Chapter 334: Something Answers

Chapter 334: Something Answers

The first dose of Stillwater Tonic was eleven milliliters of clear liquid that smelled faintly of cut grass, and Glitch refused to eat anything it touched.

He sniffed the bowl. He looked at Jin. He sniffed the bowl again, then turned his head away with the wounded dignity of a beast who had been offered something beneath him.

"It’s medicine," Jin said. "You’re having it."

The technician, standing by with a clipboard, said, "Try it in the beetles."

They tried it in the beetles. Glitch ate the beetles, tonic and all, with an air of having won the argument.

Dr. Alcott’s instructions were taped to the stall door in Jin’s own handwriting, because copying them out had been the only way to stop himself reading the original eight times a day. Dose once daily with morning feed. Observe two hours. Check temperature, gait, appetite, and response to light touch along the shoulders. No exertion beyond prescribed walks. Report anything unusual.

He observed for two hours. Nothing unusual happened, which was the entire point.

Glitch’s temperature stayed flat. His gait on the afternoon walk was the same as the day before, even and unhurried. When the technician pressed gently along the old strain site near his shoulders, he flinched a little less than he had on Saturday, but Jin recorded the change without deciding what had caused it.

On the second morning, the technician drew blood and ran a quick panel, and Dr. Alcott called before lunch.

"He’s tolerating it," she said. "No reaction, no inflammation markers. That’s what I wanted to hear."

"So it’s working," Jin said.

"So he’s accepting it. Working takes weeks." A dry pause. "Keep it boring."

Later that morning, Glitch decided he had had enough of prescribed walks.

He had walked fifty meters. He had walked sixty. He had watched Flicker take short flights up to the rafters and back all morning, and now he wanted to climb the service stairs to the loft, which the technician had specifically forbidden.

Jin found him with his front feet on the second step, looking up it with deep concentration.

"No."

Glitch looked back at him. He did not remove his feet.

"No," Jin said again, and went and stood on the third step, blocking his way. Glitch wouldn’t try climbing over him.

They stayed like that for about a minute. Then Glitch sighed through his nose, stepped back down, and went and lay down in the straw with his back turned, radiating injured patience.

Flicker landed beside him and began tidying the scales along his neck, as though somebody had to be kind to him.

The previous evening, his parents had signed the tenancy.

Elena’s transfer to the hydroponics hub near Coldwell had come through on Monday. Arthur had been confirmed at the northern depot, same pay, starting in three weeks. Elsa’s new middle school had accepted her records. She could finish her remaining classes there, eight minutes’ walk from the flat. The landlord had shaken Arthur’s hand, handed over two sets of keys, and warned them again about scratches on the floors.

Back at the guesthouse, Elena set the keys between the dinner plates. Arthur opened the floor plan beside a photograph of their furniture back home.

"Two weeks," she said. "We move in two weeks."

"I should check the kitchen again," Arthur said. "Our table’s not going to fit."

Elena leaned over the plan. "It will if we take the leaf out."

"I took that into account," Arthur said, reaching for his measurements.

Elsa, who had heard this argument three times already, pulled a packing list across the table and started writing KITCHEN — Dad is wrong at the top of it.

Arthur’s brace fitting had been pushed back a week because a part hadn’t arrived. He mentioned it once, briefly, and then didn’t mention it again. Jin noticed him adjusting the old brace under the table. He hoped the replacement would arrive before they had to pack.

The egg arrived on Thursday at two o’clock, exactly as scheduled.

Mr. Pike came himself, with a younger assistant carrying the incubator between them up three flights of stairs. It was a compact, sealed unit about the size of a travel case, with a glass top, a temperature panel, a humidity reservoir, and a battery backup that Pike demonstrated twice.

The guesthouse had approved the unit. They placed it on a sturdy table in Elsa’s room, beside the few schoolbooks she had brought. Pike checked the surface was level before plugging it in.

Pike ran through everything. The display. The alarms. The tray that rotated the egg automatically every six hours, and the manual override if the power went. How to refill the reservoir. What a normal log looked like.

Elsa had a notebook open and was writing all of it down, even the parts that were already in the guide.

"Feed support starts at hatching," Pike said. "The academy’s supplier will deliver monthly after that. Your allowance is set up already. Your first remote lesson’s on Monday at five, and the clinic consultation is booked for the week after."

"Monday at five," Elsa repeated, and set a reminder on her phone while he watched.

Jin stood by the door and didn’t say much. He’d offered once to help with the reservoir, and Elsa had said, "No, I need to know how to do it," and done it herself, slowly, with Pike correcting her grip.

He remembered checking Flicker’s temperature and wondering whether every change meant trouble. Expert advice had helped, but he’d still worried. Elsa would worry too. At least she had suitable equipment and someone to call from the start.

He was glad he could stand back and let her learn.

Elsa checked her notes once more, then put the pen down. "Is it all right to start?"

Pike checked the incubator readings before answering. "Yes. We can establish the provisional bond now."

Pike had Elsa wash her hands, then seated her beside the open incubator. He explained the steps before unwrapping a sterile lancet.

"A single drop on the shell," he said. "This establishes the provisional connection. The full contract forms at hatching. You won’t receive a hatched beast’s bond benefits today."

Elsa held out her finger. She flinched at the prick, then carefully touched the small bead of blood to the shell where he indicated. It lingered red against the gray before slowly sinking in.

Jin watched her face while Pike dressed her finger and closed the lid.

"Anything?" Jin asked.

"I don’t know," Elsa whispered. "Maybe. I’m trying too hard."

"You have time," Pike assured her. "Sit quietly with it each day. Let yourself become familiar with the connection, and don’t force a response."

The day’s noise wound down slowly. Pike left. Their parents returned to the dining area with their moving paperwork. Jin sat on the end of Elsa’s bed with his legs aching and no real intention of moving.

At nine, Elsa did the evening check herself. Temperature. Humidity. She wrote both in the log in careful block numbers, then read the humidity back aloud to make sure she’d written it correctly.

"You don’t have to read it out," Jin said.

"The guide says to talk to it," Elsa replied.

Jin glanced at the display. "I don’t think he meant numbers."

"It’s getting numbers." She settled into the chair beside the incubator and rested one hand lightly against its casing. Closing her eyes, she tried to notice the faint connection Pike had described.

The room was quiet. The incubator fan hummed.

Then Elsa went still.

Her hand stayed on the casing, and her brow creased in concentration.

"Jin," she whispered.

"What?"

"I think—" She stopped. Waited. She held her breath. "There. There. Did you—no, you can’t. It’s—"

She opened her eyes. They were very wide.

"Something noticed me," she said. "I think. I was trying to feel it, and then it felt like it was trying too."

Jin got up from the bed and sat beside her. Through the glass, the egg sat exactly as it had all day: pale, silver-streaked, completely still.

"That sounds like a response," he said softly.

Elsa looked down at the egg. Her hand remained beside it, and she was smiling now, hardly blinking as she waited.

"Hi," she said to it softly. "It’s me. I’m here."

Nothing answered that Jin could hear.

But Elsa stayed beside the incubator, listening for the fox only she could feel.