Jerry's fingers pinched the parchment filled with data, flipping through it without much of a glance before rolling it up and stuffing it into the inner pocket of his school robe.
"By the way, about that child of yours."
Aurora was bending over to adjust the intake valve on the side of the furnace.
Her fingers twisted the brass knob, and the blue flames in the hearth flared and dipped with the angle of the valve, alternately illuminating and shadowing her chin and neck.
The fingers twisting the knob paused for a beat; the edge of the brass bit into the pad of her index finger, pressing a shallow indentation into it.
"Which child?"
"You know which one I'm talking about."
Jerry's buttocks rested against the edge of the workbench.
The height of the tabletop sat perfectly at his waistline.
He leaned back, planting his palms on the surface. His fingers ground over the dots soaked by the silver droplets, picking up a cool, sticky residue of alchemical solution on his palms.
His legs dangled in front of the counter, the tips of his toes still a distance from the floor.
His heels swung in the air twice, knocking against the cabinet doors of the workbench with a thump-thump.
Aurora turned the intake valve to a fixed mark, released the knob, straightened her back, and turned around.
She leaned against the iron rack next to the furnace, which hung various sizes of crucible tongs and stirring rods.
Her shoulder blade wedged perfectly into the gap between two pairs of tongs, the coldness of the metal seeping through her shirt fabric and into her skin.
She didn't move, crossing her arms over her chest, the shirt fabric pulling taut over her forearms to outline the muscles.
"Illegitimate daughter."
The two words popped from her mouth, as crisp as reporting a set of experimental data.
Selena, on the operating table, twisted her neck.
Her deep chestnut hair brushed against the balled-up leather jacket serving as a pillow, the friction between the hair and leather producing a faint rustle.
Her black eyes shifted from the swaying blue water-ripple shadows on the ceiling to Aurora's profile, the fragments of the blue firelight reflecting in her pupils.
Jerry's heel knocked against the cabinet door again, thump.
"Elven?"
"Mmh."
"And the father?"
"Dead. A long time ago."
Aurora lifted a finger from her crossed arms and pinched the top button of her shirt collar.
Her thumb and index finger gripped the edge of the button and twisted it half a turn. The button loosened slightly in the buttonhole, and the collar parted a fraction.
It revealed the shallow hollow between her collarbones, where a thin layer of sweat had accumulated.
The blue firelight shone on it, giving the surface of the sweat a cold, metallic luster.
"Elven bloodlines possess a certain trait: during childbirth, a portion of the racial talents is transferred to the mother."
Her fingers released the button and returned to her crossed arms.
Her fingertips unconsciously tapped her elbow—one, two, three—the rhythm as steady as a metronome.
"A long lifespan, unchanging appearance, high sensitivity to magic.
These things are standard for Elves, but to humans, they make you a monster."
Selena's wrists twisted in the straps again.
The bead of blood seeping from the red mark on the inside of her wrist bone was smeared by the edge of the leather.
It trickled down the curve of her wrist a short distance, stopping above the blue vein on the inside of her forearm, congealing into a dark red bead.
Her lips parted and closed, a muffled breath rolling in her throat before she swallowed it back down.
Jerry rubbed his palms against the tabletop, wiping the residual alchemical solution onto the hem of his school robe, soaking a small silver wet mark into the fabric.
"So all those rumors outside are completely false."
"Which rumors?"
"The ones saying you were cursed to never grow up, forever trapped in a girl's body—that it was the side effect of some dark magic ritual, the price of a dark contract, or a vicious curse placed on you by a Dark Wizard you offended."
Jerry counted them off on his fingers, raising one finger for each version.
When he reached the fifth version, all five fingers were up. He turned his palm over to look at it, then turned it back and waved it.
"There are quite a few versions."
The corner of Aurora's mouth twitched, the movement so slight it was almost imperceptible, the line of her lips deviating from horizontal by less than a millimeter.
"Rumors, you know. The thing humans are best at is making up stories for things they can't understand.
A woman who never ages must have been cursed, must have paid some terrible price, must be involved in ancient witchcraft."
Her fingers moved from her elbow to the second button of her shirt.
Her thumb pressed the back of the button, her index finger hooked the front, and with a twist of her two fingers, the button slipped from the buttonhole.
The collar parted wider, the skin below her collarbone exposed in the blue light, the heaving curves of her breasts appearing and disappearing through the gap in the shirt fabric.
"No one would think it's a blessing."
Her fingers stopped at the second button, not unbuttoning any further.
Her fingertips pinched a loose thread next to the button, wrapping it around her index finger once before letting go; the thread snapped back from her fingertip, sticking to the shirt fabric.
"But from a certain perspective, they aren't entirely wrong."
Jerry's heels stopped knocking against the cabinet door.
His legs dangled in front of the counter, toes pointing down, ankles crossed.
"What's the difference between a blessing and a curse?"
"Whether you want it or not."
Aurora's arms uncrossed from her chest, hanging at her sides.
Her fingers touched the handle of a pair of crucible tongs hanging on the iron rack.
The coldness of the metal transmitted through her fingertips. She gripped the handle, held it for a second, and let go, leaving a red mark pressed into her finger by the edge of the handle.
"I gave birth to her when I was twenty-three.
That year, my hair stopped turning white, my skin stopped sagging, and my body began to regress, going backward bit by bit from a twenty-three-year-old state down to eighteen!"
Her fingers withdrew from the handle, lifting and opening flat, palm facing up.
The blue firelight shone into her palm, the grooves of her palm lines as clear as a miniature map in the blue light.
"And then it stopped. Stopped at the appearance of an eighteen-year-old.
It hasn't changed since."
Selena's breathing grew slightly more rapid on the operating table, the amplitude of her chest's heaving increasing.
Her ribs appeared one by one beneath the skin. The skin of her abdomen pulled taut and loosened with the rhythm of her breath, the depression of her navel deepening and shallowing with the rise and fall.
