Illusions can’t actually keep you out if you’re determined to keep going; they just mess with the visual aspects of the world, and do nothing to change the physical. I tightened my hands on the wheel, hoping my memory of the road was correct, and kept going into what should have been unbroken forest—

—only to emerge onto the curving road surrounding the gorgon community. On a hunch, I leaned forward and peered upward. In the sky, high overhead, a black shape that didn’t quite look like a bird was circling. “Good boy, Crow,” I said, and continued on my way down, through the spiral, to the cluster of mobile homes below.

A crowd was gathering by the time I reached ground level, gorgons appearing in every doorway and around the sides of every building. I slowed enough to give them time to get out of my way but kept driving until I reached the spot where Dee had instructed me to park on my first visit.

She emerged from a nearby trailer as I turned off the engine, making it clear that she’d been watching my approach. Her snakes were up and hissing, mirroring the distressed look on her face. I adjusted my glasses to make sure they would shield me from accidental petrifaction, unfastened my seat belt, and got out of the car.

“Alex!” Dee skidded to a stop a few feet away from me. Frank was approaching from the back of the crowd; he must have been in his office, leaving him farther to walk before he could find out what I was doing here. “What in the world—?”

“Look up.” I pointed, to make my meaning perfectly clear.

It’s interesting: even when they’re not primates, most things that look like humans will react like humans under normal circumstances. That includes following simple directions that don’t make sense. More than half the crowd, Dee and Frank included, looked up to where Crow was doing his slow circle.

Of the gorgons who did look up, only Dee gasped, her hand flying to her cheek before she said, sounding unnerved, “Is that Crow? What’s he doing?”

“Hunting.” I waited until she looked back down before I continued, “Shelby’s missing, Dee. She was hurt while we were searching for the cockatrice at the zoo, and in the time it took me to go and get the car, someone took her. When I asked Crow to find her, he came here. When I called Kumari and asked if anyone might be interested in hurting us, she told me a really interesting story. About Hannah, and the son no one bothered to tell me she had.”

Dee’s eyes widened further, and her snakes stopped hissing as they coiled close against her head, becoming a tightly-knotted pile of serpentine curls. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“She spoke to the local bogeymen. I asked her, since they won’t talk to me. And according to what they told her, I should be looking for ‘the gorgon’s son’ when I’m trying to find the person who took Shelby. So is there anything you’d been wanting to tell me, Dee? As a friend? Because now would be the time.”

One of the gorgon men to my left took a step forward, the snakes atop his head hissing menacingly. I had the gun out of my belt and pointed in his direction before he could take a second step. I didn’t turn, but he stopped moving, which told me my aim was true. Not taking my eyes off Dee, I continued, “Also, we’re all friends here, right? I mean, I know I’m outnumbered, so you could technically go ahead and jump me, but I have eight bullets in this gun, and I’m a real fast shot. Right now, we’re having a chat. No hostilities. I’d like to keep it that way. But if you decide we’re going to have problems, I’m not going to be the guy who tells you no.”

“Paul, stop it,” snapped Dee, dropping her hand to her side. The gorgon to my left took a big step backward. I lowered my gun. Dee focused back on me. “Alex, I swear, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I’ve been here all day. We all have.”

“I believe you,” I said wearily. “That’s the hard part. But someone tried to burn down Shelby’s apartment building last night, and now she’s missing. I want her back, preferably alive and intact. Crow led me here. You didn’t tell me Hannah had a son. Now do you want to help all these things make sense, or are you just going to keep standing there?”

Frank pushed his way through the crowd to Dee’s side. He put a hand on her shoulder, looking dispassionately at the gun I was holding, before he asked, “What do you want us to do?”

“I want you to tell me where to find Hannah’s son.”

“I wish we could.” Frank shook his head. “No one here knows.”

I looked up to where Crow was still endlessly circling, like a carrion bird above its prey. I wished there were a way I could call him back to land and make him show me where to go next. Sadly, even a smart animal is still an animal. He’d done as much as he was going to do. I looked back down.

“Fine, then,” I said to Dee and Frank. “If you can’t take me to Hannah’s son, I’ll settle for the next best thing. Take me to your leader. I want to talk to Hannah.”

Twenty-three

“Underestimate the power of gravity, if you like; underestimate how many bullets you’ll need to take out a chimera. But never, if you value your life, underestimate what a parent will do for the sake of preserving a child.”

—Alexander Healy

At a hidden gorgon community in the middle of the Ohio woods, which is probably a terrible place to be right now

IT WASN’T A SURPRISE when Dee and Frank led me away from the buildings that made up the bulk of the community, heading toward the woods. We were heading away from the fringe farms, I noted; that was a little more unexpected. The fringe must have come later.

“I wish you’d called,” said Dee, for the third time.

“I wish you’d told me Lloyd was a gorgon,” I said, my temper beginning to fray around the edges. “Maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference. Maybe it would have made all the difference. Now people are dead, and Shelby’s missing, and we’re never going to know.”

“You cannot blame Deanna for protecting her people,” said Frank.

“Like hell I can’t.” I kept walking, locking my eyes on the tree line. Nothing was moving there. Any deer that lived in this stretch of the Ohio woods would have learned to be cautious, to avoid the smell of both humans and snakes. They would have had to be stupid not to have learned.