The phoenix keeper, p.30
The Phoenix Keeper, page 30
With a hiss, Ranbir bolted. Luciana yelped and toppled to the ground, straight on her ass.
“Luciana!”
Aila jumped from her seat and ran across the lawn to make sure the batty woman was all right, but by the time she arrived, Luciana was laughing so hard she had to clutch her sides. The sound had Aila grinning before she realized what was happening. She offered a hand. Luciana took it, and Aila pulled her to her feet.
“Getting better,” Luciana said. “A bit more practice, and maybe we can get airborne.”
Ranbir nudged her side with his beak, as apologetic as Aila had ever seen a griffin. Luciana patted his head.
“Griffin riding?” Aila said. “That’s the new show gimmick?”
Luciana jabbed her elbow. “Gimmick? Don’t tell me you’re still stuck in that rut.”
Granted, riding atop a peacock griffin looked awesome. The principle irked Aila, the endless toil of capturing patrons’ attention, when the animals alone should have been enough to leave anyone in awe.
“Not that long ago, you wanted to steal Rubra for your show.” Aila huffed. “Just because you’ve turned from the side of evil, don’t think I’ve forgotten.”
“I did not want to steal her.”
“You have another word for forcibly taking her against my will?”
“I never.”
“On multiple occasions!”
Luciana hardened, that familiar bristle Aila hadn’t stoked in several weeks, fists curled in preparation for battle. Stubborn. But more than that, passionate, the source of the glint Aila had seen in Luciana’s eyes a hundred times but never bothered to interpret.
Aila braced herself for attack.
Instead of a snarl, Luciana dropped soft eyes to the grass. This, Aila decided, was somehow more dangerous. She couldn’t help but be disarmed, concerned she’d spoken too harshly once again.
Devious witch, casting some sort of spell.
“I’m glad to see Rubra put to better use now,” Luciana said.
“She was fine before.”
“Not better now, with a breeding partner?”
Aila scrunched her nose. Low blow. “Technically. I guess.”
“Skies and ever-reaching seas.” Luciana shook her head, a grin lurking underneath. “You’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met. You know that?”
“Coming from you, of all people?”
“Fine. We’re both stubborn. I still say a phoenix would be a fantastic addition to the show, after breeding season.”
Aila would chain herself to the aviary door if she had anything to say about it, but beyond that… “Carmesi does like you,” she grumbled.
“Not me, loser. You could bring him.”
Luciana had a knack for saying absurd, ridiculous things with disturbing nonchalance. Aila gave a caustic laugh. “Me? On stage? Are you insane?”
Insane and beautiful. What a combination. Luciana pinned her with a smirk, all confidence. All smug. As if she had every move planned out. Aila was never any good at chess.
“You already did an interview with the country’s largest news network,” Luciana said.
“Yeah. But that was on a path. A stage is different.”
“This thing?” Luciana waved at the stage behind her. “It’s not so bad. Come on up, give it a try.”
“What? No. We don’t need to—”
Luciana took Aila’s hand.
Filthy, dirty trick.
Before, in the line, Luciana’s touch had been light. Fleeting. Now, she wrapped Aila’s fingers in hers, soft brown skin callused along the palm. Warmth seeped into Aila’s bones.
By the time thoughts returned to Aila’s head, Luciana had pulled her across the lawn and onto the stage. A painted dot marked the center. Aila stood upon it, and when Luciana’s hands settled on her shoulders, her heart picked up like a bus speeding off a cliff.
“How does it feel?” Luciana asked.
Aila drowned in her expectant gaze, those lidded eyes close enough to catch every facet of warm brown and velvet black in the sunlight. Luciana wore that same intent look during their interview: approval at the sight of Aila dressed up in silky curls and eyeshadow.
Except now, Luciana was looking at… normal Aila. That made no sense.
Goosebumps prickled Aila’s skin. Her stomach tightened into knots. Prompted by imagining a crowd in the stands, no doubt. What else could it be?
“There aren’t any people watching,” Aila said.
“You hardly notice them. Just the lights. The animals.”
