The first reason seemed more plausible of course, but the more Paco studied her chirps and murmurs, the more he was convinced that her “words” were too complex to be of a normal child’s making. She was smarter than a normal child her age, that much they knew. But just how smart was she, really? Paco had begun studying her secret language in depth, fascinated as he was by its nuances. He could even say a few words in it now, words that pertained to simple things like cloud or tree, but claimed that he could never get the inflection right. Stella would look at him strangely whenever he tried to speak in her tongue, an amused look that made Paco think she was laughing at him. And now she wanted to eat him? Dorian decided that it was impossible to keep her instincts—if that was what they were—
