2 The Witch's Apprentice Chapter 2

Elspeth leaned forward, eyes narrowing.

“That’s… unexpected,” she murmured.

Bell looked up. “What does it mean?”

Elspeth didn’t answer right away. She reached out, steadied Bell’s hand, and gently stopped the pendulum’s motion.

“It means your question goes deeper than you think,” she said at last. “And the answer… isn’t settled.”

The pendulum gave one last twitch, sharp and abrupt, before falling still like a dying breath.

Somewhere in the back of the shop, something knocked—a dull, slow thud, as if a door had closed where no door should be.

Bell turned her head sharply. “Did you hear that?”

Elspeth was already looking toward the sound, her expression unreadable. “This place hears more than it lets on,” she said softly. “Sometimes it listens. Sometimes it remembers. And sometimes…”

She took the pendulum back from Bell, her fingers colder than before.

“…sometimes it warns.”

Elspeth took the pendulum, its chain still trembling faintly between her fingers, and folded it gently into a velvet-lined socket within a narrow drawer. The wood creaked as it closed, the sound sharp and final, like the sealing of a secret. Bell’s eyes lingered on the drawer long after it had vanished from view, her fingers twitching at her sides. She wasn’t ready to let it go. There was more it wanted to say—she could feel it.

But Elspeth, as always, was one step ahead.

She turned and pulled open another drawer—this one deeper, carved from a darker wood that glistened as though recently oiled. From within, she drew out a long, slender object wrapped in layers of deep indigo silk. The cloth shimmered faintly in the low lamplight, and when unwrapped, it revealed an oval mirror, roughly the length of Elspeth’s forearms.

Its frame was exquisite—silver, but darkened with age and tarnish, etched with impossible detail. Trees wound their gnarled branches around the rim, their leaves frozen mid-rustle, and tiny animals nestled among them: foxes, stags, owls with jeweled eyes that caught the light and flickered as if blinking. Each creature looked alive—so lifelike that Bell half-expected them to leap free of the metal and vanish into the shop’s shadows.

“Hold it carefully,” Elspeth murmured, her voice low and steady, like the opening line of a spell.

Bell reached out with both hands, her palms tingling the moment she touched the cool frame. The silver felt slick with unseen dew, like morning branches in some forgotten forest. A faint scent rose from it—not of metal, but of wild places: moss and smoke and something sweet and sharp like crushed berries or overripe fruit.

She angled the mirror toward herself and looked in.

No reflection.

Or rather, not the reflection she expected.

The surface was black and polished, like obsidian or deep, still water beneath the earth. It reflected her faintly—not as a mirror would, but as a suggestion, a shadow caught between worlds. Behind her faint image, there was depth. Layers. As though something vast and endless swirled just beyond the surface, waiting. It felt like the mirror was looking back, patient and hungry.

The room dimmed. Or perhaps her awareness of it dimmed, swallowed by the mirror’s quiet gravity. The ticking clocks were silent now. The shop’s enchantments seemed to draw back, as if making room for something older.

Elspeth stood beside her, but her presence was muted, like a figure glimpsed through fog.

“Now,” Elspeth said, her voice a velvet thread in the darkness, “let’s try scrying.”

The word hung in the air like incense—ancient and sacred.

Bell’s hands tightened slightly on the mirror’s frame. The room seemed to hush in anticipation—every flickering lamp flame stilling, every distant creak of wood fading away. Only her breath remained, shallow and uncertain.

“What do I do?” she whispered.

“Let your mind grow still,” Elspeth said, stepping behind her, her voice like wind brushing through leaves. “Don’t chase anything. Don’t force it. Simply watch… and wait. The mirror listens to intent, not words.”

Bell took a slow breath, letting it fill her, letting her body relax into the moment. She stared into the dark glass, allowing her gaze to soften. For a while, there was nothing. Just her own shadowed shape, blurred and flickering, as though the mirror were reflecting her not as she was, but as something dreaming of her.

Then—movement.

It was subtle at first, like a shimmer across water, a distortion at the edges of her vision. The blackness in the mirror began to ripple, slow as oil sliding over stone. The air grew colder, and her fingers tingled where they clutched the silver frame. The scents in the shop shifted—lavender and old parchment giving way to damp stone, iron, and something earthy, like mushrooms sprouting in the dark.

She felt pressure behind her eyes. Not pain—something stranger. A sense of being drawn inward. The surface of the mirror wasn’t flat anymore; it curved now, impossibly, drawing her gaze down and down, into what felt like an impossible depth. She couldn’t look away.

The rippling turned to shapes. Mist coiled in the glass, forming rough outlines—trees, or buildings, or perhaps something entirely alien. A landscape unfolded slowly, dreamlike and incomplete. Half-seen figures flickered at the edges: a woman in a hood, eyes gleaming like candlelight; a staircase that wound downward into shadow; a hand—her own?—reaching toward something glowing white and weeping light.

Bell’s heart pounded. Her hands had gone numb.

“Elspeth…” she murmured. “I see… something.”

“Good,” Elspeth said gently, her presence solidifying behind her. “You’re catching glimpses. Let them come. Do not fear them.”

But Bell did fear them. Not because they were frightening, but because they felt familiar.

She saw the sky—or a sky, crimson and vast, hung with two moons, one full and one shattered. She saw a gate made of bone. A white bird falling into a pit of fire. And behind it all, the growing awareness that something else had noticed her watching. Something inside the mirror.

Her breath hitched.

The image warped.

The silver frame burned cold in her hands. Then the mirror pulsed—just once—and the vision snapped away like a curtain yanked back. All that remained was her shadowy reflection and the glint of lamplight.