Death Bringer

“Can it do any tricks yet?” he asked.

“I’m still working on it. Want to hold her?”

“God, no,” Fletcher said, laughing. “I’d drop it.”

“It’s not an it, it’s my sister. Go on, hold her. You won’t make a mess of it, I swear. Only an idiot could drop a baby.”

“You always say I am an idiot.”

“But you’re a special kind of idiot. Here.”

She passed Alice into his arms, and he stood there, rigid, a look of intense concentration on his face.

“I’ve got to support the head, right?” he asked. “And the rest of the body, obviously, but mostly the head. The head’s the important bit. Am I doing it right?”

“You’re doing fine.”

“Do you think it likes me?”

“Honestly, I think she has more taste than that. The baby’s like me – she tolerates you.” She gave him the bottle, waited until Alice was feeding again, then stepped back. “Want a cup of coffee?”

“I’d better not, I’m holding a baby.”

“Suit yourself.” Valkyrie went to the kitchen, dumped a spoonful of coffee into a mug while she waited for the water to boil. She looked up at the window, tried to peer through the blackness on the other side, but all she could see was her own face staring back at her.

Fletcher walked in on stiff legs. “Haven’t dropped it yet.”

“You’re a natural,” Valkyrie said, smiling and turning away from the window.

“Do you think so?”

“Oh, yeah. All you need is to wipe that petrified look off your face and you’ll be inundated with babysitting jobs.”

“In that case, I think I’ll keep this petrified look, thank you very much.”

She poured the boiling water into the mug and gave it a few quick stirs, but just as she was about to take a sip, they heard a noise coming from upstairs.

They froze. Fletcher looked at her.

“I thought we were alone,” he said softly.

“We were,” Valkyrie replied. She put down the mug. “Stay here.”

Fletcher shook his head, holding Alice out to her. “You stay here. I can teleport up and back again before whoever it is even blinks.”

“It’s my house. I’m in charge. I’m going up. If it’s trouble, take the baby to the twins, then get back here immediately and help.”

“Valkyrie, for God’s sake—”

“We’re not arguing about this.”

She walked past him, out of the kitchen and into the hall. The lights were on upstairs. It was brightly lit and warm and welcoming. She climbed the stairs. Shadows curled around her right hand.

Another sound, coming from her room. The first thought that entered her mind was that Tanith had lied when she’d said she’d leave Valkyrie’s family alone. Valkyrie hesitated, then shouldered the door open and barged in.

The reflection turned to her.

Relief flooded through Valkyrie’s veins, followed by puzzlement, and then anger. “What are you doing out?”

“I’m sorry?” the reflection said.

“You’re out of the mirror. How the hell are you out of the mirror?”

“You didn’t put me back in.”

“Yes, I did.”

“No. You didn’t. You told me to get into the mirror, but you didn’t touch the glass.”

Valkyrie frowned. “I did. I did touch it.”

The reflection shook its head. “You must have forgotten.”

“I didn’t forget, for God’s sake. It was two hours ago. I climbed through the window, you got in the mirror, I touched the glass and absorbed your memories. I remember everything you did today.”

Now it was the reflection’s turn to frown, a perfect simulation of a puzzled expression. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

“Oh for God’s sake … I let you out of the mirror this morning, you went downstairs and Alice was crying—”

“That was yesterday.”

Valkyrie stopped. “What?”

“You’re remembering yesterday. Alice was fine this morning. You came back two hours ago, I got in the mirror but you left the room before you touched the glass, that’s all. You just forgot.”

“But I remember touching the …”

“Do you? Do you actually remember? Or do you just assume you did it because it’s what you always do?”

Downstairs, the baby started crying.

“She probably needs her bottle,” the reflection said, and walked past Valkyrie, out of the room. Valkyrie watched it go, still frowning. She looked at the mirror, piecing together the events of the last two hours. She’d climbed through the window and the reflection had been doing their homework for school the next day. Valkyrie had told it to step into the mirror, and she’d changed her clothes, fixed her hair and … and …

She was sure that she’d touched the mirror. She was sure that the reflection’s memories had flooded her mind. She was almost certain of it. It was possible, of course it was, that she was getting mixed up. It was an easy mistake to make, after all. It was like locking the front door before bed, then lying in bed minutes later and wondering if you’d actually locked the door or you’d just thought about it.

Valkyrie went downstairs. Keeping track of two sets of memories had been tricky at first, but she was an expert at it by now – two parallel tracks of experiences, happening at the same time, sometimes even in the same space. It had taken the longest time to get used to sorting through conversations that she’d had with herself. Viewing a conversation from both sides had been brain-meltingly unsettling. And even though there were some flaws in the process, some gaps in the reflection’s memories that she couldn’t access, she had always felt that she had a handle on it all. Until just now.

Valkyrie walked into the living room. The reflection had Alice in its arms, and it was smiling gently as the baby guzzled from the bottle. Fletcher stood nearby.