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The Night Has a Thousand Eyes

by Dorothy De Courcy

Brace stared at the glass in his hand, prolonging the moment, for he knew many curious eyes watched him. Blood brother to sulphuric acid, someone had called it; Borl, distilled from the roots of a poisonous tree, the touch of whose leaves burned flesh through to the bone.

It was a show worth seeing—and Brace knew it. He knew it hurt, seared his throat, and made his chest ache, that once he had crushed a glass in his hand in pain afterward. It had hoarsened his voice and burned his lips and tongue so they were like the palm of a workman's hand. But no other man could do it.