“You can wait, you foul creature!” Halfeather spits in a way that makes me rustle my feathers. “Don’t think I forgot I lost two vultures to yourcursedcanines!”
“But I didn’t eat any vultures,” a beast with a heavier snarl says from the cell opposite the wolf. “They say it’s bad luck not to feed a dragon.”
Halfather scoffs dramatically and leads us out of the dungeon.
Chapter 87
Aurelia
“It’s true,” Savage says. “Those vultures didn’t even taste any good either.”
“How long were you in there for?” I frowned. “I don’t think you ever told me.”
“Two weeks by that point,” Scythe says evenly. “I was waiting to see if something eventuated and…” He brushes my cheek. “You did.”
I smile at him softly, remembering the first day I walked into that dungeon. “I didn’t see Eugene while I was there.”
“They only brought him in if they were opening the steel door,” Scythe says. “You arrived just a few days after the initial attempts. Halfeather began to get impatient.”
“We need to go back further,” I say. “What happened at Naga House the preceding week?”
Eugeneboksin assent.
Chapter 88
Eugene
The bars of this cage press tightly on my feathers. It’s a battery cage for hens, and I’m jostled about as we’re carried through big hallways and rooms. In the final room, an office, a tall skinny male writes at a desk. His back is rod straight, the corners of his mouth turned down like an aristocrat. I recognise him immediately as the cobra king.
“This is the one, Your Majesty,” the serpent holding me says. “An unusually strong crow. He’s vaccinated and has passed all blood tests. I have his contract of employment here.”
“Very good,” the serpent king says. “Set him up here so I can take a good look at him. What is his name?”
“Eugene, Your Majesty.”
I fluff up my wings. Idohave the strongest crow around. But where are my mates? I want to ask where they’ve gone because they definitely aren’t here with me as they should be. I don’t get to ask any questions because I cannot shift inside this cage.
The serpent king nods at me, scanning the working contract I signed. “Alright, Eugene. Here is our agreement.” I feel like his eyes are seeing through my feathers right into my blood, and I want to shrink away from him. “If you complete this little job forme, I will help your little mate with the cancer she has. There are some new treatments my scientists can try. All you have to do is crow when you are given the command. Very simple. Can you do that?”
I crow in agreement. There is a chance this basilisk will kill me, but for my precious girl, I would do anything.
Later that night, as I’m sleeping in my cage in Mace Naga’s office, with Mace Naga himself working late on his computer, there is a knock at the door. “Come in,” Mace drones.
The door opens to reveal a big scary man with white face paint in the pattern of a skull. He’s the biggest beast I’ve ever seen, and even the room seems to shrink in fear around him. Instantly, I know what he is, my senses going on high alert. I snap my attention to the king to wait for my signal to crow.
“Ah, are you finally going to kill me, Your Majesty?” The basilisk chuckles, gesturing at me with a black-gloved hand. He has a deep, commanding voice, and I look between the two males, wondering why this massive beast submits to the thinner one.
The king of serpents doesn’t smile. “Have you completed your collections for today?”
“I did, and I think there’s enough for you to control every politician in the state by now.”
The serpent king nods and gestures to the couches on the other side of the office. “I want you to take a look at those old texts over there, General. I take it you remember Sanskrit from your studies?”
The basilisk winks at me before striding to the couches and sitting down, long legs stretching out. He holds up an old, yellowed book with leather wrappings. I can see the writing is in a language I don’t understand, and the pictures are so dark I can’t make wing from tail. The room is silent as the basiliskstudies the pages. I watch him carefully. These two beasts might be allies, but there seems to be a tension between them.
“Are you capable?” The way the serpent king asks this makes me look at him. It sounds like a taunt. A challenge. He must be very brave to be talking to the basilisk like that.
The basilisk general sits back on the couch as if he’s not bothered by this, casually drumming his fingers along the top of the old book. “Theoretically. It’s quitelarge, isn’t it? Big as a house. Enough to talk to hundreds of people and maybe more.”
