When he had finished, he looked down at me. I’d been expecting him to tease me the moment he’d finished the first paragraph. Instead, his expression was serious. It unnerved me that I found it impossible to guess what was going through his head.
I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled at him.
“You finished up there?”
He nodded and climbed down, handing the parchment back to me. He looked out at the lake, and I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he was about to dive in and return to the forest. But he turned toward me again before leaving.
When he placed his hands behind my neck, his fingers reaching into my hair, and planted a kiss on my forehead, it didn’t matter what I was wearing.
Even in Irina’s gown, I would have felt bare before him.
Chapter 35: Kiev
The more time I spent with Mona, the more I realized that I didn’t understand her. And that irritated me.
It seemed that I’d already drained Brett’s limited knowledge of her.
I needed to talk to Saira.
The next day, I picked up one of the straw parasols stored in a bucket by the entrance of the tunnels and walked out into the sunny clearing. I approached a werewolf passing nearby and asked for directions to Saira’s home. Soon I walked in the middle of the werewolves’ woods, my gaze cast upward, looking for the black-wood tree house that Saira was supposed to live in.
It was built a little away from the main cluster of houses, with a direct view out onto the lake. I wondered if that had been a deliberate decision, in order to keep an eye on Mona. I also wondered how many of my visits to the witch’s house she had spied on already.
Although there was a thick-stepped ladder etched into the side of Saira’s tree, I leapt up and landed on the small porch outside her door. Like all the tree houses, Saira’s looked small and shabby, clearly built with whatever materials they’d managed to scavenge together on the small island.
I knocked loudly.
I heard footsteps and Saira’s short plump figure appeared at the door.
“Ah, Kiev.” She grinned. “What a pleasure. Come in, dear. Come in.”
She swung the door open. The tree house seemed even smaller now that I was inside it. The interior reminded me much of Mona’s cabin, bare but for a mattress in the corner and some basic furniture.
She gestured to a chair and I took a seat.
“So,” she said, looking down at me. “Are you ready for me to ask the question?”
“No, no,” I said. “That’s not why I’m here. I want to know more about Mona.”
Saira took a seat cross-legged on the mattress at the opposite end of the room.
“What do you want to know about her?”
A dozen questions ran through my mind but the first one that surfaced was: “Why does she write stories?”
Saira’s eyes widened.
“Stories? I never knew she did.”
“She seems to be… overly involved with her characters.”
“What do you mean?” Saira asked, bending forward.
Somehow, I didn’t feel like revealing to Saira the extent of Mona’s obsession. It felt like something that was intimate, just between the two of us. So instead, I changed the subject.
“Why did Mona leave The Sanctuary?”
Saira sighed. “She said that she found the place too restricting. She preferred the life of a wanderer.”
“She wasn’t kicked out because she had no magic?”
“That’s one theory.” Saira eyed me. “But she hasn’t claimed that. At least not to me.”
“Where did you first find her?”
“Actually,” she said, sitting back against the wall and making herself comfortable, “Matteo, Mona and I all met each other at the same time. We were all trapped in the same prison on the boat of some particularly nasty pirates. Matteo and I managed to break free from our cages, and we helped Mona too. It’s made sense to stay together since then. We were able to hijack a small boat and make it our own. Gradually we’ve built up the crew to what it is today.”
Saira wasn’t telling me anything that I didn’t already know from Mona herself.
“Why does Mona keep to herself so much?”
“She always has,” Saira said, a concerned look on her face. “I’ve come to believe it’s just her personality. She feels… uncomfortable around people and prefers her own company most of the time. But I think she’s just been waiting for the right person to come along and offer her a little friendship.”
I rolled my eyes at her. I was about to get up and leave but another question crept into my mind.
“Are witches like vampires—immortal?”
In all my years of dealing with witches, I’d never asked about a witch’s mortality. I knew that witches on Earth died after several hundred years; they died of old age, unlike vampires, who were immortal unless killed by specific means. But I wondered whether witches in this paranormal realm were immortal, being in their natural atmosphere.
“As far as I know, they are,” Saira replied. “Though to be honest the only witch I’ve ever come across is Mona, and, well, she’s not exactly your typical witch.”
That she isn’t.
Unwilling to spend more time with the wolf, seeing that she hadn’t been able to answer my questions satisfactorily, I got up to leave.
“I suppose the next time you visit you’ll have finished your task,” she called out of the window as I jumped to the forest floor.
Her last words caused my throat to feel dry. Just recently I’d been longing to get this duty off of my shoulders. Now, the image of Irina standing in wait for me by the well flashed before my mind, and the thought of finishing my task unsettled me.
I wondered if I might have been doing my task too well.
What if I don’t want to stop trying to be Mona’s friend?
What would that mean for her?
Chapter 36: Mona
He’d left his pants on the railing. Deliberately, I guessed—so he’d have an excuse to visit me again uninvited. Not that the vampire ever needed an excuse for anything he did.
The next day, I decided to arrive early, and rather than wait by the well, surprise him by showing up in his room. Perhaps I’d find him asleep, and I could disturb him as he had disturbed me the night before. I emerged from the forest, his pants tucked beneath one arm, and walked into the entrance of the tunnels. The place seemed empty on first glance, as I had expected at this time of day. But as I walked further underground, footsteps sounded behind me. I whirled around to see Giles emerging from a corridor a few feet away from me.