My name is Agatha Veronica Fairbard, and you must remember that.

I came close to forgetting myself, having wasted away in this room. Forever locked away from the world; never seen, never heard...and never to exist. It was an acknowledged truth that I was a spare, a surrogate of the one who frolicked beyond the walls. I never forgot that. Rather, the world never let me.

The lamplight was dizzying, its flickering tongues staining the edges of my latest novel amber and crimson. I frowned at it, extending my fingers towards the bronze bars of a lantern propped on my desk. A distinct chime of steel against marble clinked in my ears as I set my quill down on its resting block. Black ink glistened in trails of flattening blobs as my words dried on paper. I sighed, letting the weight ease off my shoulders with a tight stretch.

It was a tiring day, one spent indoors as always.

A nagging voice belonging to my sister nipped at the edges of my mind, but I pushed it away. She could yammer all she wanted. At least I got work done despite not touring the outside world.

As though reminded by an invisible cue, I pushed my chair away from the desk, gathered the folds of my voluminous dress, and strode towards the western dead end. The stray ends of my hair tickled my neck, but I couldn't pick on them or let the rest down. Not when the day wasn't over yet, and the house might still have guests wandering about. I pursed my lips and let the dull thuds of my buckled leather heels accompany me on my short walk.

In about five steps, my fingers were inches away from touching the faint traces of brick lines. It would take a fool to not notice the thinnest layer of illusion magic splattered over the surface. My teeth dug into my lip as my back straightened and my arm stretched longer. The tips of my manicured nails brushed the slivers of the barrier. More. A step deeper.

With a soft gasp, I inched closer, and my fingertips pressed against a cold, smooth wall. It wasn't quite a wall, as evidenced by the quiet rush of air and magic away from my arm. The hems of my skirt fluttered in a dainty wave before flopping back to the ground. When my gaze landed on the brick wall, a polished, transparent surface replaced it.

Beyond the glassy barrier came the filtered view of the adjacent room. The rounded edges of the peephole made the corners softer and forced the fixture to curve inward. I clenched my jaw and peered out into the open. I didn't dare knock my head against the glass, not when I risk stealing the attention of a passing shrew or a timid servant. The punishment for such an atrocity was something I didn't consider. I shouldn't begin to. Not when the head of the House declared my presence was an unforgivable sin.

Would they kill me? That possibility wasn't off the rails. My parents would have done so in my childhood had I provided them a reason to. Hilarious, wasn't it? These people were capable of murder, but only when they had a purpose. Only when their safety was threatened. Made me wonder how far I would go to refer to them as good people. In my world, no one was good. At least, not fully.

But fear for survival was the last car on the train of my thoughts. Instead, I pressed my hands against the glass wall and surveyed the room beyond. The fixtures stayed rooted to their spots, bearing festooned carvings, somber palettes, and a perpetual layer of crust and dust that a century of maidwork wouldn't erase. I didn't know much about the estate's history, but I would bet my quill that a large fraction of the trinkets existed before the Old Kingdom fell. The Fairbard House was an ancient court, one who controlled the same territory as they did from the establishment of the Court of Expera.

The estate was so old that my parents could sell the story of poltergeists and supernatural beings clambering up the stairs and haunting the walls without any relative or reception guest batting an eye. Folktales and legends certainly explained why a girl from a painting now milled by the foreground, lost in the art of searching for something, and why said girl looked like the latest generation of the Fairbard house.

Clever idea—I'd have to give dear ol' Fairbards the credit. It was a well-crafted scheme, so much that it made me ponder on the reason to go this far. But it wasn't my place to even entertain the idea. This room was my space. It was my world. I was never meant to step away from it, not one second longer.

Which brought me to my current predicament. My eyes scanned the empty room. Where people gathered during luncheons and my parents' other engagements, only a puff of stale air and a permeating influence of the void hung from the ceiling. Even the golden sconces lost their sparkle under the influence of the setting sun.

I craned my neck higher as though it would improve my vantage of the windows. The curtains shielded my view of the gardens—or if there were gardens out and not some unfortunate outhouse—but the unmistakable glum pink and purple gradient shining past the frosted panes told me enough. In all my years in this room, I learned how to read the time just from shadow colors and angles. When one spends every waking hour observing, one tends to become good.

It was evening, and I would provide an audience soon.

Pathetic, but it was the only part of the day I looked forward to. The hour when I could shed all the tension in my limbs and let my hair down to match the person facing me from the other side. Someone who shared my wavy, dark violet strands, pale complexion, round, doll-like face, and poison-green eyes. A girl who talked and walked exactly like me. A girl who wears my face and name with nothing to tell us apart. She was why I almost forgot what separated us from each other. And because of her, I spent my entire existence confined in this space while she was out there, living to the fullest.

