Mirrorverse

The Mirrorverse or Mirror World is the world on the other side of every looking glass.<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Mirrorverse</default></title>

<image source="image"></image> <header>Basic Information</header> <image source="map"></image> <label>Type</label> <label>Location</label> <label>Inhabitants</label> <label>First Appearance</label> </infobox>

Description

The mirrorverse is an endless, dark void, with light and matter only where there are mirrors or other reflective surfaces in the real world.

Copies of all inanimate objects are present; but people, moving vehicles etc are not.<ref name=":0">I wasn’t entirely sure what dictated how things operated in my mirror

world as opposed to the real world – I didn’t see cars traveling up and
down the streets, for example.  Sometimes things remained the same and

sometimes they changed. A part of it seemed to have something to do with my own actions, and the force and effort I put into them. Stuff I put down tended to persist in the mirrorverse, but only if I did it while being mindful of the task, doing it purposefully. - excerpt from Mala Fide 10.5</ref> There is no breeze.<ref>I entered one scene, and I could make out Rose, sitting in the armchair of the living room. It was empty, quiet, tracts of darkness surrounded her, but the scene that unfolded from the window was that of a

complete city.

Rose in the mirror. Before I’d been eaten by Ur.
I looked over her shoulder, in a manner of speaking. I peered through her eyes, to read what she was reading.
Grandmother’s diary. One of many. A stack of no less than twenty stood beside her. Where anyone else might be concerned about a stray breeze or bystander knocking over the books, Rose paid it no mind. In her mirror world, reading while I was active in the real world, there were no external influences.
- excerpt from Possession 15.7 </ref><ref name=":6" /> In general, anything that changes after the Other entered the mirror will be missing, as they subconsciously block the influence of the outside world; but it's possible to learn to control this.<ref>“How does that even work?” Ty asked. “I don’t see the cards or the book reflected, and they’re right in front of the mirror.”
I had a glimmer of an idea as to how, and I’d practiced a bit, but I was evasive all the same.
[...]
I did what I could to make it so I didn’t have any influence or impact on this mirror world, except to devote my focus to the circle, pushing against it.
My presence pushed other influences out of the mirror world. I imagined, as the effect went, it avoided realities like Ty carrying a book across the room, and dragging it through my midsection. For a vestige, if I was a vestige, simple interference like that was dangerous.
[...]
There was something of a melancholy feeling in my chest as I opened my eyes. The knowledge that Rose hadn’t been able to pick this up, it pointed to the simple fact that she was real and I wasn’t.
This was my realm, not hers.
The cards, the two books, and the stacks of coins sat around me on the floor.
- excerpt from Malfeasance 11.1 </ref><ref>I couldn’t influence the outside world, but I could influence this one. I looked over the cards. They were nice, a little old fashioned, the

white of the card paper stained with age, but beyond that, they were

ordinary playing cards.
My presence had made it so they weren’t reflected, establishing my presence in this mirror world. But a lack of activity, a shift of focus, a bit of release, like the smallest kind of surrender, and I’d let them through. The reflection of the cards.
- excerpt from Malfeasance 11.2 </ref><ref>He dropped the pad of papers on the coffee table. It was thick enough to thud as it landed.
“You’re trying to intimidate me? Uncle P, you have no idea what I’ve been dealing with these past few weeks.”
“Believe me,” he said, “I actually think I have an idea.”
I walked through my version of the room, and changed my focus. Letting go.
It was harder than it had been.
My first attempt failed.
“Why don’t you illuminate us?”
“No.”
My second attempt managed to produce a reflection of the pile of papers on the coffee table.
I picked them up, and began to leaf through them, looking at the highlighted points.
- excerpt from Malfeasance 11.5 </ref> Things altered or moved in the mirror world will eventually "reset" to match the real world, unless the Other changing them actively wills it.<ref name=":0" />

