hair on the back of her neck was standing on end. Who dared enter her chambers and speak to her mirror? Hadn’t she said her rooms were off-limits? She didn’t want food sent to her room; it was to be left outside it. She didn’t want her chambers cleaned, either. No one could find the mirror. It belonged to her and her alone.
Whoever had engaged with it would pay dearly.
Locking the door to her chambers tight behind her, she made her way around her room, looking for the culprit who had dared invade her private space. Aside from a few pillows out of place at her window seat, the room was empty. She went to her closet, prepared to press the lever that revealed the dungeon-like room where she and the mirror convened—but she found it open.
Bursting into the dark room, she readied herself to sentence the intruder to death, but the words on her lips failed her when she realized what was happening. Through the green, smoky haze of the mirror’s glow, she saw the outline of someone, their hand outstretched to meet the mirror’s smooth glass. But the silhouette confused her, for it was so small, and appeared to be standing on its toes to reach the mirror. Then she realized . . .
“Snow!” she cried, rushing toward the girl and pulling her away from the mirror before the tips of her fingers could connect with its surface. “How did you get in here?” she shouted, shaking the girl by the shoulders so hard she wasn’t sure who was more jittery—the child or herself.
Her niece burst into tears, which rolled down her round porcelain cheeks. The ivory gown she had on was covered with dirt from the chamber she had crawled through to get to Ingrid’s private quarters. There were hidden passageways everywhere in this castle. Passageways that would need to be closed up immediately. Snow’s bow, sitting atop her crown of black hair, was crooked. Ingrid distractedly wondered who had tied it in her hair that morning. It used to be Katherine; it had never been Ingrid. She wondered if it had been a few days or a week since she’d seen the child. Truthfully, she’d been trying to avoid her. After months of trying to bond with the girl at Georg’s behest, she’d given up. Every time she saw Snow, the child was crying—first for her mother and now for her father. The tears that day came hard and fast, and the sob that escaped her throat was so raw that Ingrid let her guard down slightly. “Oh, child . . .” she started to say.
“It said I could see Mother!” Snow looked at Ingrid with big brown eyes that were the spitting image of Katherine’s. “It said all I had to do was touch it.”
“What?” Ingrid wasn’t sure where to unleash her anger first—at the mirror that had betrayed her or the foolish child who had almost destroyed everything she had been working toward. “Snow, let’s get you out of this room.”
“No!” The tears were replaced by a flash of anger. The little girl began to pound on Ingrid’s chest. “I want to see Mother! It promised! All I had to do was touch it!”
As long as she is allowed to live, your power will wane. She is the true heir in this game.
“Liar! You were trying to use her to help yourself!” Ingrid shouted at the mirror, and Snow stopped pounding and looked at her aunt in surprise. Then she tore out of the chamber.
Ingrid caught her before she could get to the bedroom door, but it wasn’t hard. Little Snow crumpled like a paper fan the minute Ingrid touched her, and for a moment, she dissolved into tears again, burying her head in her aunt’s chest. Ingrid was, again, caught off guard. Snow had never hugged her before. Not after Katherine’s death, not after the rushed nuptials between her and Georg, which the young girl, only seven years old, could not understand.
She, too, had grown tired of this new role. Originally, the idea of marrying Georg had been a necessity—in order to have power, she needed the crown. But quickly she realized it wasn’t enough to rule at a man’s side. She wanted to rule on her own and not play second fiddle to his needs or affections. She had hoped adoration from the man would please her, but instead, she felt repulsion that the fool couldn’t see through her spell.
She faithfully mixed