❝you know, you're pretty cute, considering you're 4,000 years old.❞
❝thank you?❞
luna clair loves museums. she loves history, mythology, all that old shit. so when her best friend's dad gets a new job as the night guard of the new york national hist...
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
❝And if you are to love, love as the moon loves; it does not steal the night–it only unveils the beauty of the dark.❞
Isra al-Thibeh
✦✧✦
Attila's hugging Larry's leg as he attempts to help Luna hold Ahkmenrah's limp body up. Luna herself is struggling; the glow is weaker than it's ever been and somehow, it feels like it's zapping her strength.
Lancelot and Nicky stand at the mouth of the temple, both staring up at the massive snake. "Fantastic!" Lancelot proclaims happily. "It's awake! Now we can kill it." And he unsheathes his sword magnificently and charges toward the serpent.
But despite Lancelot's strength and skill, the Xiangliu has nine metal heads and he doesn't. It easily overpowers him and wraps him up in its grip.
Attila screams even louder, clutching at Larry's leg. Luna spins around, pushing Ahkmenrah against the wall, shaking his shoulders, trying to get him to wake up--
"DAD!"
Both Luna and Larry whip around. One of the Xiangliu's heads is attacking Nicky, and unlike Lancelot, he doesn't have a sword.
"NICKY!" Larry shakes off Attila's grip and sprints toward his son, but Lancelot frees himself first, and the vanquished head coils instead around Larry, wrapping him up like a boa constrictor.
"I'll get the boy!" Lancelot shouts, charging ahead. Luna gives up on trying to wake Ahkmenrah up, and instead focuses on the tablet in her backpack. She visualizes it, imagines it once again like a circle, and damn it, forces her fingers to twist the circle into a massive sphere--
This time, it's not just an explosion inside her: A ripple of energy surges out of Luna and through the temple, warm and golden, washing over the snake and her friends. Teddy stops glitching, Attila stops screaming, Sacagawea unfreezes, and Ahkmenrah blinks steadily, coming to.
The Xiangliu's heads go limp, releasing Larry, and he drops to the floor, gasping and clutching his throat. Luna's hands and heart thrum with power. It feels like the glow, instead of just being inside her, is surrounding her, enveloping her.
Lancelot turns to face her, eyes wide, and Nicky's jaw drops. Luna would be shocked, too, if she didn't have a job to do.
She steps forward, approaching the snake, hands outstretched, fingers twitching, conducting the glow like electricity. "No one hurts my friends, you snake bastard."
