Persie Merlin and the Witch Hunters - Bella Forrest Page 0,12

with a pretty bloom of pink. “Last time, she told me that he still whips around when he’s alone and asks if I’m there. I don’t think he’ll ever get over me using that invisibility spell.” I tried to imagine Cynane pantomiming to get the story across, and a bubble of laughter rose in my throat. Poor Nathan. Suddenly, Genie broke into a sprint, glancing over her shoulder with a pixie-esque look of mischief. “Come on, Pers! Training starts now! Pick up the pace!”

I took off after her, and immediately regretted the decision. My limbs ached like someone had replaced them with creaking logs and my arms pumped way faster than my legs could keep pace, which only made my awkward crab impression ten times worse. I was glad the halls were empty, because nobody needed to see this. Not unless they needed a lesson on how not to run.

Four

Nathan

“Someone looks a bit more chipper this evening. How are those mice sitting in that tummy of yours?” I sat cross-legged on the floor before Miss Bennet’s glass orb to watch her eat. Miss Bennet was a fiery-scaled naga: a seven-foot serpent with a cobra’s hood and carrot-colored eyes that, more often than not, held a withering glare. Her shining tail coiled beneath her like bronzed ropes. I knew I was growing on her because she’d stopped spitting venom at the glass every time I approached. Goodness, she was a beauty.

Miss Bennet swayed slightly, watching a white mouse scuttle across the floor of her orb. In one precise burst, she snapped the rodent up and swallowed it whole. Others might have found the gulping sounds grotesque, but I observed in awe as her muscles visibly constricted to urge the creature down her endless neck. Her tongue flicked as she reeled back again, her eyes bright with the thrill of the hunt.

I smiled. “Delicious, non? I have it on good authority that they’re gourmet.”

She dipped forward and nudged the glass with her flat nose. “Nose” wasn’t quite correct, anatomically speaking—she didn’t have a nose at all, just two nostril slits that flared with each inhale and exhale. But it was easier to just say “nose,” so everyone understood.

Now, I was no Dr. Dolittle (though that would have made my job infinitely simpler), but I took Miss Bennet’s gesture as a sign that she’d enjoyed her furry feast. I felt a touch sorry for the many mice that had been dropped through the hatch to their imminent doom, but carnivores would carnivore. Miss Bennet was usually fed a synthetic protein mix, but her stomach had been acting up in the past week or so. I’d noticed her languishing in her orb, the sheen of her scales dulled to a brassy hue. When one of my creatures was doing poorly, I did all I could to help, and that included, but was not limited to, a few sacrificial rodents. I’d come to learn that Purge beasts were typically sick for a few reasons: unsuitable diet, enclosure anxiety, or something in their environment. For sweet and spitty Miss Bennet, the diet change appeared to have done the trick.

I stood, dusting off the seat of my trousers, and proceeded with the evening rounds. Duke, the two-horned abada, very similar to a unicorn, chewed morosely on a parcel of synthetic fairy dust. Ichiro and Gen, a pair of tortoise-shelled kappas, rested in bowed positions as the basin-like indents of their skulls sloshed water that I’d poured in to keep them from freezing anyone on the spot. A cluster of rompos, which I hadn’t gotten around to naming, tore up a protein block. They were relatively small creatures with rabbit heads, badger forelegs, and the hind legs of bears. They had emaciated middles and eerily human-esque ears. I had their orb hexed with a silencing spell so they couldn’t sing and draw humans to their deaths. And Dante, the Grootslang—a curious individual with the head of an elephant and the body of a serpent—splashed contentedly in his half-filled orb of water.

I paused beside the large orb that held a pair of crocottas—wolf-dog beings that more closely resembled hyenas than any wolf or dog I had ever seen. “Pelias, Neleus, I thought you two had agreed to make friends?” I said. They were sulking at their respective ends of the enclosure, crying at one another before returning to their teenage moping. I’d moved them into this larger orb and made sure they had separate feeding drops in the hopes