The void sometimes contains hints of Others or magic happening nearby.<ref name=":6">“You seemed to know something was up, with the power going out.”
“There was a presence. Like… almost as if there was a patch of something lighter in the darkness, or a sound I could barely hear, or a movement of the air, here, where the air doesn’t move at all. Something was there.”
[...]
“I can feel it,” Rose said. When I glanced up, she was looking over one shoulder. “I can see it, almost, standing between the patches of light.”
[...]
“What was that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Something wearing a bird skull mask and tanned skins.”
“What are we going to do?” she asked, with a note of panic in her voice.
What am I going to do, you mean, I thought. You’re on the other side of a mirror.
“It’s gone,” I said.
“What? No. No it isn’t,” she answered. Panic was now highlighted by confusion, incredulity. “It’s close.”
I looked back, but the figure was nearly impossible to make out against the backdrop of falling snow.
“We left it behind,” I said, firmer.
“You got close, and it latched on,” Rose said. “Believe me on this.”
Again, I turned around, trying to see where it might have done so. Nothing outside the windows, nothing in the mirrors.
When I returned my attention to the road, my eyes darting up to the mirror, she insisted, “It did. It still feels like it’s here.”v [...]
The orange needle dropped faster with every passing second.
It had latched on, but not physically. Something else.
“The car’s dying,” I said. - excerpt from Bonds 1.2 </ref><ref>“Fare well,” Faysal Anwar told me. “I must remove the wounded to where he may be helped. Excuse me.”
“You fare well too,” I said.
I leaped across darkness.
A flash of light ripped across the darkness behind me. Surprised, I very nearly missed my step, stepping into the nothingness, rather than leaping across it. Not such a problem -I still moved across instantaneously-, but when the footing differed in angle or I stepped onto snow, it could make me stumble.
- excerpt from Mala Fide 10.3 </ref> It may also contain very faint hints of nearby terrain, since everything reflects light to a degree, even if it's too scattered to "count" as a reflection.<ref name=":7">"I see a bit of a glimmer of an outline here or there, where the light’s

really strong on your end.  But there aren’t many places I can go,

Blake. Patches of light, where light passes through the mirrors. Only the mirrors in the house, and the mirrors around you count."
[...]
“No glimmers of light nearby?”
“Not really.”
“Define really.”
“I see patches of light. I think… even regular surfaces, they reflect light to some degree.”
- excerpt from Bonds 1.2 </ref> Some beings can manifest terrain to stand on in the void,<ref name=":1">A trio of fat men were reflected in the lights generated by car windows and windshields, half a street up. A little too similar, a little too childish in their dress. Golfer’s clothes, almost, with matching hats with flaps over red hair, red noses, matching sweaters under plaid coats, and pants belted a touch too high at the waist.
They noticed me as I ran, heads turning.
The two in the back glanced in different directions, almost as if they’d communicated with a thought. I slowed, checking for a way around.
The one in front, without a word from the others, deemed it okay to reach out, smashing a car’s windshield, a side mirror, and then kicking a

display window.

The light available to me disappeared. Had I kept going at the same speed, I might have been shunted off in one direction or another.
Waiting for me? Prepared for me, even?
I prepared to jump across the darkness, but something made me hesitate. In the midst of the darkness, a kind of light blossomed, like a glowing smoke. Three figures emerged into the nothingness between patches of mirror-space. They were utterly bald, naked, looked more like metal statues than people, and had the same proportions as the three men I’d seen. The same faces, minus the hair peeking around the edges of the cap. Each had a pecker that looked like it belonged on a baby, not a grown man. They half-floated, half-waddled, and only glimmers of the landscape they walked on were visible in this space. Red stone that fit together without the use of mortar, highlighted by gold, and I thought I saw a glimpse of a carving of a dragon or a dog.
This trio of Others could apparently understand and navigate this mirror space more easily than I did.
[...]
“You are in your rights. To explain, these Iaiah were invited,

and we have a certain responsibility to look after them as a result.