And tonight, she was supposed to stop by, stare at me with her guileless expression, and exchange a few pleasantries before heading off to bed. As per common practice, I would watch her strip to her barest form, slither towards the creaky couch, and plop all her weight onto it. Her arms would snake over the entire backrest, and she would jerk her chin at the only mobile painting in this room—the framed mirror that was my dimension. Here we were, two people on opposite sides of a glass barrier, with one watching everything the other did, from waking up to sleeping.

I could never tell if it bothered her, having a real person who resembled her locked up somewhere in the mansion. We never talked about it, and I would never demand her to help me. Not when we would equally suffer under our parents' wrath if something went wrong. So, I resolved to wait every day, relishing the only human interaction I was allowed to have.

Tonight, however...

I glanced at the chiming clock at the far western corner of the adjacent room. The ornate face littered with a family of spiders and lizards told me it was sometime between 7 and 8 pondiem. She should be home now. Even if she made it later than necessary, I would hear news from the passing maids. Their chatter and obvious relief for the absence of their master's watchful eyes often colored the hallways' echoes. But now...

It was silent.

Eerily so.

Brows knitted, I pressed my face against the glass to catch a glimpse of the door. It didn't open. No shadows of footsteps danced against the pale yellow paint of the hallways. The lights were on, but that was the end of the civilization traces. I might as well be alone in the entire manor with how...still everything was.

I shouldn't worry. People had lives outside of talking to a girl in a mirror. She certainly missed some days, but she always came back immediately and often with a lopsided grin and a scroll-length of stories about her latest adventures. And from the way her eyes sparkled and her limbs flailed without grace, she must have had a lot of fun.

But it was the third day since she last visited. Perhaps, I should start.

Was that why the manor was empty? Were they all out of their minds, shaking the Ocalira's metaphorical shoulders for any updates on their daughter? Was she missing? Did she run away? What happened to her?

Questions remained unanswered, and the only people I could talk to were my parents. Rather, their portraits by the door. They never bothered visiting me, and they expressed explicit instructions to never cross paths with them. The only clue I have to what they looked like were the oil-rendered brushstrokes of their faces from twenty years ago, back when my mother's face sported no creases and my father still had hair. Then again, I had no way of ascertaining if my mother truly dried up like a grape in humid air, or if my father went gray and bald. Perhaps they read my mind and saved themselves the heartache of failed impressions.

Three days was a long time to disappear. If she made it home, I would know. The creaks from the hallway would tell me. But the house was silent. For days now. I never knew what my parents were up to, but if they could lock up one of their children in a mirror dimension, they could ignore the other if she went missing. It was our reality—children could only have one set of progenitors, but adults could choose who to consider theirs.

It would be a laughing matter, something I could put past me, if nothing happened to her. But what if something did? Would she hold it against me if I didn't look for her? Would I live it down if she turned up dead on the foyer? It didn't matter if the Ocalira were already on it, or if my parents did their jobs for once, because what if they didn't? I wouldn't risk a life for a half-baked assumption.

My jaw clenched, and I stepped away from the barrier. What good did my parents' order do? I wouldn't stay put. Not this time. My heels clacked with more resolve than they did when I first attempted to break free. It was a childish whim, but it was different now. I was different now.

Like how I practiced multiple times, I inhaled deeply, locking my breath in my chest. Then, I curled my fingers inward as though grasping something unseen. Magic thrummed in my fingertips, swirling from the charged energy in the air. The wonders of growing up in the mirror dimension was that I got to spend extensive hours immersed in a mysterious force such as magic, understanding its nature and limits, and learning to utilize it when time came.

And now was that moment.

With flair, I unfurled my fingers. My palms trained towards the wall, and I released my breath in one loud torrent. Scalding wisps of energy laced around my senses, and I directed them towards the barrier. A pillar of magical energy slammed into the smooth wall, but instead of shattering, it simply went through like a rock across the water's surface. Ripples wobbled in oscillating waves before solidifying back to its original state.

My breath hitched, and my fingers bunched up my skirts as I tore towards my handiwork. Didn't it work? Why? I envisioned it working multiple times. Even plotted a theoretical calculation for it. No way it wouldn't...

I swiped at the glass, expecting a sturdy hindrance. Except my fingers sailed through the barrier as though it was hewn out of smoke and fog. I drew back, clutching my knuckles to my chest. What...

A strangled laugh ripped off my mouth. It worked. Lochrame's ass, it worked.

Teeth grinding, I reached out anew. Cold air kissed my knuckles, then my wrist. My elbow. Shoulder. It was only when my face soared past the undulating surface that reality sank in. I was out. I made it. My neck shot out, then my other shoulder. And the world spun.

Pain shot past my chest when I landed breast-first onto a hardwood floor. My nose smacked onto a patterned rug—one I only see from behind the glass. Instead of groaning, rolling to my side, or whining, I spread my arms across the rug and rubbed my skin vigorously against the scratchy tufts. Unhygienic, but having spent my entire life behind a tailored environment, I didn't care. I was out. I made it.

But rejoicing in fresh air must come later. I pushed myself up and dusted my skirt.

Time to find my sister.