Sisters of Glass

by Naomi Cyprus

  Nalah slid the ceramic lid onto the small crucible quickly and left it in the furnace while she melted down the ordinary quartz in a second, larger crucible. It took much longer, and soon Marcus had stripped off his jacket and was mopping his brow with the scarf he’d been using to cover his face.

  “Is it always this hot?” he complained.

  Nalah smirked. “It’s a furnace.”

  When the quartz was finally ready, white-hot and free from bubbles or grains, Nalah rolled her shoulders and seized the first crucible in her tongs.

  “Okay. I’m going to pour,” she said. She shifted her grip three times, to be absolutely sure she had it. She didn’t want to think about what could happen if she spilled the magical mixture on the furnace coals.

  Smoke, and her father screaming her mother’s name in the darkness—fire tearing through the house as he carried Nalah to safety—

  She shook the memory from her mind and tried to focus.

  I can do this. I will do this.

  She slid the ceramic lid from the smaller crucible, trying, even with her visor down, not to look directly at the sparkling light fizzing off the white surface. Then she tipped the contents into the larger crucible of molten quartz.

  “Light of the stars,” she began, reciting the incantation she’d memorized from Great-Grandpa Xerxes’s book. She gasped as she heard a strange, chiming echo in her own voice. Her heart beat strong and steady. She thought she could feel her blood flowing through her veins. I’m doing it! she thought excitedly. “Burn bright, burn through me,” she continued. “Light up this glass with your power.”

  The magical mixture of molten heliothyst and cryptocrystal swirled through the quartz, staying separate, like oil mixed with water. Nalah stirred it with the long steel pole and held her breath, feeling her heartbeat pulse in her fingertips. Why weren’t they melding? Had she done something wrong?

  Then, suddenly, the whole mixture flared like a multicolored firework, the sudden light almost blinding. Nalah shrank back, her heart pounding. Next to her, Marcus yelped.

  But after the initial burst of light, the brightness faded. Nalah risked a peek inside the crucible, and her heart soared as she saw the mixture was complete. It shimmered and glowed, casting sharp rainbow reflections around the workshop as she pulled the crucible out of the furnace.

  “Marcus,” she said, hardly daring to speak above a whisper in case she disturbed the magic somehow, “the frame.”

  “It’s right here,” Marcus said. He grabbed a suede cloth and wiped it one more time across the silver surface of the large oval sheet mold that Nalah had found in the back of the workshop. The shiny back would mean she didn’t have to silver the glass herself. The shard of the old mirror was inside, pressed against the top of the frame.

  “Stand back,” Nalah said. She lifted the crucible with difficulty and poured the sparkling liquid into the frame. It spread out to fill the frame, as if it knew, somehow, exactly what shape it was meant to be. It swallowed up the shard, and after a moment Nalah couldn’t see where it had been. The surface glimmered with the same rainbow sheen that the shard had, and the depths seemed just as strangely deep.

  Nalah pulled off the visor and stared at the surface, pride and wonder mingling in her heart. “I did it,” she breathed.

  Marcus was looking at the mirror, wide-eyed, and Nalah wondered if it was calling out to him, as the shard had done to her. “I’ll take the message to Tam first thing in the morning,” Marcus said, when he finally tore his gaze from the mirror. “He can pick it up after your dad’s gone to work.”

  Nalah nodded dumbly. As the exhilaration ebbed away, her fatigue returned. She smiled at Marcus, aware that her eyelids were drooping. “Thanks, Marcus. You’ve been a big help.”

  “I know,” said Marcus airily, and left.

  Nalah yawned, but knew she shouldn’t fall asleep again. She should wait until the mirror was cool, and then hide it behind the cooling cupboard.

  Nalah stared at the mirror, and after a little while she carefully reached out, wearing the heavy gloves, and touched its surface lightly with Great-Grandpa Xerxes’s silver tweezers. A tiny chime rang out and kept on ringing so long and quietly that Nalah couldn’t quite tell when it had stopped.

  It was finished.

