Blood, Smoke and Mirrors (2010) by Robyn Bachar Read Free Book Online Page A

each minute detail just as I pictured it.
    Rubbing my hands together, I smeared them with warm, slick blood. I reached down and brushed the edges of the image with the tips of my fingers, and taking a deep breath, I tugged them outwards. A sharp crack sounded as the plastic backing shattered, but the image expanded. With painstaking care I drew the edges of the mirror farther and farther out, stretching it like a piece of uncooperative dough across a cutting board. Blood continued to flow from the wound, and I used it to refresh the coating on my hands. All magic is based in blood, and my blood is strong. This, however, required a lot more blood than I was used to.
    As I worked I lost track of time, focused on the task before me until finally the mirror that had once been small enough to fit in my pocket took up a space large enough to (I hoped) fit a dragon through. Standing up straight, I wavered a bit on my feet, lightheaded, and turned to my captive audience.
    "Well, what do you think?"
    The dragon studied the mirror. "Impressive."
    "After you," I said, sweeping my arm out in an invitation. The dragon crept over to the image, standing at its edge as though it were a pond the beast was deciding to dive into. Its muscles bunched, and with a graceful leap the dragon sailed into the mirror and through it. Before the magic could fade I leapt through and found myself standing in a snowbank up to my knees, staring at the castle in the distance.
    A shadow passed over me as the dragon flew away, a black silhouette against the afternoon sky. "Thank you!" it called out as it whooshed toward the horizon.
    "You're welcome," I shouted after it. I held my hand above my eyes to block out the sun and suddenly remembered the cut I'd left open and bleeding all this time. "Uh-oh."
    Frantic, I tried to direct the cut to close itself, something I'm normally quite good at, but it stubbornly refused. I realized there was something wrong with my legs as well as they wobbled beneath me. My traitorous body was not letting me enjoy my victory, and a queasy lightheadedness washed over me before the world went black for the second time that day.
    Chapter Four
    I awoke by degrees, lost in a sea of hazy dreams and nightmares that vanished as quickly as they appeared. I saw myself as a girl running through a forest and giggling madly as I chased after the white, winged figure that darted between the bare trees in front of me. I heard the cool crunch of snow beneath my boots and felt the occasional glimpse of faint winter sunlight on my face as it peeked through the gray clouds above. You can't catch me, Kitty-kitty!
    Then I saw the front door of my childhood home. I reached to open it, my hand small and smudged with dirt, and the knob turned easily in my grasp. As the door swung open I heard shouting, strange angry words, and it frightened me down to my core. I crept through the house back to the kitchen, everything around me now seeming sinister in the late-afternoon light. I paused as I passed the bedrooms, surprised to see two suitcases on the floor in front of my parents' room. I hid behind the open basement door, sitting on the top step and making myself as small as possible as I listened to the voices. My father was yelling, my mother was weeping, begging him not to leave.
    The dream changed, twisted. I was older. I opened the door of my home and found quiet, an awful silence. I stepped inside and turned to my left, looking into the living room. The smell hit me, the pungent, poignant stench of death. My mother's body lay on the floor, tiny pools of her blood staining the carpet, her face pale like I'd never seen it before and twisted into a mask of terror and agony. Those lifeless eyes stared at me, pleading, warning. Home was no longer safe--her killers had been invited in. Invited by my father, to tear my mother apart and feast on the strong magic in her blood.
    Fleeing the dream, my eyes blinked open to stare at the ceiling of my bedroom. I lay