“It wasn’t a pigeon.” I frown. Then my lips part. “I saw it before that too, in the woods!” My eyes widen at the owl.“You squawked at me before I went into the wolf’s den. You were trying to warn me, weren’t you?” I remember its dappled feathers, the way it made me drop all my firewood.
“Dahlia, come back and sit with us,” Tauren says. “Tamryn hasn’t finished her drawing yet. You’ll spook the creature.” But Tamryn’s already dropping her sketchpad, moving to my side to take my hand.
She nods at me, pointing at the bird.
“You know this owl?” I ask her.
She nods harder.
“Is it yours?” A pet, maybe. Perhaps it belonged to Maeve.
Tamryn frowns, pointing at her mother’s grave.
“It was Maeve’s pet.” I gasp, piecing it all together.
But Tamryn just shakes her head, jabbing her finger at the grave.
“I’m sorry.” I wince. “I don’t understand.”
Tauren pushes up from the grass to join us, while Tamryn pokes the grave insistently. The owl just stares at us, as if it’s waiting for us to figure it out.
“Did the owl belong to Elheart?” Tauren asks in a low voice.
Tamryn exhales, frustrated. I’m about to ask if the owl belonged to anybody at all when Tamryn does something that surprises us all.
“Ma…ma…”
I gasp, taking both her hands.
“She spoke!” Claren hurries over to us. “Tamryn, can you say that again for us?”
Her gaze darts between us, her lower lip trembling, before she turns back to the owl. “Mama.” She points at it.
“So it was Maeve’s pet?” Tauren reasons.
Tamryn shouts, “Ma! Ma!” Her fists clench in frustration.
“Let’s take a break.” Claren tries to guide her back to her sketchpad, but Tamryn is too furious to move. She points overand over again at the owl, just repeating the word while the owl stares at us with beady black eyes, darker than a moonless night?—
My lips part. I glance between them. Tauren. Claren. Tamryn. The owl. They all have the same eyes.
“Wait!” This is insane. There’s no way this is how demon magic works. Then again, I watched a fully grown man get dragged away by a horde of rats the other day, so I suppose anything is possible. “Could Maeve have transformed into an owl?”
“What?” Claren mutters.
Tamryn nods, tugging on my arm. “Mama!” she exclaims. “Mama!”
“Tamryn, is this owl your mother?” I ask, my heart pounding against my ribs.
Tamryn nods again, grinning.
“It’s not possible.” Tauren shakes his head. “To have that much power, she’d have to have eaten several souls.”
“What about one that loved her?” I think back to Navir in the woods, how he complained about Lady Urma’s soul barely having enough power for him to kidnap me. “Love is powerful, isn’t it?”
“She would’ve used that power to save Tamryn. Elheart said she was very sick,” Claren argues.
“But what if she wasn’t!” I throw my hands down. “Elheart said the healers didn’t see a point in treating her if she couldn’t talk.”
