Mirror Sight Read Free Page A

tongue but held it when she heard footsteps out on the street and a curious metallic
click-click-click
sound. When the footsteps paused so did the clicking, which was replaced by an odd purring hum. Light flowed down the alley, but Karigan and her rescuer were pressed hard enough against the brick wall that the light did not touch them. It focused on a trio of thugs left moaning on the pavement.
    “What is it?” a man’s voice asked.
    “Dregs is all,” another answered. “Rubbish collectors’ll pick ’em up later. C’mon.”
    The footsteps continued on, and there was an odd toot, and the
click-click-click
started again.
    Her rescuer waited at length before peeling away from the wall.
    “Who were they?” she demanded.
    The man sighed in irritation. “Inspectors. Now come. We don’t want to be caught out.”
    Inspectors?
she wondered. What were they inspecting? They had not cared about the men lying in the alley, and her rescuer certainly did not like them.
    Karigan hated relying on this stranger’s strength. He was not gentle, she thought, as they moved out into the empty street. It wasn’t, she suspected, that he was intentionally being rough, but that he was being more vigilant of their surroundings than of her comfort. And perhaps he did not realize the extent of her various hurts.
    “Ow!” she cried, when he bumped her bad leg.
    “Silence,” he whispered. “There could be more thugs about, or Inspectors.”
    “Then be more careful,” she said.
    “I am very sorry, but I’ve a job to do.”
    Karigan halted, planted herself on the street. If he wanted to move forward, he’d have to drag her.
    “What do you mean job?” she asked, darkening with suspicion. “Are you one of those clowns?”
    “What? Clowns?” His voice held a tone of incredulity. She still could not see his face beneath the shadow of his hood, but his eyes glinted in the lamplight.
    “Then who are you? Where in the name of the gods am I? You sound Sacoridian, but this is like no place in Sacoridia I’ve ever seen.”
    He did not answer, just stared at her.
    “I’m very sorry,” he said finally, “but you do ask too many questions, and this is not the time or place.”
    Before Karigan could reply, he withdrew a cloth from beneath his cloak and thrust it into her face, pressing it over her mouth and nose, overpowering her with its sickly sweet stench. At first she fought, but he held her fast, and her strength, the little that remained to her, leaked out of her. Her knees gave way, the stranger supporting her as she spiraled into oblivion.

    T he face belonged to a balding man who peered down at her out of the haze. “Well, hello there, young lady. How are we feeling?”
    At first she felt numb, but all her various pains were intensifying with every moment. She appeared to be, however, comfortably situated in a huge bed with a downy mattress and warm blankets pulled up to her chest.
    “Who are you? Where am I?” It seemed to take a great deal of strength just to speak.
    “I am Mender Samuels, and you are safe and sound in your uncle’s house.”
    “Uncle?
What uncle?”
    Mender Samuels turned away to address someone behind him. “A little disorientation is not unusual, considering what you said about her time in the asylum, which must have been most distressing.”
    Asylum?
Karigan’s heart thudded. She tried to sit up, but the pain took her breath away, and she fell back into her pillows.
    “There, there, young lady,” the mender cooed. “We’ve reset your broken wrist, pulled shards of a mirror from your flesh, and tended the ghastly wounds on your leg. You have been through quite an ordeal, it seems, and now you can rest.” To someone else he said, “The syringe, please.”
    An assistant in the shadows handed him a long, sharp needle, which protruded from a glass tube filled with fluid.
    This could not be good. “What—what is that?” Karigan asked, feeling like a trapped animal. She glanced around the dim