Everything is True: 2nd Installment
Welcome to the further adventures of Helix, one year after her first encounter with Jinx
It was her day off, with nothing to do until her passport appointment the next day. So Helix got herself a cup of coffee, wandered around, and stopped on one of the smaller streets to pop a squat on the curb and do some people watching while she drank. She was halfway through her coffee, enjoying the day and watching the people pass when a voice the color of secret candy said “Hello, Helix.”
She looked around quickly, but nobody was paying any attention to her. Then, prompted by she didn’t know what, she looked up over her shoulder. There, crouched nonchalantly on the edge of an awning, was the strange man, dressed like a gypsy with a pirate hat on, looking at her. Helix jumped up, staring back. The man gave her a grin like a cat, and in a similar vein, stepped lightly down to the walkway next to her.
“Hoy, Helix, I am called Jinx, and we’ve met before”
“What-” Helix started and then couldn’t make her brain go further “What-” she said again, helplessly.
“Well found,” said the stranger, taking out a thin black cigarette (which, somehow, seemed already to be lit) “I been giving you quite a chase, haven’t I? How are you finding London?”
“Who-” Helix tried again. She’d thought about what she’d say if she ever saw him again, but couldn’t remember any of it. The stranger’s cigarette smelled spicy and weird, and his canine teeth were somehow extra noticeable.
“Called Jinx,” he said “and if you make me say it a third time, it will be your own fault what happens. Now I can see you’re a woman of few words at the moment, so let’s get straight to business, shall we?”
“Business?” Helix’s vocabulary ramped up to supply, while her mind spun and her eyes tried not to see what was in front of her. “Yeah well,” said the odd man, “the thing is, I believe you have my pendant”
Fifteen minutes later, they were in the backroom of a very small book shop, two cups of tea steaming on the table as Jinx thoughtfully compared the pendant to an old book open in front of him.
“You did give it to me, right?” Helix definitely felt like something was wrong “You don’t think I, like, stole it or anything do you?”
“No, worried-me-lass, nothing like that -- I gave it to you as a precautionary protection, but it’s been working very hard; it’s trying to guide you to the All Side, which is strange indeed, and at the same time it’s pulling a lot of energy to hide you. Something is hunting you.” Oh. That was... worse.
“Okay. That is. Um. That’s. So.”
“Yes,” agreed Jinx “it is indeed so. You’ve no idea just how so it is. Hmm..” Decisively, he downed his cup of steaming tea all in one go and stood up, saying, “Well you’re in it now, Helix me girl, you’ll have to come with me” The book shop’s proprietor, a strange little man with a face like a basset hound shuffled in and stopped just inside the door.
“T'ought you said you wouldnae come back here,” he half mumbled glancing at Jinx in between studying the floor.”
Jinx smiled a feather-filled smile at the man “Ah, weell, I did say, but… did you hear me promise? Because that I didnae do. Sorry old chap, trying times and all such- and now, Helix, we should go somewhere safer still. Come along! And bring the pendant!” and he took a coin from nowhere and placed it, balanced on edge, on the table. The old man gave a little shout and scrabbled past them to snatch it before it could fall flat, while Jinx lead Helix to the door.
“Hoy!” the little man called to Jinx before they could exit. “come ye back no more!” but it sounded like he was pleading.
“My good fellow,” Jinx said magnanimously, “I shall never stoop so graciously as to grace your stoop again!”
“Do you swear?”asked the old man, nervously.
“Lords and Lady, a bastard son of a three-legged hell-hound bitch could not make me swear more to that than I just have!” said Jinx, and stepped out into the street. Helix heard the old man sniff “Ach, 'no’ would’ve done, you didnae have to bring me mam an’ her missin’ leg into it” as the door closed.
Helix followed Jinx, as if in a dream. Her brain was having trouble catching up. “Um, where-?” she ventured.
Jinx didn’t pause his rapid pace. “We’re going to have to do some research; I’m taking you to see Nibs.”
“Nibs?”
“Yes. Nibs. The Scribe. We’ve already been too long. We’re stopping by The Library to see Nibs on the way, and then we’ve got to go. There’s no time, you’re not safe, someone from the All Side has taken an interest in you.”
“Oh.” Helix said simply, “Okay,” and off they went.
