I awoke to the touch of many nurturing hands. Ten women in modest gray robes and white turbans scurried about a small dimly lit room. Everything from their hands, arms, feet, and mouths stayed hidden behind bandage wrappings. They resembled ancient Egyptian mummies brought back to life so as to be nurses for the sick and injured. If not for the one patch of bare skin above their noses and around the edges of their eyes I might have considered them in legion with the walking dead.The eldest of these women shouted and shook her fists. Her wrinkles pinched and pulled with each boisterous bellow of her deep voice.

"I need more hot water over here!" she demanded. "Careful with that needle," she instructed.

One pair of women unfolded bandage strips while another pair rubbed rags of hot water across my bruised body. It was then I realized I was lying on a stone table in nothing but my undergarments. My clouded mind still reeling from the intense arena battle could not fully comprehend what was happening to me. I writhed my chest and twisted my arms attempting to break free of their grip, but my exhausted body gave little resistance. This sparked the elderly woman to address me directly.

"Ah awake I see," she said, hovering over my face and putting a damp rag on my forehead. "Now calm down, Mirrorbender, you have nothing to fear from us. The battle is over. Soon you will be as fit as a fairy." I stopped squirming. My chest heaved and ached for breath. "Gentle deep breaths now. Good. Good. We don't want you straining too much or else your stitches may come loose."

I glanced down at my leg. A bloody towel rested below a crude patchwork of thread. Seeing my sorry state caused intense pain to set in and my heart to race. I bit down on my teeth and hissed.

"What happened?" I managed to say between painful sobs. "My leg! What happened to my leg? Where am I?"

"Calm down," cooed the elderly woman again. "You are in the care of the best healers Juprus has to offer. Expect no less service even if the majority of those here wish to see you dead." She glanced down at my leg. "I assure you your wound looks worse now than it will. In time it shall heal nicely with little scarring. That thread is imbued with magic resin, perfect for closing deep cuts."

"Zeno," I whispered as I was reminded of magic thread. "Where are my friends? I must find my friends."

"Your friends are fine. They are waiting for you to recover in the rooms above. So rest and be well, child. The mind and heart are always anxious and selfless after trauma." The old woman shifted her gaze across the room to a small girl not much older than myself. "Well the bulk of the work is done. Sister Nora, will you take over here? See to it the Mirrorbender gets some relief and is properly cleaned and bandaged for this afternoon. She has an audience with the king after all."

"Aye, Sister Bissell," answered the young girl.

"Alright, sisters, let's go," said the elderly woman. "Our work here is complete. Best of luck to you, Mirrorbender."

Everyone left except for the young girl. She stood with her back to me grinding herbs in a mortar. Her swift hands snatched a jar of liquids beside her and added it to a concoction brewing over a small flame.

"So, uh, where am I?" I said attempting to divert my attention from the pain in my leg. There was a momentary silence. The girl stopped grinding. Only the bubbling of the concoction nearby popped in the air. I spoke again. "Am I still in the stadium?"

"Aye," said the girl in a thick almost Scottish accent. "In the nurse's ward no doubt. They bring aw them injured in battle 'ere."

"So I won? I killed the beast?"

"Aye," said the girl. "By a miracle of gods and spirits it seems. Everyone thought ye were deid. It took the Red Hearts an hour to shift the stone, and there ye were in a wee pocket, unharmed. Consider yerself lucky, or maybe by fate's hands someone is watching over for ye."

"It was luck," I said.

"I say so especially after yer stunt back there. Ye knocked the king from his throne. The anger furled in his eyes. For anyone else he'd caw for yer head if he had not made thon promise. I say I say, I wus impressed." The girl turned around and approached. She leaned over my leg. "Try not to move," she said as she began scrubbing a green paste over the stitches.

"Ouch!" I cried. "Careful that hurts."

"It won't much longer." In moments a cool sensation covered my leg sending a numbness up my side. I sighed, smiling.

"That feels great."

"Guid." The girl placed her medicine bowl on the table beside me. She then lifted a water basin and a large sponge. She shoved a pillow under my neck and placed my hair into the basin. Her gentle fingers massaged my scalp.

"Thank you for fixing me up," I said joyfully.

"Think nothin' of it, lassie," she responded. My eyes shifted to her face. Her large green eyes stared into me reminding me of a moment during the battle.

"You look familiar," I said, squinting. The girl laughed.

"Ye hae me mistaken," she said.

"No," I declared. "I swear I know you. Are you that girl who knocked the silver tray into the arena and then vanished?"

"Ye are still shaken, Mirrorbender," she said running her fingers through my hair. "Seeing ghosts and wraiths ain't no good sign."

"It wasn't a ghost. It was you! I'm sure of it."

As I started to lift my head out of the water basin a dagger appeared at my throat. The girl's eyes narrowed and her accent changed.

"Stubborn aren't we, Mirrorbender! You don't know when to shut up. I like that." The girl leaned down; her nose barely touching my forehead. "I was planning on dragging this act out a little longer until I trusted you further, but it seems I underestimated your detective skills."

"You mean to kill me?" I squeeked.

"If I wanted you dead why would I have helped you in the arena."

"Then why put a knife to my throat?"

"Hmm, good point," said the girl. She sheathed the dagger back into the folds of her cloak. "Just being cautious. You never know who you can trust in this city. So tell me. What gave me away? Was it my accent? I've tried to perfect the north hinterland drawl."

"It was your eyes," I said. "They glow like green fields speckled with flowers. They are not easy eyes to forget."

"Right," said the girl stepping away to dry her hands. "How careless of me. I should try harder next ti--"

"Who are you?" I interrupted. "And what do you want with me?" The girl turned to me and removed the cloth covering her mouth. Her lips a bright red sparkled in the candlelight. She reached for the door and bolted it shut.

