Page 90 of The Turning of the Tables

It was different than the Lyme. Different than the alpha-gal. Those were things that Ihad,not things that Iwas. I didn’thaveArcanavirus anymore. I’d had it, and it changed me. And yeah, okay, the alpha-gal was a change—I’d beenbitten by a tick, and then stuck with the alpha-gal. Ditto with Lyme. But they were still somehow different.

Sure, you could consider Arcanism a disease—and there were people who did. The Cure Arcanism Society, for one, who were only marginally less bigoted and annoying than the Magic-Free Movement. At that precise moment, I kind of understood why someone might want a cure—if some injection or course of medications would have cured me in that moment, I absolutely would have taken them.

But would I have wanted to eliminate all Arcanids? To tell Noah or Elliot or Hart that they shouldn’t be what they were? Of course not. I wondered if any of them would have cured their Arcanism if they had the choice. If Taavi, who had beenborna shifter, would choose to not be one, even though he’d never known any other existence.

I was a little afraid to ask. Because either I would find out just how much they hated being Nids, or I’d horribly offend them. Or both.

But despite the questionable scientific research of the CAS and the less-questionable research of several actual medical organizations researching Arcanavirus and Arcanism, there was no cure. The Arcanavirus altered your DNA, changing the essence of who and what you were. Not enough to technically make you a different species altogether, but enough to make you a different breed—like a German Shepherd instead of a Golden Retriever.Homo sapiens arcanicus,instead ofHomo sapiens sapiens.

My stomach growled again, more loudly this time.

Noah looked up from where he was crouched next to his rather impressive collection of movies. Noah’s the sort of person who likes to have hard copies of everything, ‘just in case.’ ‘Just in case’ what, I wasn’t sure. Most things we could also stream, but I had the feeling Noah needed a comfortmovie—or, at least, he thought I did, which at the moment amounted to the same thing.

“You need to eat, Sethy,” he said seriously.

I nodded. “Probably,” I agreed.

He pushed himself to his feet. “What do you want? I can order Thai or Chinese or run out to get ramen or pho or Indian?—”

“Toast?” I suggested. Clearly Noah’s ambitions for my dietary readiness far exceeded mine.

“Toast,” he repeated, both disappointed and incredulous.

“With peanut butter?”

He just looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had.

“Do you have bananas?” I asked.

“You want toast with peanut butter and banana,” he repeated.

I nodded.

“Seth, you needfood. And protein.”

“Peanut butter has protein,” I pointed out. “And those are food.”

Noah sighed. “Seth, you need calories. A lot of them.” I knew he was worried because he almost never used my actual name.

“Peanut butter is incredibly calorie-dense.”

“Are you going to eat five of them?” he asked me.

“Do we have five bananas?” I countered.

“No. We have three. But that’s not the point.”

I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck, exhaustion hitting me hard and fast for no good reason. “Noah, please just make me toast?”

He was crouched at my side immediately, fingers warm against my forehead. “Are you okay? Do you feel?—”

“I’m just tired, Nono,” I told him. My stomach growled again. “And hungry.”

He frowned down at me, but took his hand away and stood, nodding. “Okay. Toast with peanut butter and bananas.”

He went to the kitchen, where I heard him moving around.

In my pocket, my phone buzzed. It took me far longer than it should have to sit up and dig it out.