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“I want to—” I caught myself before I could sayget you home.I remembered how that conversation had gone with Hecuba. “I want to free you from that chain. Then you can make up your own mind about what to do next.”

The room shook. The orange foam was seeping into the concrete foundation, opening fracture lines big enough to swallow a mustelid. More tendrils of goo crept up the walls, eating away at the bricks and mortar. A chunk of ceiling plaster the size of a dinner plate crashed next to my foot.

Gale hissed and backed into the air duct, but she could only get so far before she reached the end of her golden chain. Otherwise, I got the feeling she would’ve been long gone.

“Gale, we don’t have much time.…” I flailed my tentacles in a calm and reasonable fashion. “I need your help. I know Phaedra said there’s no cure for that beast-breath stuff, but I’m betting you know an antidote.”

The polecat poked her nose out of the duct, like,Who, me?

“You don’t owe me anything,” I admitted. “But today I’ve seen what you can do with potions. You really are amazing.”

She puffed up her fur, then farted angrily.

“I know,” I said. “Hecate doesn’t give you enough credit. It’s like she’s forgotten you used to be something besides a cute furry pet.”

“BARK!”Exactly.

Wow…either I was starting to understand Polecat, or I was hallucinating from the six thousand magic chemicals in the air.

“I didn’t appreciate you before,” I said. “You haveskills. That was the real reason Hecate turned you into a polecat, wasn’t it? Not the whole…gassy problem. She was jealous that you were becoming too powerful.”

“BARK!”Obviously.

(Exactlyandobviouslysounded almost identical in Polecat, and yeah, I was definitely starting to hallucinate.)

“Now that I’ve got these”—I waved my rows of pink suckers—“I’m starting to understand how tough it must be. You have it even worse. Hecate made sure you have no voice, no opposable thumbs, no way to brew potions on your own.”

A large crack zigzagged up the wall right next to Gale’s perch. That orange goo was powerful stuff. I wondered if my sock and shoe had somehow supercharged it—the perfect nutrients for a growing goo monster.

“Let’s make an antidote together,” I said. “It might work on you, too—if youwantto be human again. If not, no judgment. Show me what to do. But we have to brew the cure before this place falls down around our ears.”

Gale chittered, then bit her shackle in frustration.

“Of course I’ll free you first,” I said. “Then you can decide. You deserve to show your skills, but not like this…chained up and forced to work for a bunch of greedy perfume nymphs. Let’s make that antidote so it can help us all. When we get back to Hecate’s—”

Gale hissed.That witch!

“Ifyou decide to go back,” I corrected myself, “I’ll make sure Hecate understands your worth. We can get you your own lab, some assistants with opposable thumbs, whatever you want!”

Gale tilted her head.Why should I trust you?

“I’m not leaving without you,” I said. “So…”

I waved a tentacle at the crumbling laboratory. More cracks had appeared in the walls. The floor looked like a shattered, gooey sheet of glass. Soon, we’d be buried under tons of rubble and fancy cologne.

Gale jumped to the nearest table. She presented her chain.

“Great,” I said. “Just hold still.…”

It took a few tries to pick up my sword. Even with one human brain in my skull and a mini octopus brain in each of my eight arms, learning to coordinate my tentacles wasn’t easy. Finally, I got a steady grip on the handle. I rested another tentacle on Gale’s back, and…

Shock. Dizziness. Pain.

Tentacles were sensory organs. I knew that, but this was nothing like human senses. I couldsmellGale’s history. I could taste her emotions. An electrical current passed between us, letting me hear every muscle in her body, every chemical washing through her brain, every memory painted by her neurons.

I saw a young woman in tattered brown robes. She carried a leather pack over one shoulder, loaded with medicinal plants, vials, salves, and scrolls. It was her life’s work—all she could salvage when the Colossians chased her out of their city. She struggled up a steep mountain path, occasionally stopping to grip her stomach, crying out in pain. Tears streaked her face, smearing the kohl around her eyes so she appeared to have a black mask.

Her intestines felt like they were filled with broken glass. The condition had been getting worse ever since Apamea, when Hecate had appeared in her dreams, warning her to stop. But Gale hadn’t stopped. She had been so close.