She’d fought it as long as she could, but somewhere on the long, dark trip downstream, fatigue had caught up with her. The mirror-things had been draining her life, sucking her down to a husk before pulling her into the mirror to do . . . who knew what. Her dreams were dark, full of toothy grins and huge, slitted eyes, and a static buzz that seemed to fill the world. She woke up in a bed, which was a definite improvement. It was in a stone room, with blue-green lanterns hanging on the walls. Even without these clues Alice would have guessed she was back in the giants’ fortress; the bed was big enough to sleep half a dozen human adults. When she sat up, she found that she wore only her underthings, which had been mended with surprisingly delicate stitches. Underneath, the slashes she’d gotten from the flying glass were sealed up under what felt like scabs made of ice, the cold pleasantly numbing the wounds underneath. The rest of her clothes were neatly folded by her feet, with The Infinite Prison and the silver watch sitting on top of them.
