Javier did the same back-and-forth prowl of the bedroom that I had, before finally going to the door. “Is it just this room?”
“Oh no. There’s more. In fact, I think it might be the whole world.” I could feel the giggle trying to start up again and squelched it firmly. “Open the door and look.”
I crowded into the entryway behind him, so I was close enough to see his neck muscles tighten as he looked into the lightless hall. “That,” he said, “isnotright.”
“Isn’t it creepy?” I asked delightedly.
He looked at me over his shoulder. “You are far too excited about this.”
“Well,yeah.” I waved my hands wildly, probably conveying nothing except unfocused enthusiasm. “Nobody’s ever discovered anything like this before. We’re like explorers who suddenly found a new continent. Except most continents already have people on them, so even more so.”
Javier frowned. “And there are no people here?”
“Ah… not exactly. Sometimes there are reflections of people, but it’s not quite the same.” I tried to explain about the reflections freezing in place, while his head tilted to one side like a confused dog.
He continued staring at me for some time after I finished, then finally said, “Are they dangerous?”
“I don’tthinkso?” Remembering how my skin had crawled when confronted with the maid’s reflection, I shrugged helplessly. “They don’t seem todoanything.”
Movement caught the corner of my eye. I had barely begun to turn when Javier put himself between me and whatever it was, one hand on his sword hilt, as reflexive as breathing.
A servant was coming out of a room two doors down. The hall was briefly splashed with light, then he turned and closed the door behind him. Three-quarters of the way through, he stopped, one hand still on the doorknob, and sagged in place, cut off from the mirror that animated him.
“There!” I said. “That’s one.”
Javier was braver than I was. He walked up to the reflection and studied it, peering into the gray face. Then, carefully, he reached out a fingertip and poked the servant in the shoulder.
I held my breath. Logically, nothing should happen. It wasn’t a person, it was just that the mirror took a little while to catch up to reality. There wasn’t a mind there to retaliate. Logically.
At that moment, caught between ebullience and terror, logic seemed like a very flimsy shield. If the reflection had suddenly woken, spoken, grabbed Javier’s hand, bitten his face off, anything—well, I’d have been shocked, but not actuallysurprised.
Nothing happened.Score one for logic.
“And he will stay like this?” Javier said. “For how long?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He’ll disappear if he gets reflected somewhere else. I haven’t watched one long enough to see if they fade away eventually. I don’t know if the mirror just doesn’t work fast enough to keep up with moving things or if there’s something special about living things. Well, living animal–type things. Plants show up just fine, but that might just be because they’re so much slower. Although—”
The servant winked out. There was nothing so dramatic as a flash of light, even though it felt like there should have been.Maybe there was a flash of gray. Would we even be able to tell?
Javier bit back a curse and took a step backward, as if teleportation might be contagious.
“I think that means he found another mirror,” I said.
The lines around his mouth deepened. “Is it any mirror here, then?”
I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. Every one I’ve seen so far? The maid told me a lot of them came from Silversand, so it may only be those specific mirrors. I haven’t had a chance to really look at anything but the ones in my bedroom and privy. I’d feel weird walking into other people’s rooms to look at their mirrors, even if it wasn’t in the real world. It feels like spying.”
“Can you step through any one of them?”
“I think so? I haven’t been able to test it. I can put my fingers through smaller mirrors, and it seems likely that they’re back in the real world, but I couldn’t exactly fit my entire body through them.”
His frown turned to a scowl. “If so, it would be an extraordinary tool for an assassin.”
I blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
He went back to the railing and leaned against it, looking down into the silent courtyard.
I joined him, the rail a cold bar across my elbows. “But isn’t it amazing?”
