38.
the ground shaking wakes the Witch. sitting up with a start, she looks around in the darkness, instinctively trying to conjure a light, before she remembers that she's powerless here.
powerless, yeah, that's the word she's been looking for to describe her time here. last time she was in the mirror maze, she had to wait for the Doll to make progress, leaving her helpless. this time, she's had to confront the girl she was, and to accept that she needs to work with the Doll instead of avoiding it.
a soft glow filters into the room from... somewhere. light in the mirror maze has never really been directional, it just sort of illuminates everything evenly. in the low light, the Witch can see that a panel in the floor has slid away, revealing a flight of stairs.
“onwards, then...” she sighs, picking herself up and starting down the stairs. the panel closes again behind her, and each step retracts into the floor as she steps off of it. at first she counts the steps, but she loses track sometime after the one-hundred-and-ninety-first flight of seven. she's relieved that the steps really do only retract once she's finished with them — that was a nerve-wracking experiment — and she rests often, even sleeping occasionally. she guesses it's been about a week, but really she doesn't know. she never knows in this place. time enough, and some, to plan what she'll do when she sees the Doll.
she's going to... sigh she was so sure she'd give it a piece of her mind, but the longer these stairs are, the more she thinks she'll just give it a hug.
her foot finds itself on flat ground at last.