Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis Read Free Book Online

they met her lips, and when she’d touched Mama’s harp, it had sung the name “Olivia” until she’d sliced out all its strings. I still remembered her voice raging at Papa through their bedroom door afterward while Elissa held me tight.
    At seven years old, I’d watched Stepmama sweep through every room in our house, gathering up all the familiar pictures and cups and plates, while Angeline and Elissa held my hands and glared at her. She must have used up all her dowry in replacing everything she’d packed away. I still didn’t know what had stopped her from destroying it all. Perhaps Papa had put his foot down and refused to let her.
    Or, just as likely, perhaps the neighboring pigs had all begun to fly.
    I sorted through the jumble as quickly as I could. The teacups rustled hopefully as my hands brushed past them. Did they recognize me as Mama’s daughter? My fingers trembled at the thought.
    I stopped and closed my eyes, gritting my teeth with frustration. I wasn’t some missish, nitwit heroine from one of Elissa’s gothic novels, ready to swoon at the slightest shock. There was no reason to ruin my midnight adventure by going all teary-eyed and sentimental. I’d never even met Mama. All my memories were of my sisters. I was here to save Elissa, not myself.
    There had to be some magic in this cabinet that could help me. I just had to stop daydreaming and search harder.
    I opened my eyes and dug deeper in the shelves of the cabinet. When the teacups bumped themselves along the shelf to rub against my hand, I set my jaw and pushed them aside.
    What I needed was another magic spell. Surely Mama hadn’t written them all down in just those two books? Or a magical object would work just as well, if I could find the right one. Maybe I would find a wand to compel the truth, so I could force Sir Neville to publicly admit what he had done to his first wife. Or an enchanted ring to force obedience. Or …
    My hand passed over something smooth and round and tinglingly warm to the touch. An electric thrill shot through me. Every inch of my skin prickled with alertness. My fingers closed around the palm-sized metal circle. I could barely breathe. I had to know what it was.
    How could anything metal in this cabinet be warm?
    Maybe it was an amulet of power or protection. Maybe …
    I sat back on my heels, holding the candle high, and opened my hand to see what lay inside.
    It was a gold-encased, folded-up travel mirror.
    I could have screamed with frustration—at myself. Of course it was only a mirror. What else could it have been? All of Mama’s spells in her magic books had been about love and clothing and foolishness—the same girlish witlessness every female in the world was supposed to care about. Well, not me. I should have known better than to have even hoped that anything in this cabinet could save us.
    In my head, I repeated every curse word I’d ever learned from Charles as I reached up to put the mirror back in the cabinet where it belonged.
    My hand wouldn’t let it go.
    I tried to open my fingers and drop it back into the jumble. They wouldn’t open. It was as if someone had attached the mirror to them with thick paint.
    Warmth tingled against my palm and spread. The golden mirror heated up, hotter and hotter, until it burned against my skin. I had to bite down hard on my lower lip to keep from crying out at the pain. Surely this hadn’t happened to Stepmama when she’d first put it in here. If it had, she would have destroyed it no matter what Papa had said. So what had I done wrong?
    I set the candle down on top of the cabinet, breathing hard with the pain. I used my left hand to pry open the fingers of my right hand. It felt like peeling off layers of my own skin. I was surprised not to see any blood when I finally managed it. But what I did see instead was even more frightening.
    The mirror was glowing in the dark, casting golden light across my palm and fingers. The light came from inside the