Page 33 of Luca

Can’t forget the cloaks.

It was the guy who answered, a playful smirk on his face. “That we are, small prince.” He offered an extravagant bow, and the other creature rolled her eyes. Cair looked mildly alarmed. “At your service.”

I couldn’t quite put a finger on his exact species. He was partly humanoid, but reptilian in appearance, with scaly green skin, pincer-shaped hands, and big round eyes that moved independently of each other. He had no tail, though, and a tongue that didn’t seem forked. He looked familiar, like a lizard I’d studied before, but my brain was failing me.

That’ll get on my nerves.

“What are your names?”

“Cerila Dovin,” the tree lady announced, sounding detached as if the words were from a script. “But you may call me Cee, Your Highness.”

I nodded before turning to face the guy expectantly. He stared at me with a blank look on his face, as if he’d tuned in halfway through the conversation and needed a sec to catch up. I was about to repeat the question when he jolted back online.

“Oh! My name’s Gary Flinstock,” he said, grinning proudly before tacking on, “You can just call me… Gary.”

I pressed my lips together, stifling my amusement as Cee huffed in obvious irritation.

“I thought there was a group—aguild—of you?” I said, recalling what Cair had told me before we left the palace grounds.

Gary nodded.

“There is, but with only five reapers, there was no need for extra hands.” He puffed out his chest. “We could handle it.”

It was a little eerie to imagine how many eyes were actually on us, creatures I hadn’t sensed for even a second, right there in the shadows, every step of the way.But I was glad of it.

“Well, thanks.” I offered a smile. “For helping.”

“It’s my pleas?—”

There was a rustle in the trees, and Gary’s eyeballs jerked in different directions. My heart skipped, and Cair draped his wing around my shoulders, coaxing me behind him. No one moved a muscle or even twitched. Not until Cee raised one arm, dangerously slowly, to unhook the bow at her back, while the other reached for her quiver. I held my breath as if it would somehow counteract the faint hiss of the arrow against the leather as she slid it free, but before she got it halfway, the rapid thud of footsteps came from the tree line…

A hare scurried out of the bushes, darting around us.

Gary squawked and turnedneon pink.

“For Creators’ sake.” Cee sighed, glaring daggers at Gary before reaching out and smacking the back of his head. He jolted back to his usual pale green color, his eyes returning to a central position as if she’d done a factory reset. “Control yourself, will you? It’s lucky we’re not in hiding.”

“It startled me,” he whined, rubbing at his head, totally ignoring her ire. I chuckled at his very non spy-like behavior, but gasped when it hit me.

“You’re a chameleon!”

“A basilisk,” he corrected, and despite myself, I frowned in disbelief, having had an entirely different image of what a basilisk looked like.

He didn’t have a noticeable tail, for a start.

Gary snorted at my expression. “I’m a hybrid. Da’s a basilisk, Ma’s a shapeshifter. Somehow those genes crossed, and this is what they got.” He made ata-damotion with his hands, smiling blithely. “My sister looks like a croc, so at least we stuck to the reptilian theme, and since the only thingsbasiliskabout me are my DNA, my fangs, and the toughness of my skin, you won’t die if you look into my eyes. Our Da has to wear enchanted contacts. He says they sting a bit, and they’re not a hundred percent effective. He kinda killed his cousin’s boyfriend. Dude was an asshole anyway, but still. It’s wild.”

I nodded dumbly at his rambling, grateful for the little anecdote, considering he seemed very fond of very deep and slightly unhinged eye contact. “That’s… good then.”

Cee huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “There’s nothing but an empty space behind those googly eyes.”

“Oh, my sister has two brains,” he gushed, ignoring her jibe. “How cool is that?”

“Did she get yours?” she asked flatly.

I was half convinced he couldn’t even hear her at this point, or he’d learned to switch off entirely. “I have two dicks, though,” he said with a shrug. “So I won the genetic lottery.”

Cee groaned skyward and pinched the bridge of her covered nose. “That’s a yes, then.”

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