Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
“All right, here’s the plan of attack!”
Aila stood before her whiteboard like a military commander, brandishing an olive branch at a list of to-do items.
“The IMWS inspector comes in two months. If we want to look like a world-class facility ready to receive a critically endangered Silimalo phoenix, we’ve got a shit-ton of work to accomplish in a ridiculously short amount of time.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Tanya quipped from her chair, muddy boots propped on the counter. If this was a real army, she’d have been written up for insubordination. Aila let it slide.
“Our plan of attack.” Aila whipped the branch against the top item on the list. “Order new olive trees from the Crescent Bay Nursery to replace those two charred ones in the exhibit. Set up a new order for fresh boughs delivered every week.”
“Roger that,” Tanya said.
“Next, deep clean interior. Replace cracked flooring and countertops.”
“Don’t forget fancying up the patio. Need a ritzy place for the donors to sit and eat their tea sandwiches.”
An unsavory prospect, but Aila would bear it, if she got another phoenix out of the deal. “We also need to replace the refrigerator in the kitchen, the one with the dead purserat stuck underneath.”
Tanya rolled her eyes. “Thank the skies and seas.”
“And repair the crack in the observation window glass where that kid played ‘hide the rock’ a few months ago.”
“The audacity of the youth these days.” Tanya shook her head.
Now, on to the hard ones. “The dragon facility has our egg incubators from when they were hatching diamondbacks. We’ll need to move those back here, figure out what repairs need to be made. We also need to increase our talon-mite dusting schedule, which means borrowing the sprayer from griffin show.” She’d rather swim the kraken-infested Middle Sea than tackle that one. “We should focus on the incubators first.”
“Skies and seas, what a cruel fate!” Tanya threw up her hands. “You’ll have to talk to that hot dragon boy again? Think you can say something without sticking a foot in your mouth?”
Harsh. But fair.
Aila eyed the extensive list with beetles buzzing in her stomach. Building renovations weren’t her only hurdle. Already, she’d assembled an extensive reading list of every book and scientific paper on phoenix breeding she could get her hands on.
Breeding.
And social introduction.
And pair bonding.
And male feather health.
Aila might be doomed.
The door clicked open. Aila stiffened by her whiteboard. Tanya tipped her boots off the table and jumped to her feet as Director Hawthorn stepped inside.
“Good morning, keepers,” he greeted. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”
Aila’s nose scrunched. “Well, actually, we were just about to—”
“Of course not!” Tanya piped back.
Aila locked eyes with her. Not avoiding human contact, today? Shoot . Missed the coordination on that one. “We were reviewing our itinerary, Director Hawthorn.”
He stepped up to peruse the whiteboard, a hum in his throat, a bend in his knees from too many years scrubbing aquarium tanks. Aila twiddled her olive branch as he read, uncomfortable in the silence, staring at the wall, the floor. She nudged a crack with her boot, producing a louder squeak than intended. Panicked, she held still.
Behind the director, Tanya glared at Aila and shook her head like a scolding mother.
“An ambitious project,” the director said at last. He ran wrinkled knuckles through what remained of his hair, thinner at the top than the sides. “It’s in the zoo’s best interest to support you. Getting the breeding program running again will be fantastic for our conservation portfolio. I just wish you’d run this by me sooner. We could have had more time to work with.”
Aila had spent so many years begging for a male phoenix, she hadn’t expected any more support this time around.
“I spoke with the donors yesterday,” he continued. “They’re… supportive. But it’s a bit of a gamble for their liking. What if we sink a chunk of funds into the restoration, but IMWS decides to go with another facility? I can move some money around for essential equipment repair and installation, but most of the elbow grease, we’ll have to keep in house.”
Aila’s nose wrinkled. Donors. Budgets. Not her cup of tea. She’d get done what she had to, on her own if needed.
“Have you reached out to griffin show yet?” the director asked.
Aila looked at him like a two-headed falcon. “Why would I do that?”
“They’re your sister department. I’m sure they’ll be eager to help.”
Over Aila’s dead body would she go crawling to Luciana’s pedicured feet. I don’t see why you’re bothering , she’d say in that honeyed voice. Rubra would be better off dressed in a tutu and doing fire flips for a crowd.
“We’ll get on it, Director,” Tanya interjected. “Appreciate you stopping by. We should get working, though. Got to check the phoenix drinking spigot, been fritzing again.”