Her black eyes stared at Aurora's profile, the fragments of blue light in her pupils shattering into finer points of light as her eyeballs shifted slightly.
Jerry slid off the workbench, the soles of his shoes hitting the flagstones with a patter.
Standing on the floor, he was significantly shorter than when sitting on the counter, his line of sight shifting from level with Aurora's chest to level with her waistline.
He took two steps forward, standing in front of Aurora, looking up.
The angle of his head tilting back made his Adam's apple protrude slightly in the shadow of his collar.
"Do you really have to get revenge?"
"What do you think?"
Aurora's fist unclenched, her fingers spreading and hanging at her side, her fingertips brushing the fabric of her robes.
Her body moved away from the iron rack, the separation between her shoulder blade and the crucible tongs making a light metallic sound.
She turned and walked toward the furnace, her boot heels clicking twice on the flagstones—clack-clack.
She bent over to check the thermometer on the side of the hearth; the mercury column in the glass tube stopped at a certain mark.
Her finger tapped the outside of the glass tube; the mercury column wobbled but didn't change.
"The crystal golem needs another two and a half hours. Are you going to wait here, or are you leaving first?"
"Hey! Did you forget I'm still here!?"
Selena's roar bounced back and forth between the stone walls of the workshop, the end of her sentence swallowed by the bubbling gurgle-gurgle of the alchemy furnace.
Aurora didn't even look at her, her posture bent over checking the thermometer unchanging.
The hem of her shirt hiked up slightly from her waistline, revealing the skin of her lower back, dyed a cool tone by the blue firelight.
The groove of her spine extended upward from the edge of her belt, disappearing into the shadows of the shirt fabric.
Jerry's buttocks rested against the edge of the workbench again, legs dangling, heels knocking against the cabinet door one by one.
His fingers fished a piece of toffee from the pocket of his school robe.
The action of unwrapping the candy was very slow, the foil of the wrapper reflecting shattered flashes in the blue light, rustling with a crinkle-crinkle.
The blue flames in the furnace surged higher with a whoosh.
The iron latch of the furnace door groaned metallically under the expansion of the high heat.
The brightness of the blue light pushed the color tone of the entire workshop from gloomy to an almost blindingly cold blue.
The semi-finished crystal golem bubbled even more densely in the glass container—gurgle-gurgle.
The surface of the alchemical solution undulated with the churning of the bubbles; the splashed droplets landed on the tabletop, pattering in a rapid sequence.
Jerry fished the toffee out of his pocket and unwrapped it.
This time he didn't put it in his own mouth, but tossed it toward Aurora.
The toffee traced a short parabola in the blue light.
Aurora's hand pulled out from her crossed arms, her five fingers snapping shut in the air, catching it with a smack as the candy hit her palm.
"Eat a piece of candy. Don't make that face."
Aurora looked down at the toffee in her palm.
The caramel-colored candy was dotted with fabric lint from Jerry's pocket.
She rubbed the lint off with her thumb and popped the candy into her mouth, her cheek bulging slightly.
The crunch of her molars breaking the candy mixed with the gurgle of the furnace.
"What is your daughter's name?"
"Elune. It means moonlight in Elvish."
"Tacky."
"Her father named her."
Selena let out a short snort from her nose on the operating table.
Her wrists began to move in the straps again, her fingers gripping the edges of the leather, her knuckles white.
A small stream of accumulated liquid overflowed from the gap of her inner thighs, trickling down the curve of her skin to the back of her knee, dripping onto the leather operating table with a plop.
Jerry tilted his head and glanced at Selena, his heel knocking the flagstone, thump.
"Don't be in such a hurry. The crystal golem still needs two and a half hours, and your magic flow test data still needs to be continuously collected. Moving around will affect the readings."
"I don't care about any readings!"
"It doesn't matter whether you care or not."
Jerry's finger pulled out of his pocket, his fingertip tapping the rune array on the edge of the operating table.
The runes in the array flared for a beat then dimmed.
The strap around Selena's waist tightened by half an inch, the leather grinding over the skin of her waist, pressing a new red mark.
"Lie still."
Selena's teeth ground together with a creak, the jaw muscles pulled into two hard lines beneath the skin of her cheeks.
The wet, watery sheen in her black eyes was evaporated by something hotter.
Her pupils contracted into two pitch-black pinpoints, staring at Jerry's profile.
Aurora finished chewing the toffee in her mouth, swallowed, and ran her tongue-tip over the gaps in her molars, licking clean the caramel crumbs stuck between her teeth.
She walked over to the glass container, her fingers pinching a glass stirring rod, sticking it into the alchemical solution and stirring three circles.
The solution formed a small whirlpool driven by the stirring rod; the bubbles were swept from the center of the whirlpool to the edges, popping with a rapid pop-pop-pop.
"The outer shell of the crystal golem is almost formed. One more round of quenching and it can be demolded."
The stirring rod was pulled from the solution, a silver liquid film clinging to the rod.
The liquid film solidified rapidly in the air, turning into a thin, semi-transparent silver shell.
"What do you plan to do with her then?"
The stirring rod pointed toward Selena.
Jerry snapped his fingers.
Snap.
The sound was as crisp as snapping an icicle.
The blue firelight trembled for a frame the instant the snap burst.
The air above the operating table distorted, like a crumpled piece of cellophane, collapsing down from above Selena's head and closing in from all four sides.
It wrapped her entirely—along with the operating table, the straps, her scattered deep chestnut hair, the liquid trickling from the root of her thighs, and the beads of blood seeping from her wrist bones—into a transparent shell of invisible thickness.
"Rozier!"
Selena's roar was cut off on the third syllable.
Her lips were still open, her throat still vibrating, her vocal cords still squeezing the air, but the sound waves shattered the moment they hit the inner wall of that transparent shell.
