Page 295 of Split or Swallow
Adelaide raised an eyebrow.
“With my mind, I mean. Our connection is…broken. It’s weak—I can barely hear him.”
Tem paused, gathering the courage to continue.
“And I can lie. For the first time in my life. Easily—the way normal people can.”
Adelaide crossed her perfectly toned arms.
“Why are you telling me this, Temperance?”
Tem met her eye.
“Because you know about Hybreeds. And I need you to tell me what’s wrong with me.”
“I cannot be sure,” Adelaide shrugged elegantly. “I am by no means an expert.”
“Well then guess.”
She sighed. “When did it begin?”
“Right after Caspen crested me.”
Adelaide’s golden eyes searched Tem’s.
“I have never heard of anything like this before. I doubt anyone has. But it is possible that…” she paused, and it felt as if every cell in Tem’s body were tilting forward. “The basilisk side of you is…dying.”
“What? But the crest didn’t work. I’m not bonded to Caspen.”
“It did not work on the human side of you. You are made up of two things, Temperance. Perhaps the crest could only choose one or the other. It chose the basilisk.”
“You say that as if it has a mind of its own.”
“It may very well have one. Caspen had only crested a basilisk before you. So when he did it again, the crest was drawn to what it knew. The part of you that is human was spared from its effects. The part of you that is basilisk was not.”
“So…what’s going to happen to me?”
“I do not know.”
“But if you—”
“If I had to guess,” Adelaide said. “I would say that you are…wounded, so to speak.”
Tem’s heart fell.
This explained everything: her inability to speak to Caspen as easily as she once did, her newfound ability to lie. She was losing the best part of her—the part she’d only just gotten to know.
Adelaide was watching her in sympathetic silence.
“What happens if the basilisk side of me dies completely?” Tem whispered.
Adelaide sighed, answering gently:
“The same thing that happens when anything dies. It ceases to exist.”
“But then I’ll be…”
Tem couldn’t say the words. Adelaide said them for her:
