The Serpent's Shadow by Mercedes Lackey Page A

clattered in her saucer, and she hastily put it down on the tea trolley. Her eyes were wide, and she extended her hand to Maya in automatic sympathy. “Oh, Maya! Dear Lord-I cannot imagine—were you there? Was it a cobra?”
    Maya shook her head. “He might have survived a cobra bite; this was a krait, a tiny little thing, no bigger than this.” She held her hands out, about a foot apart. “They are far, far deadlier than the largest cobra. It was in his boot; he was dead in minutes. Some people said that Mother’s death had affected him so badly that he forgot to take ordinary precautions—”
    But I’m sure, sure, that he would never have forgotten to shake out his boots. Never. And Sia and Singhe would never have missed a snake in the bungalow, unless some magic had been worked to keep them from scenting it . Surya had tried to warn her daughter in her last hours, but by then she had been so delirious with fever that all she could manage was disjointed phrases. “Shivani,” was the only name that Maya had recognized; Surya had been terrified of “the serpent’s shadow,” and that alone should have warned Maya to beware of snakes. But she had been prostrate with grief, and thinking not at all.
    That had been no ordinary krait that killed her father, Maya was certain of it; that was when she had known she had to escape if she wanted to live. And despite her grief, her loss, she did want to live!
    â€œOh, Maya—I can see why you would want to leave. I am so sorry.” Amelia reached for Maya’s hands, and Maya reached to take hers, taking comfort from the younger woman’s sympathy, even though she could not possibly understand the greater part of what had driven Maya here. “You have friends here, you know, and we’ll try to keep you from being too lonely.”
    Maya held tightly to her friend’s hands, glad beyond telling for the warmth of genuine friendship offered. “If you weren’t my friend, Amelia, I would find this place desolate indeed,” she said warmly, and was rewarded by Amelia’s smile. “Thank you.”
    â€œThank you, my dear,” Amelia replied, and chuckled. “In all candor, I’m afraid you’re sometimes going to think that my friendship is purely selfish. If you had never come here, I would never have been invited to a little paradise like this, and be treated to enough warmth that I can close my eyes and think I’m in a midsummer garden. Sometimes I think that spring will never come!”
    â€œAnd I feel the same,” Maya replied ruefully. “I cannot believe that spring is anything more than rain and leafless trees!”
    â€œOh, it’s well worth the wait, thank goodness, or we English would go mad,” Amelia laughed. “If you can get away for a weekend, I’ll take you into the country once spring is properly here, and you’ll see. We’ll even take the train to Oxford, hire bicycles, try our hands in a punt, and go scandalize the male dons! What do you think?”
    â€œI’ll look forward to that ,” Maya said, meaning every word, and from there the discussion diverted to Amelia’s fellow medical students at the London School of Medicine for Women, then to the teachers. Amelia had a knack for mimicry that was the equal to a monkey or a parrot, and she had Maya in stitches before too long.
    When she left, Maya was sorry to see her go, but Amelia needed to get back to her lodgings before dark, and Maya kept early evening office hours, since most of the women of her practice were never awake before noon.
    Tonight she saw three women. One was a music-hall dancer, suffering from the usual foot and knee complaints, and terrified that she would lose her job if she couldn’t perform. She had come straight from the theater, hoping against hope to have a cure before the curtain came up. Her friends had clubbed their pennies together for a