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The winter air bites at their exposed skin as Violet and Klaus step off the cracked curb of Lousy Lane. Their gloved fingers intertwine automatically—a habit formed years ago when crossing streets meant looking both ways twice for Count Olaf’s disguised henchmen rather than speeding horseless carriages. Klaus’s thumb rubs absent circles against Violet’s knuckle where the wool has frayed; she thinks idly of oxidation reactions, how friction always generates heat.
Then the growl rips through the December silence.
It’s a sound like tearing metal, low and resonant enough to vibrate in their molars. The Bengal tiger crouches twenty paces ahead, its golden fur matted with something viscous that drips from bared fangs. The froth around its muzzle isn’t white but lurid green, fluorescing faintly against the gray slush. Klaus inhales sharply—Violet smells the sharp tang of ammonium compounds before she consciously registers the poisoned drool eating holes in the pavement like concentrated acid.
"Definitely Olaf’s," Klaus murmurs. His voice is steady, but his pulse thrums against Violet’s wrist where their sleeves have ridden up.
She catalogues the symptoms: dilated pupils, the unnatural arch of the tiger’s spine suggesting strychnine or perhaps one of Esmé’s designer neurotoxins. Her own gloved hand tightens around Klaus’s until the leather creaks. The tiger spasms, emerald foam spraying in an arc as it snarls. Violet calculates the wind direction (northwest, 12 mph), the distance to the nearest alley (43 feet behind the flickering gas lamp), and the molecular weight of whatever’s corroding the cobblestones.
Klaus squeezes back—three quick presses, Morse code they’d devised at six and nine. *H-E-R-E.*
Violet’s lips form the word catalysis as she pivots, yanking Klaus sideways just as the tiger lunges. Its claws screech against the wrought-iron fence where their heads had been. The siblings stumble into a synchronized run, hands still locked, the chemistry between them thrumming hotter than any poison.