Chapter Nine

I sat at the mirror as I had done every day since I was a young girl. When I was little, I had an idea that if I brushed my hair enough every morning that it would eventually be as sleek and glossy as my mother’s had been. By the time I realized this wouldn’t work, it had become a habit. But this morning, something was wrong.

Mirrors lined the walls, staggered so that they occupied nearly every available inch of space. My bookcase was filled with books bound by wood or leather or vellum; books whose spines were inscribed with strange, inscrutable symbols. Nothing was out of place in this; whatever was wrong was wrong with me. I could feel it, aching like a splinter lodged too deeply to pluck free.

Lying on the desk in front of the vanity was a portrait of my mother. She was alone in the foreground and I had an inkling that a piece was missing; something that wasn’t but could have been. My mother was beautiful. Her name was Ai, and it was supposed to mean love. She looked like an exotic queen masquerading in her modern maternity clothes, a queen out of a fairy tale full of dragons and steadfast heroes, sorcery and unyielding devotion. Her presence, her incredible beauty, was only enhanced by a pregnancy in its last stages, and she wore a slight smile as she cradled her child-to-be. There was a secret in that smile, a secret that ran deeper than any living heart knew. She smiled like she knew God’s true name.

I wanted to know her, wanted to know her so badly that I could never admit it to anyone; never let them guess. Who was she? Who was this woman that she could hurt him so keenly; that she could leave him and he would never be the same? What was she?

I wanted to meet her, to ask her what was so wrong with me that she had to go; that she couldn’t stand to look at me again. Something must be broken, like a clock with a bad spring.

The picture of my mother brightened, all but her eyes, until it shone like a beam with two specks of nothing in the center. It was a picture no longer, but a mirror reflecting a world of radiance, a window into heaven.

But a shadow was growing in the mirror. My shadow. My mirror. A black shape, sinuous and serpentine, appeared to stretch for miles into the bottomless reaches of my vanity; a well of silver touching eternity. The shadow grew; the shadow called, and once the mirror was broken, it would never be whole again.

I could not run. I couldn’t even stand. I was riveted in place as the black thing approached the boundary of glass. The silver surface hissed as it contorted and expanded with the fangs of the serpent pressed against the veil. Deep in its throat I saw the living heat of magma boiling up out of the darkness.

Then a flash of white was charging from some unseen post. It was only a speck compared to the serpent, but on its brow was an ebony spear even darker than the shadow. It was dark as oblivion, as dark as the void of dead space, of neverness, and it pierced the side of the shadow. There was another flash followed by a sound--a pure, clarion tone ringing higher and truer than any I had ever heard. It was the sound that stars make if only we could hear them.

Then I awoke and realized I was outdoors, far from the house. There was so much moonlight that it blinded me for moments as I stood frozen in place, not knowing where I was, though the fence was nearby and beyond it, the grazing fields. They were empty of all but the nocturnal insects with their multitude of chirps and calls.

The night sky was clear, but a full moon muted the stars. An electric buzz had swept over me and then subsided, and the cool air felt chill against my fevered skin. I was always running a temperature now, though I didn’t feel sick. Timothy said it was the last stages of my lurgy. If it ever went away, I hoped my dreams went with it. Somehow, I knew they wouldn’t.

“Sleepwalking?”

I jumped so sharply that I felt I was still moving even when I’d stopped. My hands shot to my mouth to catch the mortifying squeak before it had a chance to escape, but nothing moves faster than surprise.

The voice, light and pleasant, came from a boy balancing on the wooden fence, legs dangling easily. Pale as the moonlight and as flawless, he looked to have been drawn rather than born. He was not marked by any of the minor blemishes that life leaves on even the luckiest of models; he had to be fresh from the easel.

His hair was black, one of those perpetually windblown affairs that hung to the shoulders in waves. His clothing could have been woven from spider silk, silvery and soft. It hung loosely over a lightly muscled frame, the body of a long distance runner who wouldn’t have looked out of place modeling for Abercrombie during his off-season. Yet above all else, his eyes stood out as the most striking. They were violet, not Liz Taylor violet but true violet, exactly the color of eyes that no one is really born with but only exist in novels. I wouldn’t have been able to look away if they had caught me, but I was distracted by a smudge of what looked like soot on his forehead, which was odd combined with the rest.

A swarm of impressions seized me. Younger than Timothy--younger than Timothy looked anyway--and closer to my age, he was absolutely unlike anyone I had seen before.

He is probably the last of something. He is going to kill me.

Wherever it came from, that last idea didn’t mesh well with reality. He didn’t look dangerous in any way. I pushed that wayward impression to the side of my mind, but one more followed after it, the most embarrassing of the lot. He was gorgeous.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, “but you were standing there for so long, I had to say something. “He was more amused than I would have liked. My already fevered cheeks heated further.

“What are you?” It felt rude coming out of my mouth, but he had surprised me and considering my life recently, it wasn’t an inappropriate question.

His eyes latched onto mine again, causing my heart to skip. Maybe he’s a prince, a second son without the burden of inheritance, free to go slay dragons and collect damsels like trading cards.

“Li,” he said. “I am a Li.”

For some reason I felt stupid not knowing what he meant, but then I recovered. “And what are you doing here, Li?” This couldn’t possibly lead to a one-syllable answer.

“Waiting.” He grinned. I did not.