  She slid the frame off the worktop and leaned it against the wall. The mirror was taller and wider than she was, but it still felt strangely light. She sat back down to search the reflection for any imperfection or distortion—

  But in the mirror, a different girl looked back at her.

  Different, and yet the same.

  It was Nalah’s own face, only there was kohl around the girl’s eyes and a golden sheen across her cheeks. Her brown skin was a little lighter than Nalah’s, like she didn’t get much sun, and her hair was sleek and shiny as obsidian. She was wearing bright white satin, and silk the color of flame was draped across her shoulder.

  She looked . . . not happy, but not sad, either. She looked determined.

  Then Nalah blinked, and the vision was gone. The girl in the mirror now had Nalah’s normal face, clean except for the smudges of soot, her hair unbrushed and pulled back in a hasty knot at the back of her neck. Her plain cotton tunic peeked out from underneath the heavy glassblowing apron.

  Nalah leaned back against the worktop, staring at her own, true reflection. Another vision, she thought, just like when I touched the shard. What was this mirror that she’d made? What did it do? Another yawn gripped her, and she collapsed onto a stool. She couldn’t start thinking about that now. Tomorrow the mirror would be gone, and they would have money to leave New Hadar.

  Tomorrow is the beginning of my new life.

  Nalah woke with a start.

  I fell asleep! she thought, annoyed with herself. I can’t believe I fell asleep!

  She opened her eyes and saw herself, reflected in the wide surface of the Transcendent Mirror, still perched on the stool where she’d fallen asleep. She saw the workshop bathed in early sunlight—and her stomach dropped.

  Her father was at her side, holding her shoulder and looking from the real Nalah to the mirror Nalah and back.

  “Nalah,” he said, his voice raspy and strangely hollow. “What have you done?”

  Nalah’s heart beat hard and she clasped her hands in her lap, glad she had never taken off the heavy gauntlets. She felt like crying, shock and guilt swarming around her head, but she forced herself to take a deep breath before she answered.

  “It’s for Tam,” she whispered. “I made his mirror.”

  Mr. Bardak shook his head, staring at the mirror in disbelief. In the reflection, Nalah thought his face looked drawn, older than it used to.

  “How could . . . ?” he began, and his hands squeezed Nalah’s shoulders. “It’s so beautiful, Nalah. You did this? It’s amazing.”

  Nalah looked up at him, hardly daring to hope that he had already forgiven her. But within moments, the wonder in his eyes changed over to anger.

  “How could you do this?” he growled. He stepped away from Nalah, away from the mirror. “Don’t you understand how dangerous this thing is? Don’t you understand that if the enforcers knew, they would kill you?”

  “I do understand,” Nalah said, her voice growing stronger. “But what else was I supposed to do? Just stand by while you gave up your craft forever? I couldn’t let you do that! Tam left the shard here by accident, and when I took it back to him, he said he would double the price. With that kind of money, we can run away and live somewhere where we won’t have to hide! He said he believed in me,” she added, and put a hand proudly on the mirror’s frame. “He said I had the power to do it. And he was right.”

  “Tam,” her father spat, like the name tasted bitter in his mouth. “First my wife, now my daughter—”

  “What?” Nalah exclaimed. Her father waved his hand as if to bat away the question, but Nalah got up from her stool and faced him. “Papa, what do you mean, first your wife?”

  “Z
achary Tam,” said Mr. Bardak, through his teeth, “is responsible for what happened to your mother. Oh, it was an accident, it’s true. An accident that would never have happened if Tam hadn’t put the idea into her head.”

  “What idea? How could it be Tam’s fault?”

  Mr. Bardak pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “When you were little, you were sick. You know this. You know that the metalwork your mother did that night cured you.”

  Nalah nodded silently.

  “You were born with a weak heart. The doctor said that when you got bigger, you wouldn’t have been able to walk. That you would be tired all the time. But you would have lived,” he added fiercely. “You would still have been our daughter, we would have loved you and taken care of you. Together. And then Tam came along, with his wild theories and his illegal metalwork. He showed your mother some kind of legendary formula, and he was certain she could do it—that she could cure you.”

