Despite its shine, it didn’t seem to have any reflective properties; bending over, I couldn’t see my face or even my shadow in the black, mirrorlike tiles. The shine came from inside it, somehow. Just as well, because it would be a right bitch to clean.
It had the smell of magic about it, magic made solid and polished to a fine sheen, and I imagined the sorcerer had invented this stuff to make himself look all the more dark and impressive. Well, it was working on me, for certain.
I found myself almost tiptoeing across the courtyard to the bejeweled front door, all hung about with spangles and sparklies glittering in all directions, like the thousand-faceted eye of a fly. Like I said, they couldn’t resist shiny things, these magic people.
The front door opened for me like the street door had, but it was nowhere near as thick. I was expecting guards barring the way, or at the very least, a snooty butler, but there was no one inside that I could see. Just more black, lit with black and glittering chandeliers that were powered by something other than fire.
The tugging directed me down the long corridor, and I followed it. I wondered why it had been so easy to get inside such a grand house. Perhaps it was so that people like me would wander in like mice into a trap. Or perhaps everyone was so frightened of the magic-workers that they would never dare to try to rob them, making guards unnecessary.
Something soft against my knee made me yell, thinking it might be a trap of some kind, but it was only a cat—black, of course—who had heard me coming and decided to investigate.
“Hello,” I said quietly, feeling a little foolish as I bent down to offer my hand. I knew better than to reach for him or presume to touch his fur without permission. After a suspicious, slit-eyed moment, he proffered the underside of his chin for a scratch, then whirled around and proceeded to escort me down the corridor.
He was the only living thing I had seen in the house so far, and so I was grateful for his company as he stepped a few feet ahead and led me forward, tail up and twitching, his little cat arsehole winking at me with each step.
He could have been leading me to his master, to the kitchens, to my doom, or just on a wild-goose chase, but I didn’t care. I was just glad to be almost at the end of my journey.
As it turned out, he was leading me to his master. The door at the end of the corridor was even grander and blacker than any of the others. The cat sat on his haunches and scratched away at the door, just as if he were any ordinary old moggy begging at any ordinary old door.
I looked behind me at the long corridor and wasn’t too surprised to see that it wasn’t long at all anymore, just a score or so steps away from the front door. Magic-workers were tricky like that, and it no doubt amused the sorcerer greatly to make his guests traipse about and lose their breath before knocking.
I knocked. The cat squawked and twined itself about my leg.
“What?” came a voice from inside.
Well, I wasn’t about to shout the whole story through a door. There wasn’t even a keyhole I could peer through. I opened the door a crack, just enough to let the cat slither past with another squawk and a quick burst of purring as if to say,thanks very much, and you’re on your own from here.
“What? Who is it? Come in.”
The voice was a man’s but petulant: the kind of voice that deserved a clout around the ear. I pushed the door open with more courage and then immediately regretted it, because my heart gave such a leap from the power of his presence that I thought I might actually keel over.
“Who the hells are you?” said the sorcerer.
At first, I couldn’t see anything but the mess. Plates and plates of food, only half-licked clean by the cat’s tongue, and still loaded with enough bones and bits of gristle and crust to feed a herd of pigs.
Fine food, as it turned out, stank worse than plain food when left to rot. All those creams and sauces, maybe. The worst stale bread and old cheese could smell of was stale bread and old cheese, but this room smelled of the overripe armpits of a dozen fancy ladies.
How could he bear it? Wouldn’t it just take one wave of his hand, the magic of one purloined heart, to keep his dishes clean forever? Of course, I didn’t know anything about how their magic worked, but it wasn’t much use if it couldn’t even mop a floor.
I looked up from the mess and saw that the sorcerer was sprawled across a throne, a big, dark throne, just as I had pictured it, made of the same diamond-bright blackness as the rest of the house. It was magnificent, no doubt, but didn’t he long for a cushion or two? Was even his bed made of the same mad stuff?
His head was on the seat; one arm was dangling down and the other thrown up to hang over the back; and his legs were folded up into a black triangle against the other arm of the throne. He seemed boneless as a scarecrow. As I watched, the white hand draped over the back of the throne twitched its fingers, setting its rings all to sparkling.
“I said, who the hells are you?” he repeated, but he hadn’t even bothered to turn his head from where it was fixed, staring at the ceiling. I could see his profile, that aristocratic beak of a nose and the strong chin that I remembered from the village.
Even strewn all about like a cut bundle of rushes, his limbs looked elegant. I could have taken each of them in my mouth and sucked them like sticks of cinnamon. I could have pressed my cheek against the sole of his foot and been perfectly happy, so happy that it just might have killed me.
I came closer, and he finally looked at me properly. I imagined what he must be seeing: a short, solid figure with travel-mussed red braids (probably still with some bits of straw sticking out), an unremarkable face, plump in the cheeks, and a pair of rather small blue eyes.
I also wondered if his elegant, magical nose could smell the bad fortune that clung to me from my cursed birth, or if it had some visible aura he could see. Honestly, at that moment, I didn’t much care.
He raised an eyebrow as he looked me up and down, but the pain in my chest had eased so greatly that I felt almost joyful, despite the strangeness of the place and my uncertainty. I could put up with being stared at and no doubt deemed unworthy, for the cessation of that terrible pain.
“Foss,” I said. I debated adding a “sir,” but decided that he didn’t deserve it, what with all the trouble he had caused. I hated how much I was drawn to him. The closer I got, the closer I wanted to get. It felt like the only way to satisfy the straining of my guts toward him would be for him to unbutton his skin like a suit of clothes and let me climb inside.
He swung his legs around and sat up, his hair fanning out in a perfect black swathe before settling itself back into even waves about his jaw and neck. This close, I could see his gray blue eyes had gold rings about the pupils. I could have stared at them until I starved.
It was strange to feel these things, and yet at the same time to be aware of feeling them, and to know how ridiculous it was to be feeling them.
