The world's favorite season is the spring.
All things seem possible in May."
You catch sight of the quotation by Edwin Way Teale on a calendar hanging behind the reception desk in the lobby of MetaHuman Incorporated. As you enter one of the building's elevators and ascend toward your office, you play the words over and over again in your mind.
Whether or not all things seem possible in May, the beginning of the month grants you a brief lull in your workload, and you begin taking stock of the various subjects and events that have been playing on your mind of late.
The mark on your arm has grown to the size of a cherry tomato. Its overall scabbiness has gone down a little. The fine, concentric lines within are more distinct now. You see small breaks between them; the mark looks like a tiny circular labyrinth.
You track down Claudette Byron to discuss it. After initial greetings, you roll up your shirt sleeve. "A number of conventional specialists have already seen it," you say. "They told me nothing useful."
Claudette adjusts her glasses, and squints at it. "Well, it's an intrinsic spell of some kind. And it isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'd guess it's intended to do something more complicated than just killing you."
"Oh? What?"
She holds her hands up apologetically. "Without running tests, I can't say. Even if I do run tests, I may learn nothing—this is clearly a magical construct, and that type of thing can be very hard to define unless you manage to powwow with its author. Can I scrape off a little of it?"
"Sure. Knock yourself out."
Claudette produces a stubby test tube from her pocket. Then she uses a pen cap to scratch off a small fleck from the scabby mark.
"That's sterile, is it?" you ask, nodding down at the pen cap.
"It's sterile enough. I'll get back to you when I have more information—if I have more information. What little I can tell you right now is that it probably isn't going to kill you."
"Oh? How can you be so sure?"
"Because it's been sitting on you for several weeks already. And if it were lethal, you'd already be dead."