“Just me?”

“She demonstrated dominance over me a long time ago.” I paused, realizing how that sounded, and winced. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“No, but it’s what you said,” said Shelby, clearly amused. I decided to stop trying to correct her. Amusement was better—much better—than any of the alternatives.

Kumari was waiting by the sliding glass door to the backyard, which was already standing open. When we reached her, she calmly removed her heels, leaving them on the mat, and stepped through the doorway, onto the cobblestone path that wound its way through their lush rainforest of a yard.

The back fence of the Sarpa residence was high enough to brush up against the restrictions laid down by the local homeowners association. I knew that well, since I’d helped Kumari deflect three attempts to have her fined for building her fence too tall. It had to be the height it was in order to conceal their private greenhouse from prying eyes. Anyone flying over would realize the Sarpas were essentially maintaining a backyard hothouse, but as it was perfectly legal and all their building permits were in order, none of us were particularly worried.

I’m a herpetologist, not a botanist; I couldn’t have named any of the trees, climbing vines, or flowers that filled the enclosed glass box of their yard. A fountain chuckled quietly to itself in one corner, feeding into a pond filled with decorative fish. Birds flashed by in the canopy, as captive as any denizens of the zoo. And in the middle of it all, coiled on a large, flat stone intended for that very purpose, was the master of this household, a spectacled cobra fully seventeen feet in length. As we approached him, he lifted the first third of his body into the air, looking down his nose at me as he opened the great flare of his hood. Shelby’s hand closed on my upper arm, fingers clenching convulsively tight.

I smiled. “Hello, Daksha. It’s nice to see you again. Your scales look remarkable. Did you shed recently?”

The massive cobra continued to study me, his tongue flicking in and out three times before he closed his hood, lowered himself back to the basking stone, and slithered down to the garden path. Moving fast enough to be the stuff of nightmares, he zigzagged to Kumari and twisted his way up her body, moving like the stripe on a barber pole. She held perfectly still, helping him along, until his head was resting on her right shoulder and his body gathered in a thick belt around her waist and torso.

“He greets you, and thanks you for your continued hospitality toward our daughter,” she said, walking over to take his recently abandoned place on the central stone. “As you ask, yes, he did shed recently, and is pleased with his pattern brightness in this current molt.” Daksha arranged himself around Kumari as she sat, moving with her to avoid any unpleasant accidents, like her settling her full weight on his tail. Her lips turned downward in something that was closer to a frown than I liked, and she said, “He wishes to know why you have brought your colleague from the zoo here, as he did not believe she was aware of our nature.”

“If you didn’t think I knew what I know, why are you telling me what you think I didn’t know but might have come here looking to find out?” Shelby paused. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure even I understand what I just said.”

“Dr. Tanner is from an organization with goals much like those of my family,” I said, taking a seat on one of the decorative benches. I tugged Shelby along with me, and she settled to my right. “She studies the cryptid world in Australia, and hopes to someday bring the human and cryptid populations of her home continent into a peaceful coexistence. This meant that when people at the zoo began dying of petrifaction, I couldn’t keep her from becoming involved with the investigation of their deaths, and she found out about a great many things. At this point, I feel that it is safer for all of us if she knows as much as possible about the local community. That way, no one can slip and tell her something she’s not meant to know.”

“I agree with Alex, husband,” said Kumari, speaking in a slightly more casual tone now that she was speaking for herself and not the great snake that she wore around her waist and torso. “He called before he came, and I agreed to this visit.”

There was a pause while Daksha adjusted his grip. She nodded, and said, once more in the formal tone that meant she spoke for her husband, “He knows what I have told him, but wanted to hear your reasoning for himself. It seems sound; he does not question your motives as much as he did before you came here.”

“That’s good,” I said sincerely. Wadjet are incredibly venomous. Having Daksha question my motives could end in my untimely demise. “I do trust Shelby with my life at this point: she’s saved it several times.”

“Bringing her here means you are trusting her with ours, and that you are trusting us with hers,” said Kumari, a faint edge on her voice. “It is not a trust to be cheaply given.”

“It hasn’t been,” I assured her. “There was, however, a motive for bringing her to meet you now, rather than waiting until things were calmer. I assume Chandi told you about what was happening at the zoo before I did?”

“She’s very put out,” said Kumari. “She was counting on spending more time with Shami before she had to resume her schooling at the end of the summer. If the deaths continue, her bond could be set back by a matter of years.”

Shelby sat up a little straighter. I put a hand on her knee, squeezing, and hoped she would read the touch as a request that she not say anything. She shot me a quick look, confusion writ large across her face, but nodded, and kept silent. I smiled gratefully before returning my attention to Kumari.

(For Shelby, and for most human beings—myself honestly included, when I didn’t make an effort—referring to the deaths at the zoo so casually was almost like erasing the suffering of the victims. For Kumari and her family, while the death of a few humans was sad, it was by no means a tragedy. The human population of Ohio was in no danger. For Chandi and Shami, however, failure to properly bond could mean they would never be able to have children. It could also mean she would fail to develop the appropriate adult physiological responses to his venom, which would make her vulnerable to him later in life. Wadjet biology is not forgiving of things like zoo closures, and they only had one shot at a happy ever after.)

“The zoo closures are likely to continue, but if necessary, I can help smuggle Shami out of the reptile house,” I said. “The difficulty will be finding a place for him to stay until we’re ready to reopen. I’m terribly sorry, but my grandparents’ house isn’t an option, due to the presence of a colony of Aeslin mice. I know Shami is well-mannered and would do his best to abide by the local rules, but . . .”