Free The Library of Shadows by Mikkel Birkegaard

bothered her. Even though the technique would require practice, the effect was so extraordinary on her first attempt that Katherina burst into tears from sheer relief. Luca comforted her and invited her to drop by as often as she liked to improve her technique. Of course she could try muting the voices without his supervision, but he implored her never to try to amplify them or alter them in any other way until she'd had more practice. Katherina would later find out why.
    The customer in Libri di Luca wasn't focusing. Among the small glimpses of images conjured up from the excerpts he was reading were pictures that had no relevance to the books. That was a residual effect of her powers. In addition to being able to hear the text that was being read, Katherina could often see the images it evoked in the reader. And if he or she happened to be thinking about all sorts of other things at the same time, they would pop up like brief sequences inserted into a film. That was a side effect that had required training, but over the years Luca had helped her with this as well, and she was now able to sense what an unfocused reader, such as the man with the horn-rimmed glasses, had on his mind.
    Apparently he was supposed to meet a girl later in the day because pictures of the girl kept appearing along with an image of where they were supposed to meet (at the Town Hall Square), where they were going to have dinner (Mühlhausen), plus his strongly erotic hopes for the rest of the evening. Katherina felt her cheeks flush.
    It was by no means everyone that Katherina could read in this manner. Iversen claimed that it had to do with the individual's imagination, how clear the images were that came from the text and the person's subconscious; but it was also a matter of the reading style. People who skimmed the words produced a swift series of pictures which in the most extreme cases became a stylized cartoon that would flicker before her eyes. Other readers took their time – so much time that the images were razor-sharp and so saturated with information that she could go exploring in them, zooming down to the smallest details, as if in a spy photo from a satellite.
    'I'll take these,' said a cautious voice, and Katherina opened her eyes. The man with the horn-rimmed glasses stood at the counter holding out two books towards her. He gave an apologetic shrug of his shoulders.
    'Eighty kroner,' said Katherina without looking at the paperbacks he had selected. They had already revealed themselves as The Big Sleep and Moon Palace, which cost 30 and 50 kroner respectively. She stood up and found a bag under the counter while the customer rummaged through his pockets for the money. He paid and left the shop with a black plastic bag printed with the name 'Libri di Luca' in gold letters.
    In some cases Katherina's Lector powers compensated for her dyslexia, and in many situations she was able to completely hide her handicap. For a while that was how she'd appeared to show 'noticeable improvement' in her reading classes in primary school. But when the teacher or other pupils weren't following along in the text, she would be cut off from the meaning of the letters. That had produced a setback at exam time.
    Luca thought there was a connection between her dyslexia and her abilities as a Lector. During their practice sessions he quickly discovered that she had powerful talents, and in his opinion this was because of dyslexia, not in spite of it. So he tried to get her to regard her abilities as a gift and not a punishment, which was how she had previously thought of them. Even though he himself was a Lector, he was not a receiver and thus could not fully understand everything that Katherina had to endure.
    She thought it must be even worse for her mentor's son, who was now being initiated into the secrets of the Lectors in the room beneath her. The scepticism she had felt when Luca explained things to her had soon disappeared, because she had already