Page 6 of Her Dark Reflection

The dressings obscured the majority of the left side of my face. I peered into the glass at my left eye, swollen and lashless, and sent up a prayer of thanks to Aether and Madeia that I could still see. While the swelling was bad, it didn’t look like there was permanent damage, and surely my lashes would grow back. A tiny spring of hope bubbled up in my chest as I reached for the dressings with trembling fingers and began to peel them away from the rest of my face.

That spring of hope dried up fast.

The dressing peeled away from blistered, weeping wounds, angry red even through the balm smothered all over me. Gone was my creamy skin, the roses in my cheeks, my eyebrow, my hair. The creature looking back at me was a stranger, a monster of puss and swelling. The burn kept going as I kept curling the dressing back and I had to force myself to stop. I clamped down on the despair that wanted to liquify my bones, to see me weeping on the floor, and swallowed gingerly as I carefully covered my face back beneath the blessed neutrality of the white dressing.

This explained why Madam had been so shifty. I was worthless to her now. There wasn’t a druthi enchantment in existence that could fix this. Never again would someone pay to spend a night with me. My future, my plans, always shaky but still visible, were now a yawning abyss lying before me. My saving grace, my one source of power and autonomy, had been my looks. Those men had set fire to my entire life.

Because I had made a smart comment. Because I had made them feel small.

I slowly sank into the armchair and stared at the wall. I thought I’d known the worst of what the world could do to me, but the despair that laid claim to me was rabid and merciless. It opened its dark maw and swallowed me whole.

Rainmisteddownina slow, constant drizzle, not quite enough to drive me from the streets but enough to make me feel miserable. I wrapped my cloak a little tighter around my shoulders, adjusting the hood to ensure my face was partially hidden by the fabric. It didn’t obscure nearly enough, though. I could tell by the expressions of horror or pity frequently inspired in any gaze that landed on me long enough to take a proper look.

I had grown attached to that hood in the months following the attack. I should have exposed my scars, used the pity cast my way as a weapon against the studied apathy of passers-by. Hiding them meant that even those who noticed could pretend they hadn’t seen, could soothe themselves with pleasant little lies enough to walk past without feeling guilty. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want their pity. After all, I wasn’tbegging.The damp, grey rug displaying the motley collection of everything I had left to sell could tell them that.

A few items of jewellery were placed carefully beside each other, robbed of their gaudy glimmer by the oppressive cloud cover. They were costume jewellery, the pieces that contained no hint of real gold or gems, otherwise I would have sold them to the jeweller with the few of my mother’s trinkets—those had been the first items to go. They were almost worthless, just baubles to decorate my neck and wrists when I danced for clients, but I was hoping they might catch the eye of a shopper on the street and earn a few coins. If they thought there was any real value to them, then all the better.

A few clothing pieces were displayed alongside the jewellery. Nothing special—the silks and fine lace were already gone. As was the coin they had earned. What remained was growing wet, despite the burlap sack that I kept propping up over my wares to ward off the rain.

A bone china tea set was perched somewhat above the rest of the collection, as though scorning the possessions of a common suvoir girl. My mother’s, of course. Fine lines of paint swirled around the lips and handles of the mugs, and all over the teapot. Depictions of flowers—bluebells and daisies and forget-me-nots—were wrought so exquisitely that the quality of the set was surely obvious. A chip in the handle of the teapot peered from the fine handiwork; an ugly scar. That, along with the fact that one of the mugs was missing, made this set something I couldn’t sell to someone who knew the worth of such things, so here it was on my rug on the sidewalk.

Propped up against the building behind me, and looming over the rest, stood my mother’s mirror. Every time I caught sight of the droplets of rain treading paths down its surface, a vice clamped around my heart. I couldn’t look at it for long.

A woman and a little girl advanced down the footpath and I smiled at them hopefully. The girl slowed, her eyes wide as she looked from my face, then to my rug-come-shopfront. She tugged her mother’s arm and pointed to the mirror, her voice trilling about how it would match her bedroom, but the woman pulled her past without pausing, hissing about never giving money to beggars. I scowled down the street after them, swallowing at the lump that seemed permanently lodged in my throat these days.

The woman’s scorn ate away at me like acid. Iwasn’ta beggar. What I had to sell might not be much, but it was all I had left in the world. Initially, I had tried earning my keep at Madam’s by cleaning, but clients had complained that the sight of me put them off their erections. A bitter comment when not so long ago they had all been clamouring to wave them in my direction.

