“What were their ears like?” I say.
Dr. Espada pauses ever so briefly in his stride, but catches himself and continues walking, unbothered.
“Their ears? I have no idea. Why are you asking about the ears of the Faloii?”
“Just curious,” I say.
“Were they dangerous?” Yaya asks.
“They were . . . intimidating,” Dr. Espada says, refusing to make eye contact with either of us.
We stop and drink again. It’s slow going. Manx keeps us moving, but at a leisurely pace so we don’t sweat too much. I wonder how deep into the jungle we’ll go. It already feels as if we’re in the middle of nowhere, but I look down and note that we’re still on a worn path. I envy the finders for being able to do this every day.
The next time we stop I think it’s time to drink again but Rondo stills my hand with his and points. One of the male finders ahead of us is crouched just off the path with a cylindrical container clutched in his hand. Manx has raised her hand to all of us, the entire group stopped motionless in our tracks, scarcely daring to breathe. What has he found? I wonder. Maigno tracks, perhaps. Scat from a wild tufali. But when the finder carefully closes the cylinder and returns to the path, it turns out to be much less exciting: a species of worm, Manx explains as we all crowd around to peer at the cylinder. It’s as thick as two of my fingers and richly black, with dangerous-looking orange spines rising off its back.
“Insects are notoriously difficult to find on Faloiv,” the finder says, looking pleased with himself. “That’s why the entomology group is so small and shares space with the Reptilian Compound. We’re hoping to change that. I stay on the lookout for little guys like this,” he says, patting the tube gently. He tucks the specimen carefully into his pack. Jaquot appears next to me, a grin on his face.
“Can you believe we’re out here?” he says, scanning the trees with his eyes. “If I had known there were insects like that, I might have requested the Reptilian Compound.”
“That thing was disgusting.” I laugh, shaking my head.
“I know. Brilliant.” I smile about that. I hear my mother in his voice: the genuine adoration of study. He glances over his shoulder at the others, a few paces away, then lowers his voice. “I never told anyone about that day in the Beak, you know.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
“Was your nosebleed in the lab the other day the same kind of thing?”
I stare at him, searching his face for ill intent. I don’t find anything; just curiosity.
“I have no idea. But it feels like it’s related. I just don’t know how.”
He frowns, looking back out at the trees. “Yaya is going to figure it out eventually,” he says