Page 20

FIFTEEN

A fter Rahn showed the Howlers their lavish offices and rooms, she led them to a hall crowded with tables full of roast chicken, potatoes, steaming vegetables and chilled desserts.

They scrambled to pile their plates and hurried toward the nearest table.

Rahn sat with them at Dira’s insistence, and Rahn in turn encouraged others to join.

A dark-haired girl around their age sat to Rahn’s left, and though Kel couldn’t recall her name, she was struck by the way the girl interacted with Rahn; the familiar, easy warmth in every word and expression.

She hadn’t expected this kind of camaraderie here.

An hour later, the Howlers headed to their rooms, cradling full stomachs. Each cluster of suites shared a kitchen, dining area, and a small lounge; the four Howlers and, it seemed, Rahn, were in one such cluster.

The five separated with weary goodbyes and Kel stumbled into bed.

Her room was decorated with the same earthy colors as the train and smelt faintly of lavender.

A new, bow-tied tele-comm lay on her wooden desk.

Two abstract paintings of phoenixes hung on opposite walls.

It was simple, and homely, and exactly how Kel might have decorated her own room if she hadn’t spent most nights in the aviary’s office.

That fact might have unnerved Kel, if she hadn’t been too tired to care.

She slumped into the dark green sheets and willed sleep to take her. She wished it, and begged it, and ordered it, for minutes and then hours. But the longer she waited, the further away it drew, taunting her.

When the clock ticked past midnight, Kel huffed and threw her clothes back on.

There was one thing that always helped her sleep.

She tiptoed through their small kitchen and took the elevator down to the ground floor.

Kel pulled out the map Rahn had given her.

The girl had pointed out the distant building where all phoenixes lived, in an array of spectacularly green aviaries, but the facilities truly were a maze; identical rooms and endlessly spiraling white corridors.

It took Kel a few wrong turns, but eventually she spotted Savita’s smaller aviary, divided from a larger enclosure by a glass wall.

Savita still had plenty of room to roam—more than she’d had at home—and Kel was glad her phoenix hadn’t been thrown in with the other birds yet. Savita wasn’t prone to timidness. If she felt uncomfortable, she’d attack.

Kel scanned her new ID card and slid inside Savita’s cage. Full of trees, shrubbery and buzzing insects, it was as close to Vohre Forest as Kel imagined an aviary could be.

In a thunderous whoosh of heat, Savita appeared before her. The phoenix towered over Kel, snapping her beak.

Kel slid off her jacket and pulled on her leather gloves. “You know I came as soon as I could.”

Savita arched over Kel, stretching her neck. She eyed Kel, nudged her tamer’s arm in reluctant affection, and turned away. She almost sent Kel flying across the room with the sway of her long, feathered tail.

Kel supposed that was as warm a welcome as she could expect. She followed Savita across the enclosure. “Don’t pretend you don’t love this aviary. I saw you preening at the other phoenixes, earlier. You can’t wait to make them your minions.”

Savita clucked again, refusing to face Kel. Kel laughed and sat on a nearby log. She tugged off her gloves and pulled a small notebook and pen from her jacket. All notions of sleep forgotten, Kel began scribbling under the dim heat-light overhead.

She didn’t know how much time had passed before the aviary’s entrance beeped open.

Kel pivoted toward the door, spotting a familiar chestnut head bobbing closer.

Frustration sputtered to life inside her.

“I should have known you’d be here,” Coup said dryly as he sat beside her.

His dark curls were flat against his head, and the gray shirt beneath his jacket was half-tucked into his trousers. He must have crawled from bed. Kel hated that the thought made her cheeks heat.

“What are you doing here?” she threw back. Alchemists. She’d just wanted some peace. “Go back to bed.”

“No.” He tilted his head back, stretching his legs. Savita had barely made a noise at his entry.

“Yes.”

Coup might be on her team, on her phoenix, but her nights with Savita had always been spent alone. They were sacred, and he’d already intruded on her last flight with Sav. She didn’t need Coup’s grating voice filling the silence again .

“ No , and only because you want me to,” he sang.

He rose to his feet and moved toward Savita.

Kel scowled at his back. Slowly, he approached the phoenix.

He placed a gloved hand on her neck before shifting away.

Sav watched Coup with an indifferent curiosity, the way a lazy cat might observe a passing bird.

Splinters bit into Kel’s palms and she forced her fingers to loosen around the log.

