Palace of Mirrors by Margaret Peterson Haddix

sitting on the curb, idlers leaned against walls. Then it’s as if they’ve all decided to ignore me, to leave me to my own fate, and they go back to their own slumping, sagging, and despairing. Even the ragged boy shrugs.
    “Your loss,” he says.
    I shiver, and then, to prove I’m not afraid, I push open the door of the shoe—or boat—shop. Even inside I’m at first not sure what it’s selling. A row of dark, dingy lumps line a single glass display case.
    “Are those shoes?” I ask, pressing my face against the glass.
    “Five gold coins apiece,” an old man says grumpily from behind the display case. “Take it or leave it.”
    My eyes are adjusting a bit to the dim shop. I can see well enough now to tell that the shoes are all in tatters. A few look like they were chewed by wild dogs, others like they’ve been vomited on and never cleaned. Wearing these shoes into the castle would be worse than going barefoot.
    “You’re kidding,” I tell the man. “Five gold pieces for those? That’s highway robbery!”
    He shrugs, watching me with narrowed eyes.
    “Cheapest prices in Cortona,” he says. “Like I said, take it or leave it.”
    I open my mouth—ready to lecture him about taking advantage of poor people, I think. But before I can say anything, I hear screaming outside.
    “No! Don’t take me! Please!”
    I rush to the door to look out. It’s the ragged boy who warned me about stealing. He’s struggling to free himself from three large, burly men.
    “I’m a messenger!” the boy yells. “Without me, my mam and my sisters won’t have any money! They’ll starve! Don’t—take—me—off—to—war!”
    “They’re taking him to the war?” I mutter. I start to push out the door, ready to scold the burly men. Theragged boy can’t be more than eight or ten. He’s not old enough to be a soldier. And if his mother and sisters would starve without him—
    Suddenly I feel a hand clamp down on my shoulder with an iron grip.
    “Stay out of it,” the store owner growls. “It’s none of your business.”
    “But if they’re taking him off to war—that’s not right! He should have a choice!”
    I try to tear myself away, but he’s holding onto me too tightly, his hands now gripping both of my arms. Outside the door the boy is kicking one of the burly men, but it’s like a mouse fighting back against a hawk. The man simply wraps his huge hand around the boy’s ankles, and the three of them carry the boy around the corner.
    The store owner lets go of my arms.
    “I don’t know where you’re from, girl, but people don’t have choices in Cortona,” he says bitterly. “They’ve had press gangs wandering the streets for years—when they ran out of men to send off to war, they started taking the boys. When everyone’s dead, maybe they’ll stop then.”
    I was wrong about the words to that miserable song Harper was playing on the street corner. What the store owner just said—those would be the perfect words to that awful song.
    Harper . . .
    “They take . . . boys just . . . out on their own?” I say ina shaky voice. “Any boy on the street . . . alone?”
    “Aye,” the man says, shrugging. “They take whoever they want.”
    Instantly, I shove my shoulder against the door. I fly out of that shop, my feet barely touching the pavement. Everything passes in a blur. The streets broaden, words begin appearing on signs, then curlicues and fancy loops.
It’d be a left turn this time, five blocks back to the fancy cobbler’s shop and then—how far to Harper’s corner?
I barrel through the crowded streets, ramming into solid, well-fed bodies and women in lovely, frilly dresses, and I don’t even stop to apologize. I don’t look at any face long enough to focus my eyes; I’m just looking for freckles and dirt. And listening—I’m straining my ears to hear the first strains of harp music, off in the distance.
    Nothing.
    Maybe Harper’s just between songs, taking a break to collect all