They shattered into silent ripples, echoing twice across the surface of the shell before vanishing.
"Just keep her locked up for now."
Jerry's heel knocked against the flagstone, and he turned to walk deeper into the workshop.
Aurora's gaze lingered on the transparent shell for two seconds.
Selena inside the shell was still struggling.
The sound of the leather straps stretching against her waist, the muffled thuds of her fists hitting the walls of the shell, the silent curses of her moving lips—all were sealed within that thin fold of space.
Looking in from the outside, it was like a muted motion picture playing.
"Let's go. I'll show you something good."
Jerry crouched in front of the stone wall at the very back of the workshop.
He pressed his palm against a stone brick at the base of the wall that was half a shade darker than the surrounding ones.
His fingers spread, his palm grinding a circle against the stone surface.
The patterns on the surface of the stone brick lit up into a set of runes under the friction of his palm.
The light of the runes was a dark red, like the residual heat on a piece of iron just pulled from a furnace.
The floor cracked open.
Starting from the flagstone beneath Jerry's feet, a fissure extended outward along the base of the wall.
The seam between the flagstones opened into a gap three fingers wide.
A blast of hot air surged from the gap; the heat was damp, carrying a strong, musky-sweet smell, like burying one's nose in the freshly cut flesh of a pomegranate, mixed with the sour undertone of organic matter slowly decomposing under high heat.
The flagstones slid open to the sides, revealing a downward-extending passage.
The walls of the passage were not stone.
It was flesh.
A dark purple organic tissue covered in a film of mucus, paving the way from the edge of the passage entrance to the deepest point visible.
Fist-sized, rhythmically pulsating sac-like protrusions were distributed along the walls.
With every pulsation, a drop of turbid yellow liquid seeped from the pores of the sac walls.
The liquid trickled down the grooves in the walls, merging into small streams that flowed into a dark red drainage trench at the bottom of the passage—drip, drop, drip-drop—the rhythm as steady as a biological clock.
Aurora stood at the entrance of the passage, the toe of her boot resting on the boundary between the organic tissue and the flagstone floor, looking down.
"What is this?"
"The Broodmother you need to borrow."
Jerry had already stepped into the passage, his bare feet treading on the dark purple organic walls.
His soles sank in half an inch; the tissue of the wall yielded a footprint-shaped depression under his weight.
The mucus seeping from the bottom of the depression squeezed up between his toes with a squish.
He looked back at Aurora. A drop of turbid yellow liquid that had fallen from the ceiling of the passage clung to his hair, hanging precariously from the tip of his bangs.
"Come down."
Aurora's boot heel took the first step onto the organic wall, the sole grinding over that mucus film with a wet sizzle.
The sensation of the boot heel sinking into the tissue made her ankle muscles tense for a beat.
Her knees bent slightly, lowering her center of gravity.
Her entire gait switched from the ease of walking in a corridor to the caution of walking on unstable ground.
The passage extended downward for about thirty steps.
With every step down, the humidity in the air grew thicker, the temperature rose a degree, and that musky-sweet organic smell layered on heavier.
By the time she reached the bottom of the passage, Aurora's shirt was already soaked through by sweat and the moisture in the air.
The fabric clung to her back and chest, outlining her ribs and the curves of her breasts.
At the end of the passage was a membrane.
A semi-transparent, dark red biological membrane blocking the exit of the passage like a giant eyelid.
A branching network of blood vessels was distributed across the surface of the membrane.
The liquid flowing in the vessels was fluorescent green, drawing a glowing, constantly pulsating vascular map on the dark purple membrane surface.
Jerry pressed his palm against the membrane.
His fingers spread, the heat of his palm transmitting through the membrane wall.
The membrane recessed into a handprint where his palm rested, then began to retract toward the sides from the edges of the handprint, like an opening eye, revealing the space behind the membrane.
Aurora's pupils contracted.
Behind the membrane was a dome-shaped chamber, at least fifty steps in diameter.
The highest point of the dome was about three stories high.
The walls, floor, and dome of the entire chamber were entirely composed of the same dark purple organic tissue.
The pulsating sac-like protrusions densely covered every inch of the surface.
The turbid yellow liquid seeping from the sac walls merged into countless small streams, flowing along the grooves of the walls to converge into a bowl-shaped depression in the center of the floor.
The depression held half a pool of murky biological culture fluid, bubbling densely and boiling with a gurgle-gurgle.
Things were moving inside the chamber.
Many things.
The closest one crouched three steps away to the right of the entrance.
Its size was comparable to a large dog.
Six articulated limbs supported a flat, carapace-covered torso.
The color of the carapace was a dirty grayish-brown, the surface pitted and scarred from acid corrosion, patched with newly formed chitin.
Its head had no eyes, only a pair of scythe-like mandibles and three pairs of constantly twitching mouthparts.
A strand of transparent acid drooled from the gap in its mouthparts; as the acid dripped onto the organic tissue of the floor, it smoked with a hiss, burning a fingernail-sized charred pit.
Its front limbs clamped a palm-sized raw crystal.
Its mandibles opened and closed at a frequency of four to five times per second; with every bite, it gnawed a small shard of crystal from the edge of the raw stone.
The shards fell from the gap in its mouthparts, landing in a groove formed by its carapace beneath its abdomen.
The groove was already half-filled with cut-to-shape thin crystal slices, the edges of the slices as neat as if cut by a precision instrument.
Further away, seven or eight bugs of the same type lined up in a row, crouching at the edge of the culture fluid pool.
Their front limbs clamped crystal molds of various shapes; their mandibles and mouthparts gnawed, cut, and polished at their own rhythms.
The sound of carapace colliding with crystal merged into a dense clack-clack-clack, like a miniature factory running at full capacity.
On the other side of the chamber, three much larger bugs clung to the wall.
