Chapter 333: Her Own Choice

Chapter 333: Her Own Choice

The egg sat alone in a glass incubator in the back room of Harlow & Pike, under a soft amber lamp, and Elsa stopped in the doorway, leaving Arthur to squeeze past her.

It was larger than the Breeztail egg — about the size of a small melon — and pale gray, almost silver, with faint darker streaks that ran across the shell like wind lines on a weather map. A temperature display glowed on the incubator’s side. Somewhere inside the housing, a fan hummed very quietly.

"That’s it?" she whispered. "That’s mine?"

"That’s the one matched to you," said Mr. Pike, the hatchery’s senior keeper, a round, soft-spoken man who had met them at the front desk. "Nothing’s yours until you sign. But yes. That’s the one."

Elsa came forward slowly and put her hands flat on the counter in front of the glass, not quite touching it.

Arthur and Elena stood behind her. Nobody said anything for a while.

"Can my brother look at it properly?" Elsa asked. "He does appraisal."

"Of course." Pike slid the glass panel open and stepped back. "Take as long as you like. The academy’s instructions were very clear on that."

Jin stepped up beside his sister and looked.

[Galecrest Fox — Egg]

[Quality: Gold (Peak)]

[Affinity: Wind (strong)]

[Condition: Healthy — development on schedule]

[Bloodline: Galecrest (standard)]

Jin examined the developing Core and the even energy distribution, then compared the readings with the keeper’s incubation log. Both showed healthy development. He checked for hidden potential as carefully as he checked for defects, and found neither.

Elemental had offered a sound, well-bred Gold (Peak) beast and delivered exactly that.

He let out a breath. The photograph had been lovely, but he hadn’t wanted Elsa falling in love with an offer that turned out to have something wrong with it. Here was the actual egg, healthy and within reach.

"Well?" Elsa said. She’d been watching his face the entire time.

"It’s healthy," Jin said. "Really healthy. The Core’s dense and stable, and it’s developing right on schedule. There’s nothing wrong with it anywhere."

"And the wind?"

"Strong affinity. There’s plenty you could learn together." Jin pointed to the species guide beside the incubator. "When you can control a current properly, you might help it turn or jump. You’d still have to practice together. I can’t do that sort of thing for Glitch with appraisal."

Elsa looked at the egg.

"And the academy part?"

"They can help you make the most of it. Gold (Peak) is an excellent foundation, and you’ll have people who know how to train a wind beast." He glanced at the notes she had brought. "You’ll have someone to ask when those don’t cover it."

"Is it better than the Breeztail?"

"Yes," Jin said simply. "By a lot."

She nodded slowly. Then, to his surprise, she turned to Pike.

"I read that Galecrest kits bite when they’re teething. Is that true? And they need to run a lot, or they get destructive?"

Pike’s eyebrows went up. "Both true. Teething’s around week six. And yes — an under-exercised Galecrest will take a sofa apart out of boredom."

"We don’t have a sofa worth anything," Elsa said, and Elena laughed before she could help it.

"You’re still not giving it the sofa," her mother told her.

Elsa grinned, then asked where a young kit could exercise safely. Pike showed her the recommended enclosed play area and explained that short supervised sessions would come before outdoor training. She took a photograph of the dimensions to compare with their new flat.

Jin liked that question. She was already trying to fit the fox into her day, rather than only imagining what it would look like in a match.

They went outside afterward to let their parents talk to Pike about the paperwork. There was a bench under the hatchery’s awning, and Elsa sat on it with her hands pushed into her sleeves.

"You’re going to recommend it," she said.

"I do recommend it," Jin said.

"I know. I can tell." She looked at the street. "It’s weird. I want it so much. And it still feels like I’m doing something wrong."

"Because of Meridian?" Jin asked.

"Because of you." She said it fast, as if it had been waiting behind her teeth. "I told you. I always thought I’d be where you are. And now I’m going to pick somewhere else and move to a different shelter, and you’re going to be here on your own, and you’ve just been in hospital, and—"

"Els." Jin waited until she looked at him.