“Does my uncle know you’re here?”

His grin vanished. “He does not. It would be a deadly thing if he did. Maybe I should introduce myself more properly. I am called Li by those I like. I am an enemy of your uncle, or at least he sees me as one. Should either he or his apprentice find me within their realm, let alone speaking to you, they would try to kill me. It would be all I could manage to escape with my life.”

I stepped away from him. If I had expected anything, it was not that. The impression I had pushed aside seemed to be saying, “I told you so.” Maybe he was dangerous.

“Are you a rival sorcerer? Or a thief?”

Keep him talking, a golem will spot you any second. I didn’t know who this was or what he was, but whether or not I personally liked Milton, for him to have an ‘attack on sight’ order, this guy must be anything but safe.

“No and yes, after a fashion, to their eyes at least.” His violet gaze locked on my step, made me feel foolish for continuing to back away as if I could escape. His smile returned but was more subdued. “I have come to steal you away from them.”

Wait. What?

“They have wards that will prevent you from running away on your own, as you have probably already discovered, but I can circumvent those and take you to a place where you will be safe from Milton.”

There were too many things wrong with that statement.

“Wait.” He hadn’t made any sudden moves, but I wanted to be sure. “Are you trying to kidnap me or is this supposed to be a rescue?”

“Rescue.” He seemed totally surprised by my confusion and ready for more questions.

“I don’t know you! And Milton, I mean, he’s kind of creepy, and the golems are scary, but Timothy’s okay and I’m… I’m…” His smile was awfully large now, like I had said something hilarious.

“It’s just that it’s not so bad here. I was upset when I first came, because it took me away from my dad.” I didn’t quite choke on the word, but I wasn’t about to explain any more about what happened to him. “I haven’t tried to run away. There’s not anywhere else I would really want to go.” Except for home, but it wasn’t home anymore.

He still had that colossal grin stuck on his face, and it felt almost like he thought I was telling a joke with a punch line right around the corner.

“So… I appreciate the offer… really. At some point I might want to be rescued, but not now. The thought was really nice anyway…”

Finally it was too much for him, whatever it was. He burst into a quiet fit of laughter, which was actually him gagging himself to keep the noise down.

His danger rating went down again.

Suddenly, I experienced a new empathy for Bolton, who had never understood why I laughed at him when we met for the first time. After another moment, I decided I would apologize to him the next time I went riding. After a third, I was incensed. “What is so funny?” I hissed. Maybe he was gorgeous, but he was also infuriating.

He straightened up, immediately sober. “You are a very strange girl,” he said, “but I suppose you have to be, being part of a very strange story.”

I started to object, but he went on.

“I knew you wouldn’t see it yet, but I wanted to tell you exactly what I was about from the beginning. When you meet me again, it will be in the woods at the edge of Milton’s wards, a straight line beyond the middle of the pond.”

“I’m not meeting you anywhere!”

He raised a hand, palm out. “Yes, you will. Don’t worry. I will be able to explain more then. For now, watch the sorcerers. They are charming, but evil often is.”

He fell backward over the fence, twisting in a complicated motion that planted him back on his feet. “Goodbye, Abigail,” he said and pointed behind me.

“What?” I turned to look, but there was no one, only the dark-eyed house a little distance away. Turning back, I was alone.

I stood for a while in silence, thinking…

Having originally woken outside from a dream, I could almost believe he was one also, though I felt that he wasn’t. “How fast are you?” I whispered. It was a long way to any substantial cover. Maybe he could turn invisible.

For a time, I stared at the wooden slat on which he had sat. I reviewed our conversation in my mind. Then I giggled. Maybe I was strange, but a good sort of strange, surely.

I walked to the house and Timothy opened the door for me before I could touch the knob.

“Sleepwalking?”

He sounded so much like Li that I couldn’t help but laugh. He afforded me his usual, half- quirked smile in return.

“Do you need anything?” he asked me.

“Just to go back to bed.”

“If I had a cure for nightmares, I would give it to you.”

“And sleepwalking?”

“The same.”

This was the person I was supposed to be rescued from? Still, I hesitated over saying anything about Li and decided to keep my visitor to myself. He hadn’t done anything to hurt me and had said that they would kill him if they caught him. True or not, he hadn’t given me reason to risk it. And one other thing prevented me from sharing what had happened with Timothy.

“ Sorcerers always lie.”

The memory was as striking as the original. Its source was still a mystery, but I couldn’t resist wondering how much truth there was to it. The words had come from my own mind, hadn’t they, even if they weren’t in my voice?

When I was alone again, I looked through the window I couldn’t open to the mountains from which my visitor must have come.

Was there a flash of white?

No, my imagination was running wild because my sleep cycle was so erratic. The sorcerers weren’t my captors; they were the only family I had left. If I couldn’t make do with them, I certainly wasn’t going to run off with some boy I met in the dead of night, a trespasser.

Though if I had to pick someone to run away with…Shut up.

I pushed on the window; sealed as always. Would Timothy show me how to open it if I asked? Would they find me a working phone line? Who would I call?

I was being silly. No one was holding me against my will. I just didn’t have anywhere else to go. I did want to see Li again sometime, if only for variety. If I saw him enough, eventually, he might start making sense.

Rescue me!? I was strange? What about him?

Is magic supposed to make life this surreal?

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