The Girl at Midnight

The Ala had gone to the library in search of hope. She walked through the stacks, one hand tucked into the pocket of her trench coat, the other trailing over the cracked spines of well-loved books and through the dust collected on those lesser-loved ones. The last patron had departed hours earlier, yet the Ala kept her sunglasses on and her scarf wrapped tightly around her head and neck. The dimness of the library made her black skin appear almost human dark, but the feathers she had in place of hair and the unrelieved blackness of her eyes, as wide and glossy as a raven’s, were pure Avicen.

She was fond of books. They were an escape from responsibilities, from the other members of the Council of Elders, who looked to her—their only living Seer—for guidance, from the war that had raged for longer than most could remember. The last great battle had been fought more than a century ago, but the threat of violence lingered, each side waiting for the other to slip up, for that one tiny spark to
ignite a blaze beyond anyone’s control. Her fingers stopped their slow dance as a title caught her eye:
A Tale of Two Cities
. It might be nice to read about someone else’s war. Perhaps it would make her forget her own. She was about to pull the book off the shelf when she felt a feather-light tug on her coat pocket.

The Ala’s hand shot out to grab the pickpocket’s wrist. A girl, skinny and pale, clutched the Ala’s coin purse in a tight, tiny fist. She stared at the Ala’s exposed wrist, brown eyes unblinking.

“You’ve got feathers,” said the girl.

The Ala couldn’t remember the last time a human had seen her plumage and been so calm about it. Dropping the girl’s wrist, the Ala pulled the sleeve down over her forearm, straightening her coat and scarf to hide the rest of her.

“May I have my wallet back?” It wasn’t a wallet, not really. In place of money, it held a fine black powder that hummed with energy in the Ala’s hand, but the girl didn’t need to know that.

The thief looked up at her. “Why do you have feathers?”

“My wallet, please.”

The girl did not budge. “Why are you wearing sunglasses inside?”

“Wallet. Now.”

The girl looked at the small purse in her hand, seemed to consider it for a moment, then looked back at the Ala. Still she didn’t relinquish the item in question. “Why are you wearing a scarf? It’s June.”

“You’re very curious for a little girl,” the Ala said. “And it’s midnight. You aren’t supposed to be here.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, the thief replied, “Neither are you.”

The Ala couldn’t not smile. “Touché. Where are your parents?”

The girl tensed, eyes darting around, scouting an escape. “None of your business.”

“How about this,” the Ala said, crouching down so she was level with the girl’s eyes. “You tell me how you came to be in this library all alone in the middle of the night, and I’ll tell you why I have feathers.”

The girl studied her for a moment with a wariness at odds with her age. “I live here.”

Scuffing the toe of one dirty white sneaker against the linoleum floor, the girl peered at the Ala from under thick brown lashes and added, “Who are you?”

A multitude of questions wrapped in a neat little package. Who are you? What are you? Why are you? The Ala gave the only answer she could. “I am the Ala.”

“
The
Ala?” The girl rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t sound like a real name.”

“Your human tongue could never hope to pronounce mine,” the Ala said.

The girl’s eyes widened but she smiled, hesitantly, as though she wasn’t quite used to it. “So what should I call you?”

“You may call me the Ala. Or Ala, for short.”

The little thief scrunched her nose. “Isn’t that like calling a cat ‘cat’?”

“Perhaps,” the Ala said. “But there are many cats in the world, and only one Ala.”

The answer seemed to satisfy the girl. “Why are you
here? I’ve never seen anybody else in the library at night before.”

“Sometimes,” the Ala said, “when I’m feeling sad, I like to be around all these books. They’re very good at making you forget your troubles. It’s like having a million friends, wrapped in paper and scrawled in ink.”

“Don’t you have any normal friends?” the thief asked.

“No. Not as such.” There was no melancholy to the Ala’s answer. It was merely truth, stripped of adornment.

“That’s sad.” The girl slipped her hand into the Ala’s, one small finger stroking the delicate feathers on her knuckles. “I don’t have anyone either.”

“And how is it that a child has escaped the notice of everyone who works here?”

A little shyly, the girl said, “I’m good at hiding. I had to do it a lot. Back home, I mean. Before I came here.” With a determined nod, she added, “It’s better here.”

For the first time in as long as the Ala could remember, tears stung at the corner of her eyes.

“Sorry about taking your wallet.” The girl held the coin purse up to the Ala. “I got hungry. If I’d known you were sad, I wouldn’t have.”

A tiny thief with a conscience. Would wonders never cease?

“What’s your name?” the Ala asked.

The girl looked down but kept her hold on the Ala’s hand. “I don’t like it.”

“Why not?”

Shrugging a single bony shoulder, the girl said, “I don’t like the people who gave it to me.”

The Ala’s heart threatened to crumble to ashes. “Then maybe you should choose your own.”

“I can do that?” the little thief asked, dubious.

“You can do anything you want,” the Ala replied. “But think carefully on it. Names are not a thing to be rushed. There’s power in names.”

The girl smiled, and the Ala knew she would not be returning to the Nest alone that night. She had gone to the library in search of hope, but what she’d found instead was a child. It would take her many years to realize that the two were not so different.

Echo lived her life according to two rules, the first of which was simple: don’t get caught.

She stepped gingerly into the antiques shop nestled deep in a back alley of Taipei’s Shilin Night Market. Magic shimmered around the entrance like waves of air rising from hot cement on a sizzling summer’s day. If Echo looked at it dead-on, she saw nothing but an unmarked metal door, but when she angled her head just right, she caught the faint gleam of protective wards, the kind that made the shop all but invisible, except to those who knew what they were looking for.

The neon light that filtered in from the market was the only illumination in the shop. Shelves lined the walls, packed with antiques in varied states of disrepair. A dismantled cuckoo clock lay on the table in the center of the
room, its bird dangling from a sad, limp spring. The warlock that owned the shop specialized in enchanting mundane objects, some of which had more nefarious purposes than others. The darkest spells left behind a residue, though Echo had been around magic long enough to be able to sense it, like a chill up her spine. As long as she avoided those objects, she’d be fine.

Most of the items on the table were either too rusty or too broken to be an option. A silver hand mirror was marred by a crack that divided its face in two. A rusted clock ticked away the seconds in reverse. Two halves of a heart-shaped locket lay in pieces, as if someone had smashed it with a hammer. The only object that appeared to be in working order was a music box. Its enamel paint was chipped and worn, but the flock of birds that graced its lid was drawn in lovely, elegant lines. Echo flipped the top open and a familiar tune drifted from the box as a tiny black bird rotated on its stand.

The magpie’s lullaby
, she thought, slipping her backpack off her shoulders. The Ala would love it, even if the concept of birthdays and the presents that accompanied them was all but lost on her.