My voice sounds small, swallowed by the stones. I clutch the towel tighter around me, but it’s too short and there’s a gap running down my side. Every icy draft seems to find it, licking over my bare skin. My damp hair is plastered to my shoulders, trickling water down my spine. I shiver so hard my teeth nearly chatter.
To forestall panic, I try giving myself a pep talk.
Okay, Julia. Breathe. This has to be a dream. Any second now you’re going to wake up in your crappy little bed, Mr. Mittens purring against your cheek, and you’ll laugh about this while scrolling TikTok in the morning.
Maybe I fell asleep with Midnight Hunger in my lap and this is my brain’s way of mocking me. Yeah. That has to be it.
But then?—
“Well now,” a familiar voice says, smooth and strange, “And how are you this fine evening, my lovely queen?”
I nearly leap out of my skin. My heart thuds against my ribs like it’s trying to break out and run away.
Apparently I’m not alone anymore.
A man stands a few feet down the corridor, watching me. For a moment my brain refuses to make sense of him. Then it clicks—he’s the lab tech. The same guy who drew my blood earlier today. Only he’s not wearing his starched white coat anymore.
At least, I think it’s him. He looks… different.
He looks wrong.
He’s draped in a long leather duster coat falls almost to his booted feet. The coat sways when he moves, and I see glimpses of strange trinkets glinting inside the folds—chains…bones…things I don’t want to identify. He’s tall but too thin, all sharp angles and wiry muscle, like a scarecrow brought to life. His long brown hair hangs in tangled waves to his shoulders, streaked with silver like early frost.
And then I see his face.
Five gold teeth gleam at me from the shadows—two on top, three on the bottom. They wink every time he grins. His skin is brown with a strange olive-green cast, like bruised fruit. Pushing up through his tangled hair are a pair of elongated ears, pointed like a wolf’s.
But his eyes… oh God, his eyes.
Slitted pupils, glowing faintly in the gloom. Cat’s eyes. I remember I had that thought when I first saw him in Mr. Philben’s office but then I decided I was imagining it.
Turns out I was right the first time.
I stumble back a step, my hand clutching the towel so hard it bites into my skin.
“Do I—do I know you?” My voice cracks. “Were you at my office today?”
“That I was, my Curvy Queen.” He bares those golden teeth in a wide grin. “You offered me a cup of your piss, as I recall.”
He reaches into his coat and pulls out a heavy goblet made of dull metal etched with strange runes that writhe faintly in the torchlight. He offers it to me with a mock-bow.
“Care to make good on that promise?”
My jaw drops.
“What?” I sputter. “No! I’m not going to pee in a cup for you!”
He sighs dramatically, and shakes his head as though I’ve just let him down.
“Ah, I thought that offer was too good to be true. A pity. A cup of piss from an Abundant Queen would fetch me a sack of gold in the Night Market.”
I just stare. First in shock…then in disgust.
“No. Absolutely not,” I repeat.
“Very well then.” He shrugs, sliding the goblet back into his coat as if this is just business as usual. “Since you won’t piss for me, we’d best be on our way. Unless you want to stay here in the In-Between.”
He turns, his long coat flaring, and begins striding down the corridor.