Luciana stepped beside her, chin raised to the imaginary onlookers. A majestic beast in her element.
“It’s scary when you first step out,” Luciana said. “Then you slip into your routine. You understand that, don’t you?” When she met Aila’s gaze, the world around them faded. Nothing but dark eyes and smokey lashes, a honeyed glow to the ridges of her cheeks. “All your flashcards? It’s the same thing. Prepare enough, practice enough, everything gets less scary.”
“It… still doesn’t feel right.”
“You can do it. I know you can.”
“Not just that.”
Aila clutched protective arms over her chest and walked to the front of the stage. On the lawn, Ranbir sprawled across the grass, warming his outspread wings in the sun. Aila sat on the stage edge, legs dangling over the concrete lip. Luciana sat beside her.
“What, then?” Luciana asked in a voice so tender, Aila wondered how this could be the same person who’d haunted her college days. Who’d butted heads with her for years.
“I’m scared to death of crowds, sure. But the show is also so…” Aila hesitated, not wanting to be careless with her words. “Commercialized. Everything at the zoo is, but the show even more so. I wish it didn’t have to be that way.”
Luciana braced her hands on the concrete edge, gaze downcast. “I didn’t realize. I always assumed the bad attitude was more… personal.”
“Well. That, too,” Aila muttered. “But these animals are incredible on their own!” She pointed to the peacock griffin, vibrant feathers splayed in sunlight, enough to rival any jewel. “Why all the showboating? Why all the lights and attention grabbing?”
“You’re a rarity. Some people need a reason to care.”
“But why do people need a reason to care?”
Aila’s voice rose, no fault of Luciana’s. The question had harrowed her since she was a little girl, wide eyes staring up at a phoenix on the other side of the zoo glass, unable to understand how anyone could let such a creature disappear from this world.
Why was she telling Luciana all this? Again?
Once again, Aila expected chastisement. Once again, Luciana’s slow nod surprised her.
“I know what you mean.”
Aila blinked. “You… know?”
“How frustrating it is.” Luciana strummed coral nails against her knees. “In high school? I put together a whole bake sale to raise funds for a griffin conservation group. I don’t think more than ten people showed up. I wanted to scream.”
“You?” Aila blurted. “People didn’t show up for you?”
Luciana laughed. “I told you, dork. I didn’t just appear with a stage persona. It took work. Is that so hard to believe?”
Absolutely. Dumbfounding, in fact, to think that past Luciana wasn’t always in control. She wasn’t always in control now—a real human with flaws, even masked.
“Not everyone needs a reason to care,” Luciana said. “You and I don’t. These animals are priceless to us, just for existing.” Her tone tightened. “On the other side, some people will never care. Too selfish. They care about what this world can do for them, and nothing else.”
Like the phoenix thieves at the Jewelport Zoo. The poachers who made off with that shipment of hatchling dragons. Magical creatures for profit and nothing more. Aila’s stomach twisted.
“But other people,” Luciana said, the softest yet. “Most people are somewhere in between. Not destructive on purpose, but they don’t have a reason to care yet. They don’t realize why they should care. And no one cares about anything they can’t connect to. That’s our job, Aila. Connecting people to these animals, giving them a reason to care. Whether it’s an exhibit or a show, it’s all the same goal in the end.”
“You think so?” Aila said, quiet.
“Of course. Griffin shows. Exhibits. All the breeding programs and wildlife preserves around the world. We can have all of them. We should have all of them. Not competing, but multiple tools in our arsenal.”
Warmth drifted off her, the sweet of mango and sun-kissed skin.
“I never…” Aila gulped. “Realized how much you care about this.” How had Aila missed it? No one took a mid-salary job mucking out barns on a daily basis if they didn’t care. No one cried over a lost griffin if they didn’t care.
“It’s easy to see how much you care. Even when you’re being stubborn.” Luciana painted the words as a tease. “Use that. It’s scary, I know. But your passion is the best way to get other people excited, and that excitement is what your phoenixes deserve.”
