Hemlock & Silver

Anja consults the villa’s doctor, Rinald, who confirms that Snow’s symptoms, while sporadic, have worsened for months. Anja then purchases a bantam rooster and feeds it crumbs from the violet pastilles to test them. Finding the kitchens orderly, she institutes a plate-swapping game at dinner to guard Snow against a targeted dish.

The next day, Snow introduces Anja to her pet, a one-eyed gray cat that seems to resent Snow’s cuddling. Anja spends another day observing Snow but learns nothing; by that evening, she is becoming “dejected.” Later that night, she wakes, sensing an intruder. She sees a pale face in her mirror’s reflection and jumps out of bed, but a search reveals no one. It afterward occurs to her that what she saw makes no sense: If the person had been bending over her, as she believed, their face should not have been reflected in the mirror.

After Snow becomes violently ill, Anja’s tests of the samples show no recognizable poison. Questioned again, Nurse reveals that Snow’s sister, Princess Rose, showed cognitive changes before she died, a fact Nurse reported to the queen. Anja ponders whether Rose’s death could have anything to do with Snow’s illness. Ultimately, she decides to search Snow’s chambers, where she finds a hidden miniature portrait of her mother. Snow reacts with sharp, contained emotion.

On the final day before the king’s departure, Anja reports her lack of progress to King Randolph. He asks her if she is willing to continue investigating; though tempted to return home, she agrees to stay, partly to satisfy her own curiosity.

Two days after the king departs, Anja speaks with Lady Sorrel, who comments on how growing up during King Bastian’s reign shaped King Randolph’s character. Later, Anja is taking a walk when she sees Snow retrieve a strange, silver apple from a hiding place and begin eating it in secret. Anja confronts her and confiscates the apple after a struggle; Snow refuses to tell her where—or whom—the apple came from and storms off.

Anja feeds a piece of the apple to the rooster, which shows no harm. She then tastes a small, unnaturally cold piece herself. She begins composing a letter to the king about her discovery, but the one-eyed cat steals a crumpled draft. Anja gives chase, trips, and strikes her head on her bedroom mirror, falling through its surface.

Anja lands in a soundless and largely gray version of her room. The one-eyed cat speaks, explaining that they are on the other side of the silver and that he himself is a “mirror-cat”: a reflection someone pulled from a pond in place of the actual cat that had ended up in the water. Though impatient with questions, he confirms that if anyone passed by the mirror, they would see Anja’s and the cat’s reflections looking out from it. Within the mirror-world, however, mirrors show no reflections.

Anja fears that she is dreaming or hallucinating but nevertheless examines her surroundings, eventually deducing that any space visible in a real-world mirror holds color and detail; everything else is featureless gray. When she returns through her mirror to her room, she excitedly plans to write about the experience, but the cat warns her that she’ll be accused of witchcraft if she does. She begins experimenting—sticking objects partway through the mirror and changing the position of objects within the mirror. The latter does not affect their real-world position, and when she moves the corresponding real-world object, its reflection reverts to normal. While in the mirror-world, she sees the reflection of a maid in her room moving around. The reflection, like the world, is solid gray and does not seem aware of Anja. Moreover, when the maid reaches the limits of what the mirror can “see,” the reflection simply stops moving. Unsettled, Anja steps out of the mirror, noticing after doing so that she has carried back a book from the mirror-world.

Anja opens the book and confirms that the letters are all backward. Shortly afterward, the mirror-book crumbles into silvery dust. Overwhelmed by all she has learned and has yet to discover, Anja falls asleep. When she wakes up, she eats, becoming violently ill soon after. She connects her condition to the silver apple, concluding that it reacts badly with ordinary food. Worried about the rooster, she summons her guards. Aaron and Javier find her ill but steady and help her to her workroom, where she confirms that the rooster is unharmed. Anja then explains the apple incident but omits any mention of the mirror-world. The guards agree to help watch the princess to ensure she doesn’t eat any more apples.

The next day, Anja, still shaky, thinks she sees someone’s reflection in a mirrored tile in her bathroom; when she turns around, however, no one is there. Anja tracks down the cat and bribes him with cream for more information. He introduces himself as “Grayling” and explains that eating mirror-food grants passage through mirrors for a year or two; however, he says that doing this is “unwise.”

Anja returns to her room and explores the mirror-world version of the villa, learning that fire will not burn and wind never stirs in its gray zones. She collects a mirror-potato and an agave leaf to study. In the hallway leading outside, she finds tiny mirror-portals set into a mosaic. Hearing the sound of a door closing, she returns to her room, emerging from the mirror just as Javier enters and sees her.

As Javier stands there, shocked, Anja attempts to explain by pulling him through the mirror; however, he is unable to pass through. She realizes that only someone who has eaten mirror-food can pass through the silver and gives him the mirror-potato. After Javier eats a piece, she leads him through. They explore together; Javier taps a gray reflection of a servant, but it doesn’t respond. It then disappears, presumably because the servant passed in front of a different mirror. Javier remarks that if all mirrors can function as doors, an assassin could use the mirror-world to move from place to place unseen. They test the properties of other mirrors by having Javier stick his hand through the mirror in Anja’s bathroom after she returns to the real world; she sees his hand pass through and grabs it in excitement, though she is hurt when his reflection recoils from the touch.

Javier soon joins Anja in the real world. He presents her with a dropped violet pastille that he found in the mirror-world version of Anja’s room, confirming that Snow has spied on her. He helps secure the room by locking a door in the mirror-world, warning that Anja should be careful returning to the mirror-world: Whoever supplies the apples might also be there.