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“Your bed is made. I’ll see you tomorrow evening. I have work to do.”
Saber smiled at him and sighed.
She went to bed feeling a little bit sad, sad that she was in love in such an impossible way, and a little bit content. He did care for her, just not in the way she wanted. She wanted him to tell her he loved her and would find a way that they could be together forever.
She climbed into the beautiful bed in his master bedroom, a room he only used for getting dressed and sleeping with her, apparently. A strange ambivalence settled over her. She didn’t know it, but in the morning everything would be different.
“Saber, Lozen’s missing,” Mia cried, her voice shrill and tinny through the line.
“What?”
Saber had let the phone go to voicemail three times, so desperately did she want to keep sleeping. She’d spent the morning studying for a final in the library, had a pleasant lunch, then took a nap so that she could be up with Ansel as much of the night as he wanted.
She didn’t know what time it was when her phone started to ring.
On the fourth call, she snapped awake. Something might actually be wrong.
“Lozen is missing. I tried to call her this morning and her mom picked up the phone. Last night, her mom said they had a package dropped off on the porch, an Amazon package, and Lozen went to grab it and just… disappeared. She already called the police.”
“Oh my god,” Saber cried, her stomach tying itself into knots. She reflected that she’d never even met Lozen’s mom. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know,” Mia said, her voice choking with a sob. “We have to figure out where the last vampire is, the woman.”
“Ysidra.” Saber’s voice became a hiss.
“Is there some way you can askyourvampire where she might be?”
“No, not until tonight. I don’t know where he sleeps, and I couldn’t wake him up if I wanted to.”
There was silence on the other line for a moment.
“I’m scared,” Mia said, and it sounded like she might really be crying. “Do you think she’s already dead?”
“I don’t know,” Saber said, and her chest tightened, tears prickling in her own eyes. “But Lozen’s tough, Mia, one of the toughest people I know. And she’s so fucking smart.”
“How will we find her?” Mia was crying now, it was obvious. “We have no idea where to even look for her!”
That’s when Saber looked out of the window of the bedroom, and felt a creepy, wild feeling come over her. Ravens, dozens of them, more than she’d ever seen, were gathered in the trees around the house. They looked into the window with unmistakable purpose and intention.
They were waiting for her to notice them. Now, they hopped in the trees, bobbing their heads. Their time had come. One flew forward and tapped the window one time, a pop.
“I don’t know where she is, but I think I know where to start looking for her,” Saber said. “Tis’ a visitor, knocking at my chamber door.”
“What?” Mia said, but Saber hung up on her.
Saber walked out into the front yard, pulling her coat around her, looking up into the trees.
“Where is she?” she called out to the ravens, but all they did was look down at her with their black, glassy eyes. Saber felt so stupid, but she didn’t know what else to do.
“Is she alive?” she asked, knowing they wouldn’t answer.
She knew they wanted something from her, wanted her to do something to help save Lozen.
She walked to her car, opened the door, and slid in. That’s when most of the ravens lifted off of the trees and into the woods, fluttering away, all except one, which alighted very gentlyon the hood of her car. He looked at her, ruffled his feathers, flapped his wings, but kept her gaze.
“Ok,” she said, nodding at the raven. “You’re going to lead me? Let’s go.”
She started the engine and the raven lifted off, flying ahead of her down the driveway.