I’d met with the same problem when I’d tried selling swoon for Cotus. He’d been unwilling to give me a chance to begin with, only agreeing after I threatened to expose him to Madam. Sometimes, when I was feeling like indulging my self-pity, I thought on the two different versions of Cotus I’d come to know. There was the man who’d bragged that he was a snatcher just to impress me, presenting the illegal plants and fungi he’d swiped from the Yawn as though it couldn’t get him arrested, and then there was the one who kept his eyes fixed to the ground or the wall when he spoke to me. Whether it was because of my lack of success as a swoon dealer or just my lack of patience with his tendency to disappear when I needed more product, I’d given up trying that avenue of income.

Now, I had a little work cleaning at a boarding house a few streets away, but my earnings weren’t enough to cover my rent at the suvoir. I’d had some savings, but once those were gone, I’d toured the district, selling anything of value that I owned. Now that that was all gone, here I was with what was left.

Most mornings, I woke up clouded in a fog of bitterness so thick I could hardly see through it to the pathetic scrabble for survival my life had shrunk down to. I would have been the last person to ever describe life as anything even resembling fair, but even I was blindsided by the cruel trick it had played on me. I was lower even than I had been before Madam and the suvoir. And this time, I couldn’t see a way up.

I surveyed the street again as the rain grew heavier, contemplating whether I should just pack up and go home for the day. Dinner was a distant possibility with the limited peythas I had managed to pry from my few unwilling customers, so I really needed to keep trying, but people were scarce in this weather, just a few men smoking out the front of a workhouse on the other side of the street and an old woman picking through a bin further up. I watched her for a few moments, my stomach sinking as I wondered if I was looking at my future.

‘Begging becomes you.’

I started as a voice found me between the sounds of the rain; a smooth, burned toffee voice that I had heard before. Casting my eyes around, I fixed on a man leaning against the wall a few steps away from me. He hadn’t been there a moment ago. I would have seen him, even considering the gloom that clung to him as though what little light permeating the day was shy of falling on his dark cloak. A smile spilled slowly across his mouth when I met his cold, pewter eyes.Draven.

‘I’m not begging,’ I replied, straightening my spine even while I tugged at my hood, hoping he couldn’t see my face. There was that twist to my stomach again; the fluttering heartbeat and rush of blood that was my hormonal system sitting up to pay attention.

His smile deepened. ‘No, forgive me. You left the Winking Nymph to become a merchant.’ With languid steps, he moved closer and cast an eye over my rug before flicking his gaze to my face. ‘What? You’re surprised I recognise you?’

I frowned as I assessed him. ‘Perhaps you’ve a special lady you’d like to buy a gift for?’ I said after a moment. I was sure he had money, and if he’d stopped just to peck at me then I would make sure he bought something.

‘You do have an interesting collection here,’ he mused, stroking his chin between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Where did you come across that mirror?’

I folded my arms. ‘I didn’t steal it if that’s what you’re asking,’ I snapped. ‘But it’s a fine piece. I could do you an excellent deal, since we’re old friends.’

His humourless laugh rumbled from deep within his chest and sending a thrill of foreboding down my spine. ‘I have a better idea,friend. A proposition.’

I licked my lips and fiddled with my cloak. It wasn’t that the idea didn’t excite that heady, involuntary response to him I seemed to have, and I was used to men trying to exchange money for my body, but I felt so vulnerable out here in the street, with no Cotus watching over me, no Madam negotiating a best price. And he’d be in for a rude shock when I removed my hood.

‘Don’t look so suspicious, it is not that kind of proposition. I see a different future for you than scratching out a paltry living in the street.’ He began to circle me slowly, his steps deliberate, his arms folded, his fingers still stroking down his chin. ‘The way you speak, the way you hold yourself,' he paused for a moment and cocked his head to the side. ‘Almost like an aristocrat. A woman of your bearing would be wasted on such a life.’

‘Speak plainly. What do you want?’ I asked, my tone sharp, turning my head to keep my eyes on him as he prowled around me.

‘A trade. For someone who has been ground into the dirt by this city.’ His hand darted out so fast I couldn’t dodge it and he yanked the hood from my head. I cringed away, scrabbling to tug the fabric back in place, to hide myself in shadow, but he stepped closer and grasped my shoulders, firmly turning me to face the rug. To face my mother’s mirror.

---