The mansion rose three stories into the air, a collection of conical roofs and twiz-zling white latticework, red bricks and yellow paint. Open windows glinted with clear, clean glass, inviting in the refresh-ing country air. Closer to the ground, a few lazy bumblebees investi-gated the riotously blooming bushes: mounds of red and white flowers, a dizzying melody of sweet floral perfumes, a thousand faces greedily sucking up sunlight.

  “Keep your head down,” Lawrence warned, not for the first time. “Try not to attract its attention, and don’t let it separate us. Look for opportunities to hook into higher-level threads.”

  “I know,” Daisy snapped. She took a gusty breath to calm herself and miti-gated her tone with a kindly smile. Lawrence wasn’t Hetty. Lawrence wasn’t Neveah or Leann or Anja. And this wasn’t a Romance, no matter how much it resembled one.

  Lawrence examined her as they climbed the wooden steps and rang the doorbell. “The floor will be ugly,” she said finally.

  “What?” Daisy asked, and could say no more as she heard a shuffling inside the house. The handle rattled, and the front entrance swung open to reveal their host.

  Constance Jones, Daisy observed bitterly, had aged with all the elegant dignity of a true heroine. She carried herself with unbent grace, and the crepes crosshatching her face were of kindness and good humor. Her neat tweed suit was countryish brown, her blouse joyously yellow. She had wrapped her silvery white braid twice around her head, and the eyes with which she gazed up at them were wide and vibrant blue.

  Constance’s first expression, upon seeing them, was one of surprise; but that didn’t last long before blooming into pleasure. She clasped her hands to her heart, showing off perfect pink nail polish. “You came!” she cried. “The psychic agency sent you! That means I was right—I did it—I found a real one!”

  Lawrence regarded her expressionlessly. Daisy retained her charming smile and tilted her head adorably so she wouldn’t punch the ghastly old hag.

  “You have done something exceedingly unwise, Mrs. Jones,” Lawrence informed her.

  “I know,” Constance agreed cheerfully. “I’d have preferred a pleasanter subject, but we have to take what we can get, and the Lebensford Mirror was the best option I found.”

  “You mean it found you.”

  “I do not mean that,” Constance retorted.

  Na?ve but feisty, Daisy thought, not letting her expression slip.

  Constance insisted, “This is my choice and mine alone. But you’ll see.” She stepped back, heels clicking on the wooden floor, and held the door wide to usher them in. “I’m afraid I’ll have you carry your own suitcases. Your rooms are ready—I assume you’ve stepped in for the Bronsons? There were meant to come, but I haven’t heard a word all morning, and they’re very late. You can enter without being invited?”

  “We’re not vampires,” Daisy said lightly, reminding herself that she could not afford the luxury of hating their host.

  Inside the house was mostly as Daisy had expected: jewel-toned hang-ings drawn back to reveal fluttering white sheers; slick horsehair furniture and lacquered side tables; a sweeping staircase that curved once, the better for an innocent or Heart to dramatically descend.

  “Oh, yes, there are many fascinating features in this house,” Constance prattled on obliviously. “This floor, for example. Have you noticed that it doesn’t creak despite its age? That’s because all seven of the woods used in this house appear together there and only there. You see the uniquely zig-zagging pattern of concentric woods? If only the stairs were so firm! But they were constructed differently.”

  “Has this house been with your family long?” Lawrence asked, while Daisy marveled at how thoroughly the seven woods clashed with one another. Every-thing else was so beautiful, and any combination of three of those woods might have worked. But the seven together . . .

  Odd, that someone like Lawrence would have a sense of the ugly. She had kept her suite so barren, and the wall color was so awful. Daisy really needed to bring in a troupe of her friends to repaint the place and spruce it up, if only for the camouflage. She didn’t quite dare do the same to Law-rence’s bedroom, but she was sure she could find a way to sidle in and examine things. That would show her for certain whether Lawrence’s aesthetics were superficial or preferen-tial—though what advantage Daisy could gain with such knowledge, she didn’t yet know.

  “I’ve put you in the nursery,” Constance said as they crested the first flight of stairs. “I was expecting the feral twins, but it’ll do as well for you. Three single beds instead of one double, see, and its own bathroom.”

  Not a tower room or a chilly guest room—it was if anything too warm in this house—and not the room of a dead spouse. Were nurse-ries typically dan-gerous in Horror? Any more or less than other rooms? “Did you have children?” Daisy asked.

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  Constance looked startled that anyone should care enough to bring it up, and Daisy made a mental note to show more interest. “Three boys,” Constance said; “but they had their own rooms, once they got older. The nursery hasn’t been used in decades. Is that a problem?”

  Daisy imagined the mattresses would be in pitiable condition, but who knew if they’d be sleeping anyway? She said various flattering things to Constance in response, and was relieved, when they got there, that the room wasn’t bad: navy duvets embroidered with white and silver, a solid wooden toy chest, and various friendly pictures captioned with sound advice. A beige-and-brown area rug warmed the floor, and windows stretched nearly the entirety of the long wall. It would be a cheerful place, a good room to grow up in. This is a house that loves children, Daisy thought—and remembered, as Constance had, the real Daley and Leslie Bronson.

  “That would be the bathroom,” Constance hurried to say, as Lawrence abruptly made for the opposite door. “It connects to the hall also.”

  Without responding, Lawrence gripped the knob and swept the door harshly inward. The young woman on the other side jumped, yelped, splashed water on herself, and waved.

