I knew Shelby needed an anti-telepathy charm if she was going to be in the house. I’d planned for it. So how was it that the second I saw her standing there in her pretty blue dress, I forgot about everything important?

The TV in the living room was still on, and Sarah was unlikely to have moved as long as her show was playing. That was something, anyway.

The anti-telepathy charm was wedged into the bottom of the drawer, next to an anti-hex charm and a basilisk’s claw. I grabbed the thin cotton cord of the charm I’d been looking for and slammed the drawer, running back to the kitchen. I slapped a smile across my face and pushed the door open.

“Sorry about that, Shelby; I just didn’t want to risk forgetting—” I stopped mid-sentence.

Shelby was no longer at the kitchen table. She was standing near the sliding glass door to the backyard, frowning out into the darkness. “I think I saw something moving out there,” she said, stepping closer, so that her face was practically pressed up against the glass. “It didn’t look like a raccoon . . .”

I didn’t think: I just moved, racing across the room and shoving her out of the way just before the creature she’d seen lunged toward the door. I caught a glimpse of madly flapping wings and a tail like a whip before a searing pain lanced through my eyes.

The world went gray.

Eight

“The natural world has a place for everything. It’s just that some of those things make me think that Nature isn’t very fond of people.”

—Martin Baker

In the kitchen of an only moderately creepy suburban home in Columbus, Ohio, trying not to collapse from the sudden intense pain

“ALEX!”

Shelby’s shout snapped me out of my shock. I clapped my hands over my face—too little too late—and kicked the door, sending reverberations through the glass.

“Shoo!” I shouted. “Go on, get out of here! You’re not welcome!” I kicked the door again. The pain in my eyes was immense, burning and freezing at the same time. I kicked the door a third time before staggering backward, bellowing, “Sarah!”

I had asked her to be good. She had promised. Being good meant staying out of sight, and Sarah kept her promises. She didn’t answer me.

“It’s gone, Alex, whatever it was, it’s gone.” Shelby grabbed for my elbow, trying to find purchase on my moving arm. “What’s wrong? Let me see.”

“No.” I closed my eyes tightly, gritting my teeth against the urge to shout for Sarah again. “Can you please get me to the kitchen table?”

“Alex, this really isn’t the time—”

“Please!”

She went momentarily silent before she said, “All right, Alex. There’s no need to shout.” Her hand caught my elbow. “It’s this way.”

“Thank you.” The pain was like nothing I had ever felt before. It was definitely something I never wanted to feel again.

“What’s going on? What was that thing? What’s the matter with your eyes?”

“I don’t know what it was, but you’re going to need to trust me for a minute, okay?” If only the backyard had been better lit. I hadn’t been able to see the thing that got me well enough to tell whether or not its wings had feathers. Feathers would mean basilisk; lack of feathers meant cockatrice. “My cousin is in the other room. She can’t hear me with the TV on. Go get her.”

“Alex . . .”

“Please.” The pain in my eyes wasn’t getting better, and in this situation, that was a good thing. Stone doesn’t hurt.

There had been a thick pane of glass between me and the creature, even if it wasn’t properly polarized, and petrifaction is known to be less effective at a distance. Those factors combined might be enough to save my vision.

“I don’t understand any of this.” Shelby sounded more irritated than frightened. Good. Irritation was easier to work with.

“Just go get Sarah, please. She’ll be able to get the first aid kit.”

“All right—but you’re going to explain everything,” snarled Shelby. I heard footsteps as she moved away, followed by the sound of the kitchen door swinging open. I slumped in my chair, resisting the urge to rub my eyes. That would just cause me more pain, and might result in structural damage.

Everything was dark. I tried to focus on the last thing I’d seen, the creature on the back lawn with the wildly flapping wings and the serpent’s tail. Feathers or no feathers? The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that its wings had been more like a bat’s than a bird’s, but that could have been wishful thinking, me refusing to acknowledge that this could be my fault. If its wings weren’t feathered, it wasn’t one of my basilisks.

How would one of the basilisks get this far from the zoo? The thought was compelling. Basilisks aren’t fast movers, and they’re extremely territorial, especially when the females get broody. If the zoo basilisks had managed to escape, they should have gone to ground on the spot, refusing to be budged.

The door banged again as Shelby returned. “Alex? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Did you find Sarah?”

“This is a positively appalling way to make an introduction, but yeah, I found her,” said Shelby. “She’s getting that first aid kit you wanted. Now are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Can we take this one step at a time for right now? Can you go to the fridge, please? There should be a bunch of bottles of water with different colored caps on the second shelf. Get one of the green-capped bottles. Please.”

“I know they say ‘please’ is a magic word, but it doesn’t actually control the universe, you know.”

“Shelby! I’m trying to not freak out right now, so please, can you go along with my seemingly irrational demands until we reach the point where I am capable of explaining myself in a calm and rational manner? Please?”

There was a pause. Finally, Shelby said, “The green lid, you say?”

“That’s the one.”

The kitchen door swung open again, followed by the soft sound of bare feet against the floor. “I found the first aid kit. It was not in the land of talking bluebirds, although they’re very loud right now. Alex, what did you do?”

“I locked eyes with a petrifactor,” I said. “Sarah, can you read right now?”