Three weeks pass in no time, and with each new day, Nadia finds herself returning to the cabin in the woods without question. She finishes her shifts at Vampire City General, ignores the curious glances from her friends, sidesteps their invitations to dine or relax, and flies straight into the trees. To Lou. To Triss and Zenith. But most of all, to ‘her’. To Shino; her assumed daughter.
The child remains as strange and unknowable as the day she appeared, yet something about her presence tugs at Nadia in ways she can’t easily explain. The girl is always waiting quietly, still, sitting near the window or beside the fireplace, as though she senses Nadia’s arrival moments before it happens. She never speaks. Not even once. She’s mute, but by choice or biologically?
