“I needed to know if you… if we…” Ellie flushed.
“Could have asked. Seriously, you aren’t my type. I like men. Strong, dangerous men,” Maggie grumbled at her. “I’ll find out what I can and send Axell to you to set a meeting.”
Then she shoved her back with a burst of unexpected magic and closed the door firmly. It wasn’t a slam of the door, but it was final. Maggie wasn’t going to be stupid about her decision to investigate. Right now, she had everything going for her.
Just need to do a little sleuthing.…
Decide what all she knows.
Figure out how to share what I know.
Maggie leaned her back against the door and thought about the weird situation she was in. She trusted Sondre, but it was a strange feeling, because on some level she knew that her love for her husband was manufactured. Theirs was an arranged marriage. He’d told her that much.
She was still leaning there an hour later when a hob appeared.
“Miss Maggie needs to come now,” Clancy, the ever-dapperly dressed hobgoblin said. His voice appeared before his body finished appearing, so at first, there was only a voice and a pair of well-polished shoes. By the time the second syllable of her name was out, Clancy’s legs and torso were visible.
By the time his hat—a smart red fedora today—was clear, he’d grabbed her ear and popped them to the door of the infirmary.
“What?” Maggie managed, reaching out to steady herself on the doorframe. “Is Craig—”
“No.” Clancy gave her the sort of look she once had to give to clients who were going to lose a case.
“Where is he?” She leaned against the wall.
“With AuntHestia,” Clancy said. “They’re safe.”
The fact that the hobs had all taken to calling the only other nonmagical residence of CrenshawAuntHestiaas if it were one word seemed to be the least peculiar detail of the moment. Maggie glanced at the door of the infirmary.
“Sondre?”
The hob vanished, leaving Maggie standing in the hallway alone.
She pushed the door open to see the infirmary more active than she’d like. Scylla was still stretched out on one bed. The curtain beside her was pulled closed, and on the other side, she heard Sondre’s voice.
“Get it off me,” he yelled.
The curtain sagged as someone launched or fell against the dingy drape. A crash of metal onto the castle floor followed. And the doctor’s voice almost at the same time. “Stop thrashing, Sondre.”
Maggie walked past the woman in the first bed and peered around the curtain. Sondre was not a very cooperative patient at all. He flailed, trying to shake something off his arm. “Get. It. Off. Me,” he repeated louder. “I don’t care what your theories are. I want it gone.”
“Hey…” She met his gaze then. “What’s going on here?”
“It hurts.” He glared at the snake stuck on his arm. “And no one is helping make it stop.”
As Maggie got closer, she could see that the snake’s jaw was latched onto his arm like a suckling babe.Not a cottonmouth or rattlesnake.Detailed black and brown patterns covered the snake, and she was relieved not to see either the edge of a white mouth or the telltale rattle at the end of its tale.
Regardless of what it was, the snake had pumped venom into Sondre’s body. His arm was swollen, red, and mottled.
“What kind is it?”
“Magical,” Prospero offered.
“So I’m not sure how to treat this, and until we can get it to release…” Dr. Jemison lifted her hand to jab at the hinge of the snake’s jaw. “How long has it been?”
“Ten minutes…?” Prospero said.
Maggie had never heard of a snake not letting go after this long. It wasn’t thrashing. It was simply curled around Sondre’s arm like it washugging him. The serpent’s body wrapped around Sondre’s arm from wrist to shoulder. It resembled an oddly raised tattoo.