The Silimalo phoenix did not, in fact, require a water spigot. Phoenixes required less hydration than most animals (a tendency for internal combustion made them bloat with steam if they drank too much). They acquired most moisture from their food. As part of standard zoo compliance, a water spigot had been installed in the phoenix exhibit regardless. The pipes ruptured any time Rubra neared them. Aila and Tanya gave up on that repair years ago.
The excuse remained a useful code phrase to escape unwanted conversations. Easier to flee human interaction under the guise of official business.
“Of course,” Director Hawthorn said. “I’ll let you get to that.”
Tanya, you sublime, magnanimous sunfish.
They escaped into the fall heat. The morning smelled of sage and wet concrete beneath the misters, voices growing as the first patrons trickled into the zoo. Hidden around the corner of the building, Aila slumped against sun-warmed stucco. All she wanted was to rescue an entire species from extinction. Why did that involve so many logistics ?
“That’s just out of one fire, Ailes,” Tanya chided.
Aila moaned. “I don’t have to get the incubators now . Not like they’re going to sprout legs and wander off.”
“The quicker we get them, quicker we know what we need to repair.”
“I don’t even know where Connor is right—”
Their radios crackled in unison. “Entering plumed dragon,” Connor announced, as he did every morning while cycling through the dragon exhibits.
Griffin shit.
“Fine!” Aila threw up her hands. “I’ll go talk to him.” She chewed the words like gristle.
Maybe one of his dragons would eat her instead.
Aila left the safety of her phoenix complex with a trudge to her step.
Skirting strollers and absent-minded patrons, she passed the diamondback dragon aviary, climbed the pine-shaded hill of the Vjari section, until stiff conifers gave way to broader-leafed tropical palms and rubber trees. An aviary lay ahead, smallest of the three dragon enclosures.
The glass dome of the green-plumed dragon exhibit was fogged with humidity, its interior obscured by Ziclexian nut trees and thick-trunked kapoks. A public pathway tunneled through the center of the dome, an arch of glass overhead, snaking through a rainforest understory of cacao trees, orchids, and tufted pink chenille, all webbed in vines and knots of surface roots.
Aila stepped into the tunnel, embarking on an expedition to the other side of the world. Sunlight dimmed beneath the canopy, air thick with a smell of moist soil. An information placard along the walkway gave background on the Ziclexian cloud forest, its high montane jungle wreathed in fog and dripping moss, remote from most human settlements. Aila would love to visit one day, the vast rainforest one of the few places in the world with magical beasts likely still undiscovered (that, and the deep ocean, but fuck the ocean, it always creeped Aila out).
Another placard showed a diagram of green-plumed dragon feet, the toes splayed with climbing claws and wide, gecko-like pads that let them scramble over massive jungle leaves. A resin foot model beside the glass was perfect for visitors to take photos against their own hands.
Then came a placard about green-plumed dragon feathers. The red, green, and yellow quills of the neck ruff contained some magical pigment that enticed the viewer—both other dragons and humans. There’d been some fiasco in the art world not long ago, a few prominent painters discovered to have slipped powdered dragon feathers into their paints. This sparked a debate on whether the paintings were truly masterworks, or just enchanting people to think they were. Aila had never really understood art.
No patrons shared the tunnel, yet. Alone, she enjoyed the quiet, the giant trunks that made her feel as small and wide-eyed as when she’d visited as a kid. That was the fun of it: creeping along, searching for iridescent green plumes amid the foliage. She peered through the glass, scanning for movement.
In her pocket, her phone buzzed.
Aila sighed. So much for her jungle escape. If this was Tanya texting her advice on how to talk to boys, Aila would… probably take it. She needed all the help she could get.
It wasn’t Tanya. Aila swiped open her phone to find a message from her mother, an image of a wooden counter messy with chopped green peppers and fresh herbs.
Dad is trying a new recipe! Will update you on results.
Aila smiled. A single picture, and she was back in that kitchen, smelling the sage bushes outside the open window and the pomegranate dish soap her mom always used, listening to her dad talk as he chopped at the counter. It was a warm feeling, one of the few places that had always been safe.
At the same time, guilt twisted Aila’s stomach. Though her parents lived right here in San Tamculo, she hadn’t visited in too long. Always busy, and with this new renovation project…
She texted back.
