Serpent's Storm by Amber Benson

demanded, pointing at the gash. Even though his eyes were closed and he couldn’t see what I was doing, I didn’t care. I was in awe of his miraculous recovery and I wanted answers.
    Jarvis slid open his lids and found my eyes. It was as if he were plumbing their depths for some answer I would never verbally be able to give him.
    “You truly don’t know, do you?”
    I shook my head. I wasn’t lying to the faun. I really was completely in the dark about whatever was upsetting him.
    After a moment he released his death grip on my fingers, seemingly satisfied by what he had found in my gaze. I pulled my hand away and massaged my numb digits against my thigh. Aside from the fact that his wounds were spontaneously healing of their own accord, something else was not quite right about my friend—and his odd mood was contagious. Shivers of fear pulsed up my spine.
    “We need to get out of here,” I said finally, gesturing to the ruined, watery mess of a bathroom we were sitting in. “Any suggestions?”
    Jarvis nodded.
    “A wormhole would be best.”
    I totally agreed with him. A wormhole that took us directly to Sea Verge (and my dad) would be perfection. I could get Jarvis all bandaged up, throw on some fresh clothes, and hit up my dad for some information about the bizarre situation I now found myself in the middle of.
    “I know I was hedging before, but I think you were right about asking my dad for help—” I was in the middle of saying, when Jarvis roughly grabbed my arm.
    “No! We cannot go to Sea Verge,” he said, his voice harsh.
    I stared at him, openmouthed, shocked by his stern reprimand. I’d seriously tried Jarvis’s patience on a number of occasions, and he had never been this aggressive with me before. He must’ve realized how brusque his tone had been because his next words were issued in a breathy whisper:
    “It is just that now would not be a . . . prudent . . . time, Miss Calliope.”
    “Uhm, okay . . .” I said, though I did not understand at all. Was I crazy or hadn’t Jarvis been bugging me to go back to Sea Verge ever since the subway fiasco? Now here he was telling me not to go home? I was beginning to suspect the beating he’d taken had scrambled his brains a little.
    “Please trust me,” Jarvis said, resting his hand over mine. “It’s very important. I know you have a difficult time accepting things without an explanation, but this one time, please, you must.”
    Jarvis had me pegged. He was dead right when he said I hated to be told what to do—especially without any kind of explanation. But there was something about the tone of his voice that made me want to do what he asked of me, as much as my nature might struggle against it.
    “Okay, fine,” I said, resigned to staying in the dark a little longer. “I’ll go wherever you want.”
    “I promise to explain myself when we get to a safer location,” Jarvis replied, relaxing now that we were in agreement. I noticed how much better he looked now than when I’d first entered the bathroom. His cheeks had regained some of their previous color, and the gash was knitting itself back together nicely as the magic that was healing him continued its impressive work.
    “Good,” I said. “Because I expect a thorough explanation—and when I say ‘thorough,’ I mean it. I want the whole damn story—”
    “Of course,” Jarvis said, cutting me off as he added: “You deserve nothing less. Now take my hand. I shall need to draw from your power in order to call up the wormhole.”
    Without any of the hard-core, question-everything attitude I was usually guilty of, I did as the faun said and slipped my hand back into his. I felt a jolt of stinging electricity flow from my fingers directly into the faun. The raw power was so intense I could literally feel Jarvis’s body spasm as it flooded into him. He gripped my hand hard, his jaw clenched tight against the pain, but he refused to cry out even though he was clearly suffering. In