Counting Shadows (Duplicity)

never say that word, and Jolik knows it. He gives a short nod, lifts Jesel into his brawny arms, and carries her out of the room. I hold my breath as they leave, half expecting Jesel to wake up and start accusing me of things. Or, worse, for her to not wake up at all. As Jolik’s footsteps retreat, I rub my face. It takes me a minute to realize I’m still collapsed on the floor. It takes even longer for me to work up the will to do something about it.
    I pull myself up from the floor and walk over to the bed, where Lor rests peacefully, completely unaware of all the commotion. I stare at him a long moment, a quiet voice whispering in the back of my head. ‘
He’s a thief, a liar, an enemy Angel,’
says the voice. ‘
He doesn’t deserve to be saved.’
    “No,” I murmur out loud. “He doesn’t.”
    Then I grab Jesel’s healing kit, which still rests at Lor’s feet, and take out equipment to stitch him up. Because he doesn’t deserve all this care. But Ashe deserves everything—especially revenge.

Eleven
    I keep staring at my hands, wondering how such small things could do so much damage. After stitching up Lor, I stole the Guardian vambrace out of Jesel’s bag, which was probably only in there for show. She never planned on putting it on Lor, but that’s exactly what I did. I shudder at the thought and rub my face, trying to scrub away the memory.
    All Guardians wear black vambraces with enchanted silver etchings, which keep them bound to the person who Chose them. If they are ever to abandon or betray the woman they’d been Chosen to protect, the vambrace will poison and kill the Guardian. The only vambrace’s left are old—decades old—and Lor’s is no exception. But the etchings are still beautiful, and the spell is said to be just as effective as it was centuries ago, when it was first cast.
    Now that he wears a vambrace, Lor is officially bound to me. Our fate is sealed.
    I stand in front of my bedroom mirror, desperate for some kind of distraction. I hold up my hands and examine them in the reflection—they look exactly the same as they did this morning. There’s no sign that they helped me point out my new Guardian, choke Jesel, stitch up a criminal.
    I lower my hands and force myself to think of something else, replaying the man’s words from earlier today:
‘We share a hatred, princess.'
I wonder what he meant, what our shared hatred is, when he’ll come back.
    The mirror doesn’t give any answers.
    By evening, I’m pacing my room. My bed is covered in abandoned books that I tried reading, and failed. A sketchpad rests at the base of the bed, the cover tightly snapped shut. I’d tried drawing to relax myself, but my sketch quickly turned into just another picture of Ashe’s killer, with his scar and harsh eyes. I’d scribbled out the image before jumping off my bed and starting to pace. Back and forth, one side to the other. Twenty steps one way, twenty steps back, in a mindless pattern.
    Every time I cross to the far side of the room, I veer toward the door just a little bit. And every time I cross back, I correct my path and walk straight to the wall. I won’t leave my room. I won’t go to Lor, even though I’m dying to see if he’s recovering.
    I tell myself it’s common sense keeping me away–I’ve already stitched him, he’s stopped bleeding, and there’s no need to check on him. But I know it’s something else keeping me at a distance. It’s that tiny nagging part of me, the one whispering that Lor might not survive, that he’s doomed. Because of me. Because of my Choosing ceremony.
    “Anxious, are we?”
    The voice comes from across the room. I whirl towards it, my breath catching, and then immediately let the tension in my muscles run out. “No,” I reply smoothly. “Just impatient.”
    The man in my mirror scoffs. He’s slowly coming into view, the colors rippling around him, the blackness forming his shape. I peer at him, trying to see anything of his face, but nothing is there.
    “Impatient,” he repeats, his voice a lazy drawl. “I see. So that’s why you’re pacing back and forth like a caged animal.”
    I ignore his sarcasm. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
    “I’m touched, princess.”
    “Don’t be.”
    He chuckles, the sound distorted by the magical barrier between us. It dawns on me that I still have no idea what this man is doing in my mirror.
    “You were going to tell me why you’re here,” I say. “Before you left last