Looks great! I’ll call this weekend so we can catch up?
Before the reply came, something rustled inside the dragon exhibit. Aila looked up.
Connor stared back at her from the other side of the glass.
Aila shrieked in surprise, the sound echoing down the tunnel. She clutched her heart as Connor’s brow lifted.
“Connor! Hello! I… Wow, didn’t see you there!” Off to a superb start.
“Morning, Aila.” Humidity dotted Connor’s cheeks. It glistened like stardrops on the lock of dark hair curled against his brow. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Startled?” she returned. “Me? Never. No idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh. Is there something you need, then?”
“Yes!” The reply flew from her lips with no semblance of punctuation. “The incubators I mean the egg incubators the ones you borrowed from the phoenix building I was wondering if we could maybe get those back.” She gulped a breath. “You know. If you have a free moment.”
She forced a smile, legs wobbling.
Connor smiled back. Her legs turned to jelly.
“It’s true, then?” he said. “What everyone’s saying? You’re going to restart the phoenix breeding program?”
“People are saying that?” Ludicrous. Aila hadn’t thought… Skies and seas, she needed to pay closer attention to zoo gossip. A swell of pride kept her from collapsing. “Yeah. We are.”
Aila, restarting the breeding program. Her eight-year-old self squealed inside.
Her eight-year-old self wouldn’t understand the other reason she wanted to squeal. From across the glass, Connor’s smile didn’t fade. His blue eyes fixed on her through a brush of thick lashes. No drifting focus. No uncomfortable side-eye. In that moment, Aila realized he’d never looked at her before. His attention knotted a string around her heart, a kite thrown to the wind.
“I’d love to help,” he said. “But first, I’ve got to get the plumed dragons out on exhibit. Give me a hand?”
Aila jerked a nod.
By the time she walked around to the aviary’s keeper entrance, her legs had resumed functioning. Her thoughts teetered like tops. Animals. Focus on the animals.
This back enclosure was taller than any of Aila’s, the concrete floor new and smooth. On one side of the room gleamed a stainless steel fridge and counters. On the other, a flock of five green-plumed dragons trilled behind the bars of their aviary, yellow eyes following Aila like a shiny new toy. Most dragons were territorial, but these were an unusually social species, happiest in groups. Also, flightless. Their aviary stretched floor to ceiling, a resin tree trunk twisting through the center like a climbing gym, wreathed in chew toys tied on metal cords. The dragons scrambled over the boughs on wide footpads and strong claws, down to the closed door to their public exhibit, eager to be let out.
Connor lifted a rope from the counter and slung it over his shoulder. Five chicken carcasses were strung along the length like party decorations.
He grinned. “Not squeamish, I hope?”
Around people? Sure. Dead animals? Never.
Aila followed Connor into the exhibit, soil soft beneath her boots, humidity frizzing her hair. She smoothed vagrant tendrils behind her ears. What she wouldn’t give for Luciana’s sleek curls. And no, she’d never admit that out loud.
Once they were in sight of the viewing tunnel, Connor looped one end of his rope around a tree. Aila clambered up another mossy trunk to do the same with her end. Jungle chickens on a string. Talk about a neat party game (for a dragon).
Once Aila and Connor returned to the keeper room, he locked the exhibit door and slid open the gate keeping the dragons inside. They darted out in bolts of green and red feathers. Aila pressed herself to the aviary bars, wriggling to get the best view out the gate as the dragons hollered in the trees, snapping at chickens like feathered pi?atas.
“Look at that, they love it!” She smiled, a remedy to jittery nerves. “I bet Rubra would adore something like that. Maybe… apples instead of chickens?”
“I bet she would.” Connor bumped her shoulder. “Hey, I think that’s the first straight sentence I’ve gotten out of you.”
Aila’s cheeks blushed hot as phoenix feathers. “Oh, no! I mean, probably? Not the best people person. You know, animals are just…” Her voice dropped to a murmur. “Cooler.”
Connor laughed. “I don’t think that’s an uncommon sentiment in this line of work.”
“Shut up. I’ve heard your keeper talks. You’re great .”
“Loads of practice.”
He winked. Aila gripped the bars to keep from disintegrating.
“Come on,” Connor said. “Let’s go look at those incubators.”
Aila should have taken Tanya’s advice and practiced talking to a poster.
