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Nadine began pounding on the mirror. “Verla!”
The headmistress approached her curiously, like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “Nadine?”
“How did you get here?” Nadine panicked.
Verla must’ve misunderstood the question. “I came to the school when I heard about Priestess Charlotte. I needed to get you all out of town immediately.”
“But how did you get inside the mirror?” Nadine asked.
Verla furrowed her brow. “You four are the ones inside the mirror.”
“We have reflections,” Talia said. “If magic could trap us inside a mirror, we wouldn’t have reflections… right?”
Verla eyed the mirror curiously. “I have a reflection, too. The mirror itself may not even exist. We’re simply communicating from two spaces at the same time.”
“Two spaces… that occupy the same space?” Grant wondered.
“Verla, how do we fix it?” Nadine begged. If anyone had the answer, it had to be her mentor.
Verla’s entire form went rigid. “Nadine, I beg of you. Don’t try to fix this. Fixing it will only make it worse!”
“Then what do we do!?” Nadine cried.
“Get to a stable room and stay there. I’m working on finding us a way out—”
Nadine and Talia both screamed as the mirror shattered. Verla’s instructions were cut off as glass rained down over us.
Talia trembled. “Verla must have some sort of theory that will save us.”
“A stable room…” Nadine said thoughtfully. “There must be rooms that are unaffected by the space-bending spell! If we find one, it can’t hurt us.”
“An original room,” I realized. “From before any space-bending spells were put on the school. If the spell collapses, those rooms will remain intact.”
“What kind of room would that be?” Grant asked.
“The dorm rooms were all expanded on—same with the classrooms,” Talia said.
“Anything that’s not duplicated is a safe bet,” Nadine said. “The library or the ballroom would be my guess. But we have to get to one before we end up like those cats.”
We started down the hall again, opening doorways that led only to longer hallways. Screams continued to permeate the halls, and I winced each time a new thought entered my mind. This nightmare wasn’t going to end until the spell was either fixed or destroyed completely.
Around us, the hall began to shift again. Doorways grew or shrank at random, and the floor twisted at odd angles, creating a swirling labyrinth ahead of us.
“I found the library!” Talia exclaimed, pointing toward an open doorway. Bookshelves lined the walls, and relief washed over me.
We ran inside, but my stomach dropped at what appeared before us. We thought the library was a safe place, but if anything, it was more fucked up than the rest of the school. Bookshelves encompassed the entirety of the room, closing us into a circle instead of its usual four walls. The ceiling stretched so high, there had to be a hundred levels to the library now, all filled with endless bookcases. The bookshelves rotated around the room, creating a nausea-inducing kaleidoscope of colors.
The staircase leading to the second level stood in front of us, but there were so many other staircases that it didn’t make sense. Some of them were upside down or sideways, creating impossible pathways and endless staircases that you could never escape. Above us, a group of students raced up one staircase—or down? I couldn’t tell. They appeared to be stuck to the ceiling. As soon as they reached the top of one staircase, they appeared at the bottom of another far across the room.
“Uh… that’s a no-go on the library!” Grant cried.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Nadine said through gritted teeth. “The problem is getting out—there!”
Nadine pointed to a doorway that appeared between the shifting bookcases, and we took off running with our cats at our heels. We burst out of the library and into the grand ballroom.
The walls here seemed stable, thank the Goddess, but there was nothing but blackness beyond the big arching windows.
We weren’t the only ones here. Students flooded through doorways all around the room. Some people looked hurt, while others trembled in fear. Gregory and Brayden raced into the room. They glanced around in confusion, like they’d been expecting to enter a different room. Samantha and Darcy stumbled through the door next to us. I saw that Darcy had a long, bloody gash across her cheek. I rushed over to them as Darcy nearly collapsed against Samantha.
