"So, let me get this straight." The huntsman drops onto a low marble bench after glancing warily at the surrounding hedges. "Ya saw a bunch of images as ya were flying through the mist, and ya recognized most of them, but ya didn't know all of them. And the last picture was a cracked mirror?"

I materialize in the mirror and nod. "Correct. Did you see something different?" I suspect I already know the answer, but I want to give him an opening to explain. When the farseers and I dropped back into the tower, his face was dead white, but he refused to say anything about what he saw. Even my attempts to draw him out by describing my own visions elicited nothing more than a grunt or a nod.

But now we're in the sprawling gardens, hidden in one of the vast hedge-mazes that surrounds the court; the farseers' tower is nowhere in sight. I'm sure they can still see us if they choose – peering through space is a trifle compared to gazing through the veils of time – but, with any luck, they're done with us for now. We're safe, or as safe as we'll ever be Underhill.

The huntsman sighs. "Mary... I..." He glances around and grimaces. "It's hard to explain. It felt like..." A shudder drifts down his body. "Like I was a rider in my own body. I couldn't control it a bit. I just had to sit there and watch as all the horrible things happened – as I did all these horrible things." His hands clench tightly around his knees as his gaze darts towards my mirror, then hastily skitters away.

He's clearly distressed, which bothers me, but I'm not sure how to help. "Ah... it couldn't have been that bad," I try.

It's the wrong thing to say. His face tightens and his lips press into a thin line as he snarls, "How could ya say that? It was damn awful! It was..." He trails off, shoulders slumping. "Ya weren't there; ya won't get it."

I make a mental note to avoid telling mortals that events aren't as bad as they seem, then offer him an attempt at a reassuring smile. "So, will you tell me? I promise I'll listen." I've noticed that lovers often say this to each other when one of them is mad; it appears to help them calm down. I hope it works in other contexts as well.

Ben grimaces, but some of the tension eases out of his shoulders. "Well..." He huffs a sigh. "I don't even know where to start."

"Start at the beginning, then go to the end," I suggest.

It seems logical enough to me, but he barks a humorless laugh. "It's not that easy, Mary. But... I'll try." He lays my mirror across his lap and folds his hands. "At the beginning, I thought I was back in the real world, tending the horses. I could smell the manure and hay, feel the handle of the rake against my hand. There was even this chestnut mare that could have been the twin of Sparky, the princess's mare back at home. But the rest of the horses were different; I didn't recognize them. So it was confusing."

I want to ask him to get to the point, but I suspect that would not be appropriate etiquette. So I wait, mustering my patience, as he falls silent for several long moments.

When he speaks again, his eyes are dark and unreadable. "Then a soldier came and summoned me to the queen, and that was when things got weird." He shrugs. "Or, well, weirder. She was gorgeous, covered in black lace, but her skin was this dark brown color, like some of the travelling entertainers. I've..." He blushes faintly. "Never seen a woman like that before."

He sounds puzzled, which confuses me. If he finds brown skin 'weird,' what about turquoise or silver? What about fur or scales or feathers? I know mortals put far too much stock in appearances – my wielders are more than enough proof – but I didn't quite realize that small differences matter so much to them.

Mortals are so strange sometimes.

Ben's still speaking, though. "Anyway, she snapped a hand at me, and I went to my knees, but it's like I didn't choose to do that, ya know? It just sorta happened. Then she ordered me to kill the princess, and I said yes." He swallows hard, throat working as though there's something lodged in it. "I... don't know why I did, except that I didn't get a choice. The words kinda just... came out." He's trying to hide it, but I can see a faint trembling in his hands. What could possibly have happened to make him so shook up?

He takes a deep breath and his hands steady. "Then... then I went out into the forest, and... obeyed her." Despite his emotionless tone, horror swims in his eyes.

"So you killed her?" I affirm.

He nods. "Crossbow bolt. Right through her chest." He swipes a hand over his face. "She... she begged me not to, ya know. And I tried not to, I really did. But it was like I was a puppet or something, dancing on invisible strings. All the blood was pouring out of her and all I could do was watch." A tear trickles down his cheek and he angrily dashes it away. "Then... I cut her throat, cut out her heart, and... left her there. Like she wasn't even due the respect of a deer or a boar." More tears. "She couldn't have been more than fourteen or so, she was just a kid really."

This is starting to sound eerily familiar. A young princess, butchered before her prime by a huntsman following orders of his jealous queen? It's not unknown, but it's hardly common, either. I make my mask frown. "This queen... what was she wearing? What was the princess wearing?"

"Um..." My question must seem odd to the huntsman, but he answers anyway. "The queen was in all lace, with a black leather bodice; the princess had a pale purple dress." He hesitates, then adds cautiously, "Why? Do ya know them?"

Know them? I should say so. Unless I'm very much mistaken, Ben somehow ended up in the mind of the huntsman from the darkened world, the one slowly losing its color along with its compassion.

How is that possible? Even under the influence of the farseers' potion, he shouldn't have been able to reach across the space between the worlds. Even the strongest mortal mages are unable to pierce that veil; immortals fare little better. Never, in all my years, have I known a single mage with a clear conception of the other universes, much less the ability to clearly see them. It's as if the idea itself is hidden from them somehow. So how did the huntsman manage to see what he saw?

I have no clue, and that terrifies me.

But maybe that's not really what happened. Lavender isn't an uncommon color for a dress, and basically all Evil Queens wear black – maybe I'm jumping to conclusions here. He could have been seeing a possible future, or an event in the distant past of his own world. The fae realms are only lightly tied to time; it wouldn't shock me at all if the seers could give him a glimpse of a different time. Even, potentially, a glimpse of an alternate timeline, a hint at what might have happened to him had he made different choices.

