Free Murder of Crows (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 2) by Annie Bellet Page B

just hadn’t noticed back then.
    “It is our home,” Pearl said. “Without Shishishiel to protect us, who knows what might happen. The world is not a very nice place.”
    I almost started to argue that there was a lot of good out there, freedom, people who didn’t throw people out who weren’t like them, but then I thought about how it might be for someone who had lived in a bubble for centuries. And I thought, fleetingly, about Samir. There was a lot of evil in the world.
    Yet, hiding from it hadn’t helped me, and it didn’t seem to have helped the People. Evil had still found them.
    “Are you sure Shishishiel still protects you?” I said.
    “Yes.” Her tone allowed no further questions along those lines and I decided to take a hint and drop it. She set down the folded stack of clothing and pulled over a small wooden stool from the vanity.
    “Who is Not Afraid?” I asked.
    “Where did you hear that name?”
    “Carlos, the other Justice. He talked to the guy who has been killing your people. That was the name he gave.” I watched her face carefully, but her expression was guarded; only a slight tension about the mouth and eyes giving away any emotion at all, and I wasn’t sure what that emotion was yet.
    “A little more than a hundred years ago, there was a murder like these ones. It only happened once then, because Sky Heart caught the man responsible and he was executed. That man was called William Not Afraid. He is dead. Whoever this man is, he cannot be Not Afraid.” She shook her head emphatically, as though it would help make her words true.
    “Who did Not Afraid kill back then?” That was what I envisioned a cop on Law and Order asking. Trace the original crime, see what started that, then you could find out why there was a copycat. Of course, cops didn’t have to contend with near immortal beings, magic, or spirits. Lucky them.
    “Opal,” Pearl said softly. “Sky Heart’s second wife.”
    Figured he would be at the center of this. “Did he ever tell you why?” I didn’t clarify if I meant Sky Heart or Not Afraid, because I didn’t care how she took it. Either would do if she had an answer, so I left it deliberately ambiguous.
    “No. It may have had something to do with Not Afraid’s twin sister. That is what I have always suspected, but Sky Heart won’t speak of it.” She looked down at her hands and picked at imaginary lint on her jeans.
    “What happened to his twin?” I asked after a moment, when it seemed she wasn’t going to continue on her own.
    “She wasn’t Crow. She was exiled.” Pearl kept her eyes down, not meeting mine.
    “Not Afraid was Crow?” I asked, thinking of Carlos telling me that he was sure the man who had captured them was not a shifter.
    “Yes, but Buttercup was not Crow. She wasn’t even shifter, but one of the rare normal human births. She was exiled, sent away to live with missionaries as we usually did then with those who were not People. But Sky Heart wouldn’t tell Not Afraid where he had sent his twin, and he wouldn’t let Not Afraid leave to find her. They were very angry with each other. Not Afraid seemed insane with rage. They fought and it shook the forest. Sky Heart and Shishishiel had no choice but to kill him.”
    She looked up then, but her eyes stared past me, right into her memories. I realized I had no idea how old my mother was. Older than I’d thought. I wondered what I would remember in a century or three, what events would stick and what would fade into fog and be lost to me forever.
    Buck up, kid , I told myself. I doubt Samir will let you live that long .
    I closed my eyes and sank lower in the tub. At least I had some information. Carlos had said it was a man and not a shifter. Maybe it was a descendant of the twin. If she had harbored a grudge for her whole life and had children, it was possible she could have passed that grudge on to them and one grandchild or great grandchild had come to collect.
    Which didn’t explain