Helix and her strange guide wound up in a BART station, not far away. Jinx brought them to a halt for a moment near the subway turnstiles, watching the crowd hawkishly. “Aha!” he exclaimed under his breath, and moved up behind a man who had just nearly knocked over a small child in his rudeness and haste, and tapped the man once with his middle finger. “Sorry,” Jinx said indifferently when the man scowled over his shoulder. The turnstile then refused the man’s subway card. He swore and tried again, still nothing. Muttering curses, the man left to see what was wrong with his card, and Jinx stepped up to the machine, which suddenly seemed to remember the two card swipes, and let them through. They hustled down the hall towards the westbound landing, but stopped in front of a small plain door set right in the middle of the wall. It looked like the kind of door that might have a mop bucket behind it. Jinx took out a ring of keys, selected one, and opened the door (to what was indeed a mop-closet) all the way flat against the wall. He put a new key in the lock and turned it and pushed the door straight back halfway into the wall. Now it looked like a normal door, closed, right next to a doorless closet. Jinx changed keys yet again, and opened the door back the way it had come until the closet was closed again, revealing a doorway through the wall next to it.
“Time to leave the One Side Earth, welcome to the All Side,” said Jinx as he waved at her to enter. Helix cautiously put her head through. It was another subway hall, parallel and similar to, but decidedly not the same as, the one Helix was still standing in. A whole lot older, for one thing. She stepped through, squinting suspiciously. The light was all wrong, sort of murky and honey-glazed. She turned to find Jinx closing the door behind them. “Won’t that leave the mop closet open back there?” she wondered.
“No, of course!” said Jinx. “The One Side follows the door around as it swings, to patch the hole in the Verse,” Jinx grinned “We’re in front of the door, same as we were, the mop closet is what’s on the other side of it still. Come on!” and he took off toward some stairs leading down. Down to, as Helix soon saw, what appeared to be the world’s most ancient subway platform, dimly lit by a couple of actual torches, sputtering at them from iron brackets on support columns. Everything was stone, and nearly black with smoke and age. Jinx went to what looked like an empty tin can with a screen over it, sticking out of the wall, and said into it “Hoy! Service, please! London platform, service to the Library!” there was an echoey creek from the can, and a grumbly voice issued forth unintelligibly. Jinx seemed to repeat his request in some language that sounded like a bobcat reading poetry, and got a response. “We’ll have to wait a while,” Jinx told Helix brightly, “don’t wander off, and mind your own business if anyone comes down” and with that he stretched out on a stone bench, pulled his hat over his eyes, and to all appearances, dropped straight into a deep sleep.
As Jinx slumbered, Helix tried to let her mind get a grip on her day. She hoped that if she did get a mental grip, the platform would fade away, and she would realize she was talking to a bum on a bench and she could go get some professional help. Unfortunately, try as she might, she continued believe she was in some kind of otherworldly subway, with a sort of maybe wizard-guy, toting what might be some type of magic book. Or something. Helix wished she understood any of what was happening.
She had given up wondering how it couldn’t be, and started to focus more on what it possibly could be, when she was interrupted by the day’s commuters. She was over by the speaker thing looking at a mark like a frying pan cooking two letters etched into what was, in fact, a tin can stuck in the wall, when they came in. Hearing the patter of small feet behind her, she turned and watched a tribe of little creatures swarm into the room. Most of them looked distinctly frog-like, but walking upright, putting most of their heads at just over knee-high to Helix, all dressed in loincloths, carrying various implements. One of them was only shin height, and round, like a bubble blown from bluish green gum. It had on an un-buttoned hawaiian shirt and a pair of leather sandals, and carried a palm pilot. Absurdly, it had a hands-free phone in it’s pointy ear. Another of them had four arms which it was using to shuffle a deck of cards, roll a coin over it’s knuckles, pick its teeth, and count a grubby wad of bills. The one next to that one had rows of sharp triangular teeth, like a shark. Their leader seemed to be the one in the middle, toting a spear- that one had two heads, one of which gleamed wetly black and rainbow, like the sheen on a puddle of oil. There were a dozen of them. They broke up into a loose collection of smaller groups at the far end of the platform, and began babbling to each other in a language that sounded like a creaky bed being boiled in mud. Every so often, one of them would glance at Helix.
