King Wendell sat at his desk, his head in his hands. The noise was too much. He stood up and walked over to the window.

The palace grounds were in shambles. The turrets were covered in dust and rock, at least the ones that were still standing. His palace’s courtyard was a mess of debris. The men that were scattered about were slowly disassembling his castle. The king gritted his teeth. And to think this had been his idea! An extremely long letter from the troll king sat on his desk and he couldn’t concentrate on a word of it because of those imbeciles wreaking havoc in his garden.

“Where in God’s name is Antony?” he shouted ill-temperedly at one of the guards who was standing just inside the door.

“He-he’s not here your majesty,” the guard stammered. “He’s gone to visit the Lady Virginia for a few days.”

Wendell sighed. Of course. How could he forget?

“Inform me the minute he arrives,” the king ordered.

“Yes, Sire.”

Wendell headed for his chambers. It was amazing how much he relied on that manservant. Actually, he was more of a friend to Wendell now. Besides, Antony was bringing what he called an “Industrial Revolution” to the Nine Kingdoms. And he was starting with Wendell’s new bouncing castle. Those seemed to be Antony’s specialty.

“It’ll be more interesting at least,” mumbled Wendell. Being king had not been as thrilling as he had hoped. But it was certainty better than being a dog. That hadn’t been a pleasant experience.

“I wonder how Virginia and Wolf are,” he said to himself as he reached his room. He glanced at the Traveling mirror propped up against a bookshelf. The two had gone through it a couple weeks ago, as Tony had yesterday. They had brought their baby boy, Patrick, with them. All the maids had fawned over him and congratulated Virginia, who had looked quite happy. Almost as happy as Wolf.

Wendell stared at his reflection in the magic mirror.

“I should go to Man Hat In someday.”

“Dad. Please. Stop.” Virginia rolled her eyes. “Dad, give him to me.” She reached for Patrick.

“Virginia,” Tony said sternly, “I should be able to spend time with my own grandson. Shouldn’t I, wittle Patty-watty, cutie pie baby, oh yes, tickle, tickle, tickle!”

Patrick’s bright green eyes lit up and he howled with laughter. Tony’s eyes were misty and he was talking in his baby voice. Virginia, disgusted, couldn’t stand it any longer. Patrick seemed to be enjoying the smothering, so she left them alone. After all, they only saw each other every couple months.

Virginia walked slowly down the stairs of their new apartment, running her hand over the banister. She smiled as she remembered how it had come to be theirs. To put it mildly, the Murrays had seemed to be unusually generous with their spending money when Virginia and Wolf had returned from the Nine Kingdoms. In fact, the Murrays had begged the two to take everything they owned. Virginia couldn’t help but accept some. She saw it as pay back for all those years of Murray misery. Besides, she and Wolf hadn’t had any money when they first got back. And the spell had to wear off sometime, didn’t it?

Virginia reached the bottom of the stairs and paused to look out the window. It was raining again. Virginia sighed and closed the blinds. The weather had been nothing but rain for almost two months now. Nothing but rain. New York City was starting to flood, but luckily they were on the twentieth story of their apartment building. It still gave her a headache. She headed to the kitchen for some aspirin.

“Virginia!” Wolf exclaimed from his seat at the table in the kitchen as she walked in. He was reading a cookbook. “Where did you get this thing? There are some great recipes I could use at the Grill.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Virginia warned, walking over and taking the book. “Grand- mother gave this to Dad a long time ago. She was probably trying to kill him - I thought I threw this out already.” She flipped through the pages and laughed.

Wolf looked slightly disappointed but shrugged. “Well, I have lots of other ones.”

“Yes, you do,” Virginia answered without hesitation, and tossed the book into the garbage. She reached into the cupboard for the aspirin.

“Does it rain this much in the Kingdoms?” she asked Wolf.

“Virginia, have you ever read a fairy tale where it rains? Of course not,” he said, as if this were obvious. He smiled. “Somebody could get wet. It only rains at night in the Kingdoms.”

Virginia poured herself a glass of water and winced as she swallowed the pills. “That sounds really nice...” she sighed.

Suddenly it was dark. Virginia and Wolf looked at each other, then up at the hanging light on the ceiling. The power had gone out. They both rushed to the window.

New York City was dark. All the buildings that had been brightly lit a moment before now looked like part of the silent night sky. Virginia gasped and put a hand to her mouth. She had never imagined this would come with the storm. It was like one of those Y2K horror movies, and here she was, living it. She could already hear the honking and yelling twenty stories below.

She looked up at Wolf and bit her lip.

“Uh...” he faltered, “We could go to the Kingdoms?”

“That’s a wonderful idea!” Virginia cried, relieved. “This could get really messy, you know. I mean, I can’t see a light anywhere for miles- it’s the perfect opportunity for murderers and thieves to...um... uh... I’ll go pack!” She ran up the stairs.

“I’m sure it’ll come back on soon!” Wolf called after her, then shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

Virginia nearly ran into Tony, carrying Patrick, as they were coming down the stairs in the dark. “The lights are off, you know,” Tony informed her unnecessarily.

“We’re leaving,” she said shortly, taking Patrick.

“What?”

“For the Kingdoms!” Virginia, exasperated, hurried to her room.

“Oh, oh. Good idea,” Tony said. He started downstairs, then stopped. “You do realize that there’s no electricity in the Kingdoms, either.”

