Chapter Text
The first thing I registered when I woke up was the weight of someone else's breathing in the room.
Not the usual silence of my old workshop. Not the distant echo of Card Soldiers marching through Wonderland corridors. Just soft, steady breaths coming from the bed a few steps away.
Bridget.
I kept my eyes closed for a moment longer, listening. She was still asleep. Or at least pretending to be. The faint scent of her new perfume, darker, sharper, nothing like the sugary pink she used to wear, drifted across the space between us.
I sat up carefully on the armchair I had dragged closer the night before. My neck protested. The official advisor uniform was not made for sleeping in, and the structured shoulders left red marks against my skin. I rolled them once, twice, then stood.
The room was still dim. Morning light filtered weakly through the heavy curtains of the East Wing. Two beds. Two desks. One shared fireplace that had long gone cold. And, somewhere in this room, a silver hand mirror with a heart-shaped detail on the frame that I had no intention of returning just yet.
I was halfway through buttoning my jacket when her voice cut through the quiet.
"You're up early."
I turned. Bridget was sitting against the headboard, hair loose, the red roots more visible than the day before. She looked at me with that half-lidded, assessing gaze she had perfected over the last week.
"Habit," I answered. "Advisors don't get the luxury of sleeping in."
She hummed, unconvinced, and swung her legs out of bed. The burgundy night robe she had insisted on bringing from the castle slid off one shoulder before she pulled it back into place.
"Have you seen my hand mirror?"
The question was casual. Too casual.
I kept my expression neutral as I fastened the last button.
"The golden one?"
"Yes. The one with the heart on the frame."
I met her eyes for half a second longer than necessary.
"No. Maybe it was left behind at the castle."
Bridget stared at me for a moment, searching. Then she simply clicked her tongue and stood.
"Fine. I'll send someone for it later."
She disappeared into the adjoining washroom without another word. The moment the door clicked shut, I reached into the inner pocket of my coat.
The mirror was still there. Cool metal against my fingers. I didn't take it out. Just confirmed its presence, then forced myself to let go.
One change at a time.
The corridors of Merlin Academy were already full by the time we left the dormitory.
Students parted in front of Bridget like water around a ship. Whispers followed us the entire way. Some were curious. Some were mocking. A few were genuinely afraid. I catalogued every face, every sideways glance, every barely-suppressed smirk.
Bridget walked as if none of it existed.
I stayed exactly half a step behind her left shoulder, the position of a royal advisor. Close enough to intervene. Far enough not to look like a bodyguard.
We stopped at the junction where our paths diverged. Third-year wing to the right. First-year to the left.
Bridget turned to me. For a second the public mask slipped, and something more fragile showed underneath.
"If anyone tries anything..."
"I'll handle it," I finished quietly. "Without drawing unnecessary attention."
She held my gaze a moment longer, then gave a single sharp nod and walked away.
I watched her disappear into the crowd before turning toward my own classroom.
The first-years were less subtle than the older students. A few of them actually laughed when I entered. One boy, son of some minor lord if memory served, muttered something about "the princess's pet Hatter."
I didn't react. I simply took my seat near the window, placed my notebook on the desk with precise movements, and waited for the professor to begin. Silence, I had learned long ago, unsettled people more effectively than any sharp reply.
By the end of the first class, the laughter had mostly died.
Lunch was a performance.
Bridget had claimed a table near the far windows of the dining hall. No one sat with her. No one even approached. The space around her felt deliberately empty, as if an invisible barrier had been erected overnight.
I crossed the hall with my tray and sat beside her without asking permission.
A few heads turned. Conversations faltered.
Bridget didn't look at me, but the corner of her mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.
"You're late."
"First-year schedules are less flexible than third-year ones," I replied, unfolding my napkin. "I had to endure an entire lecture on basic potion safety. Riveting."
She almost smiled. Almost.
That was when Uliana decided to make her move.
She approached with Hook and Morgie following her like poorly trained dogs. The smile on her face was the same one she had worn the night of the ball, sharp, delighted, and completely empty of warmth.
"Well, well," she drawled, stopping a few steps from the table. "Look who decided to come back and play dress-up. New clothes, new hair, new... accessory." Her eyes flicked to me with open disdain. "How sweet. Did you bring your own servant this time, Bridget?"
Bridget set her fork down with deliberate calm.
"You're still talking," she said, voice soft and cold. "I was under the impression you had nothing interesting left to say after yesterday."
Hook snorted. "Careful, princess. That little stunt with the card won't work twice."
I lifted my gaze to him slowly.
"You're right," I said. "Next time she won't stop at the throat."
The silence that followed was delicious.
Uliana's smile tightened. For a moment she looked like she might push further, then she seemed to think better of it. With a final contemptuous glance, she turned and walked away, her two shadows trailing behind.
Bridget exhaled through her nose once they were gone.
"They're going to keep testing," she murmured.
"I know."
"And you're going to keep answering for me."
I met her eyes.
"That's why I'm here."
Something unreadable passed across her face. Then she picked up her fork again and returned to her meal as if the entire exchange had never happened.
Night settled over the academy more slowly than it did in Wonderland.
By the time we returned to the East Wing, the corridors were mostly empty. Bridget unlocked our door in silence. The moment it closed behind us, the rigid set of her shoulders loosened a fraction.
She dropped onto the edge of her bed and began unlacing her boots with more force than necessary.
I hung my jacket over the back of the chair and waited.
"They still look at me like I'm the same," she said eventually, not looking up. "Only now they're afraid to say it out loud."
"Fear is more useful than pity."
She let out a short, humorless breath.
"You sound like my mother."
I didn't answer.
A few minutes later she was under the covers, facing the wall. The room grew quiet except for the distant sounds of the academy settling into sleep.
I waited until her breathing evened out.
Then I reached into the inner pocket of the jacket still hanging on the chair and pulled out the mirror.
The gold frame caught the moonlight coming through the window. I turned it over in my hands once, twice. The heart-shaped detail pressed against my thumb.
This was not the pocket watch.
The watch moved time.
The mirror only showed it.
And yet my pulse was already too fast.
I had changed things. That much was certain. The moment I had thrown my coat over her shoulders in that ballroom, the future I knew had cracked. The sequence of abandonment, isolation, and slow hardening that had created the Queen of Hearts I served... no longer existed in the same shape.
How much had I already altered?
How much further could I go before everything collapsed into something worse?
I opened the mirror.
The glass shimmered once, like water disturbed by a stone.
Then it went completely black.
No image.
No shadow.
No future.
Just an empty, absolute void.
My stomach dropped.
I tried again. I opened it again and turned the mirror toward the moonlight. Nothing. The surface remained dark and still, as if the future itself had refused to be seen.
A cold weight settled behind my ribs.
Either the changes were still too unstable for the mirror to capture...
or there was no longer a clear future left to show.
I closed it with more force than necessary and shoved it deep into the innermost pocket of my coat, where even I would have trouble finding it in a hurry.
Then I sat back down in the armchair, closer to her bed than the night before, and watched the slow rise and fall of Bridget's breathing in the dark.
The future had already changed.
And now it refused to tell me whether that was a good thing... or the beginning of something far worse.