Page 62 of Imaginary Numbers

“Biology rarely does,” said Uncle Kevin, eyes gleaming. I realized he was excited. Thanks to the anti-telepathy charm, I couldn’t sense his emotions the way I normally could, which was how I’d been able to miss it for this long.

I glanced at Mom. She had the same half-hungry look on her face, barely concealed behind the veil of her concern for Sarah. I managed, barely, not to wince.

We’re all Prices, even me and Elsie; there’s never really been any question that if and when we marry, it’ll be the “Harrington” part of our names we shed, because we’re Prices. We were born to this fight and to the endless scholarship started by our ancestors when they left the Covenant and realized how little work had been done to preserve the secrets and stories of the various sapient beings who shared this world with humanity. People talk a lot about what it means to be a Price. We’re terrifying to the ones who oppose us, we’re weird to the ones who stand with us, we’re heroes to the ones who depend on us. But there’s one thing that tends to get left out of the conversation, treated as less important than the need to keep fighting and keep winning until the war is over:

We’re scientists. Mom and Uncle Kevin even more than Elsie and me. They’re the direct descendants of Thomas and Alice Price. They were raised to believe that the world can make sense, if they just try hard enough and refuse to stop poking at its soft bits. The cuckoos have been one of the greatest mysteries our family has ever encountered. We’d tried for years to learn more about their biology, without taking apart one of the two cuckoos we considered part of the family. To have one walk into our home and just start talking was, well . . .

It was no wonder this was going so slowly. The people who would normally have hurried things along—the people we instinctively still listened to, thanks to their age and our familial relationship—were too enthralled by the potential to learn something to focus on what actually mattered.

I was focused on what actually mattered. I was focused on Sarah. I took a step toward Mark.

“Third instar is a preparational step, fine,” I said. “Preparing for what?”

“When there are multiple potential Queens ready for their fourth instar, we test them,” said Mark. “I don’t mean ‘we’ as in ‘me,’ I mean ‘we’ as in ‘whoever has them.’ They’re tested, and they’re tried, and when one of them proves stronger than all the others, she’s given the numbers she needs to unlock her fourth metamorphosis. First morph is a necessity, second morph is a gift, third morph is a challenge, and fourth is an ascension.”

“So Sarah’s a god now?” asked Elsie. I doubted Mark could hear, or understand, the warning in her tone. “That’s going to make Thanksgiving dinner awkward.”

“If she survives the process, she’s not going to be a god, she’s going to be a Queen,” said Mark. “She’ll have the strength to do the math and put enough power behind it to blow this dimension to pieces. She’s going to smash this world like an eggshell. She’s going to open the way for the cuckoos to go somewhere else. If you don’t stop her, she’s going to destroy everything she’s ever cared about, and she’s going to destroy you in the process.”

“That sounds like something you’d want,” said Mom.

“It does, doesn’t it? I know it’s something she wants.” Mark jerked his chin toward the silent, furious Heloise. “But no. I’m here to help you stop this. I’m here because this needs to not happen. There’s one thing you need to do first, though, and it’s going to be hard.”

“What’s that?” asked Uncle Kevin.

Mark took a deep breath. “You’re going to need to trust me.”

Seventeen

“There are losses we don’t move past, no matter how hard we try. Some wounds, once inflicted, bleed forever underneath the skin. All we can do is learn to live with them.”

—Jonathan Healy

Back in the house, with two monsters in the barn, no big deal (very big deal)

THIS IS A BAD idea!” Mom was right up in Uncle Kevin’s face, shoulders locked, one finger jabbing at his chest like she thought she could poke him into seeing things her way. “We can’t let them go just because one of them is a good liar. Lying is what cuckoos do. You’d see that, if not for the part where you—”

She seemed to realize she was treading on dangerous ground and stopped herself mid-sentence. Not quickly enough; the damage was done.

“Which part, Janie? The part where I married a cuckoo’s daughter? The part where I welcomed my wife’s sister into my home? How much of this is about Sarah, and how much of it is about the part where you don’t want Artie to be in love with Sarah? You can marry an incubus, but God forbid the boy wants to date outside his species?”

Mom’s eyes went wide for a moment before narrowing into a menacing expression I knew all too well. “Kevin Alexander Price,” she said, grinding each word between her teeth before spitting it out, so his name became a condemnation, “I can’t believe you would say something like that to me. I can’t believe you would think that.”

“I can,” said Aunt Evie.

Antimony was suddenly at my elbow, grasping it and steering me away from the unsettling sight of our parents ripping into each other. I started to open my mouth. She shook her head, pulling me along to the kitchen, where James and Sam were waiting.

“You know the plan?” she asked, eyes on James.

He nodded, his still-damp hair sticking to his forehead and ears. “I’m good with intransigent parents,” he said. “Go save your cousin.”

Antimony nodded and started walking again, not letting go of me until we had reached the front door and slipped outside to the porch. Sam followed, easing the door shut again once we were all safely through. Annie let go of my elbow.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go get our cousin back.”

“What are you—we can’t go without them.” I gestured toward the house. “We don’t have the numbers to go up against a whole hive of cuckoos. It’ll be a bloodbath!”

“That’s why we’re picking up some reinforcements before we leave,” she said, and started across the lawn toward the barn, not looking back.