  “And she did,” Nalah said quietly.

  Her father nodded. “And it killed her.”

  Nalah reeled. Her skin prickled and stung. Was he saying that Rina’s death was her fault? She could see the regret in her father’s eyes, and she knew he didn’t mean it—but he had said it, hadn’t he?

  She should change the subject. She should tell him she was sorry, point out that as soon as the mirror was in Tam’s possession, they would be fine. But something inside her refused, like a cart wheel getting stuck in one of the Fissures.

  “But she did it,” she said, her voice a little louder than she intended. “Mama was a genius, you always said that. And her death was an accident! At least Tam didn’t want her to hide from her talents. He believed in her, just like he believed in me—and he was right about both of us! All you’ve ever done is try to hide me away from the world, but I’m trying to help us survive and be free. When have you done that?”

  As soon as the ugly words left her mouth, she was filled with regret.

  But it was too late. Mr. Bardak’s face creased with grief and he looked away. Nalah folded her arms, pressing her hands to her sides, feeling like the guilt might pour out through her fingertips and shatter every pane of glass on Paakesh Street.

  “My mirror,” said a voice.

  Oh no! Nalah thought. He’s early.

  Nalah turned to see Tam in the doorway to the workshop, his eyes wide as he stared into the Transcendent Mirror. “You did it. Nalah, you are a true wonder.”

  “Zachary!” Mr. Bardak snarled. “How dare you come into my house and trick my daughter into doing your dirty work, after what happened to Rina?”

  Tam, his expression perfectly impassive, blinked at Mr. Bardak. He reminded Nalah of a sand lizard—he had that kind of stillness. “I apologize if Nalah didn’t tell you about our agreement,” he said. “Did she also not tell you that I’m offering twenty thousand dinars for that mirror?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Bardak. “But it isn’t for sale.”

  “What?” said Nalah. “But it’s illegal, you don’t want it in the house!”

  “No, I don’t,” said her father. “But don’t you see, if we go along with this, we’ll be dealing in illegal Thauma work, and that’s even more illegal than having it in the first place! We have to destroy it.”

  “No!” Nalah exclaimed, thinking of everything she went through to create it. “You can’t!”

  She looked back at Tam, hoping he would say something—anything—to change her father’s mind. But he said nothing. He had stepped into the workshop and was walking toward the mirror, as if in a trance, as if their argument wasn’t relevant to him at all. Tam stood in front of the mirror, regarding his reflection for a moment. “It really is perfect,” he said softly. “You have done something incredible, to re-create it so beautifully.”

  Despite everything, Nalah flushed with pleasure. Never before in her life had someone seen her Thauma talents as a gift rather than a curse. It felt wonderful, but that feeling turned to confusion as she watched Tam begin doing something to the mirror. He was touching its surface, drawing strange, swooping lines across it.

  “What are you doing?” Nalah asked.

  Tam didn’t answer.

  “Tam, stop!” Mr. Bardak snapped. “I forbid this!”

  Tam laughed softly, and began to speak under his breath. Nalah couldn’t make out the words, but she heard the chiming echo in his voice, just like she had heard in her own voice when she’d made the mirror. “Light,” she thought she heard him say, and “many sands.” He was speaking an incantation! But why?

  Suddenly a hot breeze stirred Nalah’s hair, and the mirror began to change. Light spilled through it, yellow-warm like a sunbeam. Nalah tried to look into the mirror, but she couldn’t see her reflection anymore. There was something there, a suggestion of shapes, but it was too bright to make out.

  “Nalah,” said Tam, “I need your help with something. Come here.”

  Nalah hesitated, the back of her neck prickling with suspicion.

  “It’s all right,” he said, his voice soothing, the way you’d speak to frightened animal. “It’s something very special. Let me show you.” He reached out his hand to her.

  Nalah, feeling enthralled by the light and his words and the magic of the moment, began inching toward him, curiosity pulling her forward.

  But then she saw him reaching inside his jacket for something. Something that glinted silver in the light pouring forth from the mirror. It was a knife.