This woman’s kindness was more devastating than any snark. The slightest curve of her smile lulled Aila into an ease she didn’t recognize, didn’t understand, a sort of settling in her bones like sun-warmed concrete.
Why weren’t things ever this easy with Connor?
“Stop it,” Aila pleaded.
“Stop what?”
“Stop saying such nice things! It’s already torture, listening to Tanya’s smug lectures. You see, Ailes? I told you Luc wasn’t so bad—” Aila stiffened, the nickname slipping off her tongue without thought. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to. Tanya calls you that, but I would never…”
Luciana stared at her too long. At last, a shrug. “It’s fine.”
“It’s… fine? What’s fine?”
“Used to be only my mom called me Luc. Then some of my friends. Always bothered me when random people used it, trying to suck up or something.”
Aila’s brain short-circuited. “But you don’t mind if I use it?”
“Why would I?”
“Because we’re…”
Friends. They were friends.
At the edge of the stage, their hands brushed. Luciana glanced down, studying her pinkie splayed alongside Aila’s. Aila stared in equal fascination and horror.
Tanya had asked if Aila had her eyes on someone other than Connor. For a breathless moment, she couldn’t look anywhere else: the perfect drape of Luciana’s hair, the curve of her lips, the spark of passion in her words.
Oh. No.
Aila was not prepared for this sort of ground-tilting revelation.
“I… uh… I’ll think about it,” she stammered. “The phoenixes and the show, that is. Maybe after breeding season, we can… um… work something out.”
Luciana squeezed her hand. Aila withheld a yelp.
“Don’t worry about it now,” Luciana said. “You’ll have your hands full this summer, once Rubra starts laying. She’s more important than anything else.”
She released their hands and pushed herself off the stage, a space between them that left Aila dizzy. While Luciana crossed the lawn to retrieve Ranbir, Aila stayed behind, warmth lingering on her hand.
Light-headed.
Aching.
Utterly screwed.
Aila had a hard time finishing work that day, thanks to the butterflies trying to chew her stomach from the inside out.
She’d had a crush on Luciana in college, but that was a silly little thing. Unobtainable, and therefore harmless. Aila could daydream all she wanted about sable hair and crimson lips, then go back to real, feasible things that didn’t require working up the courage to confess feelings for the single most intimidating woman she’d ever met.
But as Aila shifted the kelpie into her back exhibit for the night, all she could think of was the warmth of Luciana’s hand against hers. When she locked up the World of Birds aviary, she saw the spark in Luciana’s eyes as her griffin circled the stadium. As she stepped into the phoenix exhibit, Luciana’s words rolled through her head—talk of passion and purpose that left Aila warm inside.
All the things Connor had never made her feel.
This was—and not to be dramatic about it, or anything—possibly the most upsetting realization Aila had ever made in her life.
“All right, lovebirds,” she called out. “Time for bed.”
Carmesi flew into a tree beside her, but when Aila opened the entrance to their back aviary, he cocked his head and stared. Rubra remained on her nest platform, an annoyed puff to her cheeks as she stared down her keeper.
“The nest is coming together great. I agree. You can work on it some more tomorrow.”
Rubra didn’t budge. Aila groaned and hiked over.
Thoughts of slender hands danced through her head, the brush of Luciana’s fingers through her hair. She swatted them away like gnats.
A wooden ladder led up to the nest platform, narrow and angled to avoid disrupting the “immersive visual experience” of the patrons. Aila shut her eyes and forced herself up the creaking rungs, refusing to look at the ground below. Upon reaching the top, she braced her arms on the platform and gave Rubra a chiding look.
“Rubra. Honey. It’s time to go in for the night.”
Rubra sat in her nest of olive branches, pressed flat like a feather pancake. With a plea to skies and seas, Aila pushed on Rubra’s warm breast, trying to dislodge her. Rubra pressed back, refusing to budge. The bird could be adamant, but never like this.
Carmesi landed on the platform, greeting Aila with a nervous trill.
“Rubra?” Aila said in a hush.
