AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Zaina and Einar exchange a look before shaking their heads to indicate neither of them know, but Aika’s still not paying attention.
“She doesn’t age,” she murmurs.
“So we’ve noticed,” Zaina comments drily.
“No, not Madame,” my wife responds. “Natia.”
Zaina’s features go slack as she grabs one of the books from her stack, furiously thumbing through it.
“The Mayima?” I ask, recalling the flighty girl I met in the water several weeks and a lifetime ago.
Aika dips her chin in assent. “She tells stories about hundreds of years ago like they happened last month. I don’t know how strong she is, but she’s insanely fast.”
The impossibility of it is staggering, but everything else about Madame seems impossible, too, so I can’t rule it out.
“Madame hates the Mayima,” Zaina comments, not looking up from her book.
Aika makes a noise of agreement. “It’s why we had to hide our interactions with them. But even that’s odd, in hindsight. Usually she would just make one of her underlings deal with them.”
“True,” Zaina allows. “But according to this, they aren’t supposed to be able to survive on land for more than a handful of minutes.”
“Do we know that for sure?” Einar questions.
Aika and I exchange a glance. “There’s one way to find out.”
CHAPTERFORTY-SIX
AIKA
We decide to approach Natia only as a last resort, but that comes sooner than we would like. Despite spending the rest of the night researching, we weren’t able to find out much more about the Mayima.
So our knowledge is largely limited to my infrequent first-hand experiences with them, the brief demeaning comments Madame has made, and what little we were taught in our varied educations.
Most of it is lore, the details murky and unverified.
With Zaina being dead, and my cover as Gemma known to Madame, we can’t risk Natia telling anyone that we were at the docks, so Remy volunteers to go.
There is no fire to set tonight, no planning we haven’t already done. I should be catching up on rest, but it takes me hours to fall into even a fitful sleep.
The bed is too empty without Remy—the room is too quiet. I drift in and out of dreams, but something is wrong.
A faint brush of air breezes over me like a spiderweb’s touch, just enough for me to register the movement of another person. Someone moving far more quietly than Remy does.
I dart one hand out on reflex, the other going for one of the weapons under my pillow. I catch a wrist in my closed fist just as my eyes dart open.
Not that it does me any good. My eyes don’t have time to adjust before a low, familiar chuckle sends a chill down my spine.
“You’re getting slow,sister.” Damian’s voice is too casual for the circumstances.
So much for dreaming, sincebrother dearestis clearly alive and well enough to stalk me in the middle of the night.
“What in the Celestial Hells are you doing in my bedroom, Damian?” I ask, matching his tone. “Are you really so bored now that Mother has neutered you that you have to resort to voyeurism?”
It’s a guess that she’s still dosing him, but an accurate one, judging by the way he wrenches his arm away in fury.
My vision finally adjusts to the darkness, and in one fluid movement, my blade is at his throat.
But I’m not the only one armed.
