Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children

Mr. White stabbed Bekhir in the thigh. Just like that: quick and emotionless, the blade going in and out. Bekhir howled in surprise and pain and rolled onto his side, gripping his leg as blood began to flow.

Horace fainted and slid to the floor. Olive gasped and covered her eyes.

“That’s twice you’ve lied to me,” Mr. White said, wiping the blade clean on a handkerchief.

The rest of us clenched our teeth and held our tongues, but I could see Emma plotting revenge already, clasping her hands together behind her back, getting them nice and warm.

Mr. White dropped the bloody handkerchief on the floor, slid the knife back into its sheath, and stood up to face us. He was almost but not quite smiling, his eyes wide, unibrow raised in a capital M.

“Where is your bird?” he asked calmly. The nicer he pretended to be, the more it scared the hell out of me.

“She flew away,” Emma said bitterly. “Just like that man told you.”

I wished she hadn’t said anything; now I was afraid he’d single her out for torment.

Mr. White stepped toward Emma and said, “Her wing was injured. You were seen with her just yesterday. She couldn’t be far from here.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll ask you again.”

“She died,” I said. “We threw her in a river.”

Maybe if I were a bigger pain in his butt than Emma, he’d forget she’d ever spoken.

Mr. White sighed. His right hand glided across his holstered gun, lingered over the handle of his knife, then came to rest on his belt’s brass buckle. He lowered his voice, as if what he was about to say were meant for my ears only.

“I see what the trouble is. You believe there’s nothing to be gained by being honest with me. That we will kill you regardless of what you do or say. I need you to know this is not the case. However, in the spirit of total honesty, I will say this: you shouldn’t have made us chase you. That was a mistake. This could’ve been so much easier, but now everyone’s angry, you see, because you’ve wasted so much of our time.”

He flicked a finger toward his soldiers. “These men? They’d like very much to hurt you. I, on the other hand, am able to consider things from your point of view. We do seem frightening, I understand that. Our first meeting, on board my submarine, was regrettably uncivil. What’s more, your ymbrynes have been poisoning you with misinformation about us for generations. So it’s only natural that you’d run. In light of all that, I’m willing to make you what I believe to be a reasonable offer. Show us to the bird right now, and rather than hurting you, we’ll send you off to a nice facility where you’ll be well looked after. Fed every day, each with your own bed … a place no more restrictive than that ridiculous loop you’ve been hiding in all these years.”

Mr. White looked at his men and laughed. “Can you believe they spent the last—what is it, seventy years?—on a tiny island, living the same day over and over? Worse than any prison camp I can think of. It would’ve been so