  Nalah recoiled just in time, and he missed catching hold of her by an inch.

  “No!” Her father barreled into Tam, seizing his arms. “Don’t you dare hurt her! Get away from my daughter!”

  “Unhand me, Bardak!” Tam yelled, “You have no idea what this is all about!” He twisted in her father’s grip, driving his elbow back into his belly. Mr. Bardak doubled over and Tam turned and brought his fist up in a swing that caught Nalah’s father across the temple, making him stagger. His knees bent and he fell to the floor.

  “Papa!” Nalah said. She wanted to run to him, but Tam was reaching for her again, so she scrambled onto the worktop behind her and grabbed the first heavy thing that came to hand—the big pair of glass-cutting shears.

  “I command you to come to me,” Tam snarled.

  “Never!” Nalah brandished the shears in front of her. “You lied to me!” she yelled. “You used me! Why? What do you want from us?” The light from the mirror was starting to dim now, its warmth starting to fade. She couldn’t feel the hot breeze anymore. Tam glanced behind him, and when he looked back at Nalah, his face was twisted with anger.

  “I don’t have time for this. You force my hand, girl.” He bent down and hauled her father to his feet.

  Nalah cried out “No!” and lunged for Tam, but it was too late—Tam had shoved Mr. Bardak backward, toward the mirror. Nalah’s father fell against it—no, not against it. Through it.

  In an instant, he had vanished into the pool of light.

  Tam stepped through after him, and turned back, weirdly half in and half out of the mirror, to smile at Nalah.

  “You want to see him again? Find the way to open the door, and follow me.”

  He ducked his head into the mirror, the shining surface closed over him, and he was gone. Nalah dropped the shears with a clang and dived after him, but instead of going through, her hands slammed into a solid surface.

  The light inside the mirror flared, and then died.

  Nalah stared up at the smooth glass. The mirror was just a mirror once again. Nalah was left alone in the workshop, staring at her own wild-eyed reflection.

  “No!” she screamed, but her reflection only screamed back. She let out a strangled cry of rage and grief and fear.

  What have I done?

  Chapter Six

  Halan

  During the Thauma War, many of the great families feared kidnap or assassination by their enemies. Although the aftermath of the War brought peace to the Kingdom, no King ever slept completely soundly without a wa
y to escape should his enemies rise up against him. If tensions should flare between the Clans, or if the city itself should revolt, the royal family of the Magi Kingdom would be able to evade capture.

  For this reason, many passages were preserved or reinforced during the rebuilding of the palace.

  Lord Susa, The Palace of the Magi

  Halan lay in the darkness, trying to relish the comfort of her bed—its silky sheets, the thick, cool pillow under her head. She wasn’t succeeding. All she wanted to do was throw back the blanket and jump out of bed, but she forced herself to stay put, eyes closed, not moving a muscle.

  She heard the faintest of footsteps, and the tiny creak of the door opening.

  Halan tried to breathe evenly.

  I’m asleep. Look at how asleep I am.

  After a moment, she risked opening one eye a sliver, just enough that she could see torchlight from the corridor illuminate the figure who stood by her bed.

  Queen Rani had been all smiles and serenity that afternoon, when the last of the visiting Thauma clans had finally left the palace. She had waved them off with a graceful laugh, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  Halan had thought that her mother must really be happy, at least a little bit. It was her mother’s job, as the queen consort, to entertain and keep the peace among the nobles, and Halan suspected there was more to it, behind the scenes—politics she couldn’t grasp because she had never been allowed to see, intrigue that went beyond dances and marriages and whose Thauma power was stronger. It must have been a relief to get rid of them all.

  But now, as the queen stood alone in the dark and looked at her sleeping daughter, her face was a mask of worry.

  Queen Rani had watched Halan with the same frightened expression for as long as Halan could remember. It was almost as if Halan was in some kind of danger, hanging by her fingernails from a cliff edge, instead of being King Asa Tam’s beloved daughter, living in a palace, surrounded by guards and servants devoted to keeping her safe.