a man, perhaps a little older than Henryk, wearing dark trousers and boots and a long coat the color of pale honey. It was trimmed in black embroidery, he wore a fine red necktie, and his hair was sandy blond. He was kneeling over a cracked gas lantern, trying, without success, to right the fallen light.
“Who are you?” demanded Henryk. “What are you doing here?”
Even in a whisper, his voice carried.
The man looked up.
“Oh my,” he said, apparently unruffled. “I’d heard there were Wolf-Lords in town, but—”
“Who are you?”
Henryk’s voice echoed off the cellar walls.
The man was unperturbed. He had a square, handsome face and a broken nose. He got to his feet and held out his hand.
“It’s an honor to meet you,” he said. “My name is Dr. Jakub Rybak. I am an Unnaturalist, with a specialty in anthropomorphic monstrosity.”
The three brothers regarded the outstretched hand with suspicion.
“It is a handshake,” said Dr. Rybak. “It is what people do when—oh, never mind. It’s not important.”
Lukasz looked past the polished Unnaturalist to what he’d been examining: a feathery figure, somehow bent up and comprised entirely of elbows. It had bits of red fur hanging off its scaly body, and a beak instead of a nose. All in all, it had a faintly gross, dried-up look to it.
“Strzygoń,” said Dr. Jakub Rybak, catching Lukasz’s look.
“Bless you,” said Lukasz politely.
“Strzygi are monsters, Lukasz,” explained Franciszek. “Derived from human victims.”
While Lukasz blushed and fumed, Henryk gave Dr. Rybak a long, appraising stare. There was an unathletic slope to the Unnaturalist’s shoulders, and the broken lantern did not speak well of his dexterity.
“Right,” said Henryk after a moment. He had a near-permanent furrow between his brows, and now it deepened slightly. “Found anything else, have you?”
“Ah, certainly.” Dr. Rybak tugged a notebook out of his pocket, flipped through it. “I’ve found plenty. The crypts of the Miasto Basilica have been particularly bountiful: twenty-six nocnica, four psotniki, copper and silver in great quantities, one wax puppet—”
“No,” interrupted Henryk. “I mean here. Have you found anything here? Burn patterns? Flint deposits? The dragon—”
“Not a dragon,” corrected Dr. Rybak, holding up a hand. “A basilisk. Much, much worse. Of an entirely different patrimony from a dragon, and of a very different species. Serpentine morphology. Extreme rarity, and it has the gift of medusaidism.” He glanced at Lukasz and Franciszek and explained: “The ability to murder with a single stare.”
He looked thrilled.
“I know what medusaidism is,” said Franciszek quickly. His eyes shone, even in the darkness. “If you don’t mind my asking, Dr. Rybak, what exactly is an Unnaturalist?”
Dr. Rybak beamed.
“A historian and curator of Unnatural objects and creatures,” he said. “As I mentioned, I am most interested in anthropomorphics. In other words, monsters of human origin. Like this strzygoń, for instance—” He indicated the desiccated creature on the cellar floor. “Based on the degree of mummification and the comparative beak length, I suspect—”
Another crash.
All four twisted around. Lukasz recognized it as the sound of splintering wood. There was a beat of silence, then the whisper of scales on stone and a low-pitched, shuddering whistle. It was soft, a gentle eeee sound in the darkness.
“What the hell?” growled Lukasz.
The thing—the basilisk?—exhaled. It was almost like a sigh.
“It’s here,” said Dr. Rybak. “Put out your lanterns. It’s coming for the light.”
They smashed the lanterns, glass raining like blades of snow. The cellar plunged into darkness.
“Come on,” whispered Dr. Rybak urgently. “We have to move.”
The soft, low whine came again. Eeeeeeee, it murmured. It whispered straight through Lukasz’s skull, echoed in his head. Then it exhaled again.
The cellar was nothing but the dark shadows of barrels, their own panicked breathing. It was no use. The basilisk would be able to smell them. And surely, if it had eyes that could kill, then it had eyes that could also see in darkness?
“We need to hide,” whispered Dr. Rybak.
“We need to kill it,” snarled Henryk.
Lukasz’s hand closed on the hilt of his sword.
“You may know your dragons,” whispered the Unnaturalist in a cutting voice. “But I know about other monsters. You need to listen to me.”
“Henryk, he’s right,” whispered Franciszek as they huddled behind the nearest barrel. “We can’t fight it blind. We don’t stand a chance.”
“Come on—” started Lukasz.
Outside, there was a thudding sound. Lukasz realized, feeling suddenly sick, that it was the sound of serpentine coils hitting the ground. The creature kept hissing.