The land didn’t look like the Hundred Acre Wood. It wasn’t even an orchard. It wasn’t even outside. Looking through the door was like looking in that mirror back at Brakebills, after Darcy’s reflection had vanished: it was exactly like the room they were standing in, except for the fact that they weren’t standing in it. And it was all reversed.

“Through the looking glass,” Quentin said.

This wasn’t what she’d expected. Quentin picked up a long-handled spoon from the worktable and tossed it underhand through the doorway. It clanged and slid along the floor in the other room. It seemed safe enough.

“What is this?” she said.

“I think it’s our land.”

“But why does it look like that? Is that what it’s supposed to look like?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was this what you were expecting? I thought you were going to do an orchard. Is this what you were trying to do?”

“No.”

“Why would you make a land that looks exactly the same as the one you’re already in?”

“That’s a good question.”

Quentin walked through the door and into the other room. She watched him look around. She had to hand it to him, he didn’t look all that freaked out. Just checking out the scene.

“Classic,” he said. “It’s completely reversed. It’s opposite-land. You gotta like the respect for tradition.”

He spread out his arms.

“Come on in if you want to, I think it’s safe.”

Plum went on in. It really was the weirdest thing. It was like the house had acquired a Siamese twin, attached to it at the door. She was struggling with a sense of anticlimax.

“It sort of worked,” Plum said. “I mean, we did make a land, right?”

Quentin nodded.

“Or a house anyway. Let’s be careful, Plum, this feels a little off.”

It was a very, very quiet house. The original house was magically soundproofed, so it was quiet too, but this was different. This place was sonically dead—it was as if the walls were covered in that egg-carton foam they used to line the walls in music studios.

And there was something else. The place had a claustrophobic feel. She couldn’t put her finger on it till it was literally staring her in the face.

“Look at the windows,” she said. “All the windows. They’re not windows, they’re mirrors.”

It was like the eyes of the house had gone blind.

“Huh. I wonder what the mirrors are.”

Yeah. Good question. There was one in the little half bath out on the landing. She steeled herself for some horror-movie shocker and then poked her head in.