Soul of the Crow: An Epic Dark Fantasy (Reapers of Veltuur Book 1), стр. 35

She scowls, angling toward me. “What else would I call it?”

My hands dart up in protest, eager not to be on the receiving end of any of her negative emotions. “S-sorry. It’s a great name. I was just asking because, well, I thought it might get crowfusing—confusing to always call it Crow.”

At that, her head tilts, the brunette waves of her hair shifting in ripples. “Confusing how?”

Disbelief screams in the frenzy of my thoughts. I am having a conversation—a strange conversation, but a conversation nonetheless—with a Reaper. A Reaper. And not just any Reaper, but the one that was sent to murder my sister. I have to fight the urge to smack myself in the face.

Instead, I clear my throat. “I just meant when you and your Reaper friends are hanging out, talking about your crows or whatever it is you do, doesn’t it get confusing to know which crow you’re all referring to if the species is called a crow, but you also named your personal crow Crow?”

Though her expression remains blank, discovery and consideration flicker behind her gray eyes. A long silence settles in the space between my words and hers before she finally, simply replies, “No.”

“Okay. It doesn’t matter,” I say, squinting, trying to erase the last few wasteful moments away. The longer we stand here, the farther away Gem could become. “We should get going. We need to find my sister—”

“That’s why I sent Crow. It will return with information to help us track her. Until then, well, it will be dark soon. Although staying under the canopy of the woods at night sounds comforting to me, I’m guessing it is not your ideal sleep time arrangement. We should find an inn.”

I glance over my shoulder at the bright circle of light, blocked by trees, plummeting below the horizon. We don’t have much daylight left, and Sinisa is right: staying in the woods after dark would not be wise.

It’s not that I want to wait any longer to go charging after Gem, but the truth is since the bandits that took her left without me seeing which direction they went, I don’t have much of a choice but to rely on the insights of a bird.

“There is an inn back in Ngal. We could stay there until your crow returns.”

Sinisa inclines her head, holding out her hand. “Lead the way, your highness.”

I flinch, seeking shelter from the arm that swings over my head to scratch the back of my neck. “Uh, I think it’s just Acari now.”

She shrugs again. “Great. I’m bad with mortal formalities anyway.”

“I can imagine,” I utter.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” I blurt way more suspiciously than I intend. The nape of my neck suddenly itches again, and I angle my gaze downward to avoid her gaze. “Why don’t we get going? You know what they say: from pillar to post!”

She scowls at me, but there’s the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth. “You’re using that saying completely wrong, but you’re right. We should go. Ngal isn’t too far, and we can rest there while we wait for Crow to return. Come on.”

The walk back isn’t long, but by the time we finally enter the outskirts of the town, the sun is hanging low over the horizon. The pastel purple and blue hues of the sky soften the streets with growing shadows, the people making themselves scarce as they turn in for the night.

At least, that was my first impression.

But when I notice Sinisa clenching beside me, burrowing her head down like a horned magrok ready to charge, I realize I’ve misinterpreted everything. The people aren’t fleeing because it’s dusk. It’s the night before the first of ten days of the Festival of Wings. They should be in the streets celebrating, lighting candles, singing the songs of flight and wind, adorning their altars with cardamom, saffron, lentils, and mustard seeds in hopes that this might be the year when the Divine Altúyur finally return to grace us with their presence.

Instead, they’re abandoning their altars half-replenished. The songs they’re singing, end mid-note when they see Sinisa and I approaching, but I know it’s not me they’re looking at. It’s her.

“There’s the inn,” I say, trying to distract us both. I point over the buildings between us and the next road over, up at the dark, hickory wood and not one, but two smoking chimneys that are the landmark to the best inn in Ngal.

Silently, almost too quickly for me to perceive, Sinisa jerks her head, the only acknowledgment I get that she sees it too.

With her head still down, she leads us around the corner to the next street, before tucking herself into the shadows of the first alleyway we encounter.

“What are you doing?” I whisper, ducking into the small space beside her.

She shoves me back out into the streets. “I’ll wait here while you get us a room.”

I don’t say anything for a moment. Self-consciously, I glance up and down the street to make sure no one is watching me, only to find that many people are. The people we scared away on our way here are beginning to reemerge from their homes, and when they search the street to see if they’re safe, they spot me almost instantly.

I smile awkwardly before returning my attention to Sinisa. “I don’t understand. Why are you hiding? Why is it important that you go obscene now?”

“Unseen,” she corrects. “How did you ever earn your third language rune when you still constantly struggle with words?”

“Only when I’m nervous.”

“Then you must always be nervous.”

Sheepishly, I smile. “It’s a curse. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“And you didn’t do what I asked,” she bites back, though despite her scowl, there’s a playful tone in her words. “You saw the way the mortals reacted to me. There are no laws requiring that innkeepers do business with Reapers. I’m hiding to ensure that you’re able to get us a room. Unless you’d rather sleep outside?”

Almost as