Billy Shatter

The mirror was broken, and Billy could do nothing.

Staring down at it through welling eyes, he saw as if in a dream images race across the jagged shards; whether they were truly reflected in the glass or simply in his mind’s eye it was impossible to tell. The Bloors ridiculing him; his guardian Christopher Crowquill dragged into the depths of the sea; the other Endowed children turning away in distrust one by one…

Weak Billy Raven. Spy Billy Raven. Useless, scaredy-cat Billy Raven.

Inside him something shattered as sharply as the mirror; fragments, never to be reassembled, forming themselves into daggers as hard as diamond, as cold as ice.

No longer.

+++

“What’s that noise?” demanded Dr. Bloor roughly, looking up. He was hearing a cacophony the likes of which he’d never before experienced: the raucous sound of birds flapping and shrieking, but so deafeningly they blotted out all other noises from outdoors.

“Great black bastards!” yelled Manfred from the window. “The air’s black with them. Must be hundreds out there. Ouch!” He reeled away as glass shattered, clutching his face.

“Ravens!” Ezekiel rasped. His eyes glinted like those of the birds surrounding the castle walls. “It’s that boy! You know it is!”

Through the blood and broken window, Manfred glimpsed a tiny figure in the courtyard. White hair, white face, eyes blank disks of white light as the cold gray winter light reflected off round glasses…

The ravens poured in like floodwater, and Billy stood below, waiting for the screams.

 The Bloors first. Then the Yewbeams. Then the others, saving Charlie for last. Maybe he’d give some of them a chance first. Yes, that would be more than fair, after all the chances they never allowed him.

He’d let them run a few yards first…

Inside, the bits of broken mirror sharpened and set themselves, glittering. Anyone who reached for Billy’s heart would find themselves falling into a pit of razor-glass stakes.