Page 38 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

The tiny dorm had felt cramped with two people, but three made it so they couldn’t close the door without shifting someone out of the way.

Henry sank onto the cushion, pressing his back to the wall.

Eliza stepped over his legs and wedged herself into the space between him and the dresser while Silas perched carefully at the end of the bed.

An awkward silence fell. Eliza fidgeted. Should she talk? Or wait?

Her self-restraint finally cracked.

“Henry, what happened to you?”

Henry picked at his healed arm. He gave a small toss of his head, moving his hair back only for it to slide across his shoulder again.

Silas sat without moving, legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles with his injured leg propped up. There was no tension in the gentle slope of his shoulders. He didn’t ever seem bothered by silence or emotion.

It took an eternity for Henry to speak, and Eliza clenched her jaw tightly to give him that time. She remembered his overwhelmed face when she’d first spoken to him in the tunnel.

“Well, you know the first bit.” Henry tried for a smile that quickly faded. “I was banished from Loegria, and I got on a ship to Pravusat.”

“A ship that sank.” Eliza’s chest tightened, making it difficult to breathe.

Henry flinched. “Yeah.”

He continued picking at his faint scar, his worn clothes, his growing stubble, until Eliza felt the need for more information like snakes crawling across her skin.

Finally, she prompted, “You washed up at the tabernacle?”

Silas shot her a disapproving frown, and she glared back. What did he even care about Henry’s situation? He’d had to be chained into helping her—even though he was a member of court who’d actually known Henry, spent time with him.

She couldn’t fight the sting of that revelation. She’d asked Silas if he had any relation to Viscount Bennett, and he’d claimed he wasn’t the man’s son. Was his disdain for royalty so great that he’d also sworn off the entire court? Was that why he’d refused to help Henry until forced into it?

Henry nodded. “It’s sort of a blur. Anyway, um, thanks for—”

“You don’t have to lie,” Silas said quietly, his dark eyes piercing. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Eliza looked between the two of them, trying to read the unspoken. Silas clearly knew something, or thought he knew something. He always thought he knew something.

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Henry. But his fingers were shaking, and he folded his arms across his chest, pulling one knee up like a shield.

“Here’s my theory.” As Silas spoke, he kept his relentless gaze pinned on Henry.

“Ceyda blamed me for her father’s death.

She came after me but failed. So she followed me back to Loegria only to lose me there, a blessing I’ll ascribe to my antisocial tendencies and her ignorance of the country.

Discouraged, she returned home on a ship that happened to be carrying you.

Something happened on that ship—either to cause the shipwreck or in response to it.

Whatever it was made you interesting enough to her that she took you to the Sarazan healers rather than walking away. ”

After a meaningful pause, he added, “I can guess what made you so interesting to a girl who can steal magic. Should I go on, or would you rather say it yourself?”

Henry stared down at his lap, shoulders curled in, all of him closed off like a shuttered window. Eliza wanted to tell Silas to back down, but before she could, he spoke again.

“Maybe this will help.” Gripping the bedpost, he pushed himself to his feet, weight on his good leg.

And then he puffed into a cloud of gray mist, dissipating around a black-patterned viper, its red eyes trained on Henry.

Eliza remembered screaming when she’d first seen that transformation, how terror had iced every bone, freezing her in place. She wanted to smack Silas for inflicting it on Henry without warning.

Except Henry didn’t scream.

He was pale and wide-eyed, but it didn’t seem to be from terror. If anything, he released a gusting breath . . . of relief?

Turning human again, Silas eased himself back onto the mattress. He crooked his fingers in Henry’s direction, encouraging him to speak.

Henry opened his mouth but closed it again, like whatever it was couldn’t get past his throat.

Eliza’s insides slunk behind her spine, trying to avoid where she finally realized this conversation might be going.

“You had a rage transformation on the ship,” Silas said quietly. “Right?”

Henry swallowed. Finally, he rasped out, “Is that what they’re called?”

“Well, if you want the Pravish term, it’s kemik kirmasi—the flesh rip. Makes it sound a lot more gruesome than it is. I’d say ‘rage transformation’ makes the point well enough. I adopted the phrase from a Cat Affiliate I know.”

Henry shook his head, rubbing his arms like he was trying to find warmth. “You’re so calm. You’re . . .”

“Six years into this,” said Silas. He lifted an eyebrow. “And you’re—let me guess—one single transformation?”

Eliza licked her lips. She waited for Henry to deny it, but he looked down and away, his hair shadowing his eyes.

When he spoke, his voice was fragile, wavering. “While we were on the ship, I kept thinking about . . . my family, my future, my . . . and then, suddenly, I wasn’t . . . myself.”

He shot one fleeting glimpse at Eliza, and she tried too late to look comforting, but he’d already turned away. Did he see anger in her face?

She’d come to accept Affiliates through Silas, and there wasn’t any magic in the world that could make her love Henry less, but all the same, it felt unfair.

Just months earlier, Henry had been a normal knight, winning a tournament, grinning for the world to see.

Even if magic didn’t make someone a monster, it still changed them.

Seeing Henry now, small and ashamed, obviously hurting, how could she not feel upset for him?

Silas nodded. “Animal Affiliates are driven by emotion. When we feel too much, it triggers a transformation. You’ll get better at controlling that, but to a certain extent, you also have to learn to live with it.”

“Were you one all along?” Henry stared at Silas in awe. “All those times at the Reeves estate when you sat on the sofa reading a book and eating Leon’s pastries like . . . like . . .”

“Like a regular person?” Silas asked dryly. “I am a regular person, and so are you.”

