Seymour did not speak for the rest of the night, and Linh retreated into Gretta’s room. She learned a long time ago not to push Seymour into talking. He would clam up, as prickly as a hedgehog, and Linh was too tired to try coaxing away his layers.

Inside, Lady Ella breathed quietly, finally asleep. Moonlight came softly through the stained-glass window of what used to be this dragon skull’s eye. Each colour of glass pressed down like a giant amber eye had tattooed itself again Lady Ella’s sheets. Below, the glass shoes stood on the floor, motionless, bits of amber blinking back at Linh.

By the foot of the bed, Gretta snored softly, one arm perched against her knee. Like this, she didn’t look as terrifying as she did in the forest. She looked soft and vulnerable as a kitten. Linh wondered if Gretta’s hair was as soft and inviting as it looked.

But Linh had to remember what Marie and Xuan had always told her about witches. They weren’t to be trusted. Best for Linh to focus on the task ahead and learn what she could about a cure.

She tiptoed over to the center of the room and stared down at the shoes. Linh was used to passing by her nights in silence. In the earlier days of the cursed, she used her nights to practise forming words on her palms in Circled and Eastern language. Her words used to be blobby messes, as messy as blood spilled wounds. Now Linh could control it better.

Sometimes, she told herself stories. But only quietly in her mind, never written on her palms. After all, stories got her into this mess.

No, she could hear Marie arguing in her head, it was that foolish boy.

Linh ignored what imaginary Marie had to say. She refused to think about him when she was powerless to stop him. What would be the point? If she thought about him, right now in the deafening quiet, then she would start crying ugly ink tears, staining her body with rivers of black ugliness. She had to keep positive.

Suddenly, there was a tap, like someone knocking experimentally against a mirror.

Linh slowly looked up, and trembled as she saw the glass slippersmoving on their own, walking towards her.

She froze, dotted eyes whirling back and forth, searching for the invisible body moving the shoes.

Then, step by step, like silvery water moving up the veins of a tree, limbs began to form from the ankles up. Two calves, thighs, hips, stomach, chest, arms, neck, and head. Mouth, lips, eyes, and finally, a long glassy gown.

The glass woman opened her eyes and stared blankly at Linh. Her eyes were like snow globes, carrying hints of other worlds within them. She did not smile.

Linh and the glass woman stood there, seemingly staring at each other like mirror images. Linh felt as frozen as the first time she saw her first unmentionable, a man whose body consisted of writhing moths, who could die with one hard shove, scattering his body into tiny winged insects. But the longer Linh stared, the more she saw herself. Empty ink eyes staring back.

She should have ran for help. She should have inched away from the glass woman. But Linh couldn’t stop seeing her own empty expression in the glass woman’s figure.

So, she did not wake Gretta or Seymour. Instead, she held out her hands, hoping for something to change (maybe within her, maybe in the world itself.)

[Hello,] the ink slowly wrote on Linh's palms.

The glass woman looked down. She paused, then, she put her hands out against Linh’s.

Tiny blue and white tendrils of light swam in the glass woman’s palms. They dashed together and formed words too.

[I didn’t know there were others like me.]

If Linh could breathe, she would have stopped by now.

[You’re an unmentionable too?]

The glass woman tilted her head to the side and shook her head.

[No. I don’t think so. I’m something new.]

[Something new…?]

She nodded. Tiny little pieces of glass began to fall from her eyes, making distant broken sounds as they fell. It was like watching a statue deteriorate in front of you. Linh wanted to reach out and catch every broken piece. But she had to press on.

[What do you mean?] she asked.

The glass woman cried harder, more glass pieces scattering on the floor.

[Something sad. Something she doesn’t want to feel anymore. I’m memories.]

Carefully, Linh pressed, [Memories of what?]

[Memories of family. Memories of her stepmother and stepsisters.]