Now Helix had a real problem. She dearly wanted to wake up Jinx, but she didn’t want to LOOK like she wanted to wake up Jinx, who lay asleep on the bench closest to the far end of the platform. Near the. Near the. Them. Who at the moment seemed mostly to be ignoring her, unless those casual glances meant they were discussing which bits of her would taste best fried in butter. She began to inch toward Jinx. More of the things took an interest in her. She took another step. Suddenly they all stopped talking and faced her expectantly. She froze, heart beating wildly, and nearly screamed in terror when a horrific squealing and clanging erupted from the tunnel behind her. Jinx gained his feet like fainting in reverse as a small and ancient steam locomotive pulled two rickety cars into the station and came to a hissing stop. All the little creatures watched it come in, ignoring Helix completely. Jinx looked at the little things, looked at Helix all the way across the platform, and nodded. “Very wise,” he said, “now come along!”
While they waited for the little clan to board, Jinx leaned over and said quietly “Those are Ips- a whole bogus of them. Nasty things, out of your league; stay out of their way, you.”
The Ips took the front half of the front car, so Helix and Jinx took the seats at the back, near the doorless opening that connected to the rear car. They were just about to sit down in the dim yellow electric light, when the Ips set up a shout and charged past them into the second train-car. As they bounded (and rebounded) through and around her knees, she received a couple sharp pains, heard her pants tear, and felt her feet go out from under her. Her fall pushed Jinx out of the way of the things and into his seat. When it was over, Helix climbed to her feet and just caught herself on the back of her chair as the train pulled away.
“What the actual fuck, Jinx,” she half-shouted over the chugging and clanking, putting her hand to her leg “I think I’m bleeding.”
Jinx had an irritating and knowing smile on his face. “Oh my me yes, I should think; how are you’re pants then, torn?”
“Yes,” Helix bit out. Jinx cocked an eyebrow at her “And do you, Helix me lass, have your wallet with you this fine day?”
“of cour-” Helix grimaced in the middle of patting her back pocket. “My wallet chain is still attached!” She fumed in disbelief.
Jinx was nodding through the doorway, “There’s your reason” he said looking at the Ips clustered around what looked like a shirtless ninja standing solemnly on the ceiling. His calm stance there put his head about level with the excited little creatures, albeit upside down. “That one is called Sir Happenstance, and he is the cause of your brush with the Ips”
“Why?” asked Helix, fearing some nefarious plot.
“Well, because it is such a coincidence they saw someone they knew so well on this train, of course!” he said, getting up “Come, let us see about your wallet.” Helix followed him over to the group of beings at the end of the train. “Hoy! Gryp! What devilry be yorn?” Jinx called out as they approached. Heads turned and conversation stopped. Jinx strolled up to stand among them.
“Hoy, Friend Happenstance, how goes it?” asked Jinx in a lazy manner.
“By the by,” answered the hanging man in a voice of quicksilver “And you, Exalted Jinx?”
“Much the same. Girlie-me-lass,” he said to Helix, “meet a knight-errant of Her Trinity.” The slender muscled man nodded gracefully at Helix “And these,” Jinx continued in a voice like a game show host, “this motley impish crew, be the Ips!” there was a general cheering from the region around their knees “Slip, Clip, Nip, Chip, Rip, Whip, Dip, Tip, Zip, Gryp, and Blip” he rattled off, “Blip’s new” he added, nudging Helix and nodding at the little round one poking it’s palm pilot. “How goes it, Blip?”
“Bleeping gre- hic -great, Jinx,” the little thing creaked.
“And of course!” Jinx announced grandly “their fearful chieftain, the mighty Trip!” The two-headed Ip gave a regal double nod, and turned back to continue conversing with Happenstance’s upside-down ear. “Now this one here, the quadra-limbed beastie with the gold earring, that’d be and elder named Gryp and he’s the Ip ye want.” the four-armed creature in question stuck a foot-long tongue out at Jinx and said to Helix in a voice like a short squeaky door “hoy, Tallgirl, whatsyername then?”
“Why, her name’s the word her mother calls her, of course!” said Jinx quickly, before she could answer. “Now go on,” he said in an aside to her.
Helix looked at the Ip and back to Jinx. “But I thought.. I mean, can’t you…”
Jinx looked pained. “Look here lass, I can point 'im out and back ye up, but I can’t do a thing that’s yours to do, yeh?” There was a chorus of croaking laughter from the group of Ips.
