Read Online Worldsoul by Liz Williams - Free Book Online

Magic sizzled and hissed as she did so, flickering indigo-blue about the box, and when she had finished, the box was barely visible, contained in a cloud of magic. That, Shadow thought before she went to bed, would have to do.

• Ten •
    When Mercy woke up, the ka was crouched on her chest, breathing out. She felt filled with sudden life, a glittering sense of well-being.
    “Perra?”
    “I breathe for you,” the ka said.
    “Well, thank you.” Perra jumped down, but Mercy barely noticed: the ka was as light as air, weighing far less than a cat. It sat, a small sphinx, on the carpet by the bed and gazed up at her with lambent eyes. “Where am I?” Mercy asked. She blinked. The room was panelled in a faint willow-green. A lamp stood by her bed.
    “You’re in hospital, dear.” A nurse appeared, with a white starched cap. “You had an accident.”
    “Yes, I remember.” Her head hurt. “My colleague—Nerren?”
    “She’s in the next ward. She’s fine. So are you. We’re discharging you both as soon as I get the all-clear from the doctors.”
    “All right,” Mercy said, relieved. It struck her as particularly ironic that she should have survived the morning’s encounter in Section C with the thing from the ice, only to be nearly flattened by a falling flower. “Was anyone else hurt?”
    “Yes, and one death.” The nurse checked her blood pressure.
    “Damn it. Who are these people? Who’s sending these things?”
    “If we knew that, dear,” the nurse remarked, “We could do something about it.”
    And yet no one seemed to know, despite all the resources of Worldsoul. The Library had set a team on it, the Court had done so as well, and so had a myriad other organisations. The flower attacks had begun not long after the Skein had left: was this some natural phenomenon that the Skein had kept at bay, or was it part of the same thing that had led to the disappearance of the Skein themselves? No one knew. But they were devastating. Mercy felt lucky to be alive.
    “I have given you a life,” the ka said, in its reedy, whispering voice.
    “Thank you!” Mercy raised herself up on an elbow and peered down at it. “You didn’t have to do that.”
    “It’s a spare. I have seven left.”
    They had been granted nine originally, Mercy knew. Like cats. She did not like to ask the ancestral spirit how the eighth had been lost. Not given to either of her mothers, evidently: the heritage was wrong. The ka must have come from her father’s line, and who he had been, Greya—her mother—had never told.
    “I’ll see you shortly,” the nurse said, giving the ka a disapproving glance, and bustled out before Mercy could ask her why they had given her a private room. Perhaps Nerren had pulled strings? The Library was still rich. But Nerren had no private room. She was in a ward.
    Mercy lay back and after a moment saw the ka jump onto the windowsill. Perra gave a twist, and was gone out into the twilight. Mercy thought she might have dozed after that, because when she woke again, it was dark outside and a man was standing over her.
    “Miss Fane?” He passed a hand across her eyes and there was a moment where her vision blurred. Then it cleared again. “How are you feeling?”
    “A bit dizzy, actually.”
    “You had a nasty bang on the head.”
    He was dark-haired, pale-faced, ascetic. He wore a ruffed black suit, of expensive cut, a crisp white shirt, round spectacles. This must be the doctor, she thought, and wondered why there was such a sense of familiarity about him. Perhaps he was a frequenter of the Library: it had an extensive medical section.
    “I’ve come to give you a final check-up,” the man said. “I am Doctor Roke.”
    “Thanks,” Mercy said. “I don’t feel too bad.”
    “A few last checks,” Roke said, soothingly. She found that she was lulled by his voice: Everything, it suggested, will be all right. “After all, we still don’t really understand what effects these flower attacks