Their abdomens were swollen into semi-transparent spheres.
Beneath the walls of the spheres, the squirming outlines of unformed larvae were faintly visible.
The bottom of the abdomen was connected to a pipe as thick as an umbilical cord; the pipe pierced into the organic tissue of the wall, extracting culture fluid from the sac-like protrusions and delivering it into the swollen abdominal cavity.
Aurora stood at the edge of the membrane entrance, her boot heels sinking into the organic tissue.
Her shirt was soaked and clinging to her body; beads of sweat rolled from her temples and dripped onto her collarbones.
Her gaze swept from the closest crystal-gnawing bug to the production line lined up in the distance, then to the three swollen mothers on the wall, and finally rested on the boiling bubbles in the culture fluid pool.
She reached out a finger, touching the back of the carapace of the bug next to the entrance.
The instant her fingertip touched the carapace, the bug's mouthparts paused for a beat.
The joints of its six limbs tensed simultaneously; its mandibles lifted from the raw crystal, shifting two degrees toward the direction of her finger.
Jerry's bare feet stepped on the organic tissue at the edge of the culture fluid pool, mucus squeezing between his toes.
He looked back at Aurora's action of touching the bug.
"Don't touch that, it bites."
Aurora didn't pull her finger back; her pad ground over the surface of the carapace, grinding over the rough edge of an acid-etched scar.
The bug's mandibles shifted another two degrees toward her, the frequency of its mouthparts twitching increasing.
"What is the composition of the carapace? Chitin?"
"More or less, but three to four times harder than ordinary chitin. It can resist most magical corrosion."
"How many crystal molds can these things cut in a day?"
"Depends on the specifications. For simple, small molds, one bug can do about eighty to a hundred a day. Complex, large molds require three or four working together—two or three a day."
Aurora finally withdrew her finger from the carapace.
Her pad was coated in a layer of grayish-brown carapace powder and a trace of acid residue.
She brought her finger to her nose and sniffed, her brow furrowing, and wiped it off on the hem of her shirt.
"What are those three on the wall? Breeders?"
"Broodmothers. Responsible for producing worker ants. The larvae in their abdominal cavities will hatch in forty hours. Once hatched, they go straight to the production line."
Aurora crouched down, her knee pressing into the organic tissue floor with a squish.
Mucus seeped up from both sides of her knee, soaking the hem of her robes.
Her face leaned close to the position of the bug's mouthparts, close enough to clearly see the flow rate and viscosity of the acid in the gaps of its mouthparts.
The bug's mandibles opened and closed once two inches in front of the tip of her nose with a clack, gnawing a shard from the raw crystal.
The shard bounced up and hit her chin; she pinched the shard and held it up to her eyes, turning it twice in the fluorescent glow of the culture fluid pool.
"What is the cutting precision?"
"Within 0.03 millimeters. Two orders of magnitude more precise than the best Cutting Charms in the workshop."
Aurora stuffed the crystal shard into her shirt pocket and stood up.
The mucus stuck to her knee pulled two strings; the strings snapped, hanging from the hem of her robe and swaying twice.
Her gaze swept over the entire chamber again, from the entrance to the culture fluid pool to the mothers on the wall to the pulsating sac-like protrusions on the dome, her lips pressing together.
"How long have you kept this thing hidden beneath Hogwarts?"
"Three months."
Jerry's bare feet stepped on the organic tissue at the edge of the culture fluid pool.
His toes curled, squeezing mucus from between them with a squish.
He turned his head to look at Aurora, the corner of his mouth quirked, his youthful face reflecting a cold, fluorescent green glow under the light of the culture fluid pool.
"But you're not here to see these worker ants, are you."
Aurora's finger stopped at the edge of her shirt pocket; the fingertips holding the crystal shard paused for a beat.
Jerry raised his right hand, index and middle fingers pressed together, and hooked them toward the dome.
The pulsating sac-like protrusions on the dome stopped simultaneously.
All pulsations, all seeping, all drip-drop sounds froze the instant his fingers moved.
The entire chamber fell into a sudden, unnatural silence.
Even the boiling bubbles in the culture fluid pool shrank, the gurgle turning into a faint glug... glug....
The line of worker bugs simultaneously lowered the crystal molds clamped in their front limbs.
Their six articulated limbs drew in, their carapaces pressing to the floor, mouthparts closed, mandibles crossed and locked together.
The entire row of bugs prostrated on the floor, like a train of grayish-brown biological machines that had hit the pause button.
A seam cracked open in the very center of the dome.
The dark purple organic tissue retracted from the midline to the sides, revealing a deeper, darker membrane-like structure within the gap.
The vascular network on the surface of the membrane was more than ten times denser than the membrane at the entrance.
Fluorescent green liquid surged through the vessels, illuminating the entire membrane surface into a glowing, interlaced living map.
The membrane bulged from the center, forming an oval sac.
The bottom of the sac dropped toward the chamber floor under the pull of gravity.
The membrane wall was stretched thinner and thinner, so thin the silhouette inside was visible.
A humanoid silhouette.
The bottom of the sac tore open, and a thick, amber-colored amniotic fluid surged from the tear, splashing into the culture fluid pool with a splash.
The column of splashed liquid hit Jerry's calf; the warm liquid trickled down his shin, seeping into the joints of the top of his foot.
She fell from the sac.
Landing feet first, her soles stepped into the shallow accumulation of amniotic fluid at the edge of the culture fluid pool with a patter.
Liquid splashed from between her toes, exploding into a ring of water on the organic tissue floor.
Tall.
A full head taller than Aurora, and nearly twice as tall as Jerry.
She stood at the edge of the culture fluid pool. When Jerry looked straight ahead, his line of sight met the middle of her thighs; to see her face, he had to tilt his neck to an angle almost perpendicular to his spine.
