Chapter 33: The Lives in the Tin

On the third day, the old skin set like glaze. Su lay beside the basement drain with three blankets over her human half and the rest of her stretched along the heated mat. The split ran from her left hip to the base of her shortened tail. New scales showed beneath it, dull pearl-white. At the hip the old skin had dried and curled, and it gripped the new like a fist. Qing laid a warm cloth over it and worked one fingernail under the edge. Su's tail slapped the mat hard enough to rattle the drain cover. "Skin left past the third day grows into the new," Qing said. "Your hip will not bend again. I watched it happen to a carp." "Then take it off." "It is attached to you. It has opinions." Qing pulled. The skin held, and a thin line of red opened along the hip.…