“Gadworm eggs,” the fat being said, though its mouth did not move. “Eggs of the gadworm. You know, they always lay twenty-three. As long as I keep eating them, she’ll keep laying. Three and twenty. Twenty and three.”

Eva glanced up. The endless tapering worm was suspended throughout the entire house on the cords that held the curtains. Eva’s eyes followed the snaking body for a moment, but the worm’s coils led her gaze back to the mysterious fat being. It watched her with two glittering slits set far apart on a wide head. “I am Arius. Arius am I: the one who sees.”

“You . . . You’re not human.” Eva kept her distance. “I thought—”

“You thought only a human, a being such as you, would reach out.” Arius hummed in the music. “Reaching out is not only a human thought.”

“I know.” Eva was crestfallen. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you said you were like me, so I thought you were . . . you know . . .”

“Like you I am.” Arius ingested another egg in her toothless maw. “But you are not like me.”

Eva furrowed her brow.

“I have siblings. Siblings that I know. Yet siblings that I hide from,” Arius sang. “You have siblings. Siblings you don’t know. Siblings you’ve been hidden from.”

“Siblings?” Eva was excited and confused all at once. “A brother or a sister? How do you know?”

“As I said, I see many things,” Arius replied, reaching for another gadworm egg. “Many things I see, and yet, many things you do. You have yet to do many things.”

Eva stood silently for a moment, trying to understand Arius’s strange speaking. Was she just making all of this up? Was it the truth? Eva felt dizzy.

“Perhaps you’d like to know more?” Arius passed an egg from one hand to another. “To know more like you, perhaps?”

“Do you know if there are other humans here?” Eva pulled the blanket around her tighter.

“Usually I ask for a gift. A special gift.” Arius gestured to the multitude of trinkets heaped upon the floor. “A special gift to answer what you ask.”

“I—I don’t know if I have anything to give.” Eva shifted her weight. She thought of the Omnipod in her pocket. Muthr would blow a gasket if Eva gave the device away.

“Not to worry. You are a gift in and of yourself, Eva the Ninth,” Arius purred. “That is why I summoned you here. And here you are: a gift.”

“I am not sure I understand.” Eva took a step back, glancing down at the offerings piled all around Arius. Does she even open these presents? Her mind flickered to Besteel’s menagerie of captured animals. “Can’t I just leave and bring back something else for you instead?”

“Nothing more can you bring instead,” Arius chimed. “You have brought the thing I want.”