Every curve of her body was pushed to the absolute limit of the human female silhouette.
The two orbs on her chest hung heavily. The volume of the orbs was so massive that they took on a teardrop-shaped drooping curve under their own weight, the nipples pointing downward. The upper edge of the orbs extended from just below her collarbones all the way to the middle of her ribcage, completely occupying the entire front of her chest cavity.
Her waistline narrowed sharply from the lower edge of her orbs, cinching to a thinness entirely disproportionate to her bust. The outline of her ribs was faintly visible beneath the skin on her sides.
Her hip bones flared violently outward from the narrowest part of her waist, propping up two rounded curves. The volume of flesh on her buttocks completely enveloped the skeletal outline of her hips. The curved surface of her butt cheeks swelled from the depression of her waist dimples, forming a deep, heavily shadowed crease at the boundary line with the root of her thighs.
The thickness of her thighs was almost equivalent to her waistline. The distance from her hip bones to her knees was thirty percent longer than an ordinary human female's. The lines of her calves tapered from her knees downward, cinching into a slender ring at her ankles. The size of her soles appeared petite compared to her height.
The color of her skin was white, a white that emitted a nacreous, faintly blue cold light, like the white of moonlight shining on fresh snow.
She had no hair. From the top of her head to her toes, the entire surface of her body was as smooth as an unpainted porcelain blank just released from a mold. The silhouette of her head was that of a human female—the curve of her jawline soft, the placement of her cheekbones just right, the bridge of her nose straight, the thickness and width of her lips resting on the golden ratio of aesthetics.
But her eyes were wrong.
There were no whites, no irises. The two eye sockets were filled with a pure black, liquid-agate-like substance. The surface of the substance shimmered with an oil-slick-like rainbow luster, refracting fine, constantly flowing spots of color in the fluorescent glow of the chamber.
She stood there, the amber amniotic fluid trickling down the surface of her body. It flowed along the curves of her orbs, the depression of her waist, the flare of her hip bones, the inside of her thighs, converging into countless small streams that fell with a drip-drop into the accumulated fluid at her feet.
Jerry tilted his head back to look at her.
Standing next to this body, the teenage boy's head only reached the middle of her thighs. He looked like a disproportionately small visitor standing at the foot of a statue. He raised his right hand; even with his arm fully extended, he only reached the area below her waistline. He reached up further, his fingertips touching her chin.
Her head lowered.
The bending of her cervical vertebrae was as fluid as a snake contracting its body. Her head descended from a height of over two meters to a position Jerry's palm could reach. That human female face drew close to his fingers. The pure black eyes reflected Jerry's image, the reflection distorting into an elongated, warped silhouette of a little person on the liquid agate surface.
Jerry's palm pressed against her cheek.
The touch of the skin was warm, the temperature two or three degrees higher than human body temperature. His palm could feel something pulsating beneath the skin, the rhythm twice as fast as a human heartbeat, vibrating against his palm with a thump-thump-thump-thump.
Her cheek recessed slightly under the pressure of his palm. The curve of the indentation matched the elasticity of human skin, but as his palm ground over it, an extremely fine, hexagonal pattern surfaced on the skin, like snake scales or a honeycomb. The pattern vanished after his palm moved away, the skin returning to its smooth, pearly white.
Aurora's boot heel ground against the organic tissue floor with a squish. She walked to the Broodmother's feet, crouched down, and pressed her knee into the mucus again. She reached out, her palm pressing against the top of the Broodmother's foot.
The pale skin changed under the temperature and pressure of her palm. The hexagonal scale pattern spread outward from the point of contact, surfacing piece by piece from beneath the skin. The color of the scales was two shades darker than the skin, presenting a metallic texture somewhere between grayish-white and silver. The edges of the scales curled up slightly, and a trace of transparent mucus seeped from the gaps.
Aurora's thumb ground over the surface of a scale, her pad feeling its hardness and texture. With a light hiss, the edge of the scale scraped against the grooves of her fingerprint.
"You won't lose out on this deal."
Aurora's voice drifted up from her crouching position, drifting past the Broodmother's calf, knee, and thigh, arriving next to the hand Jerry was using to stroke the Broodmother's cheek.
"Do you plan to keep her hidden here for the rest of your life?"
Jerry withdrew his palm from the Broodmother's cheek, his fingers coated in a thin, nacreous mucous membrane. He wiped his fingers twice on the hem of his school robe.
"Tell me exactly what you want to do with her."
"The Olympic World Cluster."
Aurora lifted her palm from the top of the Broodmother's foot. The scale pattern sank back beneath the skin piece by piece as her palm left, the foot returning to its smooth pearly white. She stood up, the mucus on her knee pulling a string that snapped.
"The magic resistance of the Tyranids is the highest in any known biological system. Over ninety percent of the attack methods of those false gods in Olympus are magic-based, and physical attacks cannot inflict effective casualties against the numerical advantage of the swarm. If a sufficiently large swarm charges into the borders of the Olympic World Cluster, those false gods will have to divert at least sixty percent of their attention to deal with it, even if they don't mobilize entirely."
The corner of Jerry's mouth quirked.
"So you weren't here to make crystal golems from the start."
"I am making crystal golems. But that's just a convenient excuse."
"You've been squatting here with me for almost a month, just waiting for me to bring you down here to see this?"
"If you didn't bring me down, I would have found the entrance myself. Your Concealment Charms are good, but the thermal radiation from the organic matter beneath the floor of the alchemy workshop couldn't hide from the Astronomy Professor's starmap astrolabe. I discovered it on the third day."
The bubbles in the culture fluid pool resumed their normal rolling frequency, bubbling with a gurgle-gurgle. The worker bugs prostrated on the floor began to lift their front limbs one by one, picking up the crystal molds they had set down, their mouthparts and mandibles resuming the clack-clack rhythm of cutting.