Right then. Helix squared her shoulders and addressed the grinning thief. “Alright, look, uh, Gryp, I want my wallet back right now!” “Sure,” Gryp shrugged nonchalantly and pulled it from the back of his belt, “Here yas go”
“Check the-” Jinx began, but Helix was already opening the wallet to look.
“Nice try, asshole, but I want everything that was in-” Jinx cleared his throat. “-everything you took off me!” finished Helix after a second’s thought. There were groans and booing from the crew.
“G'wan Jinkies, tain’t hardly fair play, that” Gryp groaned sourly at Jinx.
“Now Gryp, my good Ipling, she’s my guest, and I’ll host ‘er as I will,” Jinx said levelly, staring at him.
“How'bout yas game me for’t, then” Gyp said to Helix, waving her cash, pocket knife and now somehow the ring she had been wearing, taunting her while flourishing a deck of cards. But Jinx pulled a coin from the air and started flipping it “You’d play at bets with a friend of mine, and me right here, brave Gryp?” he said, “I might even get it in my head to suggest she raise the stakes.”
“A'right then, a'right, no quarrel, put yer nasty trinket away” the little beast sulked, and handed Helix her things.
“Good. Now clear out 'til next stop” said Jinx, “I want a word with his sir-ship” Helix stepped gingerly aside as the grumbling Ips filed out of the car.
Now the dude on the ceiling, Happenstance, stepped over until he was standing straight out from the train wall, near the ceiling, the rope of long black hair behind the man, like the rest of him, believing gravity to be at the bottom of his feet. This put their faces level to his sideways head.
“To what then do I owe the honor of such a fine and pleasurable company, so rare in these long years of boundaries and respect between us?” he asked Jinx in that sleek voice of his.
Jinx cocked his head. “Three random events lead me here to find the Right Hand of the Dame giving the Ips a weeks worth of work, and I shouldn’t ask you the last piece of news you just got?” Jinx gave a little nod “I’m deep within’ your bailiwick, Sir, and trust me to know it as well as you. Now, do Sir, if you would be ever so kind as to carry out your own Work, tell me why we’re here, and what you’re meant to tell me.”
“Ah, Jinx, never any time for any games but your own. Very well.” He paused. “The thing I did not know 'til now that you were meant to hear: is i’ve just learned from from Ippish lips, the Ix are out I fear.”
“Thanking yas veritas, various areas,” said Jinx, sketching a gesture in the air, “that is distressing news. How long have they been about?”
“One year ago as the One Side measures; my agent just happened to pass by exactly as they awoke.”
“Lucky” said Jinx, flatly, and turned, “A second thanking.”
“Hoy, Jinx,” said Happenstance, stopping him from leaving, “could I possibly interest you in an off the books exchange?” Jinx turned back thoughtfully. Happenstance slid his glance over at Helix. “Hmm,” mused Jinx, “but what else could I want of you?” Suddenly, Helix was very nervous. Happenstance leapt smoothly to the floor in front of them, gazing intently at Helix. “Oh my dear friend and much celebrated Grand High Jinx, your interest in upsetting, shall we say, the rank and files, is not so unheard of. And I, well, I know a few things about the ranked… and their files.”
“Oh my me yes, that is worth something I should think, let me see… yes. I can say one or two things.”
“Then so shall I, Oh Jinx. Oath-unbroken.”
“Oath-unbroken” responded Jinx, and then launched into a pitch like a car salesman. “The woman you see beside me is to the All Side entirely new! A complete unknown! Fresh from the One Side, a player of mysterious variables and untried values! A joker in the deck.”
“Oh really,” mused the slinky man, oozing offended disbelief. “Then know this, that you should not know: twas not a weeks worth of appointments with which I equipped those Ips- but a month of work. And now,” he continued, as the train suddenly braked “I believe it just happens to be your stop.”
As they hurried off the train and up a flight of stairs, Helix tried to make sense of the situation. “What was that you told him about me?” she demanded of Jinx after a few minutes of climbing.
“Nothing but a truth he won’t believe hidden in the truth he knows I’m compelled to tell, in exchange for more than disbelief is worth; but less than he wanted to tell me- the proud bastard.”
Helix spent a while trying to work this out and gave up. Besides, she had more pressing questions “Um, do these stairs ever end?”
