The Glass Exchange

Fiction

The Hall of Mirrors smelled of ambergris and damp stone. The light of seventeen chandeliers fractured against the gilt moldings; it cast a yellow glow over the silk coats of the courtiers. To any casual observer, the walls were merely ornate. To the initiated, they were apertures. The Marquess de Vigny held a slip of vellum between two fingers. It was a ledger entry, a record of debts that would dismantle his house if it remained in this world. He stepped toward the third mirror on the north wall. Inside the frame, there was no reflection of his powdered wig or his lace cuffs. Instead, the glass looked out onto a street in the Other Paris. It was a place of charcoal skies and skeletal tenements. A fine layer of grey soot coated every surface; it looked like a city drowned in ash. He could see a rusted carriage wheel half submerged in a black gutter. He felt the cold radiation of the mirror. The glass did not resist; it felt like thick, chilled oil. "Marquess." De Vigny froze. He did not turn. He knew the voice of the Glass-Warden; it was a dry, rasping sound, like parchment rubbing together. The Warden wore a coat of heavy, unbleached wool that clashed with the gold leaf of the gallery. He carried a rod of iron used to fish out items that had snagged on the threshold. "The Hour of Disposal has passed," the Warden said. He was ten paces behind. De Vigny shifted his weight. He kept his back to the Warden, his hand hovering millimeters from the surface. He could see a dead dog in the ash of the other world, its ribs showing through grey skin. The silence of the mirrored city was absolute, a vacuum that pulled at the heat of the room. He waited for the Warden to blink, or to be distracted by a passing duchess. When the sound of a nearby laugh echoed through the hall, de Vigny pressed the vellum forward. The paper slid through the glass with a wet, sucking sound. It did not fall; it drifted, caught in a wind that did not exist in Versailles. The vellum turned grey the instant it crossed the threshold. It fluttered down into the soot of the Other Paris, landing beside a pile of discarded letters and broken porcelain. De Vigny withdrew his hand. He wiped a smudge of grey ash from his fingertip onto his breeches. The Warden stepped closer. He peered into the mirror, his eyes scanning the debris of the decaying city. He saw the slip of paper, now indistinguishable from the surrounding rot. "Your timing is improving," the Warden remarked. De Vigny bowed, his face a mask of powdered indifference. "The air in here is stifling. I find the view refreshing."