I was shaking.
Not the cute kind. Not the flirty oops-I'm-naked-in-the-snow kind. This was spine-splitting, stomach-churning, clocks-are-melting kind of shaking.
The kind where your soul wants to crawl out through your ass and hide in a ditch.
I crouched under a twisted apple tree—because of course it had to be an apple tree—trying not to puke up my terror and dignity. The breeze smelled like rot and old ink. My fingers wouldn't stop trembling.
Then the bastard showed up.
One whiff of brimstone and boom—there he was, lounging on a branch like a smug nightmare in tailored skin.
"You ran?" he said, incredulous. "You ran out of the library? Without the damn book?!"
I didn't even look at him.
"Fuck you, Gregory."
"Come again?"
"Fuck your book. Fuck your goat. Fuck the chalk circle you rode in on."
"Saya—"
I stood. "You didn't see what I saw. You weren't in there when the Archdeacon peeled like a banana. You didn't see the walls pulse. You didn't hear the books whispering my name in every language I don't even fucking know."
He opened his mouth, but I was already rolling.
"The whole damn amphitheater turned into a larval choir. I watched a nun hatch out of another nun. I had to crawl over a pile of pulsing cassocks. Do you know what it feels like to step on a chanting spleen? Do you?"
Silence.
"So no book," he said at last.
I hurled an apple at his smug face.
Missed, obviously.
He chuckled and popped out of existence, leaving behind nothing but smoke, judgment, and one very bruised ego.
I sank back down under the tree.
Screw magic.
Screw books.
Screw Gregory.
And screw maggots most of all.
***
I was screaming.
Like, real screaming. Hysterical, vein-popping, ward-breakingly loud screaming.
"HE WAS IN ME!"
I was already tearing at my robes, yanking the shroud over my head and kicking off the sacred pear-wood clogs. My skin itched. I could feel them crawling under it.
"The Archdeacon turned into a maggot—a writhing, chittering sack of grubs—and I was IN BED with that thing!"
The Dragon stared at me like I'd grown a second head. Or started singing opera.
"Saya, what—what the actual fuck—"
"WHAT IF I'M CURSED?!" I shrieked, spinning in place and inspecting myself like a plague victim. "What if they laid eggs in me? What if I am eggs?!"
He tried to speak. I cut him off.
"WHAT IF I BURST OPEN IN THE NIGHT LIKE A ROTTEN PEACH?!"
"Saya. Saya. SAYA."
He stomped a clawed foot and let out a rumble that shook leaves from the trees.
"Calm the fuck down."
I froze.
Panting.
Half-naked. Hair wild. Eyes wild-er.
"Tell me," he said slowly, "what did you do?"
I stared at him.
Then crumpled at his feet, muttering, "I freed the succubus. Faked a certificate. Seduced a maggot priest. And maybe… just maybe… I broke the library."
He blinked.
"Okay," he said. "We're going to need a lot of tea."
I was still shaking.
"I need a cleansing. A ritual. A new reincarnation. Maybe a lobotomy."
I dry-heaved behind a rock. Twice.
Dragon was circling me like a cranky midwife with PTSD.
"Alright. Saya. Was it during a full moon?"
"How the fuck would I know?!"
"Did you eat frog legs?"
"What?"
"Was there a bed of nettles involved? You didn't lie on anything ritually reactive, right?"
"I lay on a mattress, you ancient broom closet!"
"Was the wind blowing south?"
"How do you even—ARE YOU HIGH?!"
He was sniffing me now. Head to toe. Real thorough.
I swatted at his nose. "Stop that! You're supposed to be a dragon, not a goddamn truffle pig!"
"I'm checking for larval corruption markers," he grumbled. "You're lucky I haven't set you on fire yet."
"Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it," I muttered.
"I'll need to inscribe protective runes on your body."
I froze.
"Strategic places."
"You are disgusting."
"Do you want to rot from the soul out, or let me draw a mildly suggestive glyph on your inner thigh?"
"What kind of runes?!"
"Ones that prevent maggot gestation. Ones that banish metaphysical larvae. Ones that'll probably tickle."
I shrieked.
I was still muttering when he pulled out the chalk.
"Hold still," he grunted, crouching beside me.
"Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it," I hissed, wrapping my arms around my knees.
"Saya," he growled, "stop squirming or I'll accidentally mark you for divine pregnancy, and that's a whole other ritual I don't want to perform."
I froze, reluctantly stretched out, and glared at the sky.
He started with a swirl on my shoulder. Cold. It tingled.
"This one's for soul-bond barrier reinforcement."
"If I hatch a single maggot, I swear I will haunt you," I muttered.
"Book?" he asked casually, drawing a spiral under my ribcage.
"Fuck the book."
"Gregory?"
"Fuck Gregory. That tail-happy bastard can go get maggoted."
He raised an eyebrow but kept working. "You know he's going to come looking for you."
"Let him. I'll gouge out his eyeballs and feed them to the succubus he left behind."
He paused at my thigh.
"I'm going to need to draw here. Protection against lower-crotch infestations."
"Draw fast," I snapped. "Before I remember I have boundaries."
He smirked. Chalk met skin.
"School," I muttered, eyes wild. "I knew it. I knew schools were evil. You lock people in buildings with books and expectations and THEN YOU TURN THEM INTO FUCKING GRUBS."
"It's usually more subtle than that," he offered.
"No. No. I'm done. No more lectures. No more libraries. No more amphitheaters full of pulsating larvae. I don't care how cursed or sacred or knowledge-packed it is. I'm not going back. Ever."
He paused, looked at the rune, and blew gently to set it.
I shivered. Then gagged.
"I hate everything," I groaned.
"Good," he said. "You're back to normal."
***
The herbs smelled like wet goat and regret.
I was wrapped in them like a burrito of shame. Somewhere behind me, the Dragon muttered prayers over smoldering incense and stirred another questionable batch of "calming tea."
Don't ask what was in it.
Eventually, sleep took me—twitching, mumbling, muttering in three dialects, none of them coherent. And then…
Heat.
A humid breath. A scent of scorched cinnamon and sweat.
I stirred, groggy, and cracked one eye.
A face. Her face.
Grinning, nose to nose. Forked tongue slipping out like a lover's secret.
Naked.
Red-skinned.
Slick.
"Do you remember me, gorgeous?" she purred.
I jolted. Tried to sit up. Couldn't move.
The succubus cooed, running a fiery finger down my cheek. "Relax. I'm not here to take anything. I'm here to return a favour."
Her tongue licked a slow spiral across my jaw.
"Gregory's furious, by the way. Livid. You broke the deal. But me? I think you're a peach."
Her tongue danced across my temple.
"You're already infected."
My blood turned to ice.
"But not in your womb, silly girl. In your head. The ideas. The fear. The little memories chewing through your thoughts. They're what's eating you."
I swallowed. Dry.
"You need to get rid of them. Before they hatch."
She laid a hand gently on my chest.
"Your dragon... he's the key. He can take you where you need to go."
"What place?" I asked, barely a whisper.
She grinned. Wicked.
"Ask him. Even if he pretends not to know. You'll have to make him remember."
She leaned in. Lips brushing mine.
"You're not dying, Saya. Not yet. You're becoming."
Then she vanished.
I woke up gasping, clutching my head, heart thundering.
And the dream lingered like smoke.
Maggots. In my mind.
And a dragon who was either a guide… or a lock.