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The spider screams again and disappears.
The witchlight returns, strong and golden, gleaming over the scales of the five-meter snake still half-draped over me. With a faint, dry rattle, the snake’s form contracts back into Doctor Prince. The hood folds into her shoulder just before her clothes cover the hump. She shifts her legs off me and smooths down her jacket. Then she stands and offers me a hand.
I take it and let her help me into an unbroken chair.
She cups my face in her hands. “Teddy, look at me.”
I do, blinking and uncertain.
“Mm. I want you to see the healers. Yes, I know you can heal yourself, but I think you have a concussion. Your right pupil’s blown. Better let them do it this time.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Other than what I’m sure is a splitting headache, are you okay?”
I take stock of my body, still tight and shaking with adrenaline. All my muscles are starting to ache, even ones I didn’t use during the fight. Maybe because I spent half of it crushed under a giant snake’s tail. “Just sore I think, miss.”
“Do you have any questions for me?” she asks, coolly, levelly, like she didn’t just turn into a giant snake and battle a Fate.
“You’re a—?”
“Naga,” Doctor Prince finishes my half-asked question. “A snake-shifter.”
“An-and do people know?”
“The school administration and some of the staff know. There’s a huge prejudice against shifters, as I’m sure you’re aware. I’m careful who I tell.”
“Thank you for trusting me, miss. I felt the ring burn.” I hold my right hand out, with its pink band of flesh around my ring finger. The ring burned off completely, taking a lot of my skin with it, but with all the magic I was throwing around, it healed. “Is that how you knew?”
“Yes, and I claimed the Bladelaw as my territory when I came to Bevington. I know everything that goes on within it. I felt it when your chant thinned the Veil.”
“I didn’t know that’s what the spell did. It didn’t seem to have any effect.”
“The tenth stair?” At my nod, she says, “One of the unusual things about the Acta Capricornis is that the stairs produce different effects for different mages. It makes the Acta impossible to teach. For me, the tenth stair thins the Veil between our world and others. It felt like it did something very similar for you. You were smart, turning the Acta to stone. My snake-form’s venom would have ruined it if it had hit the parchment. Impressive foresight, Teddy. Top marks.”
“Thank you, miss.”
Doctor Prince straightens and steps away, letting my boys press forward. Gabe sinks to his knees next to my chair and wraps his arms around me while Darwin puts a hand on my shoulder and shifts to stand between me and Doctor Prince.
His alphahole-ness makes me giggle.
Three pairs of eyes turn to me.
“Concussed,” Gabe says.
I stick my tongue out at him.
“Definitely concussed,” Darwin says, shaking his head at me.
“Admit you’re a little glad I’m still alive.”
“I’m very glad you’re still alive,” he says. “So you can continue being a giant pain in my ass. We were gone for less than thirty minutes.”
“Because time and pork rinds wait for no man.”
“Oh, baby, you’re really concussed,” Gabe says, stroking my cheek.
“You’re a giant, walking, magickal bullseye, is what you are,” Darwin grumbles.
