Page 13

“You are a very strange sort of human.”

“So I’ve been told.”

We kept walking, only the sound if night insects, occasional splashes in the water, and the distant sound of traffic to accompany our footsteps. It was almost peaceful, and I missed being out in nature. There were plenty of pockets of it within the city, the spaces nurtured by creatures who would quite literally die without it. Many of them had been around before the city rose up around them, and they would remain long after it crumbled to dust.

I stopped walking. “Did you hear that?”

Sebastian gave me a bored look. “You mean the woman crying behind that bush over there?”

I gave him an affronted look, then hurried toward the bush in question. The cry had been light and stifled, like she was trying to hide the sound, but it was there. The bush rustled as I neared it, then a woman dove out, trying to run, but she stumbled and crashed hard into the ground, her legs tangling in her long white dress.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” I soothed, cautiously approaching as her body heaved with heavy sobs. Long black hair hid her face from view. It was hard to tell inthe moonlight, but I thought her visible skin might have held a bluish tinge.

She tried to brace herself up with her thin, bony arms, then fell back to the ground. She was clearly hurt, though I couldn’t see the injuries. The hem of her long dress was stained with mud.

“Just go,” she sobbed. “I deserve my fate.”

I took another cautious step toward her. Sebastian had disappeared at some point—probably looking for what had injured her. Orwho. There really was no telling this deep in the park.

Ringo’s fur tickled my ear. “She smells wrong,” he whispered.

His words made my slow steps falter. I had walked into one too many traps lately to not be cautious. “Can you tell me what hurt you?”

She managed to push her hair back out of her face enough to look at me. Her features were striking, and highly recognizable. A wide mouth and big almond eyes, blue instead of brown. “You’re the night runner. You know my sister.”

Okay so not a trap. Probably. I slowly knelt beside her so she wouldn’t have to turn to look up at me. “You’re Seraphina’s sister?”

She started to nod, but winced. “I came here to tell you to stop bringing the packages. But I was stupid. They saw me and they—”

A twig snapped somewhere nearby. I glancedaround at our dark surroundings, but there was no sign of Sebastian, or whoever had hurt the nymph.

“Who’sthey?” I kept my eyes lifted, searching for signs of danger.

“I don’t know,” she rasped. “But I think they’ve been following me. I didn’t want to lead them to my sister, so I was going to tell you to stay away. But they found me.” She lightly shook her head. “I was so sure I hadn’t been seen.”

Sebastian appeared beside me and I had to stifle a scream.

The girl—whose name Seraphina had never given—looked at him with raw, wide-eyed horror.

“He’s with me,” I soothed over the pounding of my heart, shaking my head at the infuriating devil.

“There is no one else around, save the goblin who followed us here.”

It was my turn for wide-eyed horror. “We were followed?”

One of his shoulders bobbed. “I assumed you had noticed. She’s not far. She believes she is still hidden.”

I swiped a palm across my face, shaking my head. Gabriel must have told Mistral about the delivery. But I would deal with that later.

“Come on,” I said to the girl. “We need to get you out of here. Do you think you can stand?”

She hesitated, her eyes darting between us, then she hung her head almost touching the ground. “I cannot.”

I looked at Sebastian expectantly.

“You mean to take her with us?” His tone let me know how utterly ridiculous he thought the idea was.

“She’s hurt. Of course we’re going take her with us.”