“Of course they do, silly me lass; surely you don’t believe in sorcery” Jinx laughed, and winked.
“Well,” said Helix dryly “I’m still inclined to think that magic is just science I can’t understand, only, if these stairs really do end, what are the chances there’s a loo at the top?”
Jinx guffawed “No need to invoke the Dame, worried me lass; there’s a priv near the top, sure enough.” And there was.
The library was grey stone, rug laden and plush inside, drapes and tapestries thick on the walls. Nibs the Scribe turned out to be a very old and strange little man, about five and a half feet tall, but stooped with age. He had an odd blunt face and a slopping forehead and stood before Helix, examining her like a shop keeper with new merchandise, while quizzing both she and Jinx “And it activates the old puropse?” he asked Jinx.
“That it did, Nibs old friend, my own eyes told the tale.”
“And you have how many for years when it gives to you?” the little man queried Helix
“27” said Helix, working her way through the grammar, “Jinx gave it to me last year”
“And then you must be over here and we are see” the little man decided, and sat them down at a table while he got a trolly out and disappeared into the bookshelves.
“Jinx,” said Helix desperately, “you have to tell me what the shit, man; I am way out of my element here. Or my head” she muttered.
“Right y'are, I s'pose, “ sighed Jinx, “well.. it’s the pendant, innit? I ought never 'ave given it you, Helix, lostling or no.”
“Come again? Dude, speak English.”
“Look you, there are many of your people that are compatible with the All Side, but have never woken up to it or found their way here. We call them Lostlings. Now that pendant is from the All Side, and designed for a .. a strange Working, and fit for a specific mindset at a certain age. And you, lost me lass, come along too old, but all trimmed to suit it, and activate the last one to exist.” No pin dared drop as Helix sat.
“Yeah right,” she said, finally. “Sweet jebus, where are we even sitting right now? How can this really… really? I mean… really??” Helix looked around herself “did you like, y'know, put acid in my coffee?”
Jinx tilted his head, “Do yas truly not believe in spellcraft 'n’ gods? Amazing.”
“Magic.” Helix said slowly, “Is. Just. Science. I. Don’t. Under. Stand.”
Jinx looked at her as if gauging her ability to reason. Finally he said “Then do you understand that each of the particles in that pendant which you found is a Worked Creation, and each of those is its own limited consciousness? With a body and a will to direct it? And there are among us beings whose bodies have stopped aging, whose minds are redesigned? And can you understand that the One Side which you are from is .. is a spectrum out of the available rainbow? And that the Laws of Physics as you call them that One-Siders are just now grasping are only a ninth of the Laws that govern the Single-Yet-Multi-'Verse?”
Helix was quiet a minute, thinking.
“Nnn… nano-bots, genetic manipulation, multidimensional string theory?” she ventured, and then was forced to sit for several minutes trying to tell Jinx everything she could remember understanding about nanotechnology and string theory. Jinx looked at her for a minute, and burst out laughing. “That. Is. Amazing. I mean not really, no, but, you’ve gotten so much closer so quickly. I mean, yes, some of what you said are the things I said… in the way that a ball is the same thing as it’s surface area. I s'pose you might, if you were taught by a specialist for a few years, be able to understand the basics of even maybe most of it, given enough tutoring.. and perhaps a few modifications.” Jinx paused. “No, challenged me lass, you’d best stick to calling it magic,” he said, finally.
Helix sat as Too Good to Be True and Too Frightening to Be True and Too Real to Be Untrue fought a small tournament in her skull. She leaned back into the safe cushions of disbelief “Come on, Jinx, I gotta stop this nonsense and go back. Or maybe I wake up from this ricockulousness and go get my passport?”
“Passport! Shite! Thank you for reminding me. Stay here” and with that, Jinx got up and hurried off into the books.
Helix put her head down on the table, trying to digest it all. 'Oh no, it’s not magic,’ she thought sarcastically, as her mind gently closed the shutters on her and took itself off for a nap, 'it’s just that they’ve figured out how to actually cut the volunteer in half.’
Helix woke up face down on a wooden table surrounded by books, saw the time, and panicked. And when she finished panicking about the possibility of missing her passport appointment, and considered where she was and what she could be panicking about instead, she collapsed sideways off her chair in a fit of laughter. Jinx poked his head out from around a huge pile of books, and said, “Well, laughter’s rarely a dangerous or permanent affliction” and returned to being one of two stacks of books having a conversation. Helix subsided to giggles.
