Page 12 of Entranced By the Basilisks

I stroke my finger over the book with care, wishing that I had Grace’s gift for picking up history from objects, but that isn’t in my skill set. I look at it through a restorer’s eyes. There is some damage on the edges. I pick up the book and take note that a chunk of the back cover is missing. I pout at the loss, but it’s fixable, though it’s going to require a more artistic touch.

I set the book back down and slowly open it, sighing in bliss. The interior is even more intricate than the box. The pages are thick with lettering that I can’t read and designs that echo the style of illuminated manuscripts. Without meaning to, I lift the book to look closer at the details.

A warmth tingles on my hands. A troubling sensation for anyone who works with chemicals, but this tingle doesn’t originate from a lab. A roaring fills my mind and I swallow in fear. The warmth flickers hotter, like I’ve gotten too close to the fire. The book starts to glow gold, the pages flipping as if being blown by wind that I can’t feel.

I do the unthinkable.

I drop the book.

Whispers and hisses fill my senses and I cover my ears, but it continues unchanged. Heat rages over my body and I shriek in surprise. The whispers subside and as quickly as the unbearable fire flashes, coolness takes its place. I drop my hands and sniff, tears leaking from my eyes in relief.

Whatever that was, it’s over now. I should have waited for Grace to open the crate, but now I can take deep breaths and calm down before I call her and detail exactly how stupid I’ve been.

Something brushes my hair and I jump, spinning away but there’s nothing behind me. The sensation of something sliding against my scalp makes me jump and panic.

My hands shoot to my hair to fling whatever is nestled in it away, but clash with slender coiling smooth bodies instead. Myhairhisses and something wraps around my wrist, leaving small flicking impressions against my skin.

I scream.

5

EMILIA

“So, you’ve been cursed?”

I flinch.Cursed.

The woman across the intricately carved desk asks the question in a careful way, a kind way.

I blink, dropping my gaze while I nod. My eyes run over the carvings of the opulent piece of furniture, and I snap my head up again. My cheeks burn.

The carvings are people having sex. In fire. Some figures are so contorted that my panicked mind didn’t recognize the images until parsing out a hand grasping the hair of its wooden companion and the rest of the images came together in all their lurid glory.

What is this place?

I already know the answer to that question. This place is the first place Grace thought to bring me when she’d run her hands over the book I shouldn’t have opened. I shake my head.

“Sorry.” I clear my throat. “Today has been… wild.”

My words come out raspy. Lack of sleep and a surplus of panic constrict my throat.

The woman waits for me to answer the question. She’s so patient and understanding that I fight back the tears that have plagued me since this all began.

I cried for an hour straight afterithappened. After the panic and crying and Grace trying to reassure me that we’d figure this out, I pulled myself together. Mostly. Every few minutes I feel theslitheralong my scalp and my composure threatens to crack again.

“Yes, I’ve been,” I swallow, “Cursed.”

The woman, who introduced herself as Rose Love, matchmaker extraordinaire, nods.

“And that would be the reason for the glasses?” she asks, pointing to the gold heart-shaped frames with rose-tinted lenses.

“Yes. We don’t know yet if I can really turn—” I cut myself off, still struggling to believe that any of this could be real.

“Turn people to stone?” Rose asks.

I breathe. “Yes.”

“Interesting,” Rose muses, tapping a stylish pen softly against the stationary in front of her.

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