The Glass Girl Read online

  Praise for Kim Alexander

  The Demon Door Series:

  Kim Alexander's The Sand Prince is a thrill ride of fantastical proportion. Can hardly wait for the next wild installment."

  David Baldacci, New York Times and International Best Selling Author

  "I love these characters (even the horrible ones) and their growth and depth; I love the world(s)-building and the not-quite-hereness of it and the utterly beautiful and unique story."

  Tracet, NetGalley Reviewer

  "Epic fantasy YES! With well-written characters, a complex plot, and all the beginnings of an epic fantasy adventure series. Great read!"

  KMM88, Amazon Reviewer

  "It's captivating how well the author showcases the natures of two different worlds and their inhabitants. 5 Stars!”

  SNCuster, Amazon Reviewer

  "This is a read that will keep readers wondering what’s next if they have to set it down. I recommend it to anyone who likes a good epic fantasy."

  McWood Publishing LLC

  "FIVE STARS! Unique characters and interesting writing.”

  Mark Mackey, Amazon Reviewer

  Praise for Pure:

  "Kim embraces the writing style of Ilona Andrews and Jeaniene Frost with snarky heroines, exciting plotlines, and of course mythical creatures"

  Nerd Girl Official

  "Captivating Read! Fantasy/Romance/Mystery writers, move over in a big way for the new kid on the dark street who can write plot and dialogue as clever and quick as Nora Roberts"

  Rad Dad, Amazon Reviewer

  "This book ended much too soon, which speaks to the great writing."

  Glass Dr, Amazon Reviewer

  Copyright © 2018 by Kim Alexander

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Editor - Carly Bornstein

  Cover Art and Formatting - MadHat Books

  THE GLASS GIRL

  Kim alexander

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Want more?

  About the Author

  Also by Kim alexander

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you!

  Chapter One

  Mistra

  The Guardhouse -100 years ago

  Gita considered herself to be a pragmatic sort of girl. She wasn't one to get caught up or dramatic, not like the other women who served at the Guardhouse, that great old stone heap that served as a school and a wall between the worlds of Mistra and the demon kingdom of Eriis. Any time a visitor with a 'Sir' or a 'Lord' in front of his name favored them with a smile, those girls were ready to pack their bags and move into a great house in the city. More than one of them ended up with a great belly and empty hands. Not Gita – she knew her place, and she knew very well a fancy Fifty Families man would get put out on the stoop if he brought home a girl who poured wine and did the wash for a living. At least the Guardhouse gave a girl the promise of her own room and a bit of open air, close as it was to the sea. Back in the city it was people underfoot and the stink of the Gorda River at low tide.

  She knew better. Which made it even worse when she couldn't stop thinking about him.

  The ambassador from the demon city had gotten himself lost; otherwise she might never have met him, not really, not like that. It was his first time at the Guardhouse, new to his appointment as he was, and the old stone pile was poorly lit in places and unmarked in others. It was no surprise that he lost his way between meeting rooms and dining rooms and state rooms. But what was a surprise was the kindness in his strange, crimson eyes, and how eager he seemed to talk with her. The last ambassador had been a dried up old stick with a permanent scowl. As far as she knew, that old red-eye never acknowledged any human other than his counterpart and the Masters. This one, Preeve, was young, nervous, and positively garrulous by comparison.

  “I fear I'll make you late,” he'd said, following her down a damp stone corridor. “I think I can find my way back from here. It's so kind of you to help me. Is it always this cold? I fear I'm not dressed for the weather.” And here he had looked down at himself and laughed, indicating his fine (although thin) black silk tunic with its wide band of red at the collar and cuff, and his woven black hose and thin-soled desert boots. She had glanced at his well-made legs and looked away. He, perhaps realizing he'd embarrassed her, pulled his cape around his shoulders to hide his form. “What is your name?” he’d asked, and she mumbled it at the floor.

  She kept her eyes down and her hands at her sides. 'Don't touch them, even if they're about to tumble down a flight of stairs', she'd been warned by her Masters of the Guardhouse, who would have been happier to keep their Eriisai guests hidden away from human eyes. The Masters didn't trust the demons and feared corruption among the uneducated—her. The Masters made the rules; they ruled the Guardhouse as if they were little lords themselves, and they were clear: keep away from them, and definitely don't touch them, they won't thank you for the assistance. And don't stare at them. Touchy, the lot of them. But this one smiled at her and introduced himself and thanked her for her help, just as any human man would do. She found herself saying his name inside her head. His name sounded like something you were about to do: She stood at the top of the hill, ready to preeve.

