It would send and receive from the hind quarters and then pass everything up the spine to the cranial brain. We know better these days. That was just a bone cavity, and at best it housed a nerve cluster, nothing more complex.”

The tentacles slowed, their frantic lashing winding down to gentle waves.

“But what if it could happen?” Doc asked. “The spinal column is full of nerves, and they reach from top to bottom and all through the body. Why not a brain down there? If Magenta has her own voice, then she might have her own

consciousness, grown down your spine. Take that organic structure away from a tiny-brained sauropod. Now give this mythical second brain to a mammal, with the intelligence that entails.”

Magenta hissed, as if about to say Scared again, but instead the humming voice melted into a purr. Doc’s voice was soothing her.

Yaya reached between her legs and petted the base of the stalk. “Hush now,” she said. “It’ll be okay.” Her fingers crossed Doc’s at the stalk’s middle.

Red coils slithered back from Doc’s forearm and loosened from Yaya’s neck. Magenta’s teeth quit scraping porcelain. A calm washed through Yaya’s nerves, almost like Doc was cradling her. Nerves tied her to Magenta, fear to fear and calm to calm.

“Be a good creature,” Yaya said, watching the muscle settle beneath her fingers.

Doc gave a tired smile. “She is.”

Won’t hurt you. “I won’t hurt you.” If they were each talking to Doc, then fine. But if Magenta had meant she wouldn’t hurt Yaya, then she didn’t understand their situation. Yaya leaned her head back. “Sibs is like a chimera’s body filing for divorce against itself.”

Doc shook her head. “I’ve never heard of Sibs like this.” Her fingers twitched, as if Yaya’s skin were a piano she wanted to play.

Yaya couldn’t argue with what Doc had heard, but she doubted either of them had a better explanation for Magenta. That two brains myth would play into Sibs if Yaya’s brain were dividing, but her uniqueness wouldn’t help her.

She needed precedence.

“You knew to calm her,” Yaya said. “This ever happen before?”

Doc didn’t answer, only asked, “Do you believe in second chances?”

She was asking Yolanda Betancourt, the woman too proud to call a date twice. But deep down, yes, Yaya wanted believe.

Doc’s face hung over the rim of the tub. Her smile was radiant. “She’s kind of like having an extra tongue, huh? A horned, toothy tongue.”

“Horns?” Yaya lifted her head and glanced down her body. Sure enough, two black horns curled forward from either side of the tender, muscly stalk. The next time Magenta made to snap at someone, she might gore them first. “I didn’t even feel them when we slipped out. When she slipped out.”

She didn’t feel the horns when they slipped inside either. Magenta’s limbs and teeth slid back between Yaya’s thighs and nestled up inside her, rubbing against delicate tissue and sending shockwaves through her nerves. She breathed deep at each tremor. Doc followed Magenta until her fingertips tapped the sensitive folds between Yaya’s thighs, just beneath her pelvic bone, triggering a flashback