Which, too, had pulled itself erect by similar means. And held a rapier en garde.
The two stood in mutual trembling regard in a dim fall of moonlight that concealed more than it illuminated. Each might have been the reflection of the other. At their feet inky shadows spread.
‘What do you here?’ asked Lord Wichcote. ‘Have you not stolen enough from me already?’
‘We need not be enemies, you and I,’ the other said, and just then the room brightened, as if a mask of cloud had been pulled away from the face of the moon, revealing a young blonde-haired woman with skin like porcelain, her expression one of suffering stoically endured. Upon her shoulder, tucked against her neck, sat a mouse.
Lord Wichcote staggered back against the table. ‘Corinna?’
‘Her daughter,’ answered a dwindling voice, ‘and yours.’ The woman dwindled along with it, falling in a slow faint. The mouse had already vanished into the shadows by the time the rapier clattered to the floor. It rolled a half turn on the wheel of its guard, then lay as still as its owner.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Zurich, Paul Witcover is a writer and critic. He is the author of the novels Waking Beauty , Tumbling After and Dracula: Asylum and with Elizabeth Hand, he created the cult comic book series, Anima . His short fiction has been collected in Everland and Other Stories . His work has been a finalist for the Nebula, World Fantasy, James Triptree, Jr. and Shirley Jackson awards. Paul lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is currently working on the sequel to The Emperor of All Things .