“No. We must go back.”

Shit, we’re wasting time. What if the woman disappeared while she was explaining to him what she’d seen?

She had two options. Go back with Orpheus and hope she didn’t lose this strange woman, or force him to follow her.

“Follow me, Reia,” a whisper said into her ear. “I cannot remain here for long.”

Her head spun to look behind her to find the space was empty.

She knows my name. What did her words mean?

She turned her head up to Orpheus. Something inside her was telling her she had to follow, that it was important, that this mattered.

“I’m sorry.”

Reia ran, heading down the street before he could stop her.

“Reia!”

She ignored him as she held onto her mask to keep it down. Her new shoes patted against the hard dirt ground as she gave chase, searching everywhere through the eyeholes of her mask for a flicker of white.

Reia went down a street that was more like a laneway when she saw her duck into it. She was gone, and it was a dead end. She spun on the spot.

Where’d she go?!

Orpheus was with her not even a second later, and she ran into him when she turned. His eyes were a fierce red and a terrible growl was coming from him.

“You promised to stay with me!” He grabbed her arms and squeezed them in anger. “I would not have brought you here if I knew you would do this.”

“A woman was speaking to me,” she said, forgoing her quietness in her panic of losing her. She continued to search around the empty area. “She knew my name, Orpheus.”

“And you thought following her was wise?” He leaned closer as the depth of his rumbling grew darker. “If she knows your name, then she knows what you are.”

“It looked like a human.”

She ignored him to look around, desperately trying to find her. Her eyes grew wide when she finally noticed the shop name at the end of the laneway. Black Cat’s Bookshop.

“There!” She pointed to it as she grabbed his hand to start pulling him that way. “We need to go in there.”

“Are you going to run from me again if I don’t?”

“Yes,” she answered flatly.

With a snarl, he started storming in that direction, forcing her to sprint between certain steps to keep up with his agitated strides. He shoved the door open, making it slam against the wall at the same time a bell rang above.

He started searching between aisles of books, looking for the woman she’d spoken of. He looked hostile, like the person might not be safe if he found them.

“There is no one here,” he said to her when he was done.

“No one but the shopkeeper.”

Her heart sunk, and she turned her sight to the Demon who was staring at them wide-eyed with cat ears poking up from his head while whiskers twitched on his face. She noticed a long tail swaying from behind him as he retreated behind the counter to hide from Orpheus, who was obviously seething with rage.

“But—”

Her words were cut short when she saw a white feather on the ground near her feet. She bent over and picked it up, twirling it in her fingers when she brought it to her face.

Orpheus covered her fingers to hide them while allowing the feather to be free above their hands. He leaned in to sniff it.

“You saw the Witch Owl,” he said quietly, his eyes turning back to their normal blue. Once more, he looked around.

“She must want you to find something in here.”

“A book?” she asked before eyeing what had to be hundreds of them all neatly put away on shelves.

“Most likely.” His head turned to the door. “For whatever reason, she has guided you here.” He looked torn as he stared in the direction of outside. “She has helped me many times, as you saw with the garden, but we must return to the Mavka. He cannot be by himself.”

“Can I stay here while you get him?” When he shook his head, she quickly added, “I won’t leave, and there is no one else here besides the shopkeeper.” She gestured to him. “I also have my sword.”

His eyes flashed white with worry, and she could see tension building in his body.

“Reia, I cannot leave you by yourself.”

“Please, Orpheus? I’ll stay hidden if anyone comes in, and the shopkeeper has already seen you and knows that I’m with you.”

She looked at him and saw he was still slightly cowering behind the counter. He was small, perhaps even shorter than Reia, and didn’t look strong at all.

Orpheus nodded hesitantly and nuzzled the side of her mask.

“Yes, we shouldn’t ignore the Witch Owl. Stay here, do not leave even if she calls you to go somewhere else. I’ll be back shortly.” Then he turned to the cat Demon to give him loud snarl and purposefully flared his eyes red. “Come near her, and I will kill you.”

It took him a moment to leave, staring at her as if his feet were rooted to the ground. It appeared he was unwilling to part from her. Then he huffed heavily with his fists clenched before he sprinted out of the shop. She had no doubt he’d run the entire way if he needed to.

Reia turned to cat Demon. “Did you see someone covered in white feathers?”

“Yes,” he answered shakily, pointing in a certain direction with a thin claw.

She realised she hadn’t needed to ask him at all for assistance as more feathers had been dropped along the floor. She followed them while picking them up one-by-one as they led to three different shelves.

She didn’t know which book to grab out of the many. They were obviously stolen from humans because some were of dancing techniques, others on how to build a house – she took that one for the Mavka, thinking that was what she was supposed to grab.

It was only when she was about to walk away that she noticed something sticking out from the top of a certain book. She grabbed it and found a white feather stuck between the pages.

A fighting technique book? She flicked through it, finding pages upon pages of different techniques and stances to learn how to fight with a sword. There were passages written, explaining how to do them correctly, while drawings

aided the reader to explain how they needed to stand visually.

This would be so helpful in learning how to use my sword!