Shiny spit, on cut from alien's tongue (9)
I believe the answer is:
twinkling
'shiny' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'spit on cut from alien's tongue' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'from' could be 'in' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'in' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for twinkling that I've seen before include "Jiffy" , "Second" , "Instant" , "Sparkling like a star" , "for a short time" .)