3. Willa #2
“Then the exams might not be the problem.” Assuming there was one. Maybe Fern wasn’t as social as Rue.
Rue took two more steps toward us. Fern’s head lifted, her gaze following the movement.
“When’s the last time you separated them?” I asked.
“Three weeks ago, for routine health checks.”
“How long were they apart?”
“Forty minutes.”
“Rue enjoyed the separation. Did Fern?”
He studied the screen. “No.”
“How did Fern behave while Rue was gone?”
He scrolled through the document on his screen. “Laina noted that Fern’s petal colors shifted to pale yellow while they were apart.”
“What does the color signify?”
“Pink and purple are happy colors. Yellow and dully white show stress.”
“Then she was stressed.” I studied the creature further, thinking about what, if anything, this could mean.
“Her appetite was decreased for—” Traig’s frown deepened.
“For how long?”
“Two days.” He read some more. “It says here that her blooms returned to baseline on day three.”
Rue had reached the fence. She poked her snout between the rails, sniffing my pants. Her flowers brightening to coral pink as I scratched behind her ear.
Her gaze trailed from me to Fern.
Fern still hadn’t moved, but her flowers had opened some more. Still pale, but fuller now.
Emotion swelled in my throat.
“Could they be bonded?” I asked.
Traig didn’t comment right away.
When I looked over, I found him staring at the tablet, his tusks shifting across his upper lip.
“The data doesn’t support that conclusion,” he said.
“The data says Fern stopped eating when they were apart. Her flowers went yellow.”
“That’s common during disruptions.”
“For two days?”
His finger slid across the screen as he reread the information.
“We document what we observe,” he said. “The system is designed to identify anomalies.”
“It did identify them.”
His gaze lifted from the tablet, meeting mine. “If they’re bonded, separation would cause distress. Long-term separation could be harmful.”
“I’m sure it would be.”
Fern hadn’t moved. Her flowers remained pale, still half-open, and she stared at Rue.
“I’ll review the data again,” Traig said.
It wasn’t an agreement, but it wasn’t a dismissal either.
He turned back toward the path. “There’s one more creature I want to show you.”
I followed him past two pastures and a row of smaller pens until we reached a reinforced enclosure near the tree line. The fence stood double-height, the mesh finer than the others, with a climate-controlled shelter built into the back corner.
Inside, ferret-sized creatures nestled together, asleep. One spied us and zipped across the ground, his glowing stripes leaving trails of light in his wake.
“Nix,” I said, stooping down to see him better.
“Fizzlings are highly energetic,” Traig said. “They build static electricity when excited and discharge it on contact. The shocks are harmless but frequent.”
Nix spotted us and froze mid-sprint before bolting toward the fence.
Traig sighed.
Nix hit the gate at full speed, scrabbled up the mesh, and squeezed through a gap near the top hinge that should not have been large enough for him to fit through. He perched, clinging to the fence with his one-inch claws.
“Nix,” Traig said. “Return to your enclosure.”
Nix chittered and launched himself at Traig’s chest. As he hit, a sharp crack made my hair stand on end from three feet away.
Traig pried the fizzling off his chest and held the creature at arm’s length while Nix wriggled and sparked.
“This is the twelfth documented escape this month,” Traig said.
I could swear Nix wore a fizzling grin.
“You’ll have to fix that hole,” I said.
“I’ve reinforced the enclosure each time he escapes and made sure there are no more gaps. Rebuilt the structure five times. He finds a way no matter what I do.”
Nix chittered, and a small bolt of static jumped from his nose to Traig’s hand.
“He’s drawn to emotional energy,” Traig said, shaking his hand, sighing. He carried Nix back toward the gate. “Excitement, stress, and high-stimulation environments can excite them. The more charged the atmosphere, the more energized they become.”
“So he’s basically a living mood ring.”
At his frown, I explained what it was.
“That’s…not inaccurate,” he said.
I went around and opened the gate for him.
The ground near the fence was uneven, rutted from spring runoff, and my foot caught on something.