"Being near me can matter. Just don’t let it decide everything." Jin leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "Would I like having you around? Yeah. Obviously. You’d come find me in the stalls and eat my food and tell me I look tired. It’d be nice." He glanced at her. "But that’s my thing to deal with. It’s not your job."

"You’d miss me," Elsa said.

"I would," Jin admitted. "And I’d call. We’d arrange visits when it was safe. You’re not leaving for months, anyway. Mum’s already working out where your shoes go in the new flat."

Elsa rubbed at one eye. "She wants them in a cupboard."

"Apparently the doorway isn’t storage." He waited until she smiled before asking, "What do you want, Els? For yourself."

She was quiet for a long time.

"The fox," she said at last. "I want the fox. And the wind hall. I want someone to teach me how to do the thing properly, the leaf thing, but big. I want to find out how good I can get." She took a breath. "I want Elemental."

She looked at him again, still uncertain, and he nudged her shoulder with his. Only then did she smile.

"Then that’s your answer," Jin said.

Arthur and Elena read the agreement that evening at the guesthouse dining table, all of it, with the hatchery’s summary beside them and Talia Morrow on a video call answering every question they had. Elena asked what happened if the fox fell ill before enrollment. Arthur asked who paid if Elsa was injured in training, and then asked the same question a second way to make sure. Neither of them hurried.

Morrow confirmed that the egg, allowance, and admission remained hers even if she missed the exam upgrade. Elsa asked her to show the provision again, then read it herself.

At ten o’clock, Arthur set down his pen.

"Happy with it?" he asked.

Elsa looked once at Jin, who nodded, and then back at the agreement. "Yes."

She signed her name, carefully enough that the last letter looked nothing like her usual handwriting. Her parents completed the guardian acknowledgments, and Morrow congratulated her. Elsa kept smiling at the confirmation after the call ended.

[Elemental Academy — Agreement Confirmed]

[Astor, Elsa — Admission: confirmed, enrollment at sixteen]

[Support level: A]

[First beast: Galecrest Fox (Gold, Peak) — delivery scheduled]

[Upgrade: S-level support guaranteed upon national top-100 entrance exam placement]

Elsa wrote to Deputy Director Brooke herself the next morning. Jin watched her draft it four times.

Brooke called back within the hour.

"Thank you for telling me directly," he said over speaker. "I’ll be honest — I’m disappointed. I’d have liked to see you in our yards." A pause. "But it’s a very good choice. Elemental will serve you well. And when you’re home on holidays, visiting your brother, my door’s open." ℴ

Elsa thanked him in a small voice after he’d hung up, to the phone, because she hadn’t managed it while he was still on the line.

Marris found Jin in the stable block that afternoon, sitting on an upturned feed crate beside Glitch’s stall.

"I heard," she said.

"News travels."

"Brooke told me. He wasn’t complaining." She leaned against the stall door. Glitch lifted his head, recognized her, and put it down again. "He said the girl told him herself. Said she sounded like she’d made up her own mind."

"She did," Jin said.

Marris glanced toward the information folder beside his feet.

"Plenty of students would’ve leaned on her," she said. "Wanted her here. Some would’ve done it without noticing."

"I wanted her nearby," Jin admitted. "She was worrying about leaving me after the hospital. I didn’t want that choosing for her."

Marris was quiet a moment, then nodded once, as if confirming something she’d already decided.

"Good," she said. "That’s the right way round." And she left.

That night, Elsa’s phone buzzed with a document from Harlow & Pike.

[Egg Delivery: Thursday, 14:00]

[Incubation Care Guide — please read before delivery]

It was eleven pages long. She read the first page, then scrolled to the end to see how long it was, then back to the first page.

"Temperature checks three times a day," she read aloud. "Humidity once. Check the turning tray. Log everything. Talk to the egg."

She looked up.

"Jin. I’m going to be in charge of something alive."