The Broodmother stood in place. The oil-slick-like rainbow luster in her pure black eyes flowed slowly. Her head lifted from its lowered angle, returning to its upright height. The amber amniotic fluid had finished trickling off her body's surface, her pearly white skin radiating a cold, bluish luster in the chamber's fluorescent glow.
"Or is it... that you have no confidence in controlling her?"
Aurora's gaze moved up from the Broodmother's ankles, passing her calves, knees, thighs, hip bones, waistline, orbs, collarbones, and neck, finally landing on those pure black, liquid-agate-like eyes on that human female face.
Jerry didn't deny it.
His bare foot ground against the organic tissue floor, his toes rubbing across a wet streak left by the amniotic fluid with a squish. The quirked corner of the boy's mouth flattened out, and the habitual, cynical luster in his green eyes sank a few degrees, revealing a quieter layer beneath, closer to calculation than playfulness.
A reward given by the system didn't mean the system gave a guarantee.
"So you need an opportunity to let her out, but you can't place her in your own territory for trial and error."
"...You really see through everything, don't you."
The corners of Aurora's mouth curved, the arc carrying a certainty of "as expected," like a chess piece landing on a predicted square. She raised a finger from her side, her fingertip touching the Broodmother's shin bone. The scale pattern floated up in a ring from the point of contact again, radiating a silver metallic luster under the fluorescent glow.
"The Olympic World Cluster—a ready-made testing ground, a ready-made high-intensity opponent. If you win, you gain a territory for free. If you lose, you only lose a batch of replaceable swarms."
"And you? What are you after?"
"I'm after those false gods in Olympus being so swamped they have no time to bother with me!"
The Broodmother's abdominal cavity emitted a low-frequency tremor. The frequency was so low it was almost undetectable by the ears, but the soles of their feet could feel the organic tissue floor resonating with it. With a hum, it traveled from the soles of their feet up their calves, knees, and hip bones. The sac-like protrusions on the walls of the entire chamber pulsed simultaneously for a beat, seeping out twice as much turbid yellow liquid as usual. The speed of the liquid trickling down the grooves accelerated, the drip-drop turning into a continuous drip-drip-drip-drop.
Jerry's toes curled against the organic tissue floor.
"She's hungry."
Aurora withdrew her finger from the Broodmother's shin bone, the scale pattern sinking back beneath the skin piece by piece. When she stood up, the string of mucus pulled from her knee was longer than the last time. When it snapped, it splashed across half of her boot with a splat.
"How long has she been hungry?"
"She hasn't been full since she got here. The nutrients in the culture fluid pool are only enough to maintain basal metabolism and the worker ant production line. Her own energy reserves have been steadily dropping."
Jerry pressed his palm against the outside of the Broodmother's thigh. His palm felt the pearly white skin; the pulsation frequency beneath the skin was a few beats faster than before, vibrating his palm with a thump-thump-thump-thump. He slid his palm down two inches, grinding over the thickest muscle area in the middle of her thigh. The scale pattern floating on the skin's surface was denser and harder than on the top of her foot. The sensation against his finger pads shifted from warm elasticity to a cold metallic texture.
"If we keep her locked up any longer, she'll start eating the worker ants."
The Broodmother's head lowered again from its upright height. Her pure black eyes aimed at the top of Jerry's head. The rainbow luster on the surface of the liquid agate accelerated, the color spots converging from the edges of the iris toward the center of the pupil, forming a spinning, constantly contracting colored whirlpool.
Her lips parted a crack. There were no teeth in the gap, no tongue, only a layer of dark red, constantly squirming inner oral lining. The transparent mucus secreted on the inner lining overflowed from the corners of her mouth, trickling down the curve of her chin and dripping onto Jerry's shoulder with a plop.
Jerry's shoulder sank slightly, and a coin-sized wet mark soaked into the fabric of his school robe.
"The problem is, once she gets out, she'll make too much noise."
He withdrew his palm from the Broodmother's thigh, wiped it twice on the hem of his school robe, and turned to walk to the edge of the culture fluid pool. He stepped barefoot into the shallow accumulated fluid with a patter, crouched down, his fingers pushing aside the bubble layer on the surface of the culture fluid. He fished up a fully formed semi-finished crystal mold from the bottom of the pool, holding it up to his eyes and turning it twice.
"There are no records of the Tyranid race in this world. You can't find them in the Ministry's biological classification archives, you can't find them in the registry of the Society for the Protection of Magical Creatures, you can't even find them in Newt Scamander's manuscripts. A completely unknown, highly organized biological race suddenly appears... how do you think those people will react?"
He tossed the crystal mold back into the culture fluid pool. It sank with a plop, the splashed liquid hitting his chin.
"The Ministry of Magic will set up a special investigation team, the Department of Mysteries will intervene, the Auror Office will mobilize in full force, and the Department of International Magical Cooperation will send bulletins to other countries. And then Dumbledore will be the first to stand up and say, 'I warned you all long ago.'"
Aurora leaned against the wall opposite the culture fluid pool. Her shoulder blades pressed against two pulsating sac-like protrusions. The turbid yellow liquid seeping from the sac walls trickled down both sides of her shoulders, soaking the back of her shirt. The fabric clung to the groove of her spine, outlining the contours of her back muscles. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her boot heels knocking against the organic tissue at the base of the wall with a squish-squish.
"Dumbledore has been keeping an eye on me lately."
Jerry stood up from his crouching position, pulling his bare feet out of the accumulated fluid. A layer of silver culture fluid film clung to the soles of his feet. He took two steps on the organic tissue floor, leaving two silver footprints.
"Or rather, he's been worried about something. Awarding Gryffindor seven hundred and eighty points at three in the morning—do you think a normal headmaster would do that? He's using the House Cup points as a bargaining chip to trade for some kind of political resource, and there's only one reason he needs that resource: he's guarding against a variable he believes will go out of control."
