Chapter 335: The First Crack

Chapter 335: The First Crack

Jin’s phone rang at 5:52 in the morning. Elsa was whispering when he answered.

"There’s a crack," she said.

He was sitting up before he’d properly woken. "Where?"

"On top of the egg," Elsa said. "It wasn’t there at four. I wrote it down—"

"Is anything coming out of it?" Jin asked.

"No. It’s just a line. Should I—" Elsa began.

"Don’t touch it," Jin said.

"I called you first," Elsa said. "I didn’t even wake Mum yet."

"Wake Mum and call Pike’s emergency line," Jin said. "I’m coming."

The visitors’ guesthouse was four minutes from the stable block at a brisk walk. Jin took six and arrived at the third-floor landing out of breath and annoyed about it.

The incubator’s amber lamp lit the room. Elena stood by the window in her dressing gown. Arthur sat on the end of the bed with his brace unfastened. Elsa had pulled a chair up to the sturdy table beside her schoolbooks. Mr. Pike was on her propped-up phone, sleepy but calm.

Jin drew up a chair. A thin crack crossed the upper curve of the shell, about as long as his thumbnail. He used his appraisal.

[Galecrest Fox — Egg]

[Condition: Healthy — hatching]

He let out a breath he hadn’t noticed holding.

"It’s healthy," Jin told her. "My appraisal says it’s hatching."

Elsa leaned closer. "And that crack is all right?"

"From what you’ve shown me, yes," Pike said. "Keep the camera on it. I’ll watch the next push with you."

The temperature display matched yesterday’s readings. Elsa had written the time of the first crack beside her log, underlined twice.

"Leave the lid closed until the kit is fully out," Pike said. "And don’t break the shell for him. Healthy kits need time to do this themselves. Galecrest rest a lot between pushes. Twenty quiet minutes is normal. If there’s no progress for two hours, call me again."

Elsa nodded without taking her eyes off the shell. Her hands were pressed between her knees.

Jin knew that posture. He’d sat exactly like that the night Glitch hatched, except that there had been no one on a screen telling him what normal looked like, and every credit the family owned had been sitting on that tray. Flicker had been worse: a thin, frightened bird and a temperature line he’d been afraid to look away from.

This was different. Everything in the room had been built for it to go well.

So let it, he told himself, and settled back in his chair.

Elena brought water. Arthur fastened his brace and joined them. Jin was hungry, but nobody suggested breakfast.

It took two hours and forty minutes.

The crack became two cracks, then a small ragged hole. The whole egg rocked, a piece of shell fell inward, and a paw came out.

It was tiny and gray, with almost transparent claws. It flexed once and hung there.

Elsa made a sound that wasn’t quite a word.

"Resting," Pike said from the phone. "That’s fine."

The paw withdrew. For eighteen minutes nothing happened, and Jin watched his sister’s hands creep toward the incubator lid three separate times and pull back each time without touching it.

"I hate this," Elsa whispered. "It’s working so hard."

"I know," Jin said. He wanted to lift the lid himself. Instead, he nudged her water glass closer. "Pike says it’s doing fine."

On the next push, the top of the shell came away in one curved piece, and a head came up through the gap.

It was damp and blunt and not especially fox-shaped yet: closed eyes, ears folded flat, a pale smudge of fur where the crest would one day be. It swayed, sneezed, and fell forward over the rim of the shell in a small wet heap.

It lay breathing fast on the tray. Inside the closed incubator, a scrap of shell membrane beside the kit lifted and turned over. It drifted against the glass, then settled beside his paw.

"Oh," Elsa said. "He’s — that’s him. That’s his air."

Nobody corrected the he.

"Healthy male," Pike confirmed, once the kit was dry enough to see. "Good weight. Now you can open the lid."

Jin checked again.

[Galecrest Fox — Hatchling]

[Quality: Gold (Peak)]

[Sex: Male]

[Condition: Healthy]

[Bloodline: Galecrest (standard)]

Jin confirmed the healthy reading. Elsa smiled at the kit while their father leaned closer.

