37

The mark on your arm has grown to the size of a cherry tomato. Its overall scabbiness has gone down a little. The fine, concentric lines within are more distinct now. You see small breaks between them; the mark looks like a small, circular labyrinth.

"A number of conventional specialists have already seen it," you say. "They told me nothing useful."

Claudette adjusts her glasses, and squints at it. "Well, it's an intrinsic spell of some kind, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'd guess it's intended to do something more complicated than just killing you."

"Oh? What?"

She holds her hands up apologetically. "Without running tests, I can't say. Even if I do run tests, I may learn nothing—this is clearly a magical construct, and that type of thing can be very hard to define unless you manage to powwow with its author. Can I scrape off a little of it?"

"Sure. Knock yourself out."

Claudette produces a stubby test tube from her pocket. Using a pen cap, she scratches a small fleck from the scabby mark.

"That's sterile, is it?" you ask, nodding down at the pen cap.

"It's sterile enough. I'll get back to you when I have more information—if I have more information. What little I can tell you right now is that it probably isn't going to kill you."

"Oh? How can you be so sure?"

"Because it's been sitting on you for several weeks already. If it were lethal, you'd already be dead."

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