If someone wrote an instructional guide to human flirting—a real one, not those fluffy romcoms on airport bookshelves—she’d read it cover to cover and still be oblivious. Aila had never pulled off a successful date. One time in college, she sat next to a cute boy in her zoonotic diseases lecture all semester, failing to find the courage to ask him out. He asked to borrow a pencil once. Most words they ever exchanged. Another time, attempting small talk with a barista, Aila spilled an entire toffee latte on the floor. Poor girl had to clean up the mess. Aila asked her out to a movie to make up for it, but when her “date” invited a gaggle of friends to the outing, Aila panicked and backed out last minute.
Then there were the dating apps. Aila abandoned that purgatory long ago. Did ninety percent of the world’s hobbies consist of “going to the gym” or “long walks on the beach”? Neither of which she partook in, her daily exercise accounted for by hauling goat carcasses to kelpies, her gossamer skin as suited to beach weather as dry paper to open flame. On the flip side, she hadn’t found a single match who understood the importance of naturalistic exhibit design and behavioral enrichment to the health of magical creatures.
All to say, Aila followed Connor’s lead with a mix of dread and an airy feeling like floating. Maybe she’d be fine. And maybe she’d sprout wings and dragon scales.
Vanilla-scented conifers shaded their walk back to the Vjari section, a cool escape from fall heat. Cooler still in the keeper building behind the diamondback dragon aviary, a bunker of concrete from floor to ceiling, the air conditioning set low enough to prickle Aila’s skin. In contrast, the back dragon enclosure was a garden. Stark walls were speckled with colorful lichen and delicate flowers. In the wild, diamondback dragons roosted in caves, their body heat enough to create near-tropical microclimates sheltered from the cold Vjari exterior. The flora and fauna living within dragon dens were completely unique.
Fluorescent lights shined on a well-swept floor, a desk with a granola bar and three bins with green-plumed dragon feathers, diamondback scales, and maned dragon hair. IMWS required all magical animal parts of black-market value to be collected, cataloged, and disposed of. An observation window looked out on the diamondback dragon exhibit, an alpine hillside sprinkled with… snow? White blanketed the rocky ground and mats of pine needles.
In Movas, snow never fell this low in elevation, confined to the mountains behind the city. Connor must have gotten the snow machine out, a treat for the dragon. Vera lay on her back in the deepest snowbank, wings spread, belly exposed like a sunbathing cat. What a sweetie. Aila would have been tempted to scratch her scales, if not for claws the size of her forearm.
“Here we are.”
Connor pulled a tarp, uncovering a line of incubators on the counter. Each metal box stood half as tall as Aila, control panels dense with buttons and an LCD screen, windows capable of insulating molten lava. Phoenix eggs had to hatch from their mother’s immolation, but once out of their shells, the chicks survived best via gradual temperature acclimation. Aila pressed her nose to the window like a child in a candy store, picturing baby phoenixes peeping inside.
“They still work?” Her words came out muffled against the glass.
“Worked for the diamondback eggs,” Connor said. “Could use a checkup, make sure the heating coils still work. If you can find a cart to load them, I can help you move them up to the phoenix complex.”
“That would be great!” Aila hopped in enthusiasm. Too much. She folded her hands and tried not to appear crazy.
But there came Connor’s smile again. Aila had no defense for such things.
“No worries. Not like we’re using these hunks of metal.” His voice grew quiet. “Will be nice to see them working again.”
Aila felt like an ass. The last chicks these incubators held were diamondback dragons, Connor’s star species, a clutch of hatchlings who’d scampered around the exhibit for weeks. Connor had raised them, pampered them. When the time came to send the dragonlings off to the reintroduction center in Vjar, the entire zoo staff celebrated. Aila attended long enough to steal a piece of dragon-shaped cake with black frosting that stuck in her teeth.
Then the dragons were stolen in transit. Connor called in sick for a week afterward.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope I’m not bringing up bad memories. If that happened with one of my phoenixes, I’d…” Cry? Shrivel? Melt into a puddle?
Connor rested a hand atop an incubator. As his thumb brushed the metal, he looked over the dark panels and empty interior. Imagining the previous occupants, she guessed—fewer feathers than what she had planned, but equally precious.
“Thanks, Aila. That’s kind of you to say.” He looked up with a small grin. “About time someone put these to good use again. Can’t wait to see them full of phoenixes.”
