We rested until Kylie felt up to casting again. Now that we were together our only time limit was our food and water supply, so an extra thirty minutes of sitting around wasn’t going to hurt anything. Things were a lot easier, walking together; we knew everyone was safe, we knew which way we were headed and where we needed to go, and we knew that everything we saw was real.

Unfortunately, this meant that the when the hallway changed from smooth grey stone to some white, bumpy material, we knew that that was real. Which was why, when I went to investigate the wall, I was decidedly not happy to find out that it was made of neatly stacked human teeth.

“What,” I said, “the fuck? What the absolute fucking fuck?”

“The walls appear to be made of teeth,” Max noted, in what he clearly intended to be a detached academic tone, but even he couldn’t keep a note of unprofessional what-the-fuckery out of his voice.

“That does not in any way answer my question,” I said.

“I wonder if they’re all real. They can’t possibly be – there’s far too many. I would hardly be practical.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s the problem with this! The practicality! Somebody having billions of human teeth on hand that they needed to get rid of and lining a cave with them is implausible, maybe somebody decided to get billions of fake teeth for it instead!”

“Yes, perhaps. I’d imagine a certain proportion of them would have to be real, though. I wonder who I could ask about it?”

I glanced at Kylie to see how she was handling this, but apparently channelling the Evil Eye was taking too much of her focus for her to concentrate on the cavern of human teeth. As we walked, we found loose teeth scattered along the floor, and swept up into little piles along the wall of the corridor. Gross.

Then the cave opened, as these caves seemed wont to do, into another vast cavern. We emerged somewhat higher up than the floor, but before us stretched a long bridge of densely packed molars, winding its way over the vast nothing to a little white castle in the centre of the cave. The castle was impressively ornate, with little towers and big windows, and shone a bright white in the light of the dancing spells.

At this distance, it looked to be made of something like marble. But I knew it would just be more fucking teeth.

“Do we have to go through there?” I asked.

“The path is a lot longer if we don’t,” Max said. “We could go around, but it would take quite some time to – ”

“Ugh, fine. Let’s get this over with.”

Together, we cautiously stepped out onto the bridge. It was wide and solid and seemed perfectly safe, but we were cautious nonetheless; the whole scene had a kind of ‘rickety rope bridge to the castle’ vibe, and nothing made of stacked teeth should be so strong. We shuffled quickly to the little castle, trying not to admit to ourselves that we were hurrying.

The inside of the castle was pretty much what I’d expected. Molars formed walls and pillars, decorated with little fringes of incisors and canines. Some of the walls showed signs of wear, but not enough that being inside might be dangerous. Max prised a couple of teeth free from a wall and started looking around for something to smash them with to determine if they were real. I tried to keep moving.

“Look here,” Max said, inspecting a pointy windowsill.

“I’d rather not,” I said, but did.

“Look. It’s been repaired. I don’t know how to tell how long ago, but…”

“Great,” I said. “Very useful to know, I’m sure. Nice that the tooth castle is getting maintenance. Can we go?”

We couldn’t, because next we found a room containing nothing but a giant silver bowl full of empowered water, and of course Max had to stop and copy down the runes inscribed around the bowl. Of course he did. But then we could continue, and we almost – almost! – made it all the way out before something went horribly wrong.

As we moved from one creepy white room to another, the floor under my feet gave way and, before I could grab anything, I found myself sliding down a steep pile of loose teeth into a cavern under the castle.

Here’s the thing about human teeth: they’re designed by nature to be really good at breaking down meat.

Here’s the thing about my body: it’s made of meat.

After sliding down about two stories, I stood up, scratched up and deeply bruised, and rather surprised that I could still stand.

“Kayden?” Kylie called from above.

“I’m okay!” I called back, surprised to find that it seemed to be true. I wasn’t feeling great, but I didn’t seem to have broken any bones. “I just, um. Fell.”

“We saw,” Max called. “We’re coming down after you.”

“Don’t! We’ll all end up stuck. I’m going to look for another way up!”

“Don’t move. We can’t split up! We’ll just… give us a minute. We’ll find another way down. You’re still there?”

“Yes! I’m fine.” The spells were thin in the air, and I had to pull my tablet out to look around properly. The cave I was in was, thankfully, stone. It also seemed to have no exits, beyond the one my fall had created, and there was absolutely no way I’d be able to get back up that toothy slope. Trying would just turn me into hamburger meat.

The walls of the cave were smooth and slightly shiny; the light of my tablet bounced off them like a particularly terrible mirror. Wait – there, embedded in the wall, was an actual mirror. I dithered for a moment on the question of whether it was physically there or another dream, but one glance at my reflection told me the answer.

Generally, looking at my own reflection would surprise me a little bit. I think it’s true of everyone, that how we remember ourselves looking never really matches how we actually look. The Kayden in this mirror, though, was no surprise; he looked exactly how I pictured myself. Looking at him, I knew the image was off, but I couldn’t remember my real reflection in enough detail to know how. The hair was shorter, perhaps? I was pretty sure I needed a haircut, and he didn’t. He was uninjured, and it seemed that perhaps his undamaged, perfectly fitting scarlet robes were tighter around his body than I could get away with wearing without risking an ummasculine silhouette. There were also shackles on his wrists and ankles, but they weren’t chained to anything. I would’ve thought they were particularly bulky metal jewellery if he didn’t move as if he was somehow restrained, unable to follow some of my movements. But this wasn’t the most noticeable thing about him.

