Page 117 of Sonnets and Serpents
“I have to find him. Can you ... sense him? The way he can sense you?”
Another tongue flick. The snake didn’t move.
Eliza rubbed her arm, shifting. She was talking to a snake. What had she expected? With a sigh, she turned away. The library stood empty, haunting her with memories of sitting at a table beside Silas, throwing herself into his arms, peering over his shoulder at books, kissing him senseless.
She was not an Affiliate. She had no reason to believe she could communicate the way they could. But even with every evidence against her, she could believe in the impossible. That was her specialty.
Closing her eyes and drawing deep, even breaths, Eliza tried to remember exactly what Silas had said about talking to snakes.
It’s magic and sensory input, not rational thought and language.
Eliza gathered all her feelings about Silas. She didn’t worry about putting them to words the way she would have with a human—I love him; I’m scared for him—but instead tried to hold him in all her senses. The image of the last time she’d seen him, blurred through her tears. The scent of almond-spice on his skin as he carried her to a library table, and the taste of his lips against hers. The sound of his voice, not from memory but as she imagined it, broken after Kerem’s betrayal.
Most of all, her empty arms, longing to hold him. He was outthere, facing danger, and she would claw through any obstacle to reach him.
Turning back to Tulip, she stretched one hand out, slowly, slowly, until her fingertips brushed scales. The snake was softer than she’d imagined—not a sensation like touching fur, only the softness of a living thing, with muscles and skin that flexed beneath her touch. Eliza pressed her hand to the python, and she willed Tulip to feel what couldn’t be said, the threat and the need and the urgency.
Then she opened her eyes and gave her command. “Find Silas.”
The snake held perfectly still, as if frozen by the contact. Her brown eyes never twitched. She didn’t appear to breathe.
“Find Silas.” Eliza repeated, begging with all her stubborn willpower and every hope. “Find Silas.Find. Silas.”
All at once, the snake unfurled, causing Eliza to jump. Tulip’s tail dangled from the branch, twisting over itself in the air, and she stretched out her neck until her head contacted Eliza’s shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Eliza whispered, almost a squeak, but she managed to hold still.
With an awful sensation, Tulip’s head slithered over her shoulder and down her back, then twisted around her torso, as if Eliza were a convenient tree. She washeavy. Enough to make the princess stagger. And as Tulip coiled, she constricted.
“Donotsqueeze me to death, Tulip,” Eliza gasped out, wishing she could expand her ribs. “We are better friends than that.”
The snake continued her descent, and within moments, her tail dropped from Eliza’s waist, landing with the rest of the serpent on the floor. Eliza gave in to an irrepressible shudder, flapping her hands and stomping her feet, though it did little to actually shake off the sensation ofsnakeall over her body. She was going to have nightmares for certain.
If this worked, it would be worth it.
Tulip slithered off, headed for the library entrance, and Eliza stumbled to follow.
Like a polite guest, the snake waited at the door until the princess opened it for her, then continued on her way, twisting around the corner of the Yamakaz, heading for the edge of campus. Eliza glanced back at the healing hall, but Tulip was fast, and she refused to risk losing the snake’s guidance.
So she followed, praying for the impossible.
Until Tulip led her to a concealed trapdoor in the cliffside.
Eliza heaved it open and stared down into the dark bowels of a stone tunnel like the one beneath the prison house.
Without any hesitation, the python plunged down, a lattice of browns quickly blending into shadows.
“Wait!” Eliza tried to catch the snake’s tail and missed.
She couldn’t hope to navigate without a lantern. Besides that, she needed to tell Henry and Gill about the tunnel. But with every second, she was losing her guide.
Spitting a Pravish curse worthy of Silas, Eliza unwound her scarf and tied one end to the handle of the open trapdoor, draping the rest out across the ground, bright pink against a sandy landscape. A flag visible at a distance. It was the best she could do.
Then she scrambled down the stairs into the tunnel.
Sarazan seemed to smirk. The snake held perfectly still, poised in the lantern light as if giving Silas the opportunity to appreciate its power. Behind its pale yellow eyes, the diamond-shaped head held two streaks of black, thinning into stripes down its sides. Between them, the snake had a dark back and lighter underbelly, both in rippling shades of blue-gray. It must have been completely invisible in the water: a sailor’s worst nightmare.
The serpent hadn’t yet opened its mouth, but based on headsize alone, Silas expected its fangs to be more like curved swords than teeth. A bite would impale him clean through.
