“Where am I?” she asked instead.
The woman raised a perfectly groomed brow. “Why, you’re in Eldris, of course.”
“Eldris?”
“The Kingdom of Eldris, encompassing all the lands of this here realm from the borders of the Drakelands to the Gilderung Mountains of the Nutherlunds.” She frowned. “Perhaps you struck your head harder than you thought. You are bleeding…most profusely.”
Thia suddenly remembered the black substance on her fingers, the sticky wetness on her face. She lifted a hand to her forehead and tentatively began pressing her cranium. She didn’t expect to find signs of injury, when her own blood was red, not black—but then, nothing about the last five minutes was expected.
“It’s not mine,” she told the woman after a moment. “But I hit something on the way down.”
To her surprise, the woman laughed again, the high clinking of a bell. “Yes, you certainly did. And it was supremely helpful.”
Thia blinked. “Helpful?”
“Indeed,” the woman said in her twinkly voice. “My nÿgens were fighting a witch. She had just escaped on her broom when you knocked her down. Look there.” She turned around and pointed back over her shoulder. “They are feasting on her now.”
Only then did Thia notice the sight behind the woman. What she had originally thought to be a handful of boulders at the edge of the great forest were actually a dozen or so creatures covered in dull gray-pink scales, shuffling contentedly where they clustered. About the size of a large dog, they were rather rat-like, except for their distinct lack of fur and strangely humanoid hands. As she watched, an odd string of red was tossed over the gaggle, sparking a wrestling match as it found its way back down.
“What are they doing?” Thia asked.
“I told you,” the woman said, smiling. “They are feasting.”
“Feasting….”Oh god.
Entrails. They were tossing entrails into the air.
The woman smiled at her amusedly. “Yes, it is rather grim, is it not? But, what else can you expect from nÿgens? They worship me as their goddess, you know.” She laughed again.
Thia looked away from the mess. “Are you?” She didn’t believe in gods. But she also didn’t believe in magic mirrors, and that hadn’t stopped her from tumbling into one.
She decided to revisit the psychosis theory.
“Fair Havens, of course not,” the woman said. “Forgive me. My name is Callista.”
“You’re a witch too,” Thia guessed, thinking of the gold sparks. She wondered if now was a good time to run, if this woman—Callista—so clearly delighted by her pets’ disembowelment of the dead witch, would consider Thia a fitting second course.
“Sothis.Don’t you know anything?” The statement should have been mocking, but the woman’s voice retained its warmth. She giggled again before Thia could respond. “I am a sorceress, dear one. I do not eat human flesh as that one did.” She gestured over her shoulder at the half-masticated witch. “Asha Würmheart. A plague on the people of Eldris, as though the Mage King’s conquest wasn’t terror enough,” she continued, oblivious to Thia’s apparent confusion. “But then you came tumbling out of the sky and knocked her down. So thank you kindly.” She beamed. “For that I owe you a debt. Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Um…” Thia inspected a rogue flower, feeling numb. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a cure for delusion.”
The woman frowned at her. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Then her gaze caught on something. “What’s that in your hand?”
“What?” A shard. A single shard of the mirror had somehow accompanied Thia through her fall, the glass cool and hard against her palm. “It’s nothing.”
To her surprise, the woman bent, inspecting it with a clinical air. “It has a strong aura.” She held out a hand. “May I see it?”
Thia hesitated only a second, then placed it in the woman’s palm. “What do you mean?”
Callista’s eyes narrowed. “It feels weightier than this realm.” She held it closer to her dainty face. “Is it from a looking glass?”
“A mirror,” Thia answered, vaguely recalling they were the same.
“You came through it.”
Thia’s breath caught. “Yes.”
Callista whispered something under her breath, and the shard flashed blue. She let out a soft sigh, as though the light was confirmation. “It is a portal. Or—it was.”
