Page 109 of Reaper's Quest

“You should be taking it easy,” Camilla said.

Using her hands, she swept together the bits of broken glass from the carafe she’d dropped. She flinched. Pulled back her hand.

A bead of blood bloomed on the tip of her finger. So far, the second cut that the cleanup process had gifted Camilla.

She swept a pointed finger across the cluttered debris. “If you insist on getting up, be careful of the broken glass.”

I peered down at my bare feet. My toes pressed to the floor at the edge of the sharp, shattered pieces. “My clothes?”

Even though I had arrived in appropriate work gear, I now wore a loose-fitting top and flimsy shorts that covered only the bare necessities.

Who had changed me? Camilla or Winter?

Camilla sat back on her heels, pausing in the midst of her cleanup. “Your cloak and…stick thingy…are downstairs. But in order to address your wounds, Winter had to cut your garments off.”

I pressed my lips together tightly. Not only had Winter saved me and seen me weak and vulnerable, but he’d also seen me stripped bare. And not in a sexy kind of way.

I stifled a groan.

Whatever Winter saw, I wouldn’t let it bother me. Not right then.

“You look bothered.” Camilla’s comment snapped me out of my momentary unease. “Is it the clothing or Winter? Because if it’s Winter, you needn’t worry. He has been totally doting on you, and there hasn’t beenanythinghere that he hasn’t seen thousands of times over, long before he showed up with you at my doorstep.”

He hadn’t seenmy“anythings.”

She tipped her head to the side and gnawed on her lip. “Actually, he’s been rather tame as of late.”

Deep introspection ruled her features for half a breath,then she tilted her gaze to me and smiled. Only the expression didn’t meet her eyes and hit me as melancholy.

“Maybe that has something to do with you,” she said.

I blinked, unsure how to respond to any of that.

A young girl darted into the room and rushed to me, circumventing the broken glass. With an ear-piercing squeal, she threw her arms around me and pressed her head to my belly.Ouch.

“You’re better. I knew you’d get better.”

I reluctantly wrapped my arms around her, returning the hug. Although we’d had no official introduction, I held fuzzy memories of the girl from my initial arrival at the home, then the other day when I’d briefly awakened, and (most curiously) from the dark dream in the catacombs…with the female, Watcher, worthy of further investigation.

I clutched the girl’s upper arms and moved her back a step. “You were there, weren’t you?”

She didn’t appear to register my meaning. Instead, her lips lifted in a slight curve of embarrassment, and her cheeks reddened.

“I’m sorry we walked in on you and Winter yesterday. But we felt it important that your healing move faster. Immediately faster. So, we interrupted. Accelerated things.”

“You did what?” My body went slack. My thoughts raced to Winter’s words—a population of magic wielders.

Had this child magically accelerated my healing process?

Camilla uncoiled from the floor and wiped her hands free of any clinging glass dust. The soft gaze she laid upon her daughter radiated with pride and sadness. “My Kira is good in that way. A healing hand, that one.”

A second child?a milky-eyed, gray-skinned version ofthe girl standing before me?stepped into the room and hesitated a foot inside the doorway.

Twins. Of course. One healthy and one afflicted.

I vaguely recalled that thought registering upon my arrival and first encounter. Naturally, having been half out of my mind at the time…weak and hurting and hallucinating…I’d viewed the things I experienced through an untrustworthy filter.

Camilla glanced at the second child, pain flashing in her eyes. “And this is my baby girl, Myla. Born a couple minutes after Kira. They tend to do most things together, even after…”