Of Crows and Eagles // Grishaverse

Alive

Alina

Alina stared at the troubled faces before her. Nikolai with his tense jaw and furrowed brows, Tolya, eyes wide, and Zoya, her lips parted, reaching out to rest a hand on Alina's shoulder.

"Do tell," Nikolai said, stepping aside so she and Mal could make their way to a nearby pew. As they did, Nikolai moved to perch on the arm of a pew across the aisle, while Zoya and Tolya remained standing.

"Well," Mal said, resting his elbows on his knees. "Where would you like us to begin?" His face was expressionless, but Alina caught the way his eyes flicked back and forth, never settling on one place for more than a moment.

"Wherever seems fit," Zoya said.

Alina shared a glance with Mal. He shrugged, a grim smile playing across his lips. "If that's the case," she said, "we might as well just tell you that half of your noble families, as well as their servants, are dead."

After finding the bodies of the mansion's staff, Mal and Alina had made their way back to the front of the house, peering through the other windows as they went. In every bedroom they found, there had been a body.

Alina could feel her heart racing, could see her terror reflected in Mal's eyes. Neither of them had said a word since finding the blood-soaked bodies of the household children, their ivory nightclothes stained a deep crimson, already starting to turn brown as they dried.

"Maybe the Saints just wanted to make our jobs easier," Mal said with a mirthless smile.

"What Saints?" Alina asked, turning back to the street. Mal followed her without a word. She knew, rationally, that the murdered family had presented a perfect opportunity for them to steal the clothes, but the thought of shattering one of the house's many windows, picking her way through the field of bodies, all for some threadbare servants attire made her want to gag. Something about respecting the dead, or whatnot.

And so they had raced down the road to the next house, a slightly smaller mansion, painted palest blue with ice white shingles. Once again, not a single window had been ajar, each one firmly locked, curtains drawn. They circled the house, finally reaching the servants' quarters at the very back.

The servants weren't allowed the luxury of curtains, their rooms separated from the outside world by nothing but a thin pane of glass. Alina peered through, half ready to just break it with her bare hand. To hell with getting caught.

The room itself was a near perfect twin of the servants' room at the other mansion. A cot with a thin mattress in one corner, a rickety wooden chair in the other. This one at least had a small table, on which sat a lamp, a pen and sheet of paper, and a tarnished letter opener, casting long shadows on the wall behind them.

The room was empty, still. Too still for this time of night. Alina could feel her heart beginning to pound against her chest as she dared to glance at the floor of the room. Later, she couldn't understand why she felt so surprised to see the woman's body lying face down on the floor, blood spilling from a wound in her back.

Mal must've seen the way her shoulders tensed, the way she seemed to coil into herself. He stepped forward, peering over her shoulder. He didn't waste time with pleasantries, his eyes roving straight to the room's dusty wooden floorboards. "Saints," he whispered.

"What is this?" Alina asked, horrified, nearly choking on the words. It felt like some kind of cruel joke, like maybe, if they just kept staring, the woman would prove to have been taking an impromptu nap.

At that moment, Alina heard the sound of footsteps against grass. "We need to go," Mal whispered, grabbing her hand. "I'd rather not meet whoever's responsible for this mess."