'I bet he really could so turn himself into a stack of books,’ she thought in delirious delight, 'With science. And a wand.’ and she giggled some more. Gradually she remembered her appointment and wondered aloud, “Do I even need a passport anymore? Am I even in the real world anymore? HA!” she suddenly burst out, “LET’S SEE THE N.S.A. RECORD THIS CONVERSATION!” and she hopped up and did a little dance around the room, pumping her fists triumphantly. Jinx and Nibs looked at her like a pair of dog-sitters worried the poodle they’re watching might not make it 'til the Mctaggarty’s vacation ended. Concluding she wouldn’t die of whatever was wrong with her, they turned back to their research.
Helix wound down like a top, coming to rest back on her chair. “Seriously though,” she said after a moment of quiet, “should I still be trying to get to my passport appointment?”
Jinx didn’t look up from reading “Of course you should, only not yet, you’ve got a while still.”
“I think,” said Helix, “and I could be wrong here, but I think it’s quite soon, actually. It’s just, it was a difficult appointment to schedule”
Now Jinx looked up. “What are you on about, Confusing me lass? I made yer appointment. For tomorrow night. That is to say, at this point, much later this evening.”
“No, but, and I’m really fairly certain about this part, I made an appointment to get my passport for ten thirty this morning.”
“And more requirements for bring All Side License offices is having All Side provisional permit, One Side passport, and One Side birth certificate.” Nibs interjected, finger holding his place on the page. Jinx and Helix stared at each other in shared dawning of comprehension. “Oh no,” moaned Helix.
“Profusions of Paperwork Perfidy!” Jinx swore.
Nibs caught on to the situation. “And how many time is between now and FIRST passport appointment?” he asked.
Jinx and Nibs (who turned out to be surprisingly spry) rushed around, filling Helix’s hands with a cascade of items and her head with a hopeless jumble of descriptions while they argued about some problem concerning dual transfers that escaped Helix entirely.
“And if she is not making the return- this is being 17b schedule of acquaintance and a new eye- she is open advantage to the twins and being a card in the hand of the Lord,” said Nibs, giving Helix a sheaf of papers and a small rectangular box.
“Yes and truly, Oh Nibs, therefore- here, red is Unacknowledged blue is All-ignored, never wear both at once- back she comes with them, and that’s an end to that!” said Jinx pressing two rings into Helix’s hand. “I don’t see a more likely way, Oh my me no” Jinx concluded, apparently winning the argument. “Alright, dashing me lass, you’re kitted up proper, if a touch old fashioned. Let’s see if we can set up a meeting with the Looking Glass Twins.”
He stood still and lifted his hat long enough to pull an eyepatch down into place. “let’s see,” he said staring into space, “which one, which one, right… next scheduled location… damn. What about her sister… right, right…. no…still no… brilliant!” He raised the eyepatch, tucking it back under the edge of his hat. Then he held his wrist up to his mouth and said, “Jingo! Jingo! Heeeeeere Jingo!” and shook the belled bracelet he wore.
Jinx had a lot of bits and bobs about his outfit, but was very quiet when he moved. Helix had never heard any bells from Jinx yet, but this one tinkled now. Jinx paused a moment and winked at Helix “They never come on the first call, you know” and shook the bell again. “Jingo!” there was an answering tinkling sound, which grew louder. All three of them turned towards the sound, and after a few seconds, a dust mote there seemed to rapidly grow until a small black cat wearing a slender spiked collar with a tiny silver bell appeared to leap into the room from somewhere that was simultaneously six feet from them and very far away. She ignored Nibs completely, walked distrustfully around Helix, and wound between Jinx’s legs. He leaned down and rubbed her ears and said, “There’s a precious pretty, now. I’ve an errand for you, lady kitling” The cat stopped purring and sat with her back to him, tail lashing. “Now, don’t be like that, Jingo me kit, it’s even one you’ll like, just like old times” The little cat put her nose in the air. “Easy and fun, I promises, sweetest, come along.” Jingo sniffed and ignored him for a second, then turned her head over her shoulder and looked at him. Jinx grinned “So, see my little lovely… I need you to break a bathroom mirror in the One Side.”
