The gray figure tapped one finger against the glass, and there it stopped. He was wearing gauntlets. Sound didn’t carry to this side of the mirror, but I could imagine what steel would sound like against glass.
Tap. Tap. Tap.Still with that unnerving smile. His eyes were blank, but his head was tilted down, so I was certain he was looking at us. I swallowed convulsively.
The door to the room opened. The reflection stepped back. Javier lurched toward the sound, sword up to meet this new threat.
The hair with a maid attached stood in the doorway, her mouth an O of surprise. She was carrying a feather duster.
I looked back at the mirror, but the reflection was gone. And I was lying on the ground, on a sheet, extremely rumpled, partly underneath my equally rumpled bodyguard.
The maid’s eyes traveled over the two of us. “Hullo, Javier,” she said. “Miss.”
There is a level of blush beyond which human capillaries simply won’t hold any more blood. I lay under my bodyguard and wished for a vasoconstrictor.
Javier closed his eyes. “Hello, Eloise.”
Huh. Her name is Eloise. Good to know.
Eloise put the feather duster on her shoulder, where her hair promptly engulfed it. “We air these rooms out once a week so they don’t get musty,” she said.
“Very good,” I said.Ergot. Ergot’s a vasoconstrictor. You get the hallucinations, though, so that won’t work. Damn.
“I tripped,” said Javier. “And… err… Healer Anja tried to catch me. And we fell. On the floor.”
Arsenic might work; you get the white complexion out of it.
“Uh-huh,” said Eloise. “Do you want me to bring some sheets for the bed in here, then?”
Yes, definitely arsenic. Several pounds ought to do it.
“That will not be necessary,” I said, with what shreds of dignity I could muster under the circumstances. “Please don’t be so clumsy again in the future, sir.”
He scrambled off me and extended a hand to help me up. “Certainly not, Healer Anja.”
“And put away your sword.”
“Yes, Healer Anja.”
Eloise nodded. “I’ll come back later, then,” she said, and stepped out. The door shut behind her.
My neck snapped around toward the mirror so fast that I felta vertebra pop, but there was no figure in the mirror except our own.
We retreated to my room. I passed a servant on the way and felt myself flushing again, even though there was absolutely no reason to be embarrassed about walking somewhere with my guard. Up until five minutes ago, I hadn’t worried that anyone other than Aaron would think anything salacious was going on. Now everyone in the villa would think so by daybreak.
Oh hey, I wonder if they’re going to think that I’m cheating on the king?
Once we got to my room, I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. All the fear and embarrassment and adrenaline came out in a hyena-like cackle, and Javier jumped like a spooked horse, which made me laugh harder until I collapsed in a chair, and I finally managed to gasp out, “They’re going to think I’m cheating on theking!” and his eyes went big and round as saucers, and then he started laughing, too.
It was one of those laughs where if you meet each other’s eyes, you start up again, and that sets them off, so it took a good five minutes all told until we finally settled. I wiped tears from my cheeks, resolutely not looking in Javier’s direction. “Saints,” I said hoarsely, feeling wrung out. “I needed that. Oh, we’re in such a mess, aren’t we?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.” I heard him get up and risked a glance in his direction. He poured some water from the pitcher on the table and drank it down, then leaned against one of the bedposts. He caught me looking in his direction and lifted the cup in an abbreviated salute.
“So some of them can walk around,” I said, leaning back in the chair, “and they didn’t seem friendly.”
“Not friendly at all. Though I can understand their position.”
“Eh? What position?”
“How wouldyoureact if two strangers suddenly appeared in the middle of your house?”
