Bright Shimmer slowly walked towards the mirror and stood in front of it. She finally figured out why no one recognized her. She looked nothing like herself. Her feathers were so dirty they looked grey and her beak was chipped. She was thinner from her hard work and meager food, and, most changing of all, she no longer had a bearing of royalty.
She was interrupted in her musings by a sound of scratching on stone. Someone was coming! She dove behind a stack of spell books and waited. The door opened and in came Grenta. The black bird locked the door with magic and let her disguise fall. Bright Shimmer barely stopped a gasp from escaping. Although she had already seen it, it still surprised her when a beautiful Eagle turned into the disgusting buzzard.
Grenta stepped up to the mirror and said in her scratchy voice, "Mirror, mirror on the wall tell me now or you shall fall, who's feather's fairest of them all."
To Bright Shimmer's surprise, the mirror responded,
Bright Shimmer of golden feathers, she
Has much fairer feathers than thee
The Queen let out a guttural scream. "Where is she, mirror! Tell me where she is!"
The mirror once again responded in verse,
"She is near to thee but also far
farther than the farthest star"
Bright Shimmer jumped out of her reverie and into motion. She looked around her for something that could be useful. She saw a lot of books some of which she could see the titles of. Death and its wonders, pentagrams and how to summon demons, magic mirrors, making and destroying them, poisons potions and brews, Hypnotism, mind control and how to reverse it. Her attention caught on the last one and she made her way towards it. Meanwhile, Grenta was trying to figure out the riddle muttering under her breath about stars.
Bright Shimmer heard "farthest, but…. many points…...five, six? …just fire? How can…near to…both.?" She had no idea what this meant but something about points rang a bell, she just couldn't figure out why.
Bright Shimer continued her slow crawl towards the book about hypnotism. When she finally got to it she snatched it and considered what to do next. She needed to get out of the tower room to use the book but Grenta was blocking the door and would surely see her if she made a run for it, so Bright Shimer used the oldest trick in the book and threw a rock. There was gravel all over the floor so when her rock hit the ground on the other side of the room it made a noise that sounded extraordinarily loud compared to the quiet in the room before. Grenta whirled around to see what it was and Bright Shimmer quietly slipped away with the book tucked under her wing.