Page 28 of Entranced By the Basilisks

“What are you doing here?” Her voice is low with grief and stress.

“Please temper your excitement at seeing me. It’s embarrassing,” Ari says with the crook of his lips.

And just like that, he pulls a reluctant smile from her before it drops, and she ushers us into her home. Instantly we’re enveloped in a cascade of warm scents that all lead back to the woman in front of us: vanilla happiness. The sour tinge of her distress is recent enough that it’s overpowered by the positive scents. Ari’s eyes dilate slightly, and I can tell he wants to flick out his shifted tongue to taste the air, but he resists.

The decor is homey, the frames hanging on the walls display photos of smiling groups of people. The entryway is clear of furniture except for a side table with a lace doily under a glass bowl holding miscellaneous items and at the end of the hallway hangs the Puerto Rican flag.

It’s been years since I’ve entered a place that felt so much like a home.

I rarely visited Ari’s penthouse, but that’s different. It’s opulent and cluttered in a way that is comfortable, but that doesn’t make it a home. There’s always been a sense hanging in the air that the potential is there if I only took him up on the offer to stay.

But those thoughts are dangerous.

“Your home is lovely, thank you for inviting me in,” Ari says.

Emilia glares at him, and the showing of something other than her grief is a relief.

“What? It is!” he says.

I suppress my snort at his affront.

“Thank you,” she says as if she doubts him. “She’s in the kitchen.”

Emilia leads us there.

The kitchen is outfitted in a similar fashion as the hallway. Emilia stiffens when she sees the statue of her mother. Mrs. Rivera faces away from us.

I find my voice. “I wouldn’t have been able to revive your mother and heal her. That requires more magic than I have at my disposal,” I say. That feeling in my chest twists at the humiliation of it, but unfortunately the inclination tocarefor Emilia remains. “We needed Ari.”

Ari sniffs. “You say that as if it’s the only reason you want me around.”

I scowl at him but refrain from pointing out the truth in that statement. His words have Emilia’s mouth twitching though, so Ari can take whatever shots he wants.

“So you’re…” Emilia’s brow furrows and she trails off as if not knowing exactly what to ask.

“Jasper and I are the same type of creature, but he is much younger and…” Ari trails off as if searching for a kind way to say what we both know.

“Thinner blooded,” I say, my voice scratchy. I hate my limitations, my inadequacies, but they exist whether I hide them or not. “I have more human in me.”

“Oh,” Emilia says. “You guys haven’t really told me anything about what you are.”

“You are correct!” Ari says with a flourish. “We’ve been quite remiss there.”

I suppress my eye roll at Ari acting like this is a topic we should have already covered with Emilia. Confessing what kind of paranormal one is is an intimate conversation, but she’s been thrown into the deep end concerning everything serpent kin. She deserves more details.

“We’re basilisks,” I say before Ari can explain it in some theatrical, grand way. “We can go into details about that, and serpent kin, after Ari helps your mother.”

Ari pouts at me before getting back to the matter at hand. He circles the statue of Mrs. Rivera.

“Can you describe what happened?” he asks.

The question snaps Emilia out of whatever her mind is trying to solve about what we are.

“I don’t know what happened,” she says. “We were talking and then one of the snakes bit her.”

“Did you argue?” Ari asks.

Emilia frowns. “No… but I did get upset.”

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