Ghostlight (The Reflected City Book 1) by Rabia Gale (i can read with my eyes shut TXT) 📗

smoothed her hair and dress out of habit. Her hair lay in a thick plait down her back. She was back in one of the shapeless, homespun gowns that she had worn before Lumen, but she didn’t care.

She had won back her life dressed like this. This was her triumphal garb.

She turned and plunged through a wall, hurrying for the Lilac Room.

Those brief moments in the passageway to the Shadow Lands had changed everything.

Arabella no longer retained her substance as well; she was squeezed and pinched and pulled as the crowds jostled around her. Their voices came to her from far away, as if she were underwater. The edges of her vision wavered darkly, and everything looked dull and tarnished. The light had taken on a sullen hue, the gilt on chandeliers and mirrors and ladies’ dresses darkened to a dirty brass. Lines of dissipation and discontent were stark on the guests’ faces.

A mournful flute, singing of regrets, rose above the musicians. The dancers on the floor moved slowly, as if through fog. Behind them, Arabella saw others—skeletons in broken crowns and moth-eaten robes, rotted corpses in scraps of silk and crawling with maggots, sharp-edged shadows she had no name for. They staggered and stumbled, swayed and slithered, parodying the moves of the mortal dancers.

Arabella veered away from the dance floor and struggled towards the foyer. Arms brushed against her, bodies bulled through her. Voices and images and desires snaked into her head. A man’s thirst for wine so strong it parched her throat; a woman howling, “I’ll make her pay for that, the hussy”; the creamy swell of a bosom above a beaded bodice; desire that ran like fire and grease through her soul…

Arabella half-fell into the foyer, disheveled and panting, her skirt stretched behind her in a gauzy thread, caught under someone’s feet in the crush. She yanked it back to herself and gritted her teeth against the headache pounding in her temples.

All those emotions, all those thoughts. All those dark secret things laid bare in her head.

She’d lose herself in the sea of it all. Arabella took deep breaths and anchored her thoughts to a bird in lazy flight, to a boat bobbing on water, to a spider spinning her web. The repetitive motions of natural things soothed her. Gave her space in her own head to think.

She had misjudged the dangers of her situation. So what if this was Merrimack’s, a place deemed safe for debutantes? So what if Trey Shield was also under this roof? So what if the wards prevented demons and corrupted spirits from entering these halls?

Arabella had nearly lost herself twice, in the Shadow Lands and among the crowds.

Gathering her skirt, Arabella silently, soberly made her way up the stairs and to the Lilac Room.

It was empty, though a fire burned in the grate. Arabella cast a desultory look around the chamber, all desire to explore completely quenched. She had passed two middle-aged gentlemen laughing together on the stairs. As they turned a corner, one had knocked into her, leaving a green smear of bitter jealousy. The other had looked at his companion and thought, his voice loud and dripping contempt in Arabella’s mind, “This clumsy oaf will always fail at whatever he sets his hand to.”

Their vitriol nearly sent her reeling. She’d clutched the rail, the grain scraping roughly into her sinking palms, while the two, showing each other affable masks, continued down, still chatting.

It had been a relief to see the door with Lilac Room etched into the brass plate. Arabella wearily pushed through the wood and circled the room, noting the writing desk laid out with fresh paper, pens, ink, and wax; a hideous urn with dog-headed demons snarling all over it; and the two stiff sofas with scroll-shaped arms. There was nothing purple nor floral about this chamber. Even the wallpaper had a maroon diamond pattern repeating endlessly across it.

Arabella threw herself into a chair by the fire. It took a little work to stay level with the seat, but once she figured the trick of it, her body stayed in place without her constantly willing it so. She huddled, with her feet up on the upholstery, her knees tucked to her chest. No one could see her to be scandalized or scold her for stretching her clothing.

Besides, ghostly wear was eminently adaptable. Her gown, cream-colored and plain, grew bigger to accommodate her unladylike position.

Arabella put her cheek in her hand and stared moodily into the fire.

More than ever, she just wanted to go home.

Except she couldn’t figure out where home was. Was it Umbrax, with its wild seas and rocky shores and purple moors? Was it the tall house with the yellow door on Crescent Circle?

Or was it a rented row house in the City, with a pentagram in a cellar workshop, an evil book in the library, and the Shade Hunter’s presence all over the place?

Arabella was so tired she couldn’t summon the strength to scold herself for her fancies. The numbed feeling would’ve frightened her if she hadn’t already felt so remote and removed from herself.

The door clicked open, then shut. Slow footsteps and the tap of a walking stick sounded on the floor. Arabella sat up as an old lady walked to the sofa and seated herself stiffly on it. Despite her age, her back was ramrod straight and the gnarled hands on the ebony-topped walking stick firm. She didn’t look at Arabella, just stared into the flames.

Arabella subsided, studying the woman. Her lined face and elaborate wig were white with powder. She wore a dress that had been fashionable in her youth, with hooped skirts of green damask, an open bodice tied across a stomacher decorated with jet beads, and flounces at her elbows. A medallion of tarnished bronze on her age-spotted bosom caught the light in tiny gleams. Her sunken eyes were dark and, Arabella suspected, very penetrating. An aura of authority surrounded the woman.

She was glad this grand