Right Hand Magic Read Online Free Page A

Hand. Truth of the matter is most Kymerans are jugglers, meaning they practice both Left and Right Hand magic. I’m what’s called a dexter—Right Hand only.”
    “That’s commendable.”
    “I’d make more money if I were willing to perform ligatures and mix up love potions for date rapists,” he replied with a humorless laugh. “That’s why my mother insisted on my taking over the boardinghouse—at least I’d have a place to sleep and a reliable income to fall back on. She doesn’t have the greatest faith in my career choice.”
    “I can relate to that. My parents were less than thrilled when I told them I wanted to be a sculptor.”
    Hexe gave me another, softer look, accompanied by a warm smile. “Nice to know we have something in common besides the same roof over our heads, Miss Tate.”
    “Forget the whole ‘Miss’ business. Call me Tate, please . ”
    His smile grew warmer still. “Very well . . . Tate it is.”

    The Rookery was located at the crooked crossroads where Skinner Lane intersected with Ferry, Vandercliffe, and Hag streets. Standing five stories tall and occupying an entire city block, it had once, centuries ago, been a brewery. After the original business closed up shop, the mammoth building became an indoor bazaar where Kymeran spellcasters, charm peddlers, potion pushers, and assorted oracles, of both the Right Hand and Left, gathered to offer their services to the human community.
    The interior of the building had long been gutted of its machinery, and each floor was subdivided into smaller makeshift chambers. Some were the size of two-room apartments, while others were no bigger than a broom closet. While some had proper doors affixed to them, others were partitioned by a scrap of tapestry or a curtain of beads. It was here that those seeking to thwart a business rival, win the heart of an unwilling paramour, or punish a straying spouse sought their respective remedies.
    The different floors were accessible only by a latticework of rickety wooden stairways and ladders that looked like the work of a drunken carpenter trying to re-create a spiderweb. I stared in awe as the inhabitants of the Rookery clambered back and forth on the hodgepodge network of tottering stairs like so many mountain goats.
    The original beams and rafters met high overhead, and stray fingers of sunlight stabbed downward into the hazy darkness through breaks in the roof; otherwise the only light inside the building came from balls of blue-white witchfire that burned in a series of braziers on each floor. The air inside the converted brewery smelled of incense, smoke, and the unique, heady musk generated by hundreds of Kymeran bodies crammed into the same enclosed space.
    “Come along.” Hexe motioned to me as he mounted a stairway that looked as though it should lead to a child’s tree house. “Faro does business on the third floor.”
    The steps groaned mightily, as if on the verge of giving way, as I followed his lead. I held my breath and did not take another one until I reached the relatively sound footing of the third floor.
    Double rows of rooms stretched from one end to the other, with narrow, winding passageways threaded throughout. Everywhere I looked I saw Kymerans, easily recognizable by their bizarrely colored hair. I’d never seen so many hot pink, electric blue, and bright green coiffures outside of a rave.
    As my eyes became adjusted to the dim light, I realized the majority of those coming and going from the different shops and stalls were, in fact, humans. Most of these visitors to the Rookery kept to the shadows, their collars pulled up and heads pointed down, purposefully avoiding eye contact with those around them for fear of being recognized. No doubt a good number of the Rookery’s regular clients worked at nearby City Hall and did not want to be seen going about whatever business they were on. Attitudes toward consorting with Kymerans had changed a great deal in the last century, but it