  “You could hear us,” Lawrence pointed out dryly.

  “I—I’m sorry,” the girl stuttered, more in surprise at being caught than any-thing. “I cut—I needed to use the sink. I wasn’t listening.”

  Tinsley Proust, Daisy decided. The Agency had followed up on every letter Constance had sent. Twenty years old. Glamorous in her photo, since the Agency had ripped it off Tinsley’s social media. In person, her slanting eyes were too heavily outlined, her foundation separating, her blue-black hair artificial. No longer exotic, except for the contrasting blood streaming down her wrist and dripping off her wet arm.

  “Your poor hand!” Daisy exclaimed, rushing in before Tinsley could conceal her wound. It was a cut, long and uneven along her palm, and worryingly deep. The cut was echoed more shallowly on her fingertips, as if she’d been gripping some-thing sharp.

  “I’m so sorry,” Tinsley told Constance tearily. “I broke your mirror. I didn’t mean to . . .”

  “Where are your medical supplies?” Lawrence asked Constance.

  The old lady didn’t seem to hear her. She was staring, sheet white, lips bloodless.

  “Snap out of it,” Lawrence said coldly. “Do you think she could break that mirror so easily?”

  Wide blue eyes moved innocently to Lawrence and relaxed upon her face. Constance shook herself with a half-hiccup, half-laugh. “This is my last chance, you see,” she told Lawrence, “and for a moment, I thought—but you’re right, of course. I know the mirror’s history better than that.” She gave Lawrence a grateful look, as if she thought the agent had been comforting her.

  “A long bandage,” Lawrence prompted, “and something to keep the wound moist and clean.”

  “Of course,” Constance said, and let herself be guided out of the bed-room, to the wood-and-plaster hallway beyond.

  For a moment there, Daisy had thought Constance, in her shock, had had a stroke; but there was, Daisy thought, a certain toughness to the old bird. Suscep-tible to scenarios, but a survivor.

  That analysis did not apply to Tinsley, whose mind teetered on the edge. Easy to influence, easy to break. Tears or violence, as she preferred. A light hand, to start with. “That must hurt like crazy,” Daisy said, guiding her to the edge of the claw-foot bathtub. “Here, sit down. Or lean against it, if it’s too uncomfortable.”

  “I didn’t mean to break it,” Tinsley explained helplessly.

  “Didn’t you?” Daisy asked, smiling.

  She had meant the words to test Tinsley, and the resulting expres-sion of guilt was more than she’d hoped for. “No!” Tinsley gasped. She faltered under the continuing, knowing smile. “Or—well—I was only—”

  “No one would blame you for feeling that way,” Daisy said.

  Tinsley wobbled on the edge of the tub. It probably was uncom-fortable, Daisy thought; the edge was too thin, curling outward like tulip petals. A classic model, less extravagant than some in that the feet were brass rather than gold. She could just see young Constance, having grown up (presum-ably) in poverty, coming to this place and being amazed by the luxury of it all. A real claw-foot tub! I never dreamed—

  “I never dreamed I’d see a real claw-foot tub,” Tinsley said, laugh-ing weakly. “Isn’t this place crazy?”

  “And we haven’t even met the Lebensford Mirror yet,” Daisy said.

  Tinsley gazed at her through dark, damp eyes, and Daisy thought she really might say something—until new footsteps thudded to a halt outside the bathroom and a heavy arm flung the hall door open.

  “What have you done, you ridiculous girl?” stormed the man on the other side. Terrance Oswald, Daisy thought. He resembled his staff photo. “There’s glass all over my bathroom! How am I supposed to shave?”

  “. . . I didn’t mean to,” Tinsley mumbled, eyes averted. “And it’s my bath-room too . . .”

  “And who are you?” Oswald demanded of Daisy.

  She smiled glitteringly in response and judged her timing. Oswald was a man in his early fifties, receding hair unashamedly gray and tastefully trimmed. His sports jacket was neat, his shoes shined, his gut tucked. He clearly worked out and might keep his figure into old age. Tinsley could do worse, once she fixed that temper. The age gap was—

  “. . . it was an accident, Professor. . . .”

  —exactly what you’d expect in a student-teacher romance, although Oswald’s wedding ring added a wearyingly familiar dimen-sion.

  “. . . I’ll clean it up. . . .”

  “You certainly will,” Oswald said; but he also settled, mollified. Not actu-ally a bad-tempered man, Daisy thought, and wondered if this would prove true, since these were people acting on their own impetuses and not on the Heart’s puppetry. In any case, Oswald proved himself not inhu-man by finally noticing the state of Tinsley’s hand. “You’ve cut yourself,” he said disapprovingly. “Your shirt is ruined.”

  “I’m sure Constance has stain remover,” Daisy put in, laying a soothing hand on Tinsley’s shoulder, “though it’s kind of you to be concerned.”

  “I am concerned,” he insisted. “My students are her age, and I know full well the foolish things they get up to. I don’t want to be living an entire summer with someone who’s going to get herself killed. Where’s Constance? She must have bandages somewhere.”

  “She’s off finding some now,” Daisy assured him. “—Wait, did you say ‘students’? You aren’t Professor Oswald, are you? The Professor Terrance Oswald who wrote Modern Superstitions and Supernatural Phenomena?”

  Oswald straightened himself, tugging his jacket down and puffing up his chest. “You’ve read my book?”

  “Of course,” Daisy lied easily and leaned forward to shake his hand. “It’s an honor to meet you. My name is Daley Bronson.”