Page 160 of Hospital for Immortal Creatures

Whether due to her improved senses, or something else, Amelia perceived him differently. The energy of the beast surrounding him was more palpable than ever. The others must also be able to detect his power, because the room fell quiet in a heartbeat.

Mikhail’s gaze roamed over each one of them, and settled on her. “I would like to know what the new Oracle has to tell us.” Was it her impression, or did his intense gaze soften ever so slightly when it landed on her?

Focus. Amelia straightened her shoulders once again. “As I said, my name is Amelia. And I was a human until recently, but now I am… the Oracle.”

“How is this possible?” someone interrupted.

She pursed her lips. Luckily, the necromancer answered in her stead. “The Oracle is the only immortal species that could be born as a human, in a family of humans.”

“How do you know this when nobody else does?” Mikhail asked.

“I’ve been to places nobody else has, and thus I’ve heard things nobody else has.” The necromancer shrugged. “But as far as the inheritance of the Oracle’s ‘position,’ if I could put it like that, it’s no secret, just something forgotten a long time ago. After all, the last Oracle was chosen six thousand years ago.”

Amelia nearly fainted. Six thousand years? Did that mean she would live that long, too?

The necromancer, as if reading her thoughts, added, “But it’s possible that nowadays things would be different. The last Oracle was also affected by the Changes of 1744, so it’s unlikely for any creature to live this long, with the active ageing processes and risk of disease.”

Amelia nodded, feigning confidence, to confirm what he’d said. She couldn’t control her sight and visions, but she didn’t intend on showing weakness to the others. She observed the table once more, searching for the faces she had come for.

The man to Mikhail’s right. He wore his baseball cap backwards. A golden chain with a massive cross hung around his neck. She recognised him as Viktor from her visions, although his modern dressing style surprised her.

Amelia looked straight at him and spoke the words the Creator had given her, but whose meaning she couldn’t understand. “When the three times merge into one, you will become one.”

“Are you talking to me, darling?” He smiled.

“Fuck!” the surgeon yelled. “She speaks in the old Oracle’s riddles!”

Amelia had a message for him as well. “Love is the brightest light, even where the sunrays don’t reach. If you follow that light, you will find the right path.”

“Follow, love?” He glanced at the creatures around him.

“So, you follow me!” the redhead next to him exclaimed.

Amelia recognised her as the one who had promised to pull out her nails one by one slowly if she tried to escape. Good thing her status as the Oracle protected her – she hoped.

Amelia continued speaking the words that raced through her head like the lyrics to a song. “Because where the most cherished lie, it is dangerous for others to approach.”

“Are you implying my husband is cheating on me?!”

Amelia sighed. She had no idea what she was implying, if anything at all. “But sometimes it is necessary—”

“Necessary?” The woman bared her teeth at the man.

“Hey, hey!” He lifted his hands. “She didn’t say I let anyone else in my bed. Maybe she meant you!”

“Yeah, right.”

Amelia faced the necromancer to her left. “The blood that flows with magic will always be blood that flows with magic,” she said to him and to the brunette who was sitting next to him.

The woman stared at her, but didn’t speak. The necromancer only curved his lips in response.

“Oracle…” A man at the far end of the table turned to her. “With all due respect, these were some interesting riddles, which, I can’t help but notice, are personal. Would you mind telling us more about the Changes and how to… hm… deal with them?”

Though the question reached her, Amelia didn’t register its meaning. She was bewitched instead by the man’s eyes. Unusual, memorable eyes. One sea-blue and the other emerald-green.

“Could you give me a pen and paper?” At her question, the heterochrome irises filled with surprise. “I need a pen and paper,” she repeated, louder.

“One second,” he replied, pulling out a black briefcase from under the table.

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