Wicked Ever After (A Blud Novel Book 7) by Delilah S. Dawson Page A

thick Scottish accent—and his affection for the bird. “Wee fellow hatched out in m’wife’s shop, the runt of the litter, as it was. I took te feedin’ him worms and bits of food, and he never would fly away. So now he stays with me always. Right fine for finding lost nails, aren’t ye, lad?” He held out a finger, and the bird stepped up and rubbed his beak along Thom’s thumb. When Thom held him out to me, I let the handsome creature step up onto my hand.
    “Oh, who’s handsome? Who’s a handsome bird?” Archie preened and made some satisfied noises, and I realized that while rats and bunnies now hissed at me and ran away and horses looked as if they wanted to fight me, the bird didn’t seem to care that I was a predator. And it was refreshing.
    “Your wife raises birds?” Crim asked, more politely than I was used to in his dealings with unknown humans.
    Thom nodded, removed his hat, and tidied his queue. “ Aye. Frannie runs a pet shop on the edge of the daimon district.”
    “Next door to Reve’s shop. Casper introduced us to Frannie and Thom,” Demi added helpfully, and I did the complex connections in my head, remembering that Reve was a lovely daimon who helped Demi with the complicated wardrobe of her cabaret.
    Crim smiled at me and stroked the bird’s sleek chest. “Perhaps we should stop by. You’d like a pet, wouldn’t you, love?”
    Having accidentally destroyed the last three clockworks Mr. Murdoch had designed for me, I grudgingly nodded. “I can keep an animal alive. They squawk when you nearly sit on them.” With his blond hair pulled back and his hat firmly in place, Thom whistled, and the bird flew from my finger back to his master. “But aren’t we in a hurry?”
    Crim grinned. “Our next step is Deep Darkside and the most dangerous folk therein. I suspect most of these scoundrels do dealings with someone who sells exotic animals, yes?” Thom nodded. “A magician needs a familiar, you see, and the right food to feed it. So your Frannie might know the witch or at least have heard something of her.” He stepped behind me, rubbing my shoulders, which had risen around my ears as I contemplated more time until the hunt for my grandmother began in earnest. “Relax, love. The more we know, the more we take into battle.”
    “But my grandmother—”
    “Is just as powerful as you and might not know how to find the witch, either.”
    “The wife has a new batch of kittens,” Thom added helpfully.
    “I haven’t seen a kitten in six years,” I said, suddenly wistful.
    And that pretty much sealed it for me. Kittens and info it was.
    Frannie’s pet shop was one of the most wonderful things I’d seen in Sang. Truth be told, I’d missed interacting with cute animals that didn’t want to suck out my bone marrow. From the moment we stepped into the brightly painted store, greeted by the songs of birds and wild barking from a gaily striped bin of rowdy corgi pups, I wanted to plant myself on the ground and just be mobbed by warm, excitable, wriggling things. Criminy was immediately taken with the ink-black crows and set about inspecting them like the judge at a county fair.
    “Frannie, lass! We’ve visitors,” Thom called, but she was already hurrying through a curtained door and into his arms.
    Thom was covered in the sort of grime a man collects during a day of hard work, and as soon as I saw Frannie nestling against him despite the muck—and covered in her own coating of tweed and feathers—I knew I would like her.
    “This is Criminy and Letitia Stain. Friends of Demi and Vale. Fine folks.”
    Frannie stepped back to smile at us, small and brown and quick as a London sparrow. “Nice to meet you, then. Are you looking for something in particular? You’ve the look of a conjurer about you, sir, if you don’t mind my saying.”
    “I don’t mind, love, and you’re correct. I’ve never had a familiar before. But my lady could use some proper companionship. Keeps breaking