They are territorial as creatures created to be guardians so often are, but when placed as guardians, they are more commonly tasked with warding

off more abstract things.  It seems they react on instinct even when visiting strange places.”

- excerpt from Mala Fide 10.3 </ref><ref name=":2">He leaped up and over, jumping into this mirrorverse. Much as the fat men had, the dog walked on the nothingness. Each footstep created ripples that moved too fast, rings of light that seemed to stretch on to

infinity in every direction.  His fur seemed too white, here,

considering the fact that light didn’t reach him while he stood in the darkness. - excerpt from Mala Fide 10.3 </ref> but most are simply teleported to the nearest patch of light if they fall into it, draining them of some power in the process.<ref name=":3">The little compact broke, and my footing disappeared with it.
At the same time, light flared, another reflection opening up.
I was shunted, dumped onto another patch of light.
[...]
They’d moved the full-length mirror, placing it in the circle he’d started to make for Evan.
He’d then broken the one mirror that held me while they removed the cloth, moving me to the nearest available surface, the one inside the circle. Maybe he’d closed it after. Maybe he hadn’t needed to. I’d been bound the same way Conquest had.
- excerpt from Mala Fide 10.7 </ref>

A binding that surrounds a mirror in the real world is effective in the mirror world as well.<ref name=":4">“As for my other power, to break mirrors, it’s innate to me while I’m an Other, a distorted reflection. Besides, the deal was not to use power in Toronto. This mirror world… it’s not Toronto. It’s a vestige of Toronto. It’s like comparing Disneyland and Euro-Disney. It’s my world.”
“Questionable,” Conquest said. “All the same-”
He lunged.
He passed into the pendant.
I flinched as the glass shattered.
The window of the S.U.V. broke next, then the windows of the house.
A battle waged over the reflective surfaces.
[...]
Corvidae appeared, a small oval mirror in his arms.
There we go.
He held it up, walking slowly.
I could see when the presence moved into it.
Corvidae threw the mirror.
It landed in the snow, one end buried.
He can’t turn down a fight, I thought. He has to crush the weak.
The mirror stuck in the middle of the circle I’d drawn. The blood of a free man, Laird.
The circle would be lined with Rose’s hair. Hacked off. Caught by Conquest, freed by myself.
Maggie had torn out the pages of Black Lamb’s Blood, weighing them down so they wouldn’t fly away. I couldn’t afford to lose them. The pages that had bound an Other, now free.
Thrice bound.
- excerpt from Void 7.7 </ref><ref name=":3" />

Residents

Beings that primarily live in mirrors:

Rose Thorburn Junior (limited to Hillsglade House and Blake's presence)<ref name=":7" />
Thorburn Bogeyman
Bloody Mary

Beings that can enter or reach into mirrors:

Padraic<ref name=":5">How did Rose deal, when backed into a corner? I knew her to be

more disciplined and liable to think to the future on the whole.  But

here she was, feeling the effect of almost two weeks of confinement in the mirror world. Her only contact with others had been a hug and brief

handholding with me and some contact with Others, manhandling from Conquest and a quick kiss from Padraic. - excerpt from Subordination 6.8</ref>

Conquest<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" />
Faysal Anwar<ref name=":2" />
Abstract Demons such as Ur,<ref>The demon’s reflection was it, as much as any part of it.

It passed in and out of windows and unrusted patches of metal without traveling the intervening space. It kept extending, spreading, claiming all of the darkness. Becoming the darkness.v It chose only the windows shrouded in enough shadow that I couldn’t see if there was glass or not, metal in the gloom. At times it bubbled before it erupted forth, seeping in. Other times, it simply lunged

out.  When the clouds shifted and a window saw more light, the demon

simply abandoned that section of itself, letting it blister, boil, and die.
I could only hope there was no angle or means by which it could enter the mirror I held.
-excerpt from Conviction 5.6 </ref> Barbatorem

Iaiah<ref name=":1" />

References