I stumbled.
Traig caught my elbow, steadying me.
I looked up.
He was close enough that I could see the exact shade of green in his skin that was darker at his temples and lighter along his jaw. I could count the fine lines at the corners of his eyes.
His hand remained on my elbow. His gaze dropped to my mouth before snapping back up.
Nix, cradled against Traig’s chest, discharged into both of us.
The shock snapped up my arm, making me jerk back, though it didn’t hurt. It almost felt pleasant, in a weird way.
“Apologies,” Traig said.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I should’ve warned you about Nix. They can discharge multiple times without depletion.”
“Next time, I’ll stay away.”
Nix blinked up at Traig.
“Into the enclosure with you,” Traig said.
He set Nix inside, secured the gate, and bound the gap in the fence back together with wire.
We walked back toward the main building.
My elbow tingled where he’d touched me, but that had to be residual static.
It couldn’t be anything else.
Back inside, Fred had settled on the reception counter, his wings tucked against his sides and his grumbling reduced to a low purr. Seeing us, his tune picked up again.
Traig set his tablet down and once we’d both sat, gestured to the computer. “Could you pull up the intake form? You said they aren’t intuitive.”
“They might need a few tweaks to make them clearer.”
“Show me what you mean.”
I walked him through it from the perspective of someone calling for the first time, step by step. “Someone who doesn’t know the difference between Intake-Medical-Crossref and Intake-General-Misc-Temp-B could get confused.”
I wanted to do a good job here, but I didn’t have a master’s degree in Traig’s brain.
He listened without interrupting, thankfully.
When I’d finished, he tapped his tablet screen, pulled up the form, and started adjusting fields.
“If I consolidate these subcategories,” he said, “and add a reference guide here—”
“That would help.”
He made the change. Tested it. Blinked a few times. And made another adjustment.
I watched him work, grateful he wasn’t brushing this off.
“Is this better?” he asked, turning the screen toward me.
After studying the form, pretending I was a person trying to fill it out, I nodded. “This will work very well.”
“Good.”
“I appreciate you making the changes.”
His gaze held mine. “Your observations are valuable, Willa.”
Willa.
He’d said my name before, but not with a slight pause before it, like he’d been deciding whether to use it at all. His voice had dropped half an octave on the second syllable.
My heart skipped a beat it couldn’t afford to miss.
“I—” He dragged his gaze from mine and blinked down at his tablet. “I should let you get back to reviewing the manual.”
“Right.”
He picked up his tablet and left.
I sat at the desk, Fred grumbling, my pulse doing wild things in my throat.
With a shrug, I got back to work.
I was about to dive into the digital filing guide when a flash of bright orange streaked into the entryway.
Sofia flew over and landed on the counter, her bat-wings giving a little shimmy of excitement.
“Hey, Sofia,” I said, leaning back. “Did you stop by for more finger-sniffing?”
Sofia ignored me. Her round eyes were fixed on my pen, the expensive one with the etched silver barrel. Before I could blink, she dove down and snatched it up. She hopped back onto the counter and dropped the pen. Turning, she flew toward my stapler.
“Wait, I need these things,” I said.
Fred grumbled, a sound that I swore meant, let her have them.
Sofia spent the next five minutes arranging my pen, stapler, a stray paperclip, and a Post-it note I’d doodled on into a circular mound on the floor in front of the counter. Once satisfied, she sat in the middle of it and let out a puff of smoke that thankfully didn’t light anything on fire.
I didn’t get my pen or stapler back for an hour, but having a tiny orc-ish dragon guarding her new throne made the medical cross-referencing significantly more entertaining.
With a laugh, I pulled out my notebook and opened to a new page.
Fred is my desk companion.
Clatterwings steal spoons.
Sofia loves to build thrones with my things.
I think Rue and Fern are bonded whether the data says so or not.
Nix is a menace with odd timing.
I paused, tapping my pen on the desk.
Traig said my name, and it felt amazing.
I made myself get back to work.