A minute later, they stood in front of a full length mirror in another room. Jinx, who was kneeling, finished giving Jingo some kind of complicated coordinates, and bumped foreheads with the diminutive feline. Jingo tamped down like a leopard seconds away from dinner, and did her entrance in reverse, leaping six feet and a million miles away. Jinx stood. “And now to earn a smile from the Lady.” So saying, Jinx pinched a coin from the air and flipped it, calling “heads!” then, slapping it on his wrist, lifted his hand to reveal it tails. Before them, the mirror flashed, and the reflection of a woman stepped from the edge of the mirror into view. Helix looked around. There was no woman in the room with them. She looked back in the mirror. There was very definitely a woman standing there, in a white sun dress, with platinum hair. A tiny dragon of liquid silver hovered over her shoulder. Spying Jinx, she laughed. “Oh Jinx, of course it’s you, you silly thing; what happened to my scheduled mirror?”
“Ah, weell, I am ever loath to postulate, but I s'pose it could be that my Jingo may have crossed paths with it.”
“Clever Sir, and should I wonder the mirror I default into be shared by the Left Hand of the Lady? Oh well done, sir, good game!” and she laughed again. “And so?” she said, “I do have Work, you know.” “A small boon of you and your sister, if you would be so kind?”
“Well enough, do you have the means?” she asked, petting her little dragon on the snout.
“Aye” Jinx held out his hand and Nibs gave him the small mirror he carried.
“Step forward, please,” the mirror lady said. Jinx did so, and pointed the mirror in his hand at the one on the wall. In the reflection, there was an infinite series of the woman in the wall mirror, who turned her back on them to face an image of her own back in the reflection of the hand mirror. Then she reached into the reflection of the hand mirror and laid her hand on her own shoulder. Next to Jake, from the mirror Jinx held, a woman’s hand reached out, and into the mirror on the wall. It grasped the refection of the woman by the shoulder and pulled her out of the wall mirror into the room with them, then withdrew back into the hand mirror with a shattering sound, as the lady in the room let go of the reflection she’d pulled from the image of the hand mirror and pulled her own hand of the mirror on the wall. It sort of looked like an infinite line of women with their hands on the shoulder of the woman in front all took a step backwards, and then there were only two: the woman now in the Library with them and her reflection where she had been. The woman turned around, so that both she and her reflection were facing Jinx.
The pair were identical in every way, except, Helix noticed, the little dragon actually in the room with them looked like it was made of living diamond instead of mercury. Jinx swept his hat low in a bow, “Shimmering Ladies, I present a guest of mine, Helix the One Sider; Helix me lass, meet the Looking Glass Twins, Glimmer and Gleam,” he leaned over and said out of the side of his mouth, “Ye can tell 'em apart by their wee beasties, Flect and Fract”
“Uh, nice to meet you,” said Helix while Jinx grimaced at her uninspired phrasing. The twins giggled in unison.
“Now Ladies, I have a wee boon to ask: it seems young Helix has an appointment in the One Side that she cannot make, nor miss, if perhaps you would bless me with a favor and see her safely to her room in London, and let her pass back through on the return?”
“Oh Jinx, smuggling lostlings are you?” The lady in the mirror chimed in, “And you’re sure you need both ways? One would be easier.”
“Oh my me yes, both ways, and no mistake.”
“What then for our troubles, Oh Jinx on High, the least not that we’ve missed an appointment of our own?” asked the lady in the room.
“Why, my gratitude, of course! Which is not so very inconsiderable, no?”
“Ah Jinx,” said the one in the mirror “We’ll have need of better coin than that.”
“Well then, I could tell you something worth the trouble if you like, and call it even.”
“Hmm.” The sisters looked at each other, like one woman staring into her own reflection.
“Fair play,” said the one in the room, at last, “Share your news, Jinx of All, and we shall guide your lostling home and back, oath-unbroken.” “Oath-unbroken, this there is: The Ix have waked, and threaten the calm of All and most; even the Dame’s Right Hand fidgets.”
Twin platinum eyebrows quirked at once “That is news- and news within. Huh. Come along then Helix of the One Side, let us see you home.” Jinx nodded at her, so Helix took Gleam’s offered hand, and was pulled with her as they both stepped from the room and into the mirror.