Touching Sav had taken Oska months . Kel imagined Coup would soon be safe to fly on his own.

Despite some distant part of her knowing it would help the Howlers, the thought still sent a pang of petty jealousy through her.

“Why are you here?” she relented, leaning back.

Coup gave a small shrug, working his hands softly down Savita’s side, over her wing, testing her comfort.

“The sooner Savita is comfortable around me, the sooner we can start actually training. Cristo’s contract makes it sound like he has some high expectations.

” He paused. “I told you, tamer, that I can’t afford to mess this up. Why are you here?”

“Maybe I just wanted to be somewhere alone ,” she drawled.

“Without someone to berate?” Coup shook his head. “Impossible.”

Kel scrunched her face. She forced a deep breath. “I just wanted to check on Sav. I’ll leave soon.”

“Liar.”

Kel huffed and drummed her fingers against the log. She wanted to keep scribbling in her notebook, talking to Sav’s tired silhouette. But both felt too strange in Coup’s presence, as if she’d undressed with his back half-turned.

Instead, Kel watched Coup glide beside Savita, her head lowered to the ground and her eyes closed. Watching him guide his hands along Sav’s outline sparked an old curiosity.

“Why were you working in public aviaries?” The question had been biting at her ever since he’d first mentioned it. Aside from the pieces he’d offered, she had no clue how he’d spent his childhood, or what had led him to phoenix racing.

Hand still raised at Savita’s side, Coup turned to face Kel.

His lips quirked up. Stray moonlight caught on his crescent dimples, and Kel loathed his easy charm.

“Oh. Funny story. I was caught sneaking into a CAPR race when I was too young, so the council threw me into the grimiest place they could find to try to scare me into never going back. But that’s what made me fall in love with phoenixes. ” Coup paused. “That and CAPR money.”

Kel felt that familiar, bitter frustration only Coup could stir; this time, at having something in common with him.

His story was almost identical to how Dira and Kel had first met: getting caught and kicked out of a CAPR race as kids without guardians.

Though they might race for different reasons now, what had led to their CAPR racing—to this moment—was almost the same.

Coup shook his head, as if freeing himself of the memory. “What about you?” With his other hand, he gestured to Savita’s sleeping figure. “You love Savita like a firstborn. Was it always that way?”

Kel shifted her weight along the log, stalling. Coup had given her a truth. She owed him one in return. But she didn’t know if she could give him the truth he’d asked for.

She took a deep breath. “My dad used to tell me stories about phoenixes, mostly about Landon Ryker and Deja.”

It was a half-truth. Kel had adored her father’s stories, tales woven as vividly as memories.

Ryker had settled on Cendor, while the other three Alchemists lived across Salta’s other isles.

Somehow, Ryker had earned the trust of Salta’s oldest—greatest—phoenix.

He’d become the first person to ever ride a firebird.

Their bond had been strong enough to conquer death itself.

Kel chewed the inside of her cheek. Though she’d loved those stories, they weren’t the real reason she’d latched so tightly onto Savita—at least, not in recent years.

Something about Savita’s immortality made Kel feel safe in a way that nothing else could.

No matter what happened to her family, her friends, even Cendor, phoenixes— Savita —would always remain.

Sometimes it felt like death trailed after Kel, a second shadow. Savita was the only thing she couldn’t get killed.

Coup laughed, oblivious to Kel’s half-truth. “My mom told me the same stories. She wasn’t from Cendor, but her parents had told her stories about Ryker and Deja. That’s why she came here when she fled.”

Kel frowned. “Fled?”

Though Coup remained still, gliding his hand along Savita, his voice was sharper when he said, “My father wasn’t a good man. She escaped the continent not long after I was born. Bekn told me once she’d fled to Cendor because of its reputation. She didn’t think he’d follow her here.”

Coup shrugged, though the movement looked forced. “It worked. She never heard from him again.”

The smallest sliver of guilt wormed through Kel, crawling between her ribs. Whatever she’d assumed of his childhood—it hadn’t been that.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” she said, softly.

“I’m sorry about your father,” Coup replied. “And I’m sorry for what I said on the train. I just—”

“It’s okay,” she said, crossing her legs. “I get it.”

She hadn’t realized it was true until she’d said it. Coup’s words on the train had hurt, but she also knew what it was like to think you’d come to terms with something. To have that delusion yanked away with no notice.