Page 18 of Winterfall Destiny

"Hmm. I guess we'll see."

I choke out my shock. "'See'?" He shrugs. Bloody shrugs. "I can't deal with this, Dorian."

"Fair enough. I'll go deal with Gabriella's buddy. We can find where she is and get on with actually doing shit."

"Not until Andrei comes back."

"Sorry, Maeve, but I'm done waiting now. Andrei won't die if I kill Gabriella. As soon as I find her, she's dead."

Naturally, he walks away before I can respond. I'm too sick and shaky to deal with anything in that room and make my way to the kitchen instead. I'll find water. Take a walk.

"Oh, hello, Mia," I say when the first thing I encounter in the room is the girl's dark hair as she stands by the table facing away from me.

Until I clearly see Mia. The child turns. She holds a small, black-handled kitchen knife in one hand, her other palm bleeding. If that isn't enough to make my already queasy stomach want to push out the contents, she's drawn runes on the kitchen table.

In her blood.

A small sparrow lies in the centre of the table, unmoving.

Mia doesn't speak and looks at me as impassively as Dorian does, through matching glacial blue eyes. Immediately, I back out of the room and stare at the door as I close it.

What. The. Fuck?

"What did the arsehole say to you this time?" asks Ash as he heads along the hallway from the makeshift interrogation room.

"The child," I say hoarsely and point at the kitchen. "Omigod, Ash. Blood."

"Huh? Is she hurt?" Ash pushes open the door and halts as I did. "Ethan!" he yells. The mid's figure appears in the study doorway and he looks between us. "You might want to keep an eye on Mia," says Ash lightly and inclines his head.

"Fuck!" Ethan's in the kitchen in a heartbeat, snatching the knife from the protesting girl's hand. "Dorian! I need your help!" he shouts.

"I'm busy," Dorian calls back, their exchange echoing around the house.

"The fuck you are," mutters Ethan, then shouts. "Now, Dorian! Problem with Mia!"

A perturbed Dorian appears from the study, Eloise close behind, and I try to ignore the amount of blood on his hands. I step back and watch as Dorian walks into the kitchen and then sighs at the screeching girl, who's holding the bird against her chest so Ethan can't take it.

The dead bird.

"Oh, sweetest girl. We've talked about this. Dead things must stay dead, okay?" Dorian takes Mia's hand and frowns at the cut before licking his fingers and curling them around her palm. "You need to take the bird back to where you found it. Perhaps we could bury him?"

Eloise pushes past me. "Where's Zeke? Isn't he supposed to be watching her?" She unpeels Mia's other fingers from around the bird's corpse. "Where did you find the bird, sweetie?"

They keep using that word. Sweet. Not my definition.

Mia jabs a finger toward the garden and bares her teeth.

Ash nods at the bloodied knife. "That child's violent. I bet the bird wasn't dead when she found it," he mutters.

"Of course it was," snaps Eloise as if that were the biggest issue here. "Mia is an animal lover."

Now I'm positive I'm in a surreal parallel world.

"Loves them a little too much," says Dorian with a chuckle.

"I'm going to find Zeke," growls Ethan, and I stumble as he shoves past.

Eloise. Necromancer. "Was Mia trying to bring the bird back to life?" I whisper and Eloise's tightening lips reply for me.

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