Page 163 of Hospital for Immortal Creatures

“Yeah, thanks.” He didn’t attempt to hide the sarcasm in his voice. “You know, Amelia is incredibly brave. She tried to escape. During one of the attempts, she ended up on the Intensive Care floor. Do you remember seeing us then?” Elisanda stayed quiet. “The woman screaming in the hallway that she had been abducted? You put two and two together, you’re a clever woman. Too clever, in fact. You pretended not to notice anything strange, although you knew quite well any kidnappings with a medical purpose are now discussed in advance at the Council meetings. Moreover, I’m not the type of man to get…how shall I put this, so you understand… a pet. At least not unless I have a very good reason for it. But,” Mikhail continued without giving her the chance to object, “from then on, you could only speculate. Who is Amelia? What is her connection to the Oracle? These questions were identical to the ones I kept asking myself. Only what you didn’t know was I had as much of a clue as you. You wondered what to do. A lucky turn of events brought you to Mary Clare, who was taking care of Amelia. You started paying her for information about what she saw when she visited Amelia. Not that there was much to share.”

Elisanda lifted her chin in the air. “I’m sorry to prove you wrong, Mikhail, but I had never seen that girl until I discovered her body.”

“You know Stella?”

“The head housekeeper? Of course.”

“Then you know she’s like Cerberus. She keeps all of her subordinates on a tight leash. Takes notes, writes reports. A little too much, if you ask me. But thanks to her precise work, I learnt that Mary Clare was also caring for one of your colleagues’ rooms. Bashar.”

“Bashar doesn’t even live here, for crying out loud!”

“Not anymore, but he used to. In one of the rooms you commandeered to your apartment. You met Mary Clare as she came to clean Bashar’s room. Maybe you became friends. At least until you killed her.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know, Elisanda. You tell me. Because you got rid of the woman who fed you information? Maybe because she started blackmailing you, just as her boyfriend suggested to her?” Mikhail gave himself a moment to revel in the surprise on the nymph’s face. Finally, something she didn’t know. “What? You didn’t think Mary would share the whole ordeal with her boyfriend? Or that they wouldn’t realise how mad I’d be if I found out you were paying someone to spy on my guest?”

“Guest! You kidnapped the girl! I saw how terrified she was as she struggled to escape from you. You know kidnapping is against the Tribunal’s rules?”

Mikhail smiled. “Don’t change the subject. Mary started blackmailing you and you decided to deal with her. You wanted to blame someone, so the boyfriend, who she perhaps told you about, was the perfect target. Then you remembered the man with the strange hair who I’m betting you called to the fifth floor personally on the day of the murder under the pretext that something needed fixing. Good. Could have worked, if Daniel hadn’t been informed about your friendship with Mary. In all honesty, she stayed true to you to some extent, because she never shared your name, just that you’re someone important. Quite frankly, you were very close to getting away with it.” He paused for a loaded breath. “After Mary’s death, however, Daniel realised how dangerous the game you were playing was, and decided to stay quiet about it and feed us a story that didn’t match at all. Or maybe he knew who you were and intended to come back to you for more money. I have no idea. I locked Daniel up with Mary’s roommate, so it appeared like the two of them ran away, guilty of the crime. It gave you a chance to relax, sure in the knowledge no one knew you were behind this, and commit your next act. An act that gave even more clues to your identity.”

“You’re wrong, Mikhail. I haven’t killed anyone, and I certainly never paid someone to spy on you and the human.” Elisanda stood, gesturing to the door. “Please, leave.”

Mikhail settled more comfortably on the couch. “Sit down.”

The nymph obeyed with a dramatic sigh.

“We’re almost to the part where you really pissed me off. The murder attempt on the boy. It must have been so easy. He trusts you, Elisanda. His favourite healer! The best.”

“You must be determined to attribute every sin in the world to me, but I refuse to accept. I’m leaving this Hospital immediately!”

Mikhail wasn’t impressed by her playacting. “Targeting the boy was a weak move, Elisanda. Digging a message into his chest, even more so.”

She stared at him with a dumbfounded expression.

“That’s right. Amelia had a vision. I know what you intended to do. Did you believe I would just return her to her home and forget all about her? I guess you don’t know me, after all.”

“Speculations! You don’t have proof!” The nymph’s eyes sparkled with fury, although she tried to maintain the mask of insult and outrage.

Mikhail leaned forward. “Do you know who Krasimir Ivanov is?” Her forehead wrinkled with confusion. “A quiet, hardworking man. He has stomach cancer, probably won’t last very long. He came to the Hospital two years ago. Works as an orderly. Very efficient. A few days ago, a woman with black curly hair and overalls told him to evacuate everyone living in the East Wing of the sixteenth floor between twelve and two, due to some disinfection. She explicitly said that nobody should be present at that time. He, of course, obliged. I asked him to share more about this woman, and he only said, ‘Don’t know, boss. Black hair, long legs.’” Mikhail glanced at her red hair and crossed legs. “I told him that doesn’t help me much, and then he remembered, ‘She has a pink watch!’”

Elisanda’s blue gaze fell on the rose-gold watch around her wrist.

“I suppose you have a black wig somewhere. And yet, the question is, why so much effort for only a kid? Couldn’t you just get it over with in his mother’s room? No. Don’t tell me you have scruples.” Mikhail laughed. “You knew Dave goes up to Stella’s every night. You waited for him to leave his room. It wasn’t hard. You work and live on that floor, after all. And you went after him. You had an entire floor cleared out, thanks to your made-up disinfection story. You supposed that if you followed him up the stairs, he’d choose the forbidden corridor to escape. But then something went awry. Someone showed up and you couldn’t finish the job. The ploy was either because you wanted to frame someone else, or you just enjoy the thrill of the chase.”

Elisanda looked down before speaking again, “Mikhail, I don’t want to partake in this conversation any further. Your goal is clearly to disparage me.”

“Tell me one thing. Why Dave? Because he and I are close?”

“I’m close to him, too! I was devastated when I found out someone tried to harm him. You know how fond he is of me, Mikhail!”

“Fond enough to mention that he befriended the ‘nymph’ on the nineteenth floor?”

Elisanda feigned confusion. “What nymph? I thought the nineteenth floor was exclusive to humans…”

Mikhail gestured for silence. “I also thought the Oracle would be protected if only a small number of trusted creatures had access to her room.”

“The Oracle’s death was from natural causes, as you well know.”

---