“How are you feeling, little guy?” Claudia asked as the rat started to wiggle around. She placed a plate of water under its nose, and it lapped it up. The red-eyed rodent was hideous, but she found love and beauty in it, which I found endearing in a way. I didn’t see many humans that way. “Yeah, you drink up, okay? That’s a good boy. You had a big day, huh?”

While the rat had still been sleeping, I told Claudia everything I knew about the murder. Doing so was a risk, but she’d proved herself trustworthy in the time we’d spent together. If she was going to translate for me, she needed to know everything that I knew.

The rat squeaked to her, and she smiled. “Well, you’re welcome. I think you’re quite handsome, too.”

“Ask him who he thinks killed his friends.”

They squeaked to each other for a couple of seconds, and Claudia’s face turned down. “He’s not a snitch.”

I bent down. “Listen here, you almost died. How could you have any loyalty to anyone?”

The rat squeaked, and Claudia cocked her head. “I think he said that when you’ve lost everything, all you have is loyalty to your own internal code.”

I threw up my arms. “This is great. I met the one rat who isn’t a rat in the whole world.” I turned to him. “Find out if he’s seen what those monsters did to the rest of Benny.”

She scrunched up her nose. “We’re wasting time, doing it this way. How about I just—can I use your wand?” I gave it to her hesitantly, and she placed the tip against her temple. “Vinculum.” She handed it back to me. “Touch it on your temple and say it too.”

I touched the wand to my temple. “Vinculum.”

“What’s going on here?” the rat said.

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Holy crap. I suddenly understood rat.

“You don’t understand rat. I understand rat, and I paired that skill with you. It will only work for about an hour, but I have other patients and can’t be your translator.” She stood. “Go with the gods.”

I smiled and picked up the cage. I was going to take Benny’s rat and leave. “I’m going to show you exactly how those monsters treated you.”

I called a portal to the medical examiner’s office and stepped through. I had a different face this time, and I hoped I would be able to break in again. Luckily, finding a key proved easy, like way too easy. I was surprised they weren’t raided all the time. Maybe it’s because they were in a crappy profession that insulated them from being infiltrated mercilessly.

“Trawsnewid,” I said, touching the keycard to the tip of the wand until it transformed into my new face.

I stepped through the doors and past the keycard entry. I marched forward with purpose, passing right past the guard dug deep in her book and toward the room. I found that if you walk with purpose and conviction, you could do just about anything.

Finally, we got to the exam room, which was much as I left it except that somebody had cleaned the mess I made and moved the two troglodytes and the pharmacist, probably into the freezers in the back of the room. I didn’t care much about them. I was there for Benny.

I moved the cage toward the dead rats. “Do you see?” I swung the cage toward the spot where I found the foot. “That’s where I found your leg. The leg you gnawed off in order to escape the hive.”

“Stop!” the rat squealed.

“Then tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know, okay?” the rat screamed. “They were in and out in less than a minute. I only survived because I was in the back of the body, under the desk. They slaughtered all of us, or so they thought. I waited until they left, and I gnawed off my leg to escape. I thought they would come back, and I had to—I escaped and hid, like a coward. So, I don’t know what happened, okay?”

I was tired of running into dead ends. But then I had an idea. If he was alive and a part of the rat king, then he could vouch for me with whoever was leading the organization now—that stupid little Elkman who was trying to kill me.

“Where is your hideout?” I asked.

“You saw it, toots.”

“No, where would you go if it all went to pot?”

“Gino’s,” he replied. “But God help us if we’re there. It means things are really bad. Way worse than I squeak squeak squeak.”

The connection between us had broken. I had to hope he was telling the truth and that I wasn’t walking into a trap. I would never live down getting tricked by a frigging rat.