"You."
"Me."
Jerry's toe kicked a crystal shard dropped from a worker ant's mouthparts on the floor. The shard bounced up and hit the carapace of the nearest worker ant with a clink. The worker ant's mandibles paused for a beat, then continued to gnaw the crystal with a clack-clack.
"So the moment the Broodmother appears, he'll tie all the clues back to me. Then it won't just be an issue of the House Cup; it will be a security issue for the entire European wizarding world."
Aurora pushed off the wall, a squish sounding as her shoulder blades separated from the sac-like protrusions. She walked up to Jerry and looked down at him.
She raised her right hand, back of the hand facing up, fingers loosely spread, and waved it in the air. The direction she waved was upward—toward the dome, toward Hogwarts, toward the European continent.
"Then you transfer to America."
The corner of Jerry's mouth twitched.
"That's my territory."
Aurora withdrew her hand from the air and shoved it into her shirt pocket. The fabric of the pocket was stretched into a bulge by her fist.
"On the Board of Governors at Ilvermorny, three out of four are my people, and I am the fourth. The Director of the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures at the Magical Congress of the United States of America owes me two lives. I hold the deeds to four out of the six wizarding settlements on the East Coast.
You take the Broodmother over there, land at the Port of New York, head west, and past the Appalachian Mountains is no man's land—three thousand miles of wilderness, where you can spread creep wherever you want."
"Aren't you afraid someone will object?"
The bubbles in the culture fluid pool rolled with a gurgle-gurgle. The Broodmother stood by the pool, the colored whirlpool still spinning in her pure black eyes. Her abdominal cavity emitted another low-frequency tremor—hum—and the ground resonated with it. Aurora's boot heel knocked against the floor during the tremor with a squish.
"No one would dare say a single word."
Aurora's index finger emerged from her pocket, the fingertip pointing toward the tip of Jerry's nose. It didn't touch, stopping an inch away from his nose.
"If anyone dares to speak, you kill them. America is not Europe; there aren't so many twists and turns. There is no Wizengamot Supreme Court, no Pure-blood Family Council, no Board of Governors.
If there's a problem, you kill them and it's done. What annoys me the most are those old fossils in your European Ministry of Magic. They can hold meetings for three months over a single issue. After the meetings, they have to vote. After voting, they have to reconsider. After reconsidering, they have to announce it. After announcing it, they have to wait out the objection period. By the time you finish the process, the day lily is already cold."
Jerry's bare foot ground against the organic tissue floor, squeezing mucus from between his toes with a squish.
"Transfer?"
"What, reluctant to leave Hogwarts?"
"Not exactly reluctant."
"Then leave. I can handle the Ilvermorny enrollment procedures in one day. I have a transatlantic Portkey ready in my hand. You don't even need to pack your luggage; everything is provided over there."
The Broodmother's head lowered again. Her pure black eyes moved from the top of Jerry's head to the top of Aurora's head. Another drop of the transparent mucus overflowing from her mouth fell. This time it dripped onto Aurora's shoulder, soaking a second wet mark into the shirt fabric.
Aurora's shoulder didn't move. She didn't even look at the drop of mucus, her gaze fixed on Jerry's face.
Jerry looked up at the Broodmother. His reflection was mirrored in her pure black eyes, as small as a sesame seed. He reached out a finger, his fingertip touching a thread of mucus hanging from the Broodmother. The thread of mucus wrapped around his fingertip. He pulled his finger back; the thread of mucus broke from the Broodmother's mouth and hung from his fingertip, swaying.
"What about Dumbledore? He won't let it go if I leave."
"What can he do? Chase you to America? He can't even leave Europe. The Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot needs a two-thirds majority vote from all members to leave his jurisdiction. Do you think he can scrape together those votes?"
"He'll send people."
"Send who? That bunch from the Order of the Phoenix? A group of middle-aged wizards who can't even pay off their mortgages, taking a fourteen-hour transatlantic Portkey to New York. They'll spend the first half-hour throwing up when they land, then get lost for three days in the wizarding district of Manhattan, and finally get arrested and deported as illegal immigrants by MACUSA's border patrol."
The clack-clack of the worker ants filled the silence between their dialogue. The gurgle of the culture fluid pool echoed against the dome of the chamber. The liquid seeping from the sac-like protrusions on the walls flowed into the drainage trench with a drip-drip-drip-drop.
The Broodmother's abdominal cavity emitted a third low-frequency tremor. The amplitude of this tremor was larger than the previous two. The accumulated fluid on the floor rippled densely during the tremor. The ripples spread outward from the soles of the Broodmother's feet, hit the edge of the culture fluid pool, and bounced back, overlapping with new ripples.
"She really is very hungry."
Aurora's gaze moved from Jerry's face to the Broodmother's abdominal cavity. The swollen abdominal wall became slightly transparent for an instant during the tremor. The wriggling pipes and pulsating organ contours beneath the wall flashed for a frame before being obscured by the returning opacity.
"If you don't make a decision, she will make one herself."
Jerry's bare foot ground against the organic tissue floor, squeezing mucus from between his toes with a squish.
"Fine. You can borrow her."
When the three words popped out, his tone was as light as saying, "Sure, you can have this piece of toffee." The corner of his mouth was quirked. The boy's face radiated a cold, fluorescent green glow under the light of the culture fluid pool, forming an absurd size contrast with those pure black, liquid-agate-like eyes of the Broodmother towering over two meters above him.
"But I'm not leaving."
His toe kicked the accumulated fluid on the floor. A splashed droplet hit the carapace of the nearest worker ant with a patter. The worker ant's mandibles paused for a beat, then continued to gnaw the crystal with a clack-clack.
"I'm perfectly fine staying at Hogwarts. If Dumbledore wants to mess with me, let him. I have no intention of conceding defeat. An old man staying up every night to award points to Gryffindor—don't you think that's hilarious?"