“But they never have electricity, so there won’t be any axe murderers running around because it’s out!”

Wolf rolled his eyes towards Virginia as he came up the stairs. Tony shook his head and went to the den where he would have been sleeping for the weekend. “This was a short vacation,” he muttered as he groped for his sleeping bag in the dark.

Tony, Wolf, and Virginia holding Patrick in a carrier all stood under three umbrellas in the middle of a dark Central Park. The ground was so wet that their feet were almost covered in mud, and rain was paying no attention to their umbrellas, drenching all of them despite their efforts to stay dry.

They were searching for the portal to the Nine Kingdoms, the magical mirror, which from the Tenth Kingdom’s side looked like a piece of the forest that didn’t fit. It was turning out to be more than difficult to find in the rain and dark.

“Maybe they didn’t turn it on yet,” Virginia suggested half-heartedly to Tony, who had just untangled his head from a nearby bush.

“I specifically told them, using this very reliable hand-held Spying Mirror,” Tony ex-plained, irritably waving a tiny mirror in front of her face, “That we would be here at exactly this time and that this is when they should turn the mirror on.”

“Well, it’s not here,” Virginia mumbled.

“Here it is!” Wolf yelled from behind them. Tony smirked and walked over to him. Virginia followed sourly, lugging Patrick along with her.

They stood in front of the blurry, watery surface of the magic Traveling Mirror.

“Oh, great. I’ll go first,” Tony smiled even wider and walked up to the Mirror.

“Sure, Dad. We don’t mind,” Virginia said sarcastically, brushing a strand of dripping -wet hair out of her face.

Tony ignored her, held tightly to the three bags full of diapers and bottles that he was carrying, and stepped into the mirror. His body seemed to liquify for a moment, and then he disappeared.

“Here, Wolf. Take this.” Virginia handed him the baby carrier after taking Patrick out of it. “I’ll hold him while I go through,” she said. “You can go first.”

“All right,” Wolf said eagerly. He took a huge step and vanished into the watery surface.

Virginia clutched Patrick tightly to her chest. He had just woken up- it was amazing what babies could sleep through- and he was busy being fascinated by the strange sight before him. Virginia was always nervous about taking him with her through the mirror, but she had gotten used to the idea, as Patrick had, because they did it often to visit with Wendell. Still, she took a deep breath as everything around her changed.

Smash! Smash! Smash!

Virginia and Patrick flew through the dozens of mirrors that were always there, unbroken, each time the mirror was used. Virginia had figured out that they must be some kind of illusion, because it didn’t hurt at all when they smashed into the glass. Her eyes were shut tightly as they always were on this trip. Patrick was laughing and waving his fists. Virginia wasn’t aware of anything except Patrick and crashing mirrors.

Then, in one terrible second, Patrick was gone. Virginia’s eyes flew open and she whipped her head back. Patrick was stuck in one of the mirrors. And the mirror had turned white. Virginia’s blood turned to stone. She watched, helpless, as her son started to wail. He was framed inside the mirror, cracks rippling out on the glass from his tiny body. Virginia screamed but she couldn’t stop herself from flying further away, and the last she saw of Patrick was the mirror swallowing him up, and she knew she would never reach him.

Virginia fell to the floor of Wendell’s palace gasping for air. For a moment she didn’t move, then she stood up, turned around, and slammed her body against the mirror. She was again lost in the world of mirrors.

Smash! Smash! Smash! Smashsmashsmashsmash!

Virginia heard screaming, the most awful, bone-chilling screaming, and it took her a moment to realize it was herself.

And then it was over again. She hadn’t seen Patrick at all. He had really vanished. Virginia collapsed into the mud of New York, her hot tears drenching her almost as much as the puddle she was sitting in. All she knew was a cold, empty yet heavy feeling that made her limbs too much of a burden to lift her hand to her face.

Suddenly Wolf was beside her, his eyes wide with fear. Virginia rested her head on his shoulder and sobbed. Wolf was too shocked to do anything. He just stared into the growing darkness.

He had seen it all, through the mirror from the other side. Patrick had been ripped from Virginia’s arms and trapped in one of the mirrors that she had just passed through, and the mirror had turned white. Virginia had continued to come towards him, but Patrick had seemed to fly further away, finally being devoured by the mirror, or so it looked. And when they had come back through, he wasn’t there. Gone.

Wolf stood up and dragged Virginia up off the ground also. He shook her to get her to look at him, and when she did, her expression was so frightened and desperate, it almost made him burst out in tears.

“Virginia,” he said gently, trying to keep the pain out of his voice, “We need to go back. We can’t do anything here.”

She nodded. She knew that, but she was so scared. She took Wolf’s hand, and he stepped through the mirror before either of them could think about it. The sound of smashing mirrors seemed far away and blurred. They both looked for their son amidst the chaos, but unsurprisingly he was nowhere to be seen.

Wolf and Virginia stumbled into the palace where Tony, Wendell, and a dozen servants and guards stood waiting for them with worried, bewildered looks on their faces.

“Are you all right?” asked Wendell, staring at them.

Wolf looked at Virginia. They hadn’t seen, he realized. How were they going to explain?

Virginia went over to a chair and sat down with a thump. Her heart felt like lead. She put her head in her hands, but didn’t cry. She was done crying. For now.