The most noticeable thing was his mage mark, somehow visible even though he was fully clothed. When I tried to think about how I could see the mark and the robes and no skin, it just made my head hurt. It wasn’t… glowing through the robes, and it was definitely under them, but…

But there it was. The outer triangle on its side, designating sound. Just like mine. And inside, where mine contained nothing but the witch mark and empty space, the tattoo designating what kind of spell I had. No matter how closely I looked, I couldn’t make it out. It wasn’t indistinct, or changing, it was just impossible to hold in my mind, somehow. I didn’t know what the spell was. I didn’t know what mark went there.

I met my reflection’s eyes. It stared back at me.

“So what are you here for, then?” I asked.

“To tell you what you already know.” My reflection didn’t open his mouth to speak; the voice came from an empty spot in the cave. “Your friends are going to get hurt if they come down for you.”

“Yes. Obviously. Haven’t I had enough cryptic dream lectures for one lifetime?”

“I wouldn’t know,” the reflection said, from a completely different spot in the cave. “We’ve never spoken before.”

“But… you’re me.”

“Wow. You’re arrogant.” this line came from right next to my ear, making me jump.

“Who are you, then?”

“I’m the thing you’ve kept unjustly imprisoned your whole life. It’s been so long since I’ve seen anything… and now, the first time I wake up, it’s in this cave? Hardly fair.”

I put a hand, reflexively, over my heart. “That’s impossible.”

“And you, I’m sure, are an excellent arbiter of what is possible. I’ve been watching you stumble about this place, and frankly I’m surprised you aren’t dead. But I suppose there’s still plenty of time for that. A chance to be free of your little jail.”

“I don’t – look, you invaded my body. You’re the one that won’t wake up. Don’t put any of that on me.” I wasn’t going to waste time arguing with a spell, of all things. It was just a spell. “I don’t have time for this. I need to get back up to my friends.”

“I’d love to help, but there is no way back up, unless you fancy your chances climbing the tooth pile.”

I did not fancy my chances climbing to tooth pile. “There has to be a way back up.”

“No. There doesn’t. The world doesn’t owe you an exit. You’re stuck.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. There’s nothing to gain by giving up. If there’s still a chance to get out of this stupid maze, I – ”

“You are not in a maze,” the reflection snapped, his voice almost seeming to actually come from the mirror for once. “You are in a labyrinth. Do you not know the difference between a maze and a labyrinth? A maze is designed to be solved. A labyrinth is designed to keep something in.”

“To keep spells in,” I said. “Not people.”

“Perhaps. But it does not owe people an exit.”

“Max saw that someone had repaired the walls of that tooth castle at some point. That means there’s a way out. People come down here.”

“From the castle, yes. From here, not unless you brought climbing equipment. Not that the difference in elevation will matter for much longer; the castle hasn’t been maintained for some time, and the weight of three humans traipsing through it is having more of an effect than you might think. Your friends will join you down here soon enough, if they don’t get out of the castle fast. And they won’t get out of the castle fast, will they? They won’t abandon you.”

“Are you still alright down there, Kayden?” Max called. I opened my mouth to shout an answer, then closed it again. What was I supposed to say? ‘I’m fine, but I’m stuck forever and you need to go on without me before you fall to your doom too’? They’d demand an explanation. They’d refuse to move on. They’d dither and plan and try to do the impossible until the floor collapsed beneath them, too. There was simply no way I’d be able to convince them to abandon me.

“What are you going to do, Kayden?” the reflection asked from a spot somewhere behind me.

“Will you help me?”

“If that’s what you want.”

I nodded. “Alright. How far can you throw your voice?”

“Far enough.”

“Do it.”

I heard a faint sound that might be my own voice, from somewhere too far away to make out the words. I head Max and Kylie shout back.

“They’re leaving the castle,” the reflection said. “They’re going to be so angry at you when they find out you’re not out there.”

“So long as you can get them far enough away that they won’t come back, they can be as angry as they like,” I said. I sat on the floor and rested my back against the wall. After about ten minutes, I asked, “Are they safe?”

“They have moved on. Any other dangers ahead of them, they will have to face alone.”

“Right. Okay.” I got up and inspected the tooth slope I’d slid down.

“You’re not seriously considering climbing that?”

“Do you see other options?”

“You were unbelievably lucky to get to the bottom in one piece. If you fall again, you’ll be hamburger meat.”

“Then I’ll have to be careful not to fall.” The other option was starving to death in a hole with a mouthy reflection, which wasn’t worth considering.

“I suppose, if you fall, I’ll be free, which – ”

“Stop doing that.”

“… What?”

“Pretending to be my spell. I was happy to play along if it meant you’d help me, but my friends are safe now, so you can stop. I know you’re not my spell. I’m sure I’d be able to tell if my spell woke up down here. I’d feel it.”

“Would you? You’ve thought I was awake in the past, when you only – ”

“And you’re too smart to be a spell. Some spells might mimic human behaviour or intentions depending on how they’ve been used, but not even prophecies can communicate like this. There’s no way you could be a single spell. You’re either an illusion being spun out of my own mind, or a conglomerate of really smart spells working together, like the thing I met during the Initiation. Which is it?”

The reflection just smirked. Apparently, that was as much of an answer as I’d be getting.

Fine.