Page 29 of Petrified

Medusa’s expression answers before her mouth does.

Lev sees it too. He takes an immediate step backward and shakes his head. “No. Whatever you’re about to say, there has to be another version.”

“There isn’t.” Medusa glances toward the container again. “I have to consume it. Once it is physically back inside my body, the magic returns to the whole instead of remaining attached to the severed piece.”

Lev stares at her for several seconds as though refusing to understand might change the answer. The snake moves again, its body dragging along the metal with a sound that makes his face twist before he turns away from the container entirely.

Rowan reacts very differently. His jaw tightens, but there is something close to relief beneath it now that someone has finally given him a permanent solution. “Then eat the fucking snake. I don’t want another piece of that thing anywhere near us.”

Lev turns back toward him. “You’re taking this remarkably well for someone who knows exactly what it does.”

“That thing started petrifying my lungs.” Rowan looks toward the container and then back at Medusa. “If eating it means he can never use it again, I’m not interested in finding a prettier solution.”

Medusa exhales and reaches inside her coat for a pair of gloves. “Neither am I, but that doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to it.” She pulls one glove on, then the other, taking more time with them than she needs to.

I look between her and the snake. “What happens to any smaller pieces he may have cut from this one?”

“If they came from this section after he took it from me, they're feeding from the same severed connection.” Medusa flexes her gloved fingers and crouches beside the container. “Once I reabsorb the main piece and close that connection, those fragments should lose access to my magic as well. They may remain physically intact for a while, but he won’t be able to draw petrification through them.”

Lev’s attention goes immediately to the snakes still covering her head. “And there isn’t another piece somewhere that works independently?”

“Not unless he somehow came back and cut another snake directly from me.” Her face hardens at the thought. “He didn’t.”

That answer does nothing to improve Lev’s expression, but he lets it go when Medusa reaches toward the container.

The reaction is immediate.

The severed snake throws itself against the side hard enough to rattle the metal, and every snake on Medusa’s head responds at once. Several hiss sharply and pull backward while two stretch toward the box, their bodies tightening around one another near her temples. Medusa freezes with her hand above the opening until the movement settles enough for her to reach inside safely.

Rowan steps forward on instinct. He doesn't get far before Medusa raises her free hand toward him without taking her eyes off the snake. “Stay back. It knows what I’m about to do, and I don’t know how violently the magic is going to react once I start.”

Lev immediately puts more distance between himself and the container, coming to a stop just behind my shoulder. His attention stays fixed on Medusa’s hands even though everything about his posture says he would rather be somewhere else. “I’m letting you watch the magical mechanics of this one.”

I glance back at him. “You mean you don’t want to watch her eat it.”

“That too.” His mouth tightens when the snake strikes uselessly against Medusa’s gloved wrist. “You’re also the one who looks interested.”

I am, although interested isn’t the same thing as comfortable. There is something difficult to look away from in the way the severed magic responds to its original body. The closer Medusa draws the snake toward herself, the stronger her own signature becomes, while the petrification inside the severed piece pulses faster and less evenly.

The snake knows where it came from and Medusa knows what she has to do with it, but she still hesitates.

Her eyes close briefly before she tightens her grip behind the snake’s head. When they open again, the hesitation is gone. She mutters something too low for me to catch and brings the severed piece toward her mouth.

Lev makes a strangled sound behind me when she bites into it.

The process is worse because nothing about it becomes magical enough to make it easier. The snake doesn't dissolve into light or disappear the instant it touches her tongue. Medusa has to physically consume the thing, piece by piece, while it continues moving in her hands. Its body contracts and twists, the severed end jerking against her wrist as though some part of it's still trying to escape.

The snakes on her head react almost as strongly. Some hiss toward the piece every time it moves, while others curl tightly against her skull. Medusa keeps going through all of it, swallowing hard between bites and refusing to stop long enough to reconsider.

By the time she is halfway through, Lev turns toward the nearest wall. He presses one hand over his mouth for a second before dropping it again. “I cannot watch the rest of this.”

Rowan stays focused on Medusa, his shoulders rigid. “I can. I want to know when every last piece of it's gone.”

There is nothing casual in his voice, and Lev doesn't answer this time. Rowan remembers the stone climbing over his chest too clearly for any of us to pretend this is only disgusting.

Medusa gets through another section before her entire body suddenly stiffens.

The room changes with her, the magic trapped inside the snake pulling inward so sharply that I feel it across my skin. The weaker petrification signature surges once, then folds toward Medusa as though something has finally opened between them. Her own power rises to meet it, filling the shop with enough pressure that the snakes around her head go completely still.