Page 36 of Of Flame and Fury

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’twaitto 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 areyoudoing 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 silenceagain.

“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 Oskamonths. 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 areyouhere?”

“Maybe I just wanted to be somewherealone,” 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, whilethe 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.

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