Mirror, Mirror

Time slides to the left.
 
 
 
Amanita Weiss looks up at you with narrowed eyes. She hasn't moved yet. You don't, either.
 
“Mark 3. You do realize parliament is meeting this afternoon.”
 
You did not realize this. She has not yet told you. But she hasn't asked for a response yet. You already know what will happen if you give one before she does.
 
She smiles, all pretty, razored points, like the edges of your blade. “Why are you still that?”
 
You tilt your head toward the window. She has carefully positioned herself in front of it to block both the clock and any shadows you might gauge the time by. She is small enough in stature that you could simply take a step forward and see over her - but she hasn't given you permission to move. Not yet.
 
Your grip tightens slightly around the hilt of your sword. “Is there time?”
 
“They'll wait if I make them.” She folds her hands neatly in her lap. Her green eyes shine like poison, livid and bright. “What is it you need? Four hours?”
 
“Six, Mistress.”
 
“Four it is, then,” she says, as if she hadn't heard, but her smile is a wicked dagger's curve. “Quickly, now. Go make yourself presentable.”
 
 
 
–Nita is still asleep in her bed.
 
Muse's hand finds a doorknob. They push through it and out onto the balcony. The door at the other end, the end that conjoins with Victor and Cardinal's room, is still shut. They stay to their own side, crammed against the balcony, and bring a hand up to press against their face.
 
Something gives beneath their touch.
 
They jerk their hand back and stare at it. Blink. Blink again. They wiggle their fingers, staring at the sheath of skin that now encloses them. Then they raise their hand back to their face, pressing soft fingers against high, sharp cheeks - a pointed chin - an aquiline nose - a coarse, curly fringe of black hair. They can still hear their own mechanisms, the faint creak of their own joints suffering under the rain and salty air, but it is muffled, almost noiseless beneath the new layer of padding that covers them.
 
Six hours. Four, apparently, if pushed. In spite of…everything, Muse's other self had been skilled enough to learn how to create something as incredible as this, and change into it as easily as changing their armor.
 
They can only wonder, watching droplets of rain pool in the crannies of their new palms, what interesting power that other Muse has now learned from them.