In the kitchen Bee and I stripped, wrapped ourselves in towels, and hung the wet clothes on a rack by the stove to dry.

“Really, Cat, wasn’t that a little mean-spirited? A watched pot never boils!”

“Of course it boils eventually unless there’s a cold mage nearby to douse the fire. It will keep him out of trouble.” I pulled out Queen Anacaona’s skull, with its empty eye sockets and remarkably good teeth. Some peculiar magic was keeping the jaw wired on. “Where shall we set her?”

“You can’t mean to set out the skull as if it can see or hear anything!”

“It seems rude to leave her shut up in the basket. I’ll set her here on one of the plates so she feels as if she knows what’s going on.” I placed her on a cupboard shelf, facing out. “There you are, Your Highness. We will be going into and out of this kitchen, but be assured we will not leave the house without you. In fact, if you have any spectral powers, you might warn us if an enemy approaches the house so we can escape. Otherwise you’ll fall into their custody and then you’ll never reach your son.”

I glanced at Bee, sure she was about to make a mocking comment.

Instead, her lips pursed as she considered the skull of the cacica who had briefly been her mother-in-law. She made a courtesy. “My apologies, Your Highness. I regret my rude comment.”

We left the cacica to oversee the kitchen while we explored the house. Our bare feet marked trails on the floors. Warmth from the two fires drifted upstairs like the kiss of an opia. The cold mages had repapered the walls, replaced the curtains, and removed all the old furniture. Only two things remained from the house we had grown up in.

One was the big mirror on the first-floor landing, covered by a sheet. I pulled back the sheet and rubbed a finger over the mirror’s slick surface, remembering how an elderly djeli had chained the marriage between Vai and me in its dark surface. The light from the lamp Bee held gleamed in the mirror, illuminating us as indistinct figures. Threads of gossamer magic chased around me before receding into the shadows. A faintly gleaming chain spun out of my chest and pierced the surface of the mirror, as an arrow loosed into a pool stabs a path. Although barely visible in the darkness, the thread shot sure and strong into the unseen depths.

Was there movement in the heart of the mirror? I extended a hand to touch it. Its surface was smooth and hard.

“Cat, are you staring at yourself? For you look a sight, with your hair all tangled and that towel draped so fashionably…” She touched her own bedraggled curls with her free hand. “Blessed Tanit! Is that really how I look?”