“A basilisk?” he asked slowly.
“Yes!” she said brightly. “He’s one of those.”
Hektor’s eye twitched.
She was doing a happy dance inside. This—this—was progress. The kind of progress she’d been trying to pry out of him for days.
“So, you’ll help me?” she asked, leaning toward him, laying on the charm like syrup: sweet, sticky, impossible to ignore. She gave him wide eyes. Hopeful eyes. Manipulative eyes.
Please don’t say no.
Hektor rolled his eyes, but not dismissively, more like he was trying to push back a reaction he didn’t want her to see.
“How exactly will this ‘helping’ go?” he grumbled.
She perked up instantly. “You could tell me more about basilisks, what they like, how to act, what they look for in a mate?—”
“You shouldn’t have to work that hard,” he snapped.
She smirked. Oh, she knew exactly where to poke next.
“But I want to,” she said, all innocent sweetness. “I want to be the best. So irresistible he can’t even think about choosing someone else.”
She tossed in a bright, eager smile for effect.
Hektor went still.
Very still.
A stormy still.
Zara felt the temperature shift, just a degree, just enough to say she’d struck the exact nerve she wanted.
And he didn’t disappoint.
His glare darkened, jaw tightening so sharply she almost heard it click.
“That,” he said, voice low and dangerous, “is a terrible idea.”
Perfect.
Zara kept going, because how could she not when he reacted like that?
“So if I tilt my head like this,” she demonstrated, exaggeratedly coy, “do you think a basilisk would?—”
“Zara.” His voice was a warning rumble.
She leaned closer, whispering dramatically, “Or maybe they like it if you?—”
“Zara.”
A vein in his temple actually twitched.
She decided, mercifully, to give him a break. Mostly because he looked like he wasn’t far from popping an actual blood vessel.
She softened her voice. “I’m just a girl, and I don’t know anything.”
His eyes narrowed. “Okay, that’s enough.”