  Later he would confess he understood he'd made her uncomfortable, the way she stared only at her feet, but hadn't been able to figure out why. Perhaps helping him had caused her trouble? Not that day. The trouble came later.

  She saw him again at dinner that very evening, and found herself proud of him for finding his way. She served his wine herself. He moved the cup just far enough that she had to reach across his body to pour it. That time, he manag
ed to get her to look him in the eye. But it was a week before she smiled back, and another month before she led him to her quarters.

  “If my brothers of Eriis knew about these,” Preeve would say, cupping her generous breasts in his hands, “no Door on any world could keep them away from Mistra.” He was careful with her, and she appreciated that. He told her he'd heard whispers from the old ambassador's assistants that human women were as delicate as flowers (despite their size) and one must never use a flame or mark their skin.

  She reached between his legs. “If my sisters knew you demons came with jewelry in your privates, they'd line up to take a turn.”

  He gave a little sigh of pleasure and continued. “I know what your Masters want, and they know I know. But, darling Gita, no one says what they mean. That's the soul of diplomacy.” He kissed her and got up to dress.

  “Is it diplomacy, what we do?” she asked. “When I serve your soup and you pretend you're not looking down my dress? And I pretend I'm not letting you?” She watched him slide his boots on. “Late for a meeting, isn't it?”

  He shrugged. “They said they had something to show me—Light, Wind and Rain know what they're on about this time. I'd rather stay here but these—” he gave her breast a squeeze “—are outside of my job description.”

  She got up and ran a comb through her long red-brown locks. “I'll come with. I can always find something to do.” He looked alarmed and she added, “Don't worry, I'm not going to follow you into the meeting, hand in hand.” He colored. He was funny about hands. She laced up the front of her olive-colored gown and said, “Go shimmy yourself back to your chambers, and I'll see you down there. I'll let you look down my dress if it gets dull.”

  When she arrived at the appointed hall she could see the Masters assembled, and the back of Preeve's head. Before she could enter with the wine, the Mistran ambassador ushered his own assistant, Malloy something, out the door, which the older man then closed in her face. She looked curiously at the young man, who shrugged. She handed him the jug of wine and went back to bed.

  The trouble began the next day.

  It wasn't the air of festivity that ultimately made her leave the Guardhouse, although smiling through gritted teeth gave her a headache. It wasn't that no one would admit what she already knew—Preeve was dead, murdered by the Masters, and there was probably not enough left of him to bury. No one would ever tell her because she would never ask—she didn't have to. She listened and served and kept her mouth shut, just as she always had, and the story of how the Masters had sealed The Door with Preeve’s blood slowly revealed itself in closed meetings and private dinners.

  She wondered how they'd taken him, why he hadn't used his wonderful magic to shimmer away or defend himself with the fire he kept in his hands. No one would say because everyone acted like he'd abandoned his post and fled. Should anyone ask (and who would ask?), that was to be the story.

  “He probably just ran away when things went against the demons,” she heard a novice say. “What cowards those red-eyes turned out to be!” And he had laughed. She had to grip her wrist with the other hand to keep from slapping the boy's stupid face. They'd surprised him, she decided. That's the only way they could have taken him. The Masters had done some blood magic and The Door was shut, bricked over and locked, probably forever. The vicious voice in her head reminded her that the Master, this one right here who drank the wine she poured, probably helped to grind her lover's bones to make the mortar. And that one, the Mistran ambassador, maybe he held the knife.

  She spat in his soup.

