Lyra Dracorider's Arc

Chapter 6 of 15

Lyra woke to the sound of claws scraping against wood. She sat up, listening. The foxes were gone. The basilisk was gone. Every enclosure should have been empty. But the scraping continued, rhythmic and deliberate, coming from inside the hospital. She pulled on her boots and walked barefoot across the cold floor toward the sound. It came from the sitting room, the small space she'd carved out between supply shelves and treatment tables. When she rounded the corner, she stopped. The basilisk was on her couch, the blue and gold fabric bunched under its weight as it scratched at the wooden arm with one claw. Not aggressive—just testing. The creature's scales caught the morning light filtering through the ice walls, and it turned its head to look at her without flinching. Lyra stood very still. The basilisk had left. She'd watched it go. But now it was here, inside her home, choosing her furniture over the stone enclosure outside. She should have been worried. Basilisks didn't belong on couches. They belonged in the wild, away from people, where their instincts could return to normal. But the creature wasn't acting afraid, and it wasn't acting sick. It was just there, settled in like it had decided this was its place now. Lyra took a slow breath and walked to the supply shelf near the door. She picked up a small wooden plaque she used to label cages and wrote a single name on it with charcoal: Brighton. The name felt right—steady, unbothered, like the basilisk staring at her from the cushions. She set the plaque on the side table next to the couch and turned back to the creature. Brighton didn't move. Lyra sat down on the floor across from the couch and hummed, low and even, the same sound she'd used with the wyverns. Brighton's eyes tracked her but didn't narrow. After a long minute, the basilisk stretched out along the cushions and closed its eyes halfway, relaxed but still watching. Lyra stopped humming and exhaled. She'd spent weeks learning that her job was to help creatures leave. But Brighton had left—and then come back. That changed things. She stood, walked to the door, and looked out at the empty enclosure framed by the cherry blossom tree and snow-dusted stone wall. The gate hung open, forgotten. Brighton didn't need it anymore. Lyra closed the door and went to start her morning work, the basilisk still on the couch behind her.