"Who am I?" she hesitated to answer. "I guess you can say an ally; someone who would much rather see you alive than dead." The girl slowly paced to my side. "In a city swarming with enemies who want nothing more than to see those different from them destroyed, I might be the only individual here willing to help you escape."

"And what makes you think I can trust you? A nurse devoted to healing but quick on the slicing throats does not seem like good grounds where trust is concerned."

"Many professions make for many opportunities," said the girl unrolling a large coil of cloth. She sighed. "Perhaps if I started by telling you I was eighteen and not a Juprus citizen then maybe we might reach some common ground. You are what fourteen, fifteen?"

"Sixteen," I corrected.

"Of course." The girl began to wrap my injured leg in bandages. "And like you I too was captured and brought to this city. For the last two years I have worked, bled, and slaved myself to grueling conditions in order to climb to the place I am now. I held my tongue and waited for the right opportunity to escape. Then when my hope nearly faded, I saw you paraded through the streets, a being without reflection, a Mirrorbender no doubt. I knew at that moment you were my ticket out of this city."

"I hate to break it to you," I said jokingly, "but I'm a prisoner. I have no power to free you."

"But you have an audience with the king," said the girl. She tied a tight knot and sliced off the excess bandage with her blade. "You have the opportunity I've been waiting for. You are to be a guest living in his royal palace."

"And it doesn't bother you that the prophecy states I am meant to end the world?"

"Believe me," said the girl retrieving a set of jars from the racks on the wall. "As much horror as I have seen in this town alone, the world doesn't deserve saving."

"So what exactly is in it for me?" I watched the girl sniff the various jars. Even from a distance their strong perfume hit my nose hard.

"We share the same goal to escape and a similar interest."

"And that interest would be?" I asked as the girl dipped a metal comb into one of the jars.

"I want to find out what secrets the king has been hiding."

I sat up and twisted my body until my legs were dangling off the table. The girl turned to my back and began to comb my hair.

"And why would that interest me?" I asked looking over my shoulder. "All I want is out and the safety of my friends."

"Because you represent fairy and man alike. You also fought that unnatural beast." The girl looked away. "My sister was with me when we were taken to Blackstone. After our arrival the soldiers concluded she had no valuable skills to offer the nation so they hauled her into the deep caverns under the city. I pleaded with the soldiers to spare her; that she could learn how to mix herbs like myself and heal the sick, but they ignored me. I tried effortlessly to find a way into the caverns, even if it was just to speak with my sister and give her counsel. Yet my efforts and cries fell on deaf ears. No one could enter the caverns without special permission of the king. I nearly gave up hope.

Then as time passed terrible nightmarish things began to exit the underground. Fairies and people once pure turned to horrible manifestations of madness and rage. Apart from the Shadows created by Half-Lives that many people were used to, these changed individuals kept their reflections and power to walk in sunlight. A pale emptiness haunted their gaze where once were bright colors of green, brown, and blue. My sister was one victim, sent into the arena for entertainment as gladiators sliced her tainted and altered body to shreds. The way she attacked them and snarled was nothing human but a feral creature I no longer recognized. They had turned her into something apart from this world."

"That's awful," I said.

"And what's worse still. The king makes these new creatures to be the true nature of fairies and those touched by their power. The previous king once welcomed the company of fairies. Then the prophecy was foretold and as you've come to learn, fairies became enemies of the Juprus nation. Now thanks to years of exposure of these foul beasts in the arena and the defining cries of the churches spouting fearful rhetoric, the people of Juprus believe the subservience of fairies or their total eradication to be the only way to save the world."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"Get in good standing with the king and eventually use your influence to get us out of here. If you will have me, I'll accompany you to the castle as your personal handmaiden. I promise to keep you clean, mend any injury you may suffer, fix your hair to make you beautiful, and tell you everything I know about Blackstone."

The girl rubbed an assortment of sweet perfumes into my hair braiding it as she went.

"I would like that very much," I said, recalling the time when a young girl named Mandy fixed my hair in Preston High's bathroom. "But before I say yes, I need to know your name."

The young girl smiled.

"The Sisters of the Healing Order call me Nora, but you may call me Divide."

"That's an uncommon name," I said taking in another deep whiff of perfume. Suddenly while Divide was finishing my hair an exact duplicate of herself walked in front of me. "There's two of you," I cried nearly jumping off the table.

"No," said the duplicate. "Only one. I'm a sevanter and like you my talents are forbidden in Blackstone. If made public I would be imprisoned and executed. But should I befriend a Mirrorbender, the king would certainly grant me sanctuary." Divide split again making three copies of herself. "I'm sure my talents could be useful to you just as that tailor was with his magical thread." The third copy walked by the door where a beautiful blue gown was draped over the chair. "I'm able to divide myself seven times. My duplicates can walk and talk and listen just like any other person, and should they become compromised they can vanish at the snap of their fingers. A perfect skill for learning information and making distractions."

There was a knock on the door. The duplicates snapped their fingers and vanished into the air.

"Amazing," I said astonished.

"Now do we have a deal?" asked Divide waltzing over to the door. Someone knocked again. Her hand hovered above the latch waiting for my answer.

A part of me still did not trust Divide for the blade she wielded looked eerily similar to the one's I'd seen Owen use, and from our short encounter I could not shake the feeling that she was hiding something from me. Perhaps I was reading too much into it. Perhaps Divide really was kind and wanting to help.

"Do we have a deal, Mirrorbender?" she repeated.

"Yes," I nodded.

"Good," whispered Divide as she placed the cloth back over her mouth and reached for the lock. "We girls must always stick together."