Read The Girl at Midnight for Free Online Page A

works. Altair and I are both members of the council, and as such our word holds equal weight.”
    “Yeah, but someone’s word should lose a little weight if he’s an asshole,” said Echo.
    The Ala tutted, but she couldn’t hold back a tiny smile. Her long-standing dislike of the general was a poorly guarded secret. “Ah, if only we were a dictatorship like the Drakharin.”
    “Well, I think you’d be a benevolent dictator,” Echo said. “At least for a few years. Before your inner Stalin kicked in.” She took a final bite of whoopie pie. “Power corrupts.”
    “I appreciate the vote of confidence,” said the Ala. “Butwhat I would appreciate more right now is a little silence while I figure out how to proceed. This message was left behind like this—and not sent to Altair—for a reason.”
    “Do you think the firebird is in Kyoto?” Echo asked.
    The Ala shook her head. “No, if it were, Altair would have found it years ago.” She heaved a weary sigh and waved in the general direction of the door. “I need time to think. Go, run along.”
    “Works for me.” Echo pushed herself up from the chaise longue. “I’ve got a bag of stolen candy that’s not gonna eat itself.” She hefted her backpack over her shoulder and made her way to the door. With one hand on the knob, she turned back to look at the Ala, stooped over the map. There was so much she wanted to ask, but she’d never before seen such sadness on the Ala’s face. Prying didn’t feel quite right.
    “Hey, Ala?”
    The Ala hmmed in response but didn’t look up from the map.
    Echo tapped her fingers against the knob.
One for sorrow, two for mirth
. “The person who was sent after the firebird … did you know her well?”
    The Ala tore her eyes away from the map, blinking up at Echo as though she were surfacing from the bottom of a pool. When she spoke, her voice was far away, as if weighed down by sadness. “I thought I did,” the Ala said. “But sometimes I wonder if it’s possible to ever really know anyone.”

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Echo was no more than two steps beyond the Ala’s door when she was besieged by a pack of children. They might as well have been raised by wolves, for all the supervision they received from the elder Avicen. Like frenzied urchins, they clung to Echo’s legs, clamoring for her attention. The downy feathers tufted on their arms and heads came in all hues. They were the sapphire shades of bluebirds, and the vivid red of cardinals, and even the soft bubble-gum pink of flamingo feathers. And each of the children was vying to be heard over the rest.
    “Echo, Echo!”
    “What did you bring us?”
    “—is there candy, you said there’d be candy, last time there was no candy—”
    “—Echo, Flint pushed me, and then I pulled on his feathers, but then he—”
    “Enough, enough!” Echo shouted with a laugh. “Yes,I brought you candy”—a cheer rose through the tiny crowd—“and, Flint, you shouldn’t push people, if you have a crush on Daisy, you’ll stand a better chance if you just tell her nicely”—a small red-feathered Aviceling grumbled in protest—“and, Daisy, good girl, somebody hits you, you hit ’em back, just like I taught you.”
    Echo pulled a paper bag full of colorful rock candy from her backpack. “Here, you fiends.” She tossed the bag into the cluster of Avicelings. “Eat it all at once. Make yourselves sick. That’ll teach you the dangers of your gluttony. Little beasts.”
    A quiet laugh came from one of the archways leading deeper into the Nest. Echo broke into a grin when she spotted an Avicen with familiar white feathers and the jet-black eyes of a dove.
    “Greetings,” Echo said, bending into an exaggerated bow, “my sister from another mister.”
    “Greeting, Echo, queen of the orphans.” Ivy curtsied. They’d been best friends since the day Echo had arrived at the Nest as a child, bonding the way only two seven-year-olds could. Ivy waved at Daisy, who pushed