Linnea pushed away from him. She stared. “Why—why did you—”

“Save your life? Do you need to ask?” Oz asked, looking at her like she was stupid. He glanced at her spider body, then quickly looked away, not wanting to stare. She’s a scary spider monster, but she’s still Linnea. She isn’t any more of a threat than she was ten seconds ago. She saved my life before. Why wouldn’t I help her?

Besides, she’s kind of cool as hell, though? I mean, I’m not into spider girls, but I’m not opposed either. I wonder if she can climb on the walls and stuff? Shoot web? Inject venom?

“But I’m—”

The kid pushed against Oz’s foot, nearly dislodging him. He stumbled, then put more weight on the kid. Right. Let’s admire Linnea later. First things first. “Hey, mind tying up the assassin first? And then I need help with this poison… I figured a bug user would know about poisons, but I guess a spider would know them even better.”

Linnea startled. She ran her hands over her arms self-consciously. “Arachne, actually. A… a kind of spider demon. You don’t mind? That I’m a demon?”

“I mind way more that this kid isn’t tied up yet,” Oz said, stumbling again. He glared. “Quit struggling!”

The kid glared back at him. “Why didn’t you change? That was silverleaf powder. You’re a fey, everyone knows it! That powder should have revealed your true form!”

“Turns out, the rumors of my feyhood are wildly exaggerated,” Oz said.

Linnea nudged him back. He stepped off the kid. The kid instantly jumped up, but before he could escape, white thread wrapped around his body and snagged him back. Rearing up, Linnea expertly plied her spider legs and spun him around until his body resembled a cocoon.

Wrapped up from head to toe in spider silk, the boy struggled, but couldn’t do more than twitch his head around. With a grunt, Oz heaved him up in his good hand. He marched toward the desk, lifting a leg to activate the book lever. The round panel in the ground spun open, and he tossed the kid inside. The cocoon stuck against the third stair, and the kid laid there, struggling helplessly.

“Let me go! What are you doing? You filthy demons! I—”

Oz stepped back. The panel swung shut, muffling the kid’s voice.

He looked at Linnea, then held out his hand. “Do you recognize this? My other plan is getting the answer out of the kid, but I don’t know how reliable he is, so…”

Linnea looked at him, flicking her eyes from his to the floor. “You aren’t scared of me?”

“I mean, you’re pretty spooky, but I’m not going to attack you. You’re still the same Linnea you ever were, right? Not going to eat me, or anything?”

Hesitantly, Linnea nodded, then shook her head. “I… no.”

“And this isn’t, like, some kind of madness dark magic corruption, is it?” Oz asked.

“I was born like this,” Linnea said, shaking her head.

“Then what’s the matter? You’re the one who chooses how to live your life. Your bloodline doesn’t do that.”

Linnea blinked. She ran a hand up her arm self-consciously. “Oh.”

Oz gestured her over, raising his arm. “Now that we’re good, can you please look at my hand? I’m on a timer here. My hand’s gonna die sooner or later if I keep it tied.”

Linnea met his eyes, then burst out laughing. Oz stared at her, but she just kept laughing, shaking her head. “You’re insane, Oz. You’re absolutely insane.”

“Yeah, yeah. Laugh at me after we fix this!” He waved his hand a little.

Linnea took a deep breath. She nodded, forcing her laughter down with a bit of a nervous shiver. A moment later, she froze. “I can’t turn back.”

“It probably takes the powder some time to wear off. My eye still hurts from where the powder got in it,” Oz said, blinking again as he reminded himself of it.

“I’ll have to hope so. Or I won’t be able to leave…” Her voice trailed off.

Oz clicked his tongue. “Yeah…” Can she leave? Everyone saw her. Will they let her off so easily? Can she walk outside the library without getting destroyed?

After a moment, he shook his head. “I’ve got plenty of space in the dorms. You can stay here until you figure out what you want to do. Did anyone know about you? Will anyone help you?”

“Lif knew, but…” Linnea laughed bitterly. She shook her head. “He won’t help me. Not in a million years.”

Oz twisted his lips. I did get the feeling there was something off about their relationship. It doesn’t surprise me.

This might be worse than I thought at first. Linnea’s pretty much dead. She can’t step outside again. Her social life is over. She’s—

She’s… pretty much in the same place I am.

Oz chuckled to himself, rubbing a hand down his face. I can’t leave the library, so I get accused of being a fey. Linnea is a demon, and she can’t leave the library. What strange irony this is.

He nodded at Linnea. “Then, for now, stay inside the library. We’ll figure out what to do long-term later.” He lifted his arm. “Once I’m not dying of poison.”  

Unless this is some ploy to hide inside the library and use this as an excuse to access the books, a paranoid part of his mind whispered, but he dismissed it a moment later. Professor Keane hiring this young assassin is likely. Lif getting Professor Keane to hire an assassin with silverleaf powder and knowing I would call Linnea over, then having everything coincidentally align so the assassin throws the powder at not just me, but also Linnea, right in the doorway in front of everyone… it’s within the realm of possibility, but not by much.

It requires so much to go perfectly right that I’d be startled to find out it was Lif’s plan all along. Not because it’s too genius, but because it’s so finnicky. Who would plan on such a low percentage?  

“Are you sure?” Linnea asked. She shuffled backward a bit, trying unsuccessfully to hide her spider body.

“Not really, but what else am I supposed to do? Throw you out in the cold to die?” Oz asked.