  She realized it was time to leave when she couldn't lace her gown all the way. Her monthlies were as sure as the sunrise… until now, when they weren't. It looked like both of them—she and Preeve both—had been taken by surprise. She packed her comb and good dress and second-best shoes and took a last look around. On impulse, she went to the Head Master's room as she did most mornings and changed his linens and straightened up. She paused to take a last look around the Master’s room as well. A lifetime’s worth of linens, stained and soiled and replaced. Well, that was over. On her way out, she stopped to look over his bookshelf. What would be more valuable, she wondered; very old or brand new? She decided to help herself to one of each. The old one was bound in silky light tan hide and was called A Treatise on the Changing of Appearance with Special Emphasis on the Second or Practiced Upon Party. The other, new book was simply bound in heavy paper and was titled Luck and How to Bend It. She hid them in the bottom of her travel bag and walked out of the Guardhouse without a word. On the way out, she passed a handsome man of middle years with blond hair just starting to go to grey. He wore a gorgeous blue coat, and he and the Head Master were lingering in the portico. The man was waiting for his luggage to be loaded onto his coach so he could go back to the city. They were talking and laughing like it was a holiday. She caught his name—va'Everly. A silk merchant, that explained the pretty coat. As she listened, it became clear he'd made a lot of money off of Preeve's murder. Something to do with insurance, then a daughter; a Third to be enrolled with no mention of any fee, and finally a word she didn’t recognize that sounded like chlystron. Va’Everly. She decided to remember that name.

  It was lucky that the child was a girl; no one questioned an undersized girl child among the poor and underfed of Fool's Hill, and this one was especially pretty, with her mother's chestnut curls. No one asked Gita about her daughter's da, but word was that he must have been a sailor from the Southern Provinces, because Mistran girls were pale as pearls and this little one was nearly brown. She had funny sort of eyes, too; they had a tilt to them, rather like a cat's. But these things didn't serve to make her unattractive, only interesting. And it was only at certain times, when the candlelight caught her in just the right way, that you could see her brown eyes had more than a hint of red to them.

  When the girl was old enough to ask why she looked so different even from her own mother, Gita told her the story of her father, the kind and brave traveler from the world past The Door who was so cruelly murdered by the Order, and the silk merchant who got rich off his body. A secret, she was told, but one day they'd pay.

  “Tell no one else or the Order will come for you,” Gita warned her, “but swear to tell your own son or daughter. Now look at this, there are some books I have to show you.”

  And so they did pass the story along, although as the years went by the children grew taller, and their hair was sometimes light and their skin was sometimes fair, and their eyes were more oval and less cat-like. But each in their turn heard the story of the Order and the merchant and passed the story to their own children.

  Those children were all, boy and girl alike, exceptionally attractive. Many were clever, and some learned to read Gita's books. Those who did found interesting things in those books, things that could change your luck and help your family move from Fool's Hill to a big house near the city park. The duReed family found itself rising. Soon, they told each other, they’d be just as good as any one of the Fifty Families. , .

  Eventually, the family preferred not to recall their roots back in the muck of Fool’s Hill, and the names Gita and Preeve were nearly forgotten. Finally, the legend of the Order and the va'Everlys faded into an old story of love and revenge that no one really believed, except maybe Gran, and at her age who knew what she thought was real?

  One day, one of these children, a boy of ten, went to see his gran at her chair by the window overlooking the garden. He held out his hand.

  “Mother said to ask you. She said you'd know. What's wrong with me?”

  His gran looked at the little flame dancing above the boy's palm for a long time.

  “My great-great-great gran was a lady named Gita. She left me some books, and a story,” the old woman said. “Now I’m going to give them to you.”

  Chapter Two

  Mistra

  Today

  After a breakfast of being stared at by curious humans and contemplating slimy things call
ed 'eggs,' Ilaan followed Rhuun back to the warm little room which once had served as Brother Blue’s office. Since Blue these days never rose from the chair by the fire of his own quarters, it had become the one place in the Guardhouse where the visitors from Eriis could avoid human eyes. Lelet had gone with Olly and Aelle to find traveling clothes in the endless warren of closets under the great old building, and Ilaan thought Rhuun looked like he wanted to talk. Rhuun pulled two of the heavy oak chairs closer to the fire, while Ilaan held a hand to the fireplace and ignited the fresh kindling.

  “I should go get a new coat as well,” said Rhuun. “The only good thing about this one is deep pockets.” He pulled two dark amber bottles out and set them on Blue's desk. “Olly showed me where they keep these for the teachers, on a high shelf in the back of the kitchen. They put them in the windowsill to keep them cold, isn't that funny? This,” he told Ilaan, “is called beer. What we call birr. It's a lot better.”