Riley’s eyes narrowed. “All right, forget sitting down. It’ll be more fun to pound the stupid out of you while you’re standing up.”

“If I’m infected, you can’t risk fluid transfer.”

That stopped him. I smiled.

“So basically, if you ‘pound the stupid’ out of me, you’re admitting the treatment worked, and I’m not an infection risk. Normally, I wouldn’t endorse that, but with the mice also vouching for me, I think you’d be safe to take the risk. Or we can go ahead and try my plan, which involves less punching me in the face—disappointing, I know—but might have better long-term results.”

Riley frowned. “What’s your plan?”

“Ah, good.” I smiled, hoping my slightly numb lips wouldn’t make the expression too Heath Ledger-as-the Joker for what I was trying to convey. “According to the mice, I’m not infected. Thanks to Dr. Jalali, who administered the antiserum I prepared after Cooper and I were bitten, we know that even if the mice are wrong, I’m in the best possible position for dodging the infection.” I knew that most of my projected good cheer was mania: on some level, I was still scared out of my mind. There wasn’t time to dwell on the fear. The fear was going to do me no good, and it could do me a great deal of harm if I surrendered to it. “Are we in agreement thus far?”

“I’ll grant you that,” said Riley grudgingly.

“This disease spreads through fluid transfer. You can’t catch it by touching an infected person, or even drinking from the same glass.” I sounded like a public health announcement. I forced myself to keep going. “I’m willing to return here at night. I’m willing to be locked in while I sleep. But, sir, I need to be able to help you with this situation—and not to be overly boastful of my abilities, you need me. You need someone who has dealt with lycanthropy before, and who can speak to the local cryptids. You don’t have anyone else with my skill set.”

His eyes narrowed again, this time accompanied by the tensing of the jaw that signified rage in almost all primates. Sometimes it’s nice to be dealing with members of my own species. I understand them when they react to me. And that impulse explained everything. “You arrogant little—”

“Sir, there is arrogance in this room, but it’s not mine,” I snapped, stunning him temporarily into silence. I took advantage of the opening, stepping toward him—still not close enough to be an infection risk, but close enough that my presence would be impossible to belittle or overlook. I was also close enough that he could punch me in the face, but that was a risk I was willing to take. He probably wouldn’t do it. My face was where I kept my teeth, after all, and he was worried about catching lycanthropy.

Riley stared at me, eyes narrowing further. I was starting to wonder if he needed glasses. Behind him, Shelby shook her head, her best “you better know what you’re doing” expression on her face.

I really hope so, I thought, and said, “Dr. Jalali and her family live less than five miles from here. Where there’s one wadjet family, there are more, because they need to be close enough to find husbands for their daughters. They’re spread out by necessity, they’re better gossip networks than the bogeymen if you can find your way inside, and they had no idea there was a werewolf in this part of Queensland, because the people who knew about it didn’t tell them. They’re your neighbors. They’d be your allies, if you gave them the slightest indication they were welcome. They like living in a place where they don’t have to worry about the Covenant swooping in and shooting their children, but you’re not giving them cause to like you, and it’s cutting off one of your main sources of potential intelligence. It’s speciesist and it’s stupid. Sir.”

Riley stood up a little straighter, silently reminding me that I was picking a fight with a mountain that walked like a man. “We don’t need monsters to point out the holes in our security,” he said. “We don’t need anything inhuman to help us find husbands for our daughters. I’m still not seeing where you’re offering me anything I can’t find just as well without letting you out of this room.”

At the word “husbands,” Shelby winced. Oh, great.

“Mr. Tanner, how much of this is about my relationship with your daughter?”

Riley didn’t answer.

“Mr. Tanner, the wadjet have doctors who can interact freely with the potentially infected Society members, with no fear of catching lycanthropy-w. They can’t catch the disease, and because of that, they’ll continue to treat your people like, well, people,” I said. “If one of my mice travels with them to see the potentially infected, we may be able to provide reassurance for people who have every reason to be terrified right now.”

“Great. Snake doctors and talking mice are the solution to all our problems.” Riley wasn’t yelling. It might have been better if he had been. “Sounds to me like I can have both those things without letting you out of this room.”

“Would you ever have thought to look for them without me?” It had taken shamefully long for me to look for them. I’d known about the Society members in quarantine before I’d landed in Australia, but I hadn’t thought to seek a nonmammalian doctor until my own life was in danger. I didn’t like what that said about the scope of my focus. I had allowed myself to be overwhelmed by fear, and hence distracted from the greater mission. I needed to serve all intelligent life, not just the interests of the species I happened to share.

Again, Riley didn’t answer. I watched his face, trying not to glare or show my desperation. This wasn’t my field of expertise. Give me a thesis to defend, not a jailer twice my size to rail against.

Shelby stepped around her father, putting herself between us. He blinked and drew back slightly, startled by her movement. I managed to hold my ground, but only barely; I had seen her start to move.

“You’re being a pompous ass, and I won’t stand for it,” she said. “I knew from talking to Raina and Gabby that you wanted to see Alex for yourself, and I figured the werewolf problem was a good excuse for you to do that, especially since we needed the help. What I didn’t figure was that you’d be watching for a way to get my fellow out of the way.”

That gave Riley something he could seize on. “Surely you’re not implying I sent him out there to be bitten,” he thundered.