Page 204

"I'm so sorry honey, I have to. But I'll send out your doll, and I'll come visit you often while we figure out what to do, okay?"

She sobs softly as I leave.

The other brothers have gone upstairs to check on Matilda, but Sebastian stayed behind to wait for me. He takes my hand as I leave the barrier. "That was risky," he says, as we walk back to the house.

"I know. But I couldn't just leave her."

"I know," he says softly, squeezing my hand.

I glance back at Racul 's body and my heart lurches. "What do we do about him?" I ask.

"We'll send for Ifi and Elal. But we will have to explain this somehow. We have to turn the girl over to the Mother of Dragons."

I pull back from him. "We can't. She didn't mean to do this. We have to figure out what's going on."

We enter the house and Elijah is coming downstairs, his face distraught. "What's wrong?" I ask, releasing Sebastian's hand to rush over to him.

"Matilda is unconscious and can't be woken. Liam doesn't know why. She's alive, but appears to be in a coma. We've put her in her room for now and Liam is working on potions. I'm heading to my office to look for a book that might help."

Oh gods, this is awful.

I want to check on Matilda, but I know my presence won't help anything, so instead I retrieve Ana's doll, along with some food and water and take it to her, then join Sebastian in the family library. He's staring into the fire as I take a seat next to him.

"How was she?" he asks.

"She'd already fallen back to sleep. Poor kid."

"You don't know for sure that she's innocent of intent," he says. "If she's doing this deliberately, then she could be very skilled at lying. She was created a long time ago. She's not an ordinary child. She might not be a child at all."

My stomach turns at that. I hadn't considered the possibility that her entire presentation was a lie. Still. "I felt something from her. A connection to her magic. It doesn't feel evil to me. With my darkness and light, I can suss out intention better than most, and hers feels pure. She's genuinely scared. Maybe she just needs to learn control."

"And yet she's only killed dragons," he says. "And not all dragons. She didn't harm Zara. That doesn't feel random or lacking control to me."

Liam, Elijah and Derek join us downstairs, Liam carrying Alina and Derek carrying the baby dragon.

They put the babies in the crib and take seats in front of the fire with us.

"Any news?" I ask Liam.

"It's a waiting game now," he says.

Derek stands and begins pacing, his trademark go to for stressful times and thinking. "At least now we can resolve these murders and save the Otherworld," he says. "When we turn over the monster, Amora should honor her word and leave us alone."

Oh boy. "We’re not turning over the child," I say.

They all look at me with unreadable expressions.

So I make the same argument I just made to Sebastian. "I felt it in her. She doesn't know what she's doing, but from what I've seen of the Mother of Dragons, she won't care. In fact, she's the reason we're in this mess to begin with. She created this child and tried to destroy her. Now the child is back."

And the timing is awfully…coincidental.

"Callia!" I shout. "Show yourself!"

The unicorn always turns up when she feels like it. I've never been able to summon her, but she has to know what's going on.

"Callia!"

Finally, the unicorn appears before me, her face grim. I glare at her. "Did you know all along?"