The Broodmother's abdominal cavity trembled again with a hum. The accumulated fluid on the floor rippled. The ripples hit Jerry's ankle, bounced back, and overlapped with new ripples, churning into a chaotic pattern. The Broodmother's head drooped. The rotation speed of the colored whirlpool in her pure black eyes increased a notch. The transparent mucus overflowing from her mouth turned from drops into a thin stream. The stream trickled down her chin to her neck, to her collarbones, into the cleavage between those heavy orbs, and fell from the lower edge of the orbs with a drip-drip-drip-drop, landing on Jerry's hair.
Jerry raised his hand and wiped his hair, the mucus pulling several strings between his fingers.
"But after this, she can only go with you. Keeping her beneath Hogwarts will lead to her discovery sooner or later. That old Dumbledore's nose is sharper than a Niffler's. You take her to America; your territory, your rules."
Aurora rolled her eyes. Her entire eyeballs rolled upward so much that her irises almost disappeared behind her upper eyelids, leaving only a narrow dark arc hanging at the upper edge of the whites. After the eye-roll, her eyeballs returned to their position, pupils aimed at Jerry's face. Her boot heel knocked against the organic tissue floor with a squish.
"Aren't you afraid I might not make it back alive?"
Jerry's hand paused in wiping his hair.
Aurora uncrossed her arms, letting them hang at her sides. Her soaked shirt clung to her torso, the contours of her ribs and waistline visible through the fabric in the blue-green fluorescent light, as clear as an anatomical sketch. Her fingers slipped into her shirt pocket, which still held the crystal shard she had picked up from beneath the worker ant's mouthparts. Her fingertips touched the edges of the shard and rubbed it.
"Zeus is not a raw crystal in a culture fluid pool, not something you can just poke twice with an alchemical probe and get data from. He is the King of the Twelve Olympian Gods, the Wielder of Thunder, the Master of the Pantheon."
The bubbles in the culture fluid pool rolled with a gurgle-gurgle. The turbid yellow liquid seeping from the sac-like protrusions on the walls flowed into the drainage trench with a drip-drip-drip-drop. The clack-clack of the worker ants filled every crack in the dialogue's silences.
The Broodmother stood between the two of them. Her pearly white body stood nearly two point four meters tall from ankle to crown. Jerry stood by her left foot, Aurora by her right foot. The two bodies, both looking only about ten years old, looked up, forming a disproportionate triangular composition with this biological weapon that transcended human scale.
"While I am alive, I am the President of the MACUSA, the deed holder of four of the six settlements on the East Coast, the controller of three votes on the Ilvermorny Board of Governors, and the creditor of the Director of the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures at MACUSA.
When your Broodmother arrives in America, she will eat well and live well, and no one will dare touch a single one of her antennae."
Aurora pulled her finger from her pocket, her fingertips pinching the crystal shard, holding it up to her eyes. The facet of the shard refracted a fine ridgeline in the fluorescent light.
"But what if I die?"
She flicked the shard away. It hit the Broodmother's toenail with a clink, bounced into the accumulated fluid, and sank.
"A dead person is nothing. The deeds will be reclaimed by MACUSA, the seats on the Board of Governors will be reassigned, the Director's debts will be written off. Your Broodmother will become a monster in America with no master, no umbrella of protection, hunted by Aurors across the entire continent."
Jerry wiped the mucus from his hair clean on the shoulder of his school robe. He shoved his fingers into his pocket; there was no more toffee in the pocket. His fingers rubbed the inner fabric of the empty pocket twice.
"I have confidence in you."
The corner of Aurora's mouth twitched.
"Confidence?"
Jerry pulled his bare foot out of the accumulated fluid and stepped onto a relatively dry surface of organic tissue. The culture fluid film on the sole of his foot made a light hiss the moment it touched the dry surface, like red-hot iron quenched in cold water.
He tilted his head back and looked at the Broodmother. The Broodmother's pure black eyes looked down at him. The thin stream of mucus at the corner of her mouth was still trickling. He reached out and patted the Broodmother's shin bone. The moment his palm touched the skin, the scale pattern floated up in a ring from the point of contact. He withdrew his hand, and the scales sank back.
"Besides, if you really die in Olympus, it means Zeus is stronger than I estimated, and I can just adjust my plan. If you come back alive, I get first-hand combat data. No matter how you calculate it, I don't lose."
Aurora stared at him for three seconds. The fluorescent light in the chamber reflected two tiny green dots on the surface of her pupils, which wobbled as her eyeballs shifted slightly. After three seconds, the corners of her mouth curved into a smile, an arc wider than any before, so wide it squeezed a shallow crease into her cheeks.
"You really are an annoying brat."
"Thank you for the compliment."
The Broodmother's abdominal cavity emitted a fourth low-frequency tremor. The amplitude of this tremor stirred up a two-inch-high wave on the surface of the culture fluid pool. The wave crashed against the pool wall, splashing droplets onto their trouser legs and boot surfaces.
The three swollen mothers on the wall squirmed simultaneously. The flow rate of the culture fluid delivered through the umbilical cords accelerated, the veins on the pipe walls pulsating visibly. The worker ants' clack-clack paused for a beat; their six articulated limbs tensed simultaneously, their mandibles lifting from the crystal molds, shifting several degrees toward the Broodmother before turning back to continue cutting.
The entire chamber trembled in the Broodmother's hunger. The organic tissue walls contracted and expanded like a giant, breathing lung.
Aurora's boot heel ground over the floor with a squish. She turned and walked toward the passage entrance. After three steps, she stopped and tilted her head.
"The crystal golem needs another two hours. I'll take her with me once it's demolded."
"In such a hurry?"
Aurora gently clenched her fists!
"I can't wait anymore. I want to kill someone!"