Rapunzel leaned back in her chair, watching Snow White's face in the magic mirror as her friend ughed about something the pace chef had done that morning—apparently he'd tried to make a soufflé and nearly burned down the kitchen.

  "I swear, Rapunzel, the man is a genius with roasts but put him in front of anything that requires precise timing and he panics." Snow White's dark hair was pulled back in an eborate style that probably took her handmaiden an hour to arrange. She looked tired but happy, the way she always did these days. Being Queen suited her.

  "Maybe you should hire a pastry chef," Rapunzel suggested, organizing bottles on her workbench while they talked. "Someone who specializes in the delicate stuff."

  "Charming suggested the same thing. I think we will." Snow White's expression shifted slightly, becoming more businesslike. "Which brings me to why I'm calling. I need more of the contraceptive blend. The usual amount."

  Rapunzel nodded, already mentally checking her inventory. "I have it ready. I made a fresh batch st week when I knew you'd be running low soon."

  "You're a lifesaver." Snow White smiled warmly. "I know I usually come to the city to pick it up myself—I like the excuse to visit you—but things are so busy right now with the trade negotiations. Can I send someone to collect it?"

  "Of course. No problem at all." Rapunzel made a note in her ledger. "I'll have it packaged and ready. Just send whoever you trust with it."

  "Thank you." Snow White paused, then her smile turned mischievous in that particur way that always meant she was about to pry. "So. While I have you here..."

  Rapunzel felt her shoulders tense slightly. "Yes?"

  "When are you going to start seeing someone?"

  There it was.

  "Snow," Rapunzel said, keeping her tone light, "we've had this conversation."

  "I know, I know. But honestly, Rapunzel, you're brilliant, you're successful, you're *gorgeous*—and as far as I can tell, you've never even mentioned being interested in anyone. Ever. In all the years I've known you." Snow White leaned closer to the mirror, her expression genuinely curious rather than judgmental. "I'm not trying to push. I'm just... curious. Is there someone? Anyone?"

  Rapunzel focused on arranging a row of bottles by size, not meeting her friend's eyes. "I'm busy. The shop takes up most of my time."

  "That's what you always say."

  "Because it's true."

  "Rapunzel."

  "Snow White." Rapunzel finally looked up, giving her friend a small smile. "When there's something to tell, you'll be the first to know. I promise."

  The Queen of Specura studied her for a moment, then sighed. "Alright. I'll drop it. For now. But you know I worry about you being lonely."

  "I'm not lonely. I have my work. I have friends." Rapunzel's smile widened. "I have you bothering me about my nonexistent love life every few weeks."

  "Someone has to." Snow White was smiling again, but before she could continue—

  Her face froze.

  Not like a pause in conversation. *Froze.* Her expression locked mid-smile, her eyes fixed and unblinking. The mirror's surface rippled like water disturbed by a stone, and Snow White's frozen image began to recede.

  Rapunzel's breath caught.

  The view pulled back—fast. Snow White's face became a window, then a room, then the pace itself shrinking to a white dot on a ndscape. The perspective kept expanding. Mountains. Rivers. Coastlines. The entire kingdom spreading out like a map until—

  Their pnet.

  Rapunzel stood slowly from her chair, her hands gripping the edge of her workbench.

  The blue-green sphere of their world hung in bck space, rotating slowly. Stars surrounded it—familiar consteltions she'd seen through telescopes, read about in astronomy texts. Beautiful. Normal.

  Then the stars started flickering.

  It began at the edges of the mirror's view. One star blinked out. Then another. Then ten, twenty, a hundred all at once. The darkness between them began to *change*—the bck of space splitting apart like fabric tearing, revealing something underneath.

  Green light. Lines. Patterns that had no business existing in the natural void.

  The stars weren't disappearing. They were being *repced.*

  Numbers and symbols cascaded across the space where consteltions had been—endless streams of zeros and ones flowing like water, like poison spreading through a bloodstream. The lines expanded, forming perfect angles where the messy chaos of space should be. Too neat. Too ordered. *Wrong.*

  Like someone had drawn over reality with a ruler.

  Rapunzel's hands were shaking.

  The lines reached their pnet's path. Began creeping across the sphere itself. Where they touched, the blue-green surface flickered—became see-through, showing yers of geometric shapes underneath, like reality was just a painting stretched over something else.

  Then something pushed back.