She reached out again, gentler this time, slipping a hand underneath the furnace of Rubra’s belly. Rubra resisted, but Aila tilted the phoenix high enough to glimpse beneath her.
A single egg lay in the nest. Large enough to wrap in Aila’s palm, the shell a porcelain turquoise speckled in gold.
“Rubra!” Aila shouted.
Her exclamation echoed through the glass aviary, devolving into a peal of triumphant laughter that nearly toppled her off the ladder. She clutched the wooden rungs and drowned herself in mirth, basking in the perfection of Rubra in her nest and Carmesi perched proudly beside her.
Below, the door swung open as Tanya burst into the exhibit. “Aila?” she called out. “What are you yelling about? Everything good?”
“An egg!” Aila called at the top of her lungs. “An egg! An egg! An egg!”
One egg. Two eggs. Three eggs. Four.
One day at a time, the clutch grew, until Rubra sat upon a full nest of five turquoise eggs, palm-sized and glossy as porcelain, speckles heaviest at the wide end, then lightening as the shell came to a taper. Aila plucked each treasure from the nest to measure and weigh. She held them to a flashlight to check their contents. When she returned the eggs, Rubra settled back down, a little shimmy of breast, then tail to get her feathers laying right.
“Yes, that’s right, Director Rivera,” Aila said on the phone, excitement making her twirl in her chair until she neared dizziness. “Five eggs. And they all appear to be fertile.”
“This is fantastic news, Aila!” Rivera replied. “You’ve blown us away with your success thus far. Please, if you need anything at all from IMWS, don’t hesitate to call.”
“Of course, Director Rivera.”
When the call ended, Aila laughed and twirled until Tanya had to collect her off the floor. The remedy for such a grievous injury was ice cream, they agreed. They popped over to the Birds of a Feather Slushie Hut beside the aviaries, an open-air shop with thatched roof and mannequin parrots on the eaves. After acquiring cups of pineapple sorbet whipped into high swirls, they sat back at the observation window with a laptop open, watching the live chat explode with excitement over the successful nest.
Congratulations Rubra and Carmesi! What good birds!
“They are,” Aila agreed around a mouthful of ice cream, big enough to give her brain freeze. “The best birds in the zoo. Best birds in the world.”
And congrats to the zookeepers! They must be so thrilled.
“Damn straight,” Tanya said, boots propped on the counter. “I think we deserve a party. You think Director Hawthorn will throw us another party?”
What will the chick names be??? Ruby?
Flambé?
Burnatrix?
“Holy shit, Tanya!” Aila nearly fell out of her chair again. “Names! We have to name the chicks!”
Tanya laughed. “Relax, Ailes. We’ve got a whole month before hatching. Now’s the time to eat sorbet and be happy.”
Aila was. So happy, she could barely tear her eyes off the observation window, smiling like an idiot every time she spied Rubra fluffed on her nest. So happy, she bounced through the train ride home, then raced to her apartment to tell her animals the good news.
So happy, she almost stopped thinking about how warm Luciana’s hand felt against hers.
Almost.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The bright wood-and-eggshell lobby of the administration building always made Aila feel restless. She perched on the edge of a polished oak bench, studying her fingernails, then the stitches of her work polo, then every single spiky leaf of the mounted succulents that spelled San Tamculo Zoo on the opposite wall.
Theodore sat beside her, idly scrolling on his phone. How in all the skies and seas could he look so calm? Aila traced the line of a floor tile with her boot, then flinched as the rubber sole squealed against the linoleum.
She looked up. So did the receptionist. They locked eyes in a blistering glare.
“Oh, wow,” Teddy whispered. “What’s that about?”
“It’s nothing,” Aila murmured, eyes back on the floor. “I shouted at a patron in here once. Or twice. We’re mortal nemeses now.”
“You’ve got a few of those, huh?”
Aila didn’t realize she was bouncing in her chair until Teddy’s hand clamped her shoulder. “Relax,” he said in that calm, kind, speaking-to-a-high-strung-kitten sort of way. “You’re not even the one in the meeting.”
