Page 119 of Foul Days

“She’s murdered someone.” Kosara quickly remembered herself and added, “One of my spirit friends. She’s a monster hunter.”

“I knew it.” Orel spat the words out. “I knew she couldn’t be trusted. The Zmey acts as if she pisses gold, your Roksana—”

“She’s not mine!” Sokol shrieked, her talons gripping her seat tighter. “And she only hunts dangerous monsters. Your friend must have been a wraith.”

“He wasn’t.”

Sokol shrugged. “Who cares about spirits, anyway? You’re nothing but humans without any of the tasty parts. No offense.”

No offence? How come people always added that right after saying something deeply offensive?

“In any case,” Sokol continued, “your friend must have been asking for it.”

Sokol really liked Roksana, Kosara realised. Not enough that she’d do something to protect her, but enough to flirt with her in front of the other monsters and suffer their jokes. How could you justify falling for someone you wanted to eat?

Kosara barely managed to stop her nose from wrinkling.

“How about we use my deck for the third round?” Sokol pulled a new deck of cards from underneath her wing. “It’s my lucky deck,” she said in reply to Kosara’s raised eyebrows.

“As long as it’s not been doctored.…”

Orel’s laugh was so high-pitched, Kosara felt it scraping her bones. “It’s not. Don’t worry, we wouldn’t let her cheat.”

Kosara smiled tensely. Behind Sokol’s back, Asen gave her a worried look, and she shrugged her shoulders slightly in response. She didn’t like this, not at all, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t risk angering the yudas and having them give up on the game altogether. If only she’d kept her mouth shut about Roksana.…

First, Orel placed a few cards face up on the table. At the beginning, they all seemed familiar—a five, a six, an ace … And then came the last card.

What the hell?

The picture in the middle of this card showed a monster Kosara had never seen before: three-headed, sharp-toothed, curved-horned. Steam rolled out from its large nostrils. Lightning flashed above its head.

Kosara hadn’t seen it, but she’d heard of it. Lamia. The monster the Council had kidnapped from the Zmey’s palace. The one they’d embedded in the Wall.

“What the hell’s that?” Kosara blurted out before she thought better of it.

“This?” Orel tapped the card with her long talon. “It’s a queen of hearts, of course.”

“No, I mean, what’s that monster?”

“Oh, you mean who’s that?”

Good job, Kosara. I’m sure the yudas appreciate a bit of casual speciesism.

“Yes, of course that’s what I mean,” Kosara said. “Who’s that?”

“She’s the Zmey’s sister, Lamia. She’s been gone for a while now. Disappeared without a trace. We’ve never managed to figure out how, since she’d been explicitly forbidden to leave the palace during the Foul Days, what with her anger issues—”

Kosara couldn’t hear the rest of the sentence through the sound of blood thumping in her ears. The Zmey’s sister. The monster trapped in the Wall was the Zmey’s sister. How come he’d never mentioned her before, not even once?

“Were they close?” Kosara asked.

Sokol barely lifted her gaze from her cards. “Mm?”

“The Zmey and his sister.”

“Oh, they bickered like any siblings, but I think he truly loved her. He’s not been the same ever since she disappeared.”

So that was why he’d never mentioned her. He was still grieving.

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