Henry laughed. A harsh, cracked sound, devoid of any actual humor. “I’m a shapeshifter. I can’t— Even without the banishment, I can’t ever go home. My brothers, my parents . . . they’d . . .”

Eliza’s heart twisted at the raw pain in his voice, and she reached for his hand, but he flinched at her touch. Slowly, she withdrew, resting her hands in her lap.

She glanced at Silas and caught him touching the scar on his neck before he lowered his hand in the same way.

Silas’s father had tried to kill him. Would Henry’s father do the same if he knew the truth?

She couldn’t imagine that. Lord Wycliff was part of her father’s Upper Court, and she often saw him at the castle.

He dressed brightly and laughed easily. Aria said he had a level head when offering suggestions in the king’s council.

When Henry had won the tournament all those weeks ago, Lord Wycliff had come right out of his seat cheering his second-youngest son.

Would all of that vanish just because of magic?

Had it vanished for Silas?

Eliza swallowed. The tiny dorm felt smaller than ever, her legs cramped, the dresser pressing from behind.

Silas’s voice broke the silence. “My first transformation happened at Fairfax.”

Henry lifted his head, blinking.

“That’s where you went to school, too, isn’t it? If you’re eighteen, you and I would have overlapped a year. I was arguing with Professor Harrison—you remember him?”

The smallest twitch moved Henry’s lips. “Impossible to please.”

Silas scoffed. “Stone-headed is a better term, and wrong about most of what he teaches. So you can see why we were arguing.”

Eliza couldn’t help teasing, “Are you sure you don’t think that about all your professors?”

“Hush,” said Silas. The gloom in the dorm lifted a little.

“Professor Harrison was trying to claim that Loegria’s biggest export was precious metals, even though Patriamere has twice as many mines as we do.

It’s actually wool, just so you know—Loegria is full of sheep.

Take all the meaning from that you’d like. ”

Eliza reached up to jab him in the arm, and he cracked a smile.

“Anyway, it got heated,” he said, “because he was wrong and wouldn’t rescind, and I was right and wouldn’t let the falsehood stand. My anger rose, and my skin started itching. I ignored it; I was too focused on the argument.”

Henry stared in horror. “You transformed in front of Professor Harrison?”

“I didn’t, actually.” Silas’s voice quieted, and he drew in a breath like he was gathering details of a memory he didn’t often revisit.

“You only ever saw me at the Reeves estate. I practically lived there during the summers, because Gill was my best friend. We met at Fairfax, months before this event. He noticed what was happening to me. He knew the signs. So he strong-armed me out of the room just in time, shoved me into a closet, and then locked himself in with a hissing viper.”

When Eliza had first suspected her sister was in love, she’d known it had to be someone special. Even more so when she found out he was a Caster. But apparently Guillaume Reeves—or Baron, as Aria said was his preferred nickname—was even more impressive than Eliza had imagined.

“I’m not surprised,” Henry said softly. “I mean, I am, but . . . if anyone could be fearless around shapeshifters, it’s Baron.”

Silas shook his head. “No. He’s more afraid than most, because he knows several Affiliates, and he knows what happens if they get revealed.

He wasn’t afraid of me; he was afraid for me.

And I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t even hear what he was saying.

Maybe he could have calmed me down if I’d listened.

Instead . . .” He looked away. “I bit him.”

Eliza flinched, remembering the sharp prick of Silas’s fangs in her own arm.

But she also remembered being a snake. Remembered how the world had doubled in size around her, trying to swallow her, how her body no longer felt like her own and everything seemed wrong and she was trapped in a nightmare.

At least she’d had a warning. At least she’d known what was happening.

Even so, she’d still almost bitten Silas.

She could only imagine how much Silas would have blamed himself after biting his friend, but she would have done the same. Even without being an Affiliate, she knew how it felt to lash out and then regret it. She knew what it was like to be overwhelmed with emotions, trying to sail in a storm.

Silas had sat with her through moments like that. Without judgment. Comforting.

Now he was sitting with Henry in the same way.

You don’t care about suffering! She’d shouted that accusation at him once. Her cheeks heated now to think of it.

“I gave him a scar,” Silas said quietly.

“I thought he’d hate me for being an Affiliate—Affiliate, by the way, not shapeshifter; better start adjusting—and if he miraculously didn’t, then he’d hate me for hurting him when he was trying to help.

But he never did. He insisted we were still friends.

He said there was nothing wrong with me.

During our next school break, he introduced me to the other Affiliates in his life. ”

Silas nudged his good leg against Henry’s, pausing until Henry looked up to meet his gaze. “I’m going to tell you something. You don’t have to believe it yet if you can’t, but I want you to remember it.”

He let the silence stretch, a net of anticipation waiting to catch his next words.

“There is nothing wrong with you, Henry. You are not broken. You are not cursed. You are not lesser. All you are is a person. Some of what you can do, like jousting, is a skill shared by many other people. And some of what you can do, like transforming into an animal, is a skill shared by very few. The unique combination of traits is what makes you the person you are, but there’s not a single trait in itself that isn’t shared by some other human.

If you need time to adjust to this new trait, that’s fine, but don’t waste time mourning that you’re different from everyone else.

You aren’t. You’re just an ordinary person, now and always. ”

Eliza couldn’t read Henry’s reaction because her own eyes had blurred with tears. Only Silas could say, You’re nothing special, but in such a way that it was empowering rather than an insult. And although the message was meant for Henry, she selfishly tucked it into her own heart.

You are not broken. You are not lesser. All you are is a person.