He tapped the quilted armor surcoat that he had donned. “Cloth will bind a knife like you wouldn’t believe. Besides, this is what I’mfor.”
I grumbled but let him go first. He opened the door, slipped outside, then gestured to me, something complicated with two fingers. I assumed it meant it was safe to exit, though it could have meant anything up toI have decided that I would like curry for dinner. I followed.
We were halfway to the stairs when a door opened across the courtyard and a gray figure stepped out of it. I watched the reflection close the door, and stand frozen.
“Begin in Lady Sorrel’s rooms?” Javier asked.
“Yes, I… wait…” The gray figure had begun to walk along the hallway perpendicular to us. With no mirror in sight.
I grabbed Javier’s wrist. “That one’s moving!”
Javier’s head jerked around, and he stared at the gray figure. It was a man, and though it was hard to tell in the gray-on-gray twilight of the mirror, I didn’t think he was wearing a servant’s livery. One of the guards, perhaps?
Another door opened to our left, much closer. Javier spun around, drawing his sword. It was another man, and this one seemed to actually be wearing armor.
The gray man closed the door and began walking toward us. Javier put himself between me and the newcomer, sword held up between us. “I thought you said they didn’t move!” he hissed.
“None of the others did!”
The first gray man turned the far corner and came down the hallway toward us as well. They both had a steady, measured gait that was somehow more frightening than if they had been charging.
“Maybe we should get out of the way?” I said. “I don’t know why they’re still there without a mirror, but maybe they’re going to another mirror? If we just step to one side…”
The armored one drew his sword.
“… Or not.”
Javier said something short, sharp, and sexually explicit. I darted toward the nearest door, two down from my own room—Please, Saints, let it be unlocked!… Oh blessed Saint Adder, thank you!—and yanked it open.
Javier leaped through the doorway after me and slammed it practically in the armored man’s face. I heard him fumble with the lock, then ram the bolt home, just as a fist descended on the other side.
Knock. Knock.
I looked around the room. It was clearly another guest room, though not quite so large as the one I was in. There were dustcovers on the furniture, though, so it appeared unoccupied.
Knock. Knock.The door actually rattled in the frame that time. The narrow metal bolt seemed terribly puny.
“Is there a way out?” Javier had his shoulder against the door, holding it in place.
“Balcony, if we want to break both legs. Unless…Aha!” I yanked a dustcover away from the wall, revealing a standing mirror. It wasn’t nearly as large as mine, maybe four feet tall by eighteen inches wide, but it looked onto a sunlit world that looked like salvation.
Knock. Knock. Knock.The armored man’s fist struck like hammerblows against the wood. Every one knocked Javier back an inch.
“Go, go!” my bodyguard said. I could hear wood splintering. “I’m right behind you!”
I went. I had to duck and turn sideways, and I felt my ass scrape against the frame, but I was through.
Whereupon the dustcover from the real world fell over me, and I flailed like a bird trapped in a windowsill, trying to get it off.
Javier ran into me, full tilt. I fell down. He fell down. The dustcover fell over both of us. Something whacked me in the ribs, and I realized he still had his sword out. Thankfully it had just been the flat, or an already-bad day would have gotten a great deal worse.
“Stop moving,” I ordered, clutching at the edge of the sheet that I found near my knees. I tried to yank it loose, with minimal success.
In the mirror, the armored man looked down at the two of us lying sprawled on the floor in the real world. His face was cold and chiseled stone, and then he smiled.
None of the other reflections had had any expression. Seeing this one felt very, very wrong.
He reached out a hand to the mirror. Javier swore and got the sword up over me.He can’t come through—he’s just a reflection—this isn’t how it works—
