be entirely accurate. Neither man wore a wig or powdered their face, and the hair was all wrong. Their vests were too long in front and too short in back. One wore a coat that was asymmetrical, as if made with several pieces of cloth stitched together to give it more of a flowing, draping quality. The symbols covering the embroidered silk of their vests reminded me of Egyptian hieroglyphs, but didn’t match any specific characters I’d seen in books.
Both wore cream tights under silk pants that cut off just below the knee, but below that, one wore calfskin-like boots, while the other wore jewel-encrusted, pointed shoes with heels and no buckles.
What in the ever-loving––
“You cut it close to the line, Ms. La Fey,” the taller of the two men sniffed. “Is this your idea of a dramatic entrance, Ankha?”
“You didn’t give me much notice, Horace,” my aunt quipped.
He waved off her words with a silk handkerchief edged in detailed lace.
“You need notice for the annual test day?” he scoffed. “The first test day following your niece’s nineteenth birthday? You know when Magicals come of age. Nineteen. It is always nineteen. It’s not like you haven’t known this was coming. If I’m not mistaken, it was you who wanted to do this when she turned sixteen. Then seventeen. Then eighteen…”
He let out another low scoff.
“…And now you inexplicably ‘forget’ the date actually set by the Tribunal?”
I bit my tongue harder.
Barring any ability to ask questions, I made a point of memorizing every word, and noticing as much as I could about the small crowd of strangers.
The shorter of the two men still hadn’t spoken.
He stared openly and unapologetically at me, his violet-tinted eyes raking over my black curls with an expression that flickered between fascination, distaste, eagerness, and outright revulsion. After taking in my face and hair with that rude level of scrutiny, he looked over my body the same way. He focused a lot too long on my trainers and socks, then my uniform skirt, the cream uniform blouse, the grey and black striped tie, and, frankly, my chest.
Apart from him being an old perv, I had no idea why any of it made his eyes bulge like they did, but the look there raised my hackles.
I glanced at the woman standing directly to his right, who’d edged forward once the group came to a stop. She stared openly at me, too, but instead of disbelief and revulsion, her expression held a greedy excitement.
She gripped a feather quill in one hand, with something like a clipboard clutched tightly in her other arm. Her lipstick and high-heeled shoes matched her bright orange eyes, hair, and quill feather, as did the stone on a large ring she wore on one hand.
She kept smiling and staring at me between bouts of writing furiously with the quill, her eyebrows raised so high they nearly kissed her hairline.
A tall, lean, scarecrow of a man stood just behind the woman with the quill.
He kept snapping pictures of me over the woman’s shoulder then receding back, as if somehow I wouldn’t notice him doing it. He used the oddest-looking camera I’d ever seen. Roughly the size of a sandwich, it was made of dark-green metal, with a giant, round flash that blinded me every time it went off.
After the flash had gone off a few more times, I was blinking uncontrollably. After five or six flashes, I could see nothing but floating spots.
“…She is to be tested along with the others, utilizing the same process,” the man Ankha called Horace was now saying. “For obvious reasons,” he emphasized. “Although it’s clear from our monitoring that the suppression is starting to fail.”
Everyone except me nodded, even Ankha.
“For that reason,” the man continued. “We couldn’t keep the press out entirely, so we have granted a permit to The London Twilight News… as well as the Wings Herald…” Again, the balding man in front addressed Ankha alone, without so much as a glance my way. “They can be trusted to be discreet. And balanced. At least until results are tabulated and posted.”
My aunt let out a low scoff, making it clear she didn’t share his opinion on any perceived trustworthiness of the people around us.
I got briefly stuck on the names of the two newspapers.
I’d never heard of either, and I’d thought I knew all the major U.K. papers. I stood by a newsstand every day by the bus stop I used for school.
I had so many questions now, it was getting hard to track them all.
I glanced around the cavernous space, and flinched when I saw faces close to the glass, staring down at me through the tinted windows. Half the people above us had got up from their desks to peer down at our little group. I could clearly see them talking to one another on the other side of the glass. A few even pointed directly at me.
Then I noticed something else, and let out a little gasp.
Small creatures stood on the outside ledges of a number of the tile window sills. They looked like little people, but their bodies seemed to be made of flames, with round, ruddy faces on top of smokeless fires. Their hair, miraculously, didn’t catch on fire, nor did their shoes, or even their beards. A few were golden-blond, others had hair that was black, red, brown, white, and even green. A number had narrow but furry tails, like a monkey’s.
They stared down at me with visible interest, just like the pale, human-looking faces that stood behind the green-tinted windows. A few curled and uncurled and swished their tails, reminding me of cats.
I was still watching them when one leapt off the windowsill.
Startled, I let out another soft gasp.
A cry rose in my throat, but right as it began to fall…
…small, leathery wings unfolded from its back.
I let out a louder gasp, a real one that time.
I stared up, mouth open, as it swooped and dove, emitting sparks, then finally spiraled back up and flew to a higher window sill. It reached another group of fire-people up there, perched among them, and refolded its wings.
It went back to staring at me, its dark eyes intent.
I noticed the silence around me then, and looked down.
Every person in the group was staring at me now, including my aunt. All of them looked baffled, apart from Ankha, who looked positively venomous.
I coughed into a hand. Although I still managed to restrain myself from speaking, Ankha glared daggers at me as if I hadn’t, even after the others all looked away.
The man called Horace cleared his throat.
“Shall we?” he asked brightly.
For the first time, I looked at him directly. Long, grey and black sideburns reached onto his cheeks, covering part of his doughy face and offsetting his large, veiny, and dark red nose. His eyes, despite the unearthly violet color, reminded me of those of a predatory bird.
When he turned and began to walk briskly across the round, tiled floor of the high-ceilinged room, his entourage followed, and so did Ankha.
After a quickly inhaled breath, I followed, too.
Then something else occurred to me, and I glanced over my shoulder.
The arched opening we’d walked through had vanished. Only a wall lived there now, made of smooth, black stone like the rest of the walls and floor. A gold symbol shone in the center of it, another that reminded me of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
It looked like a hawk, or a falcon.
A few feet above, another tinted window had a pale face behind it, staring at me through the rounded glass. The woman’s mouth hung slightly open as she gawked, her eyes holding a fear-tinged excitement, like she couldn’t believe what she was looking at, and was a little scared, but in a fun way.
I kept my own expression still with an effort as I turned around and rushed my steps to catch up with my aunt.
There had to be a logical explanation for this.
There just had to be.

(END SAMPLE)