They found the mapmaker in the last place anyone looked—inside an abandoned train station that hadn't existed on a map since 1873.
The station shimmered between dimensions, nestled in a forest of hourglass trees and forgotten whispers. Time oozed sideways here. Leaves fell upward. Bells rang at odd intervals, marking nothing in particular.
"This place is deeply illegal," Rose whispered, stepping off the platform that cracked like sugar glass.
Nimbus perched on a flickering lantern, eyes wide. "It's beautiful. And cursed. Like if poetry married a plague."
Basil knocked on a rusted train car covered in celestial runes. It hissed open like a yawning beast.
From within stepped the mapmaker.
She was tall, hunched slightly from carrying too many invisible burdens. Her eyes were ink-black and glittered like star charts. Her cloak shifted constantly, embroidered with living threads that rearranged into new maps every time she moved.
"You're late," she said, voice like parchment on fire. "But that's expected. Time's a drunk here."
Rose blinked. "We're looking for a way to follow a spell thread. One tied to someone named Mortain."
The mapmaker's smile was faint and bitter. "Ah. The Threadcutter. Yes, I've danced with his ilk before."
She led them into the train car. Inside was a swirling dome of constellations, floating diagrams, and scent trails stitched into the air itself.
"I build maps not of places," she explained, "but of possibility. You don't follow a thread through space. You follow it through choices. Through what could've been."
Rose rubbed her temples. "Why is every powerful person so cryptic?"
"It's the law," the mapmaker replied.
Basil studied the swirling diagrams. "Can you help us find him?"
The mapmaker tapped her cane. "I can give you a route. But not a destination. Mortain exists in folds. Layers. You must peel them one by one."
Nimbus squinted at a map reshaping itself into a spiral. "Sounds like a trap."
"It is a trap," she said. "But it's one you can spring first."
She reached into her cloak and pulled out a coin. On one side: a crescent moon. On the other: a thorn.
"This will mark your path when you're lost," she said. "But it exacts a cost."
Rose accepted the coin. "What kind of cost?"
"You'll know when you pay it."
Typical.
As they turned to leave, the mapmaker called after them. "One more thing. You're not just being followed. You're being echoed."
Rose turned. "What does that mean?"
The mapmaker's eyes darkened. "There's another version of you—one Mortain's already found. One who chose him."
A cold silence fell.
Rose stiffened. "So this is a race against myself?"
"No," the mapmaker said. "It's a race against what you could become if you lose."
Outside, the hourglass trees tilted as if watching them pass.
And far, far away, in a mirror-cracked realm, a girl with Rose's face but none of her mercy smiled into the dark.