Oh no. He was gorgeous, and smart, and funny, and he cared this much about his animals? Keep it together, Aila. This was the longest she’d ever lasted around Connor without face-planting onto concrete.
Connor’s brow lifted. Too late, Aila realized she was staring. Frantic for any focal point other than dreamy blue eyes and that distracting curl on his temple, she scampered to the observation window, feigning interest in the dragon lounging on her snow pile.
Well, maybe not feigning. Who didn’t like watching dragons?
“How’s Vera?” Aila asked. “Since the hatchlings got sent off.”
Connor joined her at the window. “Vera? She took it fine. Probably relieved to have some quiet. Not like she knows what happened to them.”
Aila couldn’t decide if that was less heartbreaking. She wondered sometimes if the animals did know, had some sense of their species dwindling, a few bad breeding seasons away from vanishing like a snuffed match. Or maybe that was a burden their keepers bore alone. Vera looked content, a rumble in her throat as she nestled deeper into snow.
Sunlight slanted through the exhibit glass, a ray into the keeper quarters. In the light, Connor’s skin was crisp as Vjari snow, warmed by the softest blush.
“Why dragons?” Aila blurted out, thankful that those words emerged, rather than some harp on how handsome he was. “Are you from Vjar?”
“Me? No. My parents are. Got sick of the winters, moved down here. As for the dragons.” He chuckled. “I… uh… applied to work with unicorns.”
Aila’s mouth fell open. “Get. Out. Of. Here. Unicorns? ”
“What’s wrong with unicorns?”
“I don’t know, they’re like, a kelpie but way less exciting.”
His brow quirked. “Are you quantifying ‘exciting’ based on the criteria of eating flesh?”
“And making kick-ass fog all day! All unicorns do is stand around and look pretty.” Her eyes narrowed. “Does that make Patricia, like, your mortal enemy or something?” Aila had never gotten along with the unicorn keeper. Too… peppy.
Connor laughed. “Patricia and I are fine. I took the next position that popped up. Dragons are pretty cool, too.”
“Cooler than unicorns,” Aila muttered.
“Hey, you know the business. Got to go where the opportunities are.”
Aila made a whining sound. Connor leaned against the windowsill.
“No?” he taunted.
“No. Always phoenixes for me.”
Not the most advisable career limitation, her college counselor had told her again and again. So what? Aila knew what she wanted, that she could put in the work to get here.
“Why phoenixes?” Connor asked. “You like the glamor?”
“What? No. Of course not. I mean… sure, they are one of the most critically endangered species on the planet. That’s neat and all.”
She stared out the glass, chewing her lip.
“People nearly drove Silimalo phoenixes extinct,” she said. “ Our greed. Our short-sightedness. All for a few feathers, we almost wiped out a species. But people saved the phoenixes, too. We captured the last wild birds and brought them into captivity. We started breeding them, trying to keep the species alive. For me, phoenixes are a reminder of how awful people can be… but also how much good we can do, when we put our minds to it.”
One day, that kindness might pay off. Silimalo phoenixes in the wild once more, preening in olive trees along the rocky coast of their home country, a salt breeze ruffling their feathers and a fiery sunset in their eyes.
“Sounds like the new phoenix is heading for a good home,” Connor said.
“We have to make it into a home, first.” In under two months.
“Well.” Connor nodded to the incubators. “If you need help getting those up and running, I handled the maintenance while the dragons were breeding. I’d be happy to help tune them up.”
“Really? That would be amazing! I… Thank you, Connor.”
Her heart fluttered. Her legs felt weaker than she’d like. But at some point, the words came easier. Talking to him was nice, not as terrifying as Aila thought it would be.
Tanya was going to be smug about this, wasn’t she?
“I’ve stolen enough of your time,” Aila said.
“Not at all. You’re welcome to do so again.”
Horns and fangs, Aila had to unmelt herself first. “I’ll be back later with that cart!”
“I’ll be here.”
“Good. Great. Goodbye.”
“See you later, Aila.”
She waved in parting, backing toward the door like a wary animal. When she stepped outside, Aila restrained herself from skipping off into the sunset.
Incubators returning to phoenix complex: check.
Speaking to the hot guy for longer than thirty seconds: check .
Watch out, world. At this rate, nothing was keeping Aila from that phoenix.