Linnea glanced at him. “It’s what most mages would do.”

“Why? You haven’t done anything to harm me. Okay, except for the bugs, but you aren’t going to do that anymore, right?”

She shook her head.

“I’m not that cold-hearted. You’ve helped me. We’ve saved each other’s lives. We’re friends. I’m not going to send you to your death just because you’re a demon.”

Linnea took a deep breath. She nodded, then gestured. “Give me your hand.”

Oz held it out, cut side up. The puncture wound no longer bled, but it seeped a dark liquid down the side of his hand. He grimaced at the sight of it. Don’t like the look of that.

Linnea drew his hand up to her eyes. Leaning in close, she inspected it, turning it left and right, up and down. Her lips pressed together. She opened her mouth, then pressed her lips to the back of his hand, and she sucked at his wound.

Oz stiffened, startled. Sucking the poison out? That’s a real thing?

She drew back, rolling her tongue around in her mouth thoughtfully. Turning to the side, she spat. Her lips twisted, a pained expression on her face. “Mmm.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Oz said, worried.

“It’s not good, but it could be worse. You aren’t doing anything with that tourniquet, so you might as well remove it,” Linnea said.

“Oh. You sure?” Oz asked.

She nodded. Tugging at her collar, she pointed at her collarbone. “This poison can travel through your qi passages. The second you used your qi, the game was over. It’s already seeped through.”

Oz glanced down, pulling his robes away from his chest. Discolored veins crawled over his collarbone, purplish black, twisting down the length of his poisoned arm. He scowled, then untied the tourniquet. For a few seconds, his hand felt like nothing. Like an old television slowly seeking out the channel, his hand buzzed with static, the static growing more and more intense until it became an outright ache. Every muscle in his hand burned. He gritted his teeth as the burn intensified, waiting for it to fade. 

He glanced at Linnea. “What poison is it?”

“It’s a slow-working second realm poison called Creeping Darkness, on account of the way it blackens the afflicted user’s veins. The good news is that you’re in no immediate danger. It takes days, if not weeks, to kill. The bad news is that there is no antidote to Creeping Darkness. You can take a preventative antitoxin to stave it off indefinitely, but you cannot cure it.” Linnea shook her head.

“Yet. Just because something doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean it’ll never exist,” Oz said with more confidence than he felt. He rubbed his arm anxiously. Damn. That’s not what I wanted to hear.

Though on the other hand, if the poison can be staved off by an antitoxin, doesn’t that mean the antitoxin makers have a reason to spread a rumor that there’s no cure? It’s like how in my world, pharmacy companies focus on recurring medications rather than one-time cures. Much better for the pillmakers to claim a poison can’t be cured except for a lifetime of medicine, even if it truly has a cure.

It isn’t a good place to be, but it isn’t hopeless, either.

“Is it a common poison?” Oz asked.

Linnea shook her head. “If I wasn’t a practitioner of the poison arts, I wouldn’t know of it. Even then, I’ve never seen it in person before. I’m sorry.”

“At least I know what their plan was,” Oz muttered. He looked at Linnea. “Professor Keane didn’t want me dead. He wanted me beholden to his antitoxin… and therefore, him.”

“Professor Keane did this?” Linnea asked, startled.

Oz shrugged. “That’s my best guess right now.”

Linnea frowned. She put a hand on her chin and gathered all her feet together, tap-tap-tapping on the floor as she adjusted all of them at once. “But why? What does he gain?”

“The library?” Oz suggested, spreading his hands.

“At the cost of alienating you. It’s only a second tier poison. It will make it more difficult to cultivate to the third realm, but once you hit third realm, you should be able to easily negate the poison by the force of your cultivation alone. Why irritate you, if it isn’t a permanent solution?” Linnea murmured.

“He doesn’t necessarily have enough money to buy better poison, now. Besides, higher-realm poison might kill me, right?” Oz asked.

“It would be more difficult to not kill you, yes,” Linnea agreed. “But not impossible. If I was trying to do the same…” She drifted off, a thoughtful look on her face.

“Linnea. Hey. Who’s letting you stay in the library, huh?” Oz asked.

Linnea snapped back to the present. “Apologies. I don’t understand what he’s thinking.”

Oz stood, looking up at the ceiling and the infinite books stacking off into the sky. “Wait—what if this was all he could afford right now? And it’s a rare poison, so he likely expected me to be unable to easily find it. If he acted sympathetic and provided me with the antitoxin ‘for free,’ he could have made a play for my trust. If I did fall for it and began to trust him, and provided him with books to sell to pay for the antitoxin, he could have then bought a stronger poison and offered it to me as a ‘cure’ before I reached the level to negate the first poison.”

“It’s certainly an idea.”

Oz snorted. “I might not be completely right, but I bet he was thinking something like that. We can confirm it if he offers me the antitoxin when he comes to pick up the kids. I’ll know he expected this if he does.”

Linnea nodded at his hand. “The poison constricts your qi passages. Without the antitoxin, you’ll have a harder time drawing qi than usual. Reaching the next realm isn’t impossible, but it won’t be easy, either. You can’t just ignore it. What are you going to do until Professor Keane shows up with the antitoxin?”

Rubbing his arm, Oz shook his head. “Professor Keane? Forget him. I’m going to shoot for the stars and try to make a cure, but failing that, secure my own supply of antitoxin.”