Page 28 of Petrified

Lev looks over his shoulder at him. “I wasn’t going to touch it. I was trying to see what it is.”

“You can see it from here.” Rowan keeps his fist in Lev’s jacket and draws him back enough that there is no chance of an accidental repeat of his own mistake. His attention stays fixed on the container as the thing inside moves again. “Nobody goes near it until we know what it does.”

I crouch several feet away and rest my hands on my knees rather than the floor. The snake inside is much larger than the fragment Rowan grabbed. Several feet of its body are coiled inside the box, severed cleanly at one end but still moving with an awful kind of purpose. Its scales flex as it twists against itself, and the head lifts slightly when I change my angle.

Lev notices the movement too. He steps closer to Rowan rather than the container this time, his expression tightening as the snake turns its head toward me. “It’s watching you.”

“I think it is responding to movement.” I shift slightly to the right, and the head follows again. There is no hesitation in the reaction, which makes it difficult to dismiss as residual muscle movement. “Whatever kept the smaller piece active is stronger in this one.”

“That is not comforting.” Lev keeps his gaze on the snake while Rowan’s hand stays caught in the back of his jacket. “Nothing that has been removed from a body should still be this interested in what we’re doing.”

The snake opens its mouth, revealing a flash of small teeth, and Rowan’s expression changes immediately. He pulls Lev another step back before either of them comments on it.

“Call Medusa,” Rowan says, his voice flatter than it was a moment ago. The sight of the snake has stripped away whatever humor he might have found in Lev’s reaction, and I understand why. He knows exactly how dangerous even a small piece can be.

I'm already reaching for my phone. “I’m calling her.”

Medusa gets there twenty minutes later, which is twenty minutes longer than Lev wants to remain in the same room as the container. We use the time to search everything we can without disturbing the snake, but Lev keeps drifting his attention back toward it whenever the metal scrapes. Rowan stays between him and the box without pretending the positioning is accidental, and for once Lev doesn't make a serious attempt to get around him.

Medusa walks in with her coat still open from the rush over and stops the second she sees the container. Every snake on her head reacts before she does. Their bodies stiffen at once, several mouths opening in sharp hisses while one pulls backward against her hairline and another stretches toward the box.

The severed snake answers as its body twists hard enough to strike the side of the container, and the sound echoes through the shop. Medusa’s face tightens as she crosses the room and crouches several feet away from it.

“That’s most of it,” she says after a moment. She doesn't reach for the box yet, and the snakes around her continue shifting restlessly as though none of them can decide whether they want to attack the severed piece or get away from it.

Lev looks from her to the thing inside the container. “Most of it?”

“The fragment Rowan touched was probably cut from this section later.” Medusa leans slightly closer, and the severed snake turns toward her immediately. “Once he learned how to draw the petrification through it, he may have started taking smaller pieces so he didn’t have to carry the whole thing.”

Rowan’s jaw tightens. “So this is where the magic is really anchored.”

“This is the main piece he took from me.” Medusa keeps staring at it, and for the first time since I met her, there is something uneasy beneath her usual control. “As long as this remains separate from me and alive, the connection remains available to him.”

Rowan doesn't hesitate. “Can we burn it?” His hand finally releases Lev’s jacket, but he stays close enough that their shoulders nearly touch.

Medusa shakes her head. “Burning the body doesn’t sever what it is magically.”

“What about cutting it apart?” Rowan asks. He looks at the tools on the nearby table as if he would happily reduce the thing to pieces himself if she gave him permission.

“That only creates more pieces.” Medusa exhales slowly and glances toward the container again. “The smaller fragment already proved that.”

Lev’s suspicion grows with every answer. He looks from the snake to Medusa, then toward the old chemical drums stacked near the back wall. “Acid?”

Medusa finally looks up at him. “You’ve been thinking about this.”

Lev folds his arms and keeps a careful amount of Rowan between himself and the container. “I’ve had twenty minutes.”

I watch the snake react to Medusa’s presence again. The connection between them is easier to feel now that she is standing this close, her magic filling the room while the weaker version trapped inside the severed snake answers in uneven pulses. It is the same signature and somehow not, distorted by distance and whatever the gargoyle did to keep a piece of her alive after cutting it away.

“If destroying the body isn’t enough, then the connection stays,” I say, watching the snake’s head turn toward her again. “Burning it would only get rid of what we can see.”

Medusa nods. “Exactly. The snake isn’t a separate creature. It never was. My snakes are part of me, my magic, my body. Cutting one away doesn’t change that just because it can survive outside me.” She looks down into the container, and several of the snakes around her head remain rigid, fixed on their severed counterpart.

Lev’s expression changes as he follows the explanation to the same place I do. He slowly lowers his arms. “I don’t like where this is going.”

Medusa straightens and takes a long breath before answering. For the first time since she arrived, she looks less angry than resigned. “If I want to sever his access permanently, I have to take the snake back into myself.”

Silence stretches across the shop while the snake shifts inside the container, scales scraping wetly against metal. Rowan is the first one to break it, his attention fixed on Medusa rather than the box. “How do you take it back?”