Page 7 of A Taste of Silver
Melora's fingers paused for just a heartbeat. "There's something powerful in you. Power and wrongness... sometimes they're the same thing."
The second glove formed beneath those skilled hands. Melora held them out, and they seemed to pulse with their own dim light. "Put these on."
I took them, the fabric softer than anything I'd ever touched. The moment my hands slid inside, the world went quiet. Not the sounds, but everything else. The buzzing feeling under my skinthat was always there, like a trapped bee, went still. The sharp edges of the room seemed to soften.
"They feel strange."
"They'll keep you safe." Melora's shoulders sagged. Her breath came out in a long, slow sigh. "The silver is special. Mixed with herbs that..." She paused, choosing her words. "That help you see less clearly."
"But I want to see clearly."
"No." Melora gripped my gloved hands, squeezing tight. "You want to see normally. There's a difference. What you'd see without these... it would hurt you. Hurt others."
I looked down at the gloves. They fit perfectly, like they'd been waiting for my hands specifically. "Will I always have to wear them?"
"Yes."
"Even when I sleep?"
"Especially then." Melora stood, pulling me toward the covered window. "Dreams and mirrors are cousins. Both show things that shouldn't be seen."
"What would I see?" I reached toward the curtain, but my hand stopped inches away. Something in the gloves wouldn't let me touch it. "If I looked without the gloves, what would happen?"
Melora was quiet for so long that I thought she wouldn't answer. Then, so soft it might have been the wind, "Yourself. Your real self. And that's the most dangerous thing of all."
"Why?"
"Because you're not meant for this world alone." Melora's voice cracked. "Part of you belongs... elsewhere. And if you ever saw that part clearly, it would call you home. Away from here. Away from me."
My eyes burned with tears I didn't understand. "I don't want to go away."
"Then keep the gloves on." Melora pulled me into a fierce hug, and I could feel her trembling. "Promise me. No matter what you hear, what you dream, what calls to you…Keep them on."
"I promise." The words came out muffled against Melora's robes. "I'll be careful."
"Careful isn't enough." Melora pulled back, cupping my face in her weathered hands. "Be afraid. Fear will keep you safe longer than courage ever could."
Outside, clouds passed over the sun, and the shop grew darker still. I flexed my fingers in the new gloves, watching the silver threads catch what little light remained. They were beautiful, I supposed. Beautiful prisons for whatever lived in my hands.
"Can I at least know why I'm different?"
Melora turned away, busying herself with reorganizing already perfect shelves. "Some children are born under strange stars. You were born under no stars at all, just a sky full of mirrors, each one reflecting something that shouldn't exist."
"That doesn't make sense."
Melora's voice dropped, flat and final. "It will. When you're older, when the calls grow stronger, when the gloves aren't enough anymore…It will make horrible, perfect sense."
I wanted to ask more, but Melora had that closed-door look that meant the conversation was over. So I sat by the covered window, gloved hands folded in my lap, and tried not to think about the reflection I'd seen before Melora pulled me away.
For just a moment, just a breath, I could have sworn my reflection had silver eyes.
But that was impossible. My eyes were grey. Normal grey with maybe a hint of violet when the light hit just right. Everyone said so.
Everyone except the mirrors.
The memory fractured like ice under pressure, and I was twenty-seven again, stumbling through snow with silver petals still melting on my skin. My gloves, those same gloves, remade larger over the years but always with the same silver thread, burned with cold fire that had nothing to do with the blizzard.
Melora had known. All these years, all these careful lies, and she'd known exactly what waited on the other side of the glass.
