“Do you recognize that place?” Lilia asked.

Zezili shook her head. “Thought you might.”

“No.”

“Well,” Zezili said. “It’s your turn now.”

“To do what?”

“To break it.”

Lilia gazed up and up, to the top of the mirror where the figure she had first spied still writhed. The body, she saw now, was fused with the edge of the mirror, embedded into it with braided bands of Oma’s breath. She gagged, filled with a horror so powerful it left her breathless, just like the day she watched her village burn.

They had not killed her mother. Oh, no. They’d put her to work for them.

“I need to get up there,” Lilia said.

Zezili pointed to the edge of the mirror. “See that braided silverwork, there? It’s a lattice. You can climb it.”

“Climb?”

“Climb,” Zezili said. “Or are you afraid of heights?”

Lilia looked at her twisted left hand. She still couldn’t close the fingers all the way.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Lilia started and turned. Zezili’s reaction was more casual. She continued looking at the mirror for another breath.

A solid, swarthy woman wearing a green tunic and long skirt stood a few feet behind them. When Lilia turned, she swaggered forward. “I still admire what you all did here,” the woman said in accented Dhai.

Lilia tried to work some spit into her mouth.

“You’re welcome,” Zezili said. She crossed her arms. “You need something?”

“Funny accent,” the woman said. “What is it?”

“Southern,” Zezili said, so smoothly that Lilia wondered just how often she lied.

The woman laughed. “It’s been a long time since I went below the Granian line,” she said. “But I suppose, soon, we’ll all sound foreign there.” She gestured to the mirror.

“Let’s get a drink,” Zezili said. “Tell me about your travels below the Granian line. My girl here wanted a few minutes alone to stare at it again. Finds it mesmerizing. I’m tired of it, myself.”

“Your girl?” the woman said. “Is she your daughter or your apprentice?”

“A bit of both,” Zezili said. She reached out her arm, and Lilia almost shouted at her not to touch the woman without asking. But as she wrapped her arm around the woman, the woman only smiled more broadly.

“Lead on,” Zezili said. She glanced back at Lilia. “And you get to work.”