"Now we can complete the contract," Pike said. "One drop, as we discussed. Let him come to your hand. Don’t push it at him."

Elsa unwrapped a fresh sterile lancet from the care kit. Under Pike’s guidance, she pricked her fingertip and held her hand flat on the tray, a little way from the kit’s nose.

For a moment he didn’t move. Then his head came up, wobbling, and he found her finger by smell rather than sight, and pressed his wet nose against the drop.

Elsa’s breath caught, her eyes widening.

"He’s hungry," she whispered. "I can feel it. It’s so much clearer now."

Jin remembered Glitch’s first impatient demand for food. He couldn’t feel this new bond, but he recognized the wonder on her face.

Pike had her confirm the contract details through the Association’s registration form. A moment later, her phone chimed on the table.

[Tamer Association — Contract Registered]

[Tamer: Astor, Elsa]

[Beast: Galecrest Fox — Gold (Peak)]

[Status: Active — First Contract]

"Name," Pike prompted gently.

Elsa looked at the kit. He had curled against her fingers and gone to sleep, and the air around him lifted the fine fluff on his back, settled, and lifted again.

"Breeze," she said. "His name’s Breeze."

Breeze slept while they finally had breakfast. By late morning, he had woken up, discovered he had legs, and begun investigating the world.

Pike called back for the first feeding check. Elsa measured the formula while he watched.

The kit managed thirty centimeters at a time, tipping onto his chin, getting up, and trying again. He investigated the edge of the tray, the corner of the feeding mat, and one of Arthur’s socks, which he attempted to fight and lost to.

Elsa’s teaspoon was sitting on the edge of the table with the last of the hatchling formula in it. Breeze reached it at the end of a determined wobble, sniffed it, and sneezed.

The spoon went over the edge.

Elsa caught it.

She hadn’t looked. Her hand had simply been there, closing on the handle a hand’s width below the table. Not a drop spilled.

Elsa looked at the spoon in her hand as if it belonged to someone else.

"I didn’t even see it fall," Elsa said. She looked at Jin. "How did I do that?"

Jin had a strong suspicion. "Ask Pike."

Pike watched through the phone camera and smiled.

"That’s your partial bond awakening," he said. "Gold beasts give you the first part as soon as there’s a real contract. You get a little of what your beast is — for a Galecrest, that’s reaction speed and footwork. Quick hands, quick feet, better balance."

"So I’m—" Elsa’s eyes went very wide. "Am I Rank 2?"

"No," Pike said. "That’s the partial awakening benefit. Rank 2 requires you both to develop much further and form a Bond Core together. This is a little of Breeze’s physical ability reaching you through the contract. Your wind talent is separate."

Elsa looked at the spoon, then at Breeze, who had fallen asleep again with his chin on the feeding mat.

"He gave me that," she said quietly. "Already."

"He’s been alive four hours," Jin said, glancing at the empty feed dish. "He’s already getting a good deal."

What Breeze wanted, it turned out, was not to be put in his bed.

The care guide was clear: after feeding, the hatchling goes into the warm nest box to sleep undisturbed for two hours.

Elsa followed it exactly. She fed him, set him down in the nest box, tucked the soft cloth round him, and stood up.

Breeze opened his eyes.

She took one step toward the door. He climbed out, fell off the edge onto the mat, and wobbled after her.

She put him back. He climbed out again. On the third attempt, he got as far as her foot, sat down on it, and went to sleep there.

Elsa looked down at him, then over at Jin with an expression of pure betrayal.

"The guide says—" Elsa began.

"I know what the guide says," Jin said.

Elsa carefully lowered herself into the chair behind her without moving that foot. Breeze slept through it, his little chin resting on her slipper.

"My lesson’s on Monday," she said. "How am I supposed to practice if he keeps following me?"

Jin looked at the kit, then at the loose papers on the desk.

"We’ll have to make sure he’s somewhere safe first," he said.

Elsa nodded, but stayed in the chair. For now, Breeze had apparently decided she wasn’t going anywhere.