Glittering Shadows Read Online Free PDF

red
flesh.
    “I’ll soothe the pain,” Ingrid said, but Thea already felt the pain melting away, even though her hand looked awful. “How’s that?”
    “A lot better.”
    Ingrid bent over and rummaged around on the floor. When she came back up, she had Thea’s book of fairy tales. “I saw this poking out of your bag. Running away with clothes and
lipstick and a book of Irminauer tales?” She smiled a little. Her teeth were neat and straight.
    “Father Gruneman gave it to me when I was little,” Thea said. “At my father’s memorial.” She thought Ingrid might know Father Gruneman, since he’d been a
revolutionary leader.
    “Father Gruneman must have understood that the forest always calls us home, even here in the city,” Ingrid said, putting the book in front of Thea and opening it to an image of a
girl in beautiful stylized robes plucking a mushroom from the forest floor. “The pictures are lovely.”
    Thea glanced at her uncertainly. She was still holding Thea’s wounded hand, her touch featherlight but never breaking contact. “Are you going to heal my hand?”
    “Yes, of course I am. But it might hurt a lot, just for a moment. Have some more medicine”—Ingrid poured from a bottle on the nightstand—“and look at your beautiful
book.”
    Thea took the medicine. “It’ll be all right, though?” she asked. The medicine had deadened some of her fear, but in the back of her mind she thought that if she lost the use of
some of her fingers, she wouldn’t be able to work many places anymore.
    “It will be fine very soon.” Her voice was even, soothing. Thea heard the actual words less and the rhythm more. The words were like water running over rocks, constant and sweet, and
she closed her eyes.
    “Your voice is like a song,” Thea said. “My mother used to sing to me when I was sick.” Mother sang all the time, before her sickness. Sometimes it was annoying, Mother
throwing open the curtains and waking her up for school singing. But other times it was nice. She wished Mother were here now.
    “I could give you a song,” Ingrid asked. “It will help.”
    “Okay.”
    Ingrid began to chant—it was more like a chant than a song—long, beautiful tones. The music seemed to spin its way into the picture of the girl in the forest, so the colors grew
brighter and Thea could almost smell moss and earth. Ingrid’s hand upon her arm was like a thread to another world, not unlike that fairy-tale forest that was a little bit frightening but
also full of wonder. Anything could happen. The chant filled her with a sense of Ingrid’s power.
    Thea felt something bite her wrist, heard a grinding, and her eyes snapped away from the book.
    Ingrid held a bone saw in one hand, driving the blade just above Thea’s wrist with long, slow strokes. The saw was bright with Thea’s blood, but Ingrid had put cloths down so none
would drip onto the bedspread or the carpet. Thea saw this through a haze of soothing tones and visions. She tried to say something, but her body was too dulled to speak or move. Ingrid’s
eyes were half-closed, almost dreamy, as her lips moved with her strange song, but when she saw Thea looking, her note trailed off.
    “I’m sorry if it still hurts a little.” Ingrid’s words retained their rhythm. “I didn’t think I’d be giving this gift to you. But one must trust in
fate.”

“W ait here. I’ll get Sebastian.” Will had shown Nan, Freddy, and Sigi into the cellar of a labyrinthine home, one of the grand
old mansions overlooking Mecklinger Park.
    As soon as he climbed the stairs, Sigi squinted after him. “Sebastian wants Freddy, and he knows something about you,” she told Nan. “But I’m not very interesting.
I’ll scope out the place while you talk to them.”
    “Just don’t get shot,” Nan said.
    “They are trigger-happy, aren’t they? Well, hopefully they’ve gotten it out of their system. I can be quite charming if I feel like it.” Sigi