Page 96 of Hospital for Immortal Creatures

Amelia lifted a hand and inspected it. On her ring finger glinted the most exquisite piece of jewellery she had ever seen in her life. The fine diamond was not just a rock, it was a symbol of love and devotion. Eternity. Her mother’s ring.

“What are you thinking about, darling?” A male voice asked.

Amelia glanced at her father’s smiling face as he steered the wheel.

Behind him, through the window, she spotted the truck that was heading their way.

And then she knew.

The hit was inevitable.

Her mother’s last thought had been about her daughter.

Amelia was clenching her jaw, teeth scraping, when she woke up.

The muscles in her body were stiff, unable to move for a while. Then, the realisation dawned on her – it had been a dream. And with that, the dam burst. Tears she had been repressing for months flooded her eyes. The sobs that followed were raw and anguished, a painful release of all the emotions she had been stifling.

She wailed as if she were the only person in the world. As if it didn’t matter any more that her strength waned, and she was letting her sorrow engulf her.

Waking up at 6 a.m. wouldn’t bring back her family. Draining her muscles by running every day wouldn’t bring back her family. Surrendering her life to medicine wouldn’t bring back her family. Depriving herself of joy wouldn’t make her more valuable as a person, because her family wasn’t there to appreciate her value.

She had always known it, and yet she had struggled for so long to convince herself of the opposite.

Amelia sat in bed, wiping sweat from her forehead with her palm. She remembered the vision before the one of her family’s death. Just like her, Mikhail had survived and his loved ones had died.

Had he shaped the guilt of his own survival into a motivation to save others?

If so – this was something they had in common.

She sighed with a new resolution. It was time to talk to Mikhail – about everything. She would tell him all about her dream and the Oracle’s voice in her head. The constant nausea and the flood of memories and emotions connected with her family, she’d keep to herself.

Mikhail didn’t want her here. She didn’t want to be here. They needed to figure out why they had been brought together, and then go their separate ways.

Maybe helping the immortal creatures was her opportunity to prove her right to live.

31

On the Turkish side of the Bulgaria-Turkey border, the customs officer accepted the documents Constantine handed to her, without lifting her gaze. Her red nails tapped on the desk behind the counter while she checked the IDs. She glanced up at him, her small grey eyes inspecting him for a mere second before looking away.

Then, suddenly, she raised her head to his face once again. Her fingers ceased their rhythmical dance. Her pink-painted lips spread in a wide smile and her eyes met his with a newborn sparkle. “Where to, Mister… Ivanov?”

Constantine stared back at her with an expression that, he knew, suggested he found her yellow-stained teeth as fascinating as she was finding him. “Mersin, madam. Going for a holiday.”

She returned his documents without having a second look at them, nor at his companion in the SUV. “Well, have a good time.”

Constantine waved goodbye and got inside his car, inhaling the pepper-rose scent filling the interior. A wave of excitement crawled down his torso but he ignored it. Now was not the time for fooling around.

“No need for me to walk out of the car?” Diana, the source of the aroma, asked.

“No need.” He turned on the engine.

A few feet down the border, he had to stop for the mandatory baggage check. He got out of the car, approached the customs officer until he was within arm’s length, and planted a thought in his mind that they didn’t require a check. The last thing he needed was somebody sniffing around his hidden weapons.

Back in the SUV, as he sped along the road to Mersin, Diana said, “Life’s been easy for you, hasn’t it?”

He side-glanced at her. “What do you mean, Diana?”

“You either charm them, or you manipulate them. The first customs officer was drooling all over you.”

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