Page 15 of The Demon's Little Girl
The euphemism makes my hands curl into fists at my sides, but I maintain the neutral expression that's served me well in countless business negotiations.
"Three days ago. She would have left an estate northeast of the city, possibly traveling alone."
Thexis shakes his head slowly, genuine regret coloring his voice as he pushes the pouch of nodals back across the desk toward me.
"Haven't had any new human acquisitions this week. Business has been slow—most of the fresh stock gets snapped up by the pleasure houses before it reaches my warehouse." He pauses, studying my face with the calculating attentionof someone who's made a career out of reading desperation in potential customers. "But I can ask around, put the word out. Sometimes they surface in private sales before hitting the general market."
The thought of Liora in some noble's private collection, reduced to entertainment for demons with more money than conscience, sends a wave of rage through my system so intense that red creeps into the edges of my vision.
"Do that." My voice comes out rougher than intended, carrying undertones that make Thexis lean back slightly in his chair. "Send word immediately if you learn anything."
I leave additional payment for information and promises that anyone who assists in locating her will be rewarded generously. The slavers' network extends into places my legitimate contacts fear to tread, and if Liora has fallen into those shadows, they're my best hope of finding her before she disappears entirely into the vast machinery of human suffering that powers so much of demon society.
The second week brings interviews with every trade contact I've cultivated over years of business relationships. Ship captains, caravan leaders, merchants who move goods between cities and might have noticed a lone human woman attempting to purchase passage to anywhere that isn't here.
Most of them respond with the careful politeness of people who depend on my goodwill for their livelihoods, promising to investigate and report back immediately if they uncover any leads. A few ask pointed questions about why I'm personally involved in tracking down an escaped servant, their curiosity barely concealed behind professional courtesy.
I give them all the same answer: she possesses information about estate security that could prove valuable to competitors. It's a lie that fits neatly with their understanding of the cutthroat nature of trade politics while avoiding more complicated truthsabout why her absence has become an obsession that consumes more of my attention with each passing day.
None of them have seen her.
By the third week, I've exhausted every legitimate avenue of investigation and moved into territories that would raise eyebrows among my usual business associates. Informants who traffic in gossip and secrets, smugglers who move people as readily as goods, black market dealers who specialize in untraceable transactions.
The consensus remains the same: no one matching Liora's description has been seen attempting to leave Bilgonith through any of the usual channels available to humans with limited resources.
It's as if she simply vanished from existence, leaving no more trace than morning mist touched by sunlight.
The not-knowing becomes a constant ache that settles behind my ribs like a broken bone that refuses to heal properly. I catch myself pausing at corners where she used to work, listening for humming that will never come. The estate feels different without her presence threading through it, less alive somehow, as if she took some essential quality with her when she disappeared into whatever darkness has claimed her.
Avenor tries to maintain normalcy, handling my schedule with his usual efficiency while carefully avoiding any mention of the increasingly desperate nature of my search efforts. Tom jumps at shadows and speaks in whispers when he thinks I'm out of earshot. Akira serves meals with gentle insistence that I eat, her weathered hands steady even as her eyes reflect the same worry that gnaws at my insides like acid.
None of them ask why losing one human servant has reduced me to this state of barely contained desperation. None of them voice the questions I see lurking behind their careful expressions.
They don't need to. I know what they're thinking, what conclusions they're drawing from my behavior.
They're right, of course. This isn't about losing a valued member of the household staff, isn't about security concerns or damaged reputation or any of the rational explanations I've offered to outside parties.
This is about the fact that somewhere in the past six years, Liora stopped being just another human in my household and became something I can't adequately name but can no longer imagine existing without.
And now she's gone, vanished into a world that devours humans like her without mercy or hesitation, leaving me with nothing but the growing certainty that I failed to protect the one thing that mattered most.
7
LIORA
The northern wind cuts through my threadbare cloak like icy fingers, but I welcome the bite against my skin. Physical pain is easier to process than the other kind—the kind that lives under my ribs and makes every breath feel like drowning. I've been walking for three days straight, pausing only when exhaustion forces me to collapse against whatever shelter I can find.
Distance. That's what I need. Enough distance between myself and that estate to convince my mind that what happened there can't follow me here.
It doesn't work, though. No matter how many miles I put between myself and that room, I can still feel Xharn's hands on my skin. Heavy. Claiming. Wrong in every possible way. Sometimes I catch myself scratching until I bleed, desperate to scrape away the memory of his touch, but it never helps. The feeling lives deeper than surface wounds can reach.
"You can't tell anyone," his voice whispers in the back of my mind, words that have become a constant refrain over the past months. "Rovak's honor won't let him keep damaged goods."
The worst part is knowing he's right. Demons value ownership, strength, things I lost the moment Xharn decided I was worth taking. Rovak might have shown me kindness for six years, might have made me feel almost human again, but that was before. Before I became something stained and broken.
I pull the stolen cloak tighter around my shoulders and keep walking north. The landscape has been changing gradually as I travel—the lush forests around Bilgonith giving way to rockier terrain dotted with scrub brush and hardy plants that seem determined to survive despite the harsh conditions. The air tastes different here, carrying salt from the ocean and something else I can't identify.
My stomach lurches suddenly, a wave of nausea so intense it doubles me over. I barely make it behind a cluster of thorny bushes before my body empties what little food I managed to choke down this morning. The retching continues long after there's nothing left, leaving me gasping and shaking on my knees in the dirt.
