“Yes,” I say quickly. I have no idea what she asked, but she looks satisfied, turning away. Manx is my height and much older than I expected any of the finders to be. Her hair is a tangle of silver spiral curls; little lines extend from the corners of her eyes. Despite her age, though, she is agile: her body leanly muscled and her gait quick and impatient.
Now we stand outside in the shade of the compound, waiting for Manx to finish doing what she calls “checks,” taking stock of all the equipment and supplies that she and her group have assembled outside the compound. We’re still inside the gates, but I look out beyond them and feel a thrill in my bones. The tree line of the jungle is a mere five hundred yards away. Soon we’ll see more of Faloiv than any of us ever dreamed.
Manx looks up from securing a loose water canteen to a pack. She shields her eyes from the sun and directs a smile somewhere behind us.
“Ah, there you are,” she says, waving at a newcomer. “I’m glad you could join us. Red suits you.”
Dr. Espada wears the same red skinsuit as the rest of us. It seems strange to see him out of his ordinary clothing—the bright red makes him look younger, more daring. His gray hair doesn’t appear as scholarly alongside Manx: instead they look like two silver adventurers, ready for anything.
“Hello, everyone.” Dr. Espada smiles at us after exchanging words with Manx. “It’s good to see some of my brightest students again. I’ve been happy to hear you’ve all been doing well in your internships so far.”
“Did someone actually say that?” Alma asks him. “Or are you being generous?”
She hasn’t spoken much this morning: she’s still not thrilled about going out into the jungle. I tried teasing her about it this morning but that didn’t go over well. She doesn’t understand my enthusiasm for this part of the internship: the idea that I’m excited to be away from the safety of the compound puzzles her. On one hand, it puzzles me too—especially given my grandmother’s fate. But the trees call to me. My wonder swallows my fear.
“Don’t sound so dubious, Miss Entra.” Dr. Espada smiles reassuringly. “You’re doing well. This is just one more arrow to add in your quiver. Experientia docet, yes?”
She manages to smile at that and Dr. Espada picks up one of the packs Manx has finished checking, shouldering it.
“So,” I say. “My father says you and my mother used to go on collection trips all the time.”
He smiles a narrow smile, keeping his eyes down on the straps of the pack, which he buckles across his chest.
“Not all the time,” he says. “But we went on a few.”
“Did you or my mom ever get lost?” I’ve already decided I’m going to ask as many questions as he’ll allow if it means getting the kind of answers I’m looking for.
He looks at me, then, his expression serious. “No,” he says. “And let’s hope it stays that way.”
“All right,” Manx calls from the front of the group. The four finders she oversees have assembled and claimed their packs—the interns don’t carry packs, just canteens—and it looks like we’re ready to get started. The sun has been up for an hour and it’s blazing hot. “Let’s get going. You know the rules now. Stay with the group, do as I do, and never stop listening.”
I breathe in deeply when we start out on the road. I haven’t been outside the compound in weeks, since the day I fainted in the Beak. The air is the same here as it was twenty paces behind me, but for some reason being beyond the gates feels satisfying, like a deep gulp of cool water, but not from the canteen at my hip. Never be without water on Faloiv—one of the first rules my father taught me. Right now I feel like I don’t need anything but the jungle.
We don’t say much as we walk on the red dirt road. I clasped on my face mask after two or three steps—it’s windy today and specks of swirling dust have already found their way into my mouth. Rondo followed suit—but not before shooting me a look that makes me smile—and now the others do too. There’s a break in the trees up ahead on our right, the entry point for the jungle, and my stomach starts to flutter, like an insect urging me onward. Manx waves an arm and one by one we allow the trees to swallow us.
When I first step into the shade of the jungle, it’s as if all my blood begins to flow more freely. I unclasp my face mask. The light is multicolored, filtered in through leaves so thick that the canopy is like a vibrant, living roof. Is this what my grandmother felt, the very first time she entered this dense, green world? I close my eyes for just a moment and feel the jungle soak into my skin. Birds trilling high in the branches, the far-off warbles of canopy mammals. A buzzing has filled my head, but it’s pleasant, like a purr.
“Welcome to the jungle,” Manx says. “Drink.”
We all sip from our canteens and replace them at our waists. Alma appears to have relaxed a little, standing by Jaquot and gaping at the gargantuan plants growing around and above us. Some of the trees are as big around as the Greenhouse, some as thick as entire domes. Ahead, Manx appears to stand in front of a wall made of wood; but it’s not a wall, it’s a tree trunk. Leaves the size of my sleeping platform sprout from stems as thick as my ankle. Rondo stands near me, smiling.
“What are you grinning about?” I ask, nudging him. I didn’t realize until now how tense my muscles have been inside the Paw—now my body feels like it’s made of water.
“You,” he says, shrugging. His eyes are as warm as the sun I feel on my skin.
“What about me?”
“You’re loving this.”
I nod. It’s true.
“Thinking of switching careers?” he says under his breath. He reaches out a hand and runs one of his fingers down my arm. “I can’t picture you huddled in a white lab after seeing you out here.”
“Only if I can have musical accompaniment.”
Manx shushes us, issuing instructions.
“Interns, your job is to watch. Nothing more. Do not touch anything. Do not eat anything. Do not attempt to collect anything. Watch what we do and that’s all. Understood?”
Though we all nod, I can’t help but feel disappointed. I want to sit down on the jungle floor and run my hands over everything in arm’s reach. But I know better—we all do. So instead I fall in next to Dr. Espada, Yaya on his other side, and pepper him with questions as we make our way down a worn path in the jungle.
“What’s the biggest animal you’ve ever seen on a collection trip?” Yaya says.
“Have you seen a gwabi out in the wild?” I add, suddenly thinking of the dream I’d had of my mother.
“I saw a maigno up close once,” he says, and we gasp. “It was shortly after the landing. I was fourteen or fifteen. I’d never seen anything so big in my life.”
“So you were fourteen when the Vagantur landed?” I say.
“Around that age, yes.”
Manx signals for us all to take a drink of water and we pause to do so. When we’re moving again, I jump in with another strategic question.
“Did you ever get to see the Faloii? During the settlement negotiations?”
He looks at me sharply, and I stare back, undaunted.
“No,” he says. “Not up close.”
“But you saw them?”
“Very briefly, and from a distance.”
“What were they like?”
“Tall,” he says. “Quite tall. And graceful.”