“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 a ta-da motion with his hands, smiling blithely. “My sister looks like a croc, so at least we stuck to the reptilian theme, and since the only things basilisk about 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.”

If Alex were here, he’d be having an absolute field day.

An unseemly snort burst out of me, my body heaving with it, but the sound tapered into a grunt as a sharp pain cut through my side. My hand flew to the source, and Cair was already in front of me, nostrils flaring.

“You’re bleeding.”

“What? No, I’m⁠—”

He peeled my hand away, revealing the thin line of blood across my palm. Its source seeped through my white shirt.