—VERMÄCHTNIS DES WAHNSINNS

Acceptance and Trepidation stood shoulder to shoulder, watching those within the ma.s.sive mirror. The reflections huddled, bald heads almost touching, over the reflection of Konig's desk, writing and arguing.

Acceptance watched, tonguing the broken shards of teeth that were always catching at his lips. The eye patch covered the ragged wound Abandonment had left when he tore out his eye, but he wished there was something he could do about the mess Trepidation had made of his mouth kicking his teeth in. He glanced to the Doppel at his side. I'll have my vengeance.

"They know something," said Trepidation.

"They will share it with me," said Acceptance, hiding the ruin of his mouth with a hand. Hadn't Aufschlag done much the same? The thought was unpleasant. He'd hated Aufschlag not because he couldn't be trusted, but rather because he had been the closest thing Konig had to a friend. Revealing the scientist's betrayal would truly have been a coup for Abandonment had Acceptance not acted first. "They know the balance of power in this relations.h.i.+p."

"Abandonment's words before they dragged him into the mirror," Trepidation muttered.

Acceptance ignored the Doppel, gesturing to the mirror. "See?"

The reflections turned from the desk to face the Doppels in the room and held up pieces of paper covered in hasty scribbles, the letters and words all backward.

"G.o.ds," muttered Acceptance, "Konig's penmans.h.i.+p is atrocious."

Trepidation, keeping a safe distance from the mirror, squinted at the spidery swirl of reversed letters. "I can't read a thing."

"I have an idea." Acceptance drew out the small mirror he used to examine his ruined face. "I'll read the message in my own mirror. This way the words won't be backward."

He could feel Trepidation's eyes on him as he turned his back on the large mirror and held up a small hand mirror of the sort ladies carried about.

Acceptance stared, mouth hanging open, at his hand mirror. The reflection of the reflections gathered in Konig's mirror all wore eye patches and sported the battered visage he saw daily in his own mirror. They held up a sheet of paper with their own badly written message. Acceptance slammed his mouth shut, hoping Trepidation—somewhere on his blind side—hadn't seen the look of confusion. He tasted blood as ragged teeth tore fresh wounds in tender lips. He craned his neck, looking over his shoulder at the reflections in the big mirror. They looked as they always had, exactly like Konig. Unmarred by the beating Acceptance had suffered. He spun to look at Trepidation, but the Doppel still squinted at Konig's mirror, trying to puzzle out the backward message.

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Trepidation glanced at him. "Does your mirror help?"

"Not much," he said, returning his attention to the hand mirror.

The reflection of himself holding the mirror stared at him intensely with a single eye. Behind his reflection, in the reversed mirror image of Konig's mirror, Acceptance's eye-patch-adorned reflections held up a message of their own.

Acceptance read the message: Konig's reflections plot against you.

"This is still hard to read," muttered Acceptance, stalling to gather his thoughts.

"I think I can read it," announced Trepidation. "It says the a.s.sa.s.sins failed. The Schatten Mörder and Tiergeist are dead." He turned to face Acceptance. "Asena is dead."

Acceptance ignored Trepidation and stared at Konig's reflections. Do they tell the truth? Is Asena dead? What could they gain from lying? If he reported this to Konig, and it later turned out Asena was alive, Konig would think Acceptance had lied. He shuddered at the thought of suffering another beating.

"Do we tell Konig?" asked Trepidation.

Acceptance put away his hand mirror and walked to Konig's heavy oak desk. He took hold of the chair and dragged it out into the center of the room, leaving lines in the rich carpeting. "I have another idea," he said, and threw the chair into Konig's ma.s.sive floor-to-ceiling mirror. He had time to see the eyes of Konig's reflections grow wide with terror as, with a deafening crash, the mirror shattered. s.n.a.t.c.hing up the chair, he wielded it like a war club, pounding first at the fragments clinging stubbornly to the mirror's bra.s.s frame, and then systematically reducing the shards on the ground to glinting dust.

Trepidation, eyes wide, watched in terrified silence.

Finally, confident that nothing remained of the mirror or its reflections, Acceptance dropped the chair and stood wheezing. Never before had he exerted himself to such an extent. Is Konig this out of shape?

"There," he gasped as he righted the chair and examined it. Though somewhat chipped and scuffed, it seemed undamaged by its mistreatment. "Good chair," he said, collapsing into it.

"There?" Trepidation asked, keeping a safe distance.

"Yes. It's a good thing we destroyed the mirror," he said, flas.h.i.+ng Trepidation a broken smile. "The reflections tried to escape."

Trepidation frowned at the glinting dust on the floor. "I didn't see—"

"Or did you destroy the mirror for no reason?"

"We were just in time," agreed Trepidation. "I saw one reach out beyond the frame. It made a grab for you."

"Yes. They knew taking me would weaken Konig." He watched Trepidation through his single narrow eye. "There was no message."

"Of course not. I do hope Asena and Anomie are well."

"Indeed."

The two remained silent for a moment, Acceptance watching as Trepidation looked at everything other than his fellow Doppel.

"You realize what this means," said Trepidation, gesturing at the shattered remains of the mirror. "Konig's Mirrorist powers are growing. His reflections could see what was going on elsewhere." He glanced at Acceptance. "Perhaps they could even see into the future."

"I think if they could, they'd have done something to protect themselves."

But what if they had?