Enchanted mirrors. Once restricted to royalty—and only a few of them—these days they seem to be everywhere: in crumbling mansions, sparkling penthouse pieds-à-terre, rundown apartments, executive office buildings, and even the occasional meticulously maintained castle. For those trading in enchanted mirrors—or just looking for one—this probably seems like a good thing. But the increased abundance of enchanted mirrors does have a more sinister side.

You hear the door open as if in dreaming. Back when you were a conservatory student, you chewed a third of a melatonin tablet every night—to keep yourself from snapping awake before sunup, chest tight, your head still achy with exhaustion. Now, mornings are difficult: your eyelids weighted, sliding; thick grey wool between your temples. Your body drifting in a warm, slow sea.

I-96 is quiet while Libby drives east from Lansing, into the big same-y smear of suburbs north and west of Detroit. What must be thousands of abandoned cars still line the route, those whose drivers were abruptly bodily assumed into heaven—or whatever. Most of them have been pushed to the shoulder of the road by now, and in a few places an effort has clearly been made to start towing them away. Libby wonders what’s going to happen to all of them. Can you recycle a whole car?

You start to hear me / Or rather / A tapping in the walls, / Down the halls

Last night was beautiful / fog-swallowed, rain-kissed / we got drunk on the balcony / and talked of Plank’s length

In this issue’s short fiction, P.H. Low takes craft to the extreme in “The Will of the God of Music,” and Effie Sieberg’s “There’s Magic in Bread” connects lessons of the past to the problems of the present; in flash fiction, Mari Ness takes a hard-hitting look at current magical trends in “Enchanted Mirrors Are Making a Comeback. That’s Not Necessarily a Good Thing,” and in Aimee Ogden’s “Moments of Doubt” an absence of evidence leaves us guessing about the fate of the evidently absent; in poetry, we have “The Distance Between Us” by Rati Mehrotra and “Possession” by Tonya Liburd. Plus an interview with the author of The Changeling, The Ballad of Black Tom, and Lone Women, Victor LaValle. Enjoy!