SNICKLEWAY

What are you two doing here?” my dormmate Zalan Astaroth suddenly demands.

All our heads swivel toward a twisting set of stairs I didn’t even notice until Zalan appeared. 

“You know them?” the artificer—I am now certain is his legendary uncle Antoni Astaroth—inquires with a raised brow.

Zalan folds his arms across his chest. “He’s my dormmate, Haruki Keen. The girl’s his cousin.” 

“I do have a name, you know,” Tegan snaps indignantly.

My dormmate ignores her as he leans against the ebony railing. “So what are you doing here, Keen?”

“I…uh…” Was stalking you beyond school grounds like a complete lunatic.

I anxiously shift my gaze to Tegan. But before I can get another word out, an obsidian weasel-like creature as large as a house cat knocks Zalan forward a step. It scampers past him down the dark wooden railing before leaping onto a nearby display.

“What on—? Theebus! No! Come back!” Zalan shouts in panicked distress as magikal devices start tumbling in all directions as Theebus barrels forward.  

I’ve not even a moment to process before the Ragdoll-sized little hellion slams into my chest. And I hit the floor of the artificer’s shop with a painful thud.

As I squint up in a wheezing gasp, a thin, flame-orange tongue slides out of its little fanged maw to caress my cheek. And it’s then that I realize the creature isn’t furry as I originally thought. No, it seems instead to be covered in large, thick scales like shingles of basalt that appear to glow from further in like molten lava. 

Wait just a damned minute, this thing can’t seriously be a—?

“Theebus. Bad. What did I say about jumping on strangers?” Zalan scolds as he yanks the creature off my chest.

Theebus makes a disgruntled urp and hangs limply in my dormmate’s arms like a Ragdoll cat. 

I just blink at him in utter disbelief as I sit up. “You have a Volcanis Pyrostoat as a pet?”

Pyrostoats aren’t the sort of thing you just have. The permit to just own one could feed me for a year back in Wales. But actually purchasing the little dragon-adjacent creature? You’d have to part with a small fortune! 

Zalan’s gaze shifts away from mine as he hugs Theebus a little tighter. “He was a present. From my uncle.”

A present? Is he serious? I knew the Astaroths were wealthy, but fuck. 

My dormmate runs his teeth over his bottom lip before flicking his viridian gaze back at me. “Anyways, why are you here?”

Yeah, he’s definitely pissed we barged into his private life unannounced.

“We wanted to check on you. Because you sorta…died. Again. And though I abhor gossip of any sort, people were saying you…” 

His green eyes narrow. “What?”

“…weren’t coming back.”

Zalan’s gaze drops away for a moment as his fingertips stroke across Theebus. As his fingers move across the pyrostoat’s scales, they begin to glow like hot coals, and Theebus makes a pleasant chortling sound. 

“Well, they were wrong. I’m not leaving Bealnora,” Zal states adamantly. 

I push up to my feet. “Well, that’s good to know.”

Zalan looks up sharply, his expression a bit odd. He searches my face for a moment before his gaze drops to Theebus. Then ever so slowly it rises back to mine once more.

“Do you…do you want to pet him? He doesn’t normally take to strangers. However, he seems to like you.”

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Chapter 23 – Snickleway: Part Two, ExSpelled © 2026 by Kat Vancil

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