Page 27 of Entranced By the Basilisks

“You said you turned Agnes into a statue—”

“No!” Fear makes my tone sharp as Ma’s plan comes together in my brain. “I can’t do that to you!”

“Emilia, listen to me.” She approaches me and the wall at my back keeps me from retreating. “Agnes is fine now, isn’t she? Your director saved her. You need to buy us time and then your director can save me.”

“What if it doesn’t work for you? What if he can’t save you?”

Ma presses a hand to my cheek, ignoring the swarm of serpents around my face. The wealth of understanding on her face is only tempered by her determination. Her determination that even if she’s not okay, I will be.

“Then it doesn’t work. I love you, mija,” she says and slips the heart-shaped glasses down my nose.

As soon as the world loses its pink hue, Ma’s movement stops. Her body no longer flesh and blood, but stone.

I keen—only to cut off the sound. I don’t want our neighbors to come investigate. I need to save my mother.

I run to my purse, dumping out the contents onto the ground. Lipsticks, compacts, and a spare notebook scatter across the linoleum. My phone luckily smacks against the notebook before joining it on the floor. I snatch it up and unlock the device.

My hands tremble as I find the newly saved number in my phone and call it.

I pray to whoever will listen that he picks up.

He does.

“Emilia?” Jasper asks.

I hiccup a sob.

“I need you.”

12

JASPER

“Stop fidgeting. This is a good thing,”Ari says next to me. “This will help convince Emilia that she needs to work at controlling these gifts instead of avoiding them.”

“I’d advise you not say that to her. She’s very upset,” I snap.

“So grouchy already. Settle yourself. I’ll solve this.”

I hadn’t wanted to overcomplicate things on the phone and explain to Emilia that I didn’t have enough magic to revive her mother, let alone heal the bite. I’d used almost everything I had earlier with Agnes and the hypnotizing.

The helplessness of not being able to help someone in need is a familiar sting, but there’s another sensation. Some tension in my chest.

She called me.

She needed me, and that’s a heady weight. One that I need to shake off because it means nothing.

We reach the apartment number Emilia had given me in a tear-choked voice.

My knock is light, not wanting to disrupt the fragility of Emilia’s world more so than what has occurred. The door opens in the next moment.

Emilia Adams Rivera is not a pretty crier. Her teary eyes are bloodshot and swollen and when she sniffs, it’s heavy with snot.

And the sight of her still is a vise around my heart.

This is bad.

I’m momentarily speechless at the stirrings of emotion that I haven’t let myself analyze until this moment. I don’t have to worry about speaking though, because she frowns at Ari instead of addressing me.

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