  The stars pulsed—bright, defiant, *angry.* The natural starfield surged forward like a body fighting off sickness. Light against lines. Living against dead. The numbers stuttered, flickered, began to retreat.

  The lines fought. Symbols shed out, trying to hold on. But the stars were relentless. They pressed forward, burning away the geometric infection, restoring the wild randomness of real space.

  The green light dimmed. The perfect angles colpsed inward, shrinking, disappearing back into whatever nowhere they'd come from.

  Space returned to normal. Stars in their proper pces. The pnet whole and blue-green and *real* again.

  The view rushed forward—continents, mountains, pace, room, and—

  "—so anyway, I should let you go." Snow White's face was back, perfectly normal, picking up mid-sentence as if nothing had happened. "I have a meeting with the agricultural council in ten minutes. But I'll send Marcus by tomorrow to collect the herbs?"

  Rapunzel couldn't speak. Her throat was tight.

  "Rapunzel? You alright? You look pale."

  "I'm fine," Rapunzel managed. "Just—tired. Long day."

  "Well, get some rest." Snow White's expression softened. "And seriously, think about what I said. About finding someone. You work too hard."

  "I will. I promise."

  "Good. I'll talk to you soon." Snow White smiled warmly. "Love you."

  "Love you too."

  The mirror's surface went dark, returning to its normal reflective state.

  Rapunzel stood there, staring at her own face in the gss. Her skin *was* pale. Her eyes were too wide.

  She'd seen it. She'd definitely seen it.

  Third time now. *Third time.*

  Her hands were still shaking. She pressed them ft against the workbench, trying to steady herself.

  "Mirror," she said, her voice rough.

  The surface rippled, activating. "What is your request, Rapunzel?"

  "Show me what just happened."

  "What is your request, Rapunzel?"

  "The... the thing. The lines. The—" Rapunzel took a breath, forcing calm into her voice. "Show me the st five minutes of my conversation with Snow White."

  "What is your request, Rapunzel?"

  "Stop." Rapunzel's jaw clenched. "Just stop. I *saw* something. You know I saw something. What was it?"

  "What is your request, Rapunzel?"

  "Tell me what those lines meant. Tell me why space turned into numbers. Tell me what's happening to—"

  "What is your request, Rapunzel?"

  The same phrase. Over and over. Like it couldn't hear her. Like it was refusing to listen.

  Rapunzel turned away from the mirror, her heart pounding.

  Three times. She'd seen it three times now. The first had been eight months ago—brief, barely a flicker. She'd thought she'd imagined it. The second was three months after that, sting longer. This one had been the worst yet. Long enough to watch reality itself crack open like a rotten egg.

  And the mirrors wouldn't talk about it. Wouldn't expin. Just repeated that same phrase.

  *What is your request, Rapunzel?*

  She moved to her desk and pulled out a locked drawer. Inside was a leather-bound journal—the one she didn't keep in the shop proper, the one nobody else knew about. She flipped to the test entry and started writing.

  **Today's date - afternoon**

  *It happened again. Longer this time - maybe counted to thirty before it stopped. The stars went out and those green lines took over. Like someone drawing over the sky with perfect straight edges. Numbers everywhere - zeros and ones flowing like they were alive. The whole pnet looked see-through underneath, like you could peel back what we see and find something else underneath.*

  *Something fought it off. The stars came back. Pushed the lines away.*

  *Snow didn't notice. She kept talking like nothing happened.*

  *Mirror won't answer when I ask about it. Just keeps repeating itself like it's stuck.*

  She set down her pen and stared at the words.

  Three times now. Getting longer each time. Getting worse.

  Something was sick. Something in the world itself. And whatever it was, the magic mirrors either couldn't or *wouldn't* help her understand it.

  That's why she needed the harp.

  Jack's magical harp wasn't part of the mirror network—it was different, older magic, came from older times. If she could get her hands on it, study it, maybe even take it apart, she might be able to build something that could give her answers the mirrors refused to provide.

  The Hoods would get it for her. Big Bad was the best at what he did. Roslyn could get into anywhere. Robin could pn jobs that seemed impossible.

  They'd bring her the harp. Soon.

  And then maybe—*maybe*—Rapunzel could figure out what the hell was going on before it was too te.

  She closed the journal and locked it away again.

  Behind her, the magic mirror sat quiet on its shelf, its surface showing nothing but her workshop.

  Waiting for her next request.