That makes much more sense. Oracles can drive mortals mad by forcing them to view the results of a path not taken; the farseers can presumably do the same. In this case, I don't think they were doing it maliciously, but it's possible that they didn't realize the effects their potion would have. Or maybe they thought it would be amusing – I wouldn't put it past them.

"Ah, Mary? What's wrong?"

I realize that the huntsman has been sitting there in silence for nearly five minutes, and that my mask has vanished from the mirror. I hastily bring it back and make it smile. "Nothing. Everything's fine."

He frowns at me. "No, it's not. Your edges are fading, and ya still didn't answer my question."

He's right – the mask image is more shaky than usual. A touch of effort, and it solidifies, but that doesn't make his expression lighten. I sigh. "It has to be a coincidence, that's all. I'm..." I trail off. "I'm fine." I think.

He doesn't say anything, just looks at me. There's a stern, almost paternal look in his eyes, a silent reprimand for evading his question. I almost snap something rude, but long years of practice dealing with the arrogance and cruelty of my queens stills my tongue.

Instead, I take a moment to look within myself. Emotions are often foreign to me, but I do feel them – so what am I feeling now? What am I trying to hide from myself?

Simply asking the question feels like opening up a set of floodgates. A thousand parts of me are screaming, whimpering, quivering as they clamor for attention, shaking in terror of the monsters hiding in the dark. It's as if each fragment has become an antenna tuned to pick up the slightest hint of fear or suffering – I've never felt anything like it. Even the upheaval of the space between the worlds didn't provoke this level of sheer panic.

I can still think, though. The core of me, the part currently residing in the mirror in Ben's hands, can sense the fear coming from the rest of me, but it's as if there's a thick layer of silk between me and it. The scattered fragments of myself crowd around like trembling puppies seeking shelter from a thunderstorm, communicating their fear without infecting the rest of me with it.

I pause. I've seen mortals comfort their pets when they're scared – they stroke and talk in soft, calm voices until the creatures calm down. Admittedly, this sometimes requires thick protective clothing, as some mortal races keep very dangerous pets, but the basic principle is always the same. I wonder if the same idea would work here?

It can't hurt to try. Part of me is clearly scared of something, which may be related to my reluctance to revisit the visions, but I won't be able to figure out why until I calm that part down. So I start to broadcast calm, soothing thoughts. "It's alright. Everything will be okay. There's nothing to fear." The sort of thing that mortals tell their children and their pets, even when it's far from true.

It feels very odd to talk to parts of myself like this; it's not like the fragments are truly sapient. Each part of me has a significant amount of processing power and pseudo-intelligence, but there's only one 'me' as far as I know. There's only one consciousness in my strange not-body, only one 'self' with agency and self-awareness – it's just very good at multitasking.

Still, envisioning the other parts of myself as terrified puppies seems to be helping at least a little. They're slowly calming, though I still can't get a glimpse of what has them so scared – when I try, all I see is gray, as if I'm peering through a greasy window into heavy fog. If there are figures in that fog, they're too blurry to make out.

Am I scared of what I saw in the vision? The cracked mirror shook me up more than I would like, but that shouldn't cause this level of terror. And the other images were, for the most part, quite standard. What could possibly be the problem?

I want to scream. I feel like I've been given a handful of puzzle pieces from a thousand-piece puzzle and ordered to fit them together, but I've only got two edge pieces and a dozen from various points in the middle. Resolving a coherent image from so little data is virtually impossible.

I tell the huntsman as much, and he nods slowly. "I get it. Ya aren't used ta being confused, are ya? But now it's like ya have the tail of some giant monster, and ya need to figure out what it looks like, but ya can't see anything more of it."

"Exactly," I sigh. "There's something going on here; I can feel it. This story is diverging far from its normal tracks, and there's no reason why it should. I shouldn't be here; you shouldn't be here! The princess should be in a cottage right now, playing house with the miners, not exploring a Sidhe court. There's..." I stop. Think. Then curse. "The farseers never answered my original question, dammit." I had wanted to ask them about the magical cataclysm that ricocheted through the space between the worlds, but our journey through the mists had driven the thought clear out of my mind.

Ben chuckles. "Seems like they asked a lot more questions than they answered."

I nod, telling the mask to make a sour expression. "They didn't answer anything." I'm far more confused than I was before, when I simply wanted to know what idiot mage had managed to mess up the timestream severely enough to shock the multiverse.

He pats my mirror consolingly. "So what now?"

"That's a very good question..." I honestly have no idea. I'm far out of my depth, and I'm worried that something major is going on right under the surface. First there was that mage-quake, whatever it was; then the unnatural interest that the farseers displayed in both me and the princess. Now the darkened world and the visions, and the strange fear echoing through me. Is it all connected? What does it all mean?

My mask's clarity is slipping again. I pull it back into focus as the huntsman gives my mirror another pat. "It'll be okay, Mary. We'll figure it out." His tone is nearly identical to the one I was using only minutes earlier.

I can't prevent the laugh that slips out. "You should know better than to make promises like that," I chide him playfully.

He grins at me. "Now that's much better. Don't ya worry, I won't go around making foolish promises to any of the elves around here. But I trust you."

I trust you. It's such a simple statement, yet so profound at the same time. I smile tremulously at him. "Maybe you're right. Maybe we will figure this all out."

He nods, eyes shining with approval. "Yes, we will." For him, it's as simple as that.

I only wish I could share his faith.

* * *

Author's Note: I apologize for the length of time between updates; I just started a new job and life is a bit hectic.  I'm still invested in this story, but my free time to write is fairly limited right now.

Thank you to everyone who's been commenting on this story and providing encouragement – it's because of you that I make the time to write.  If you're still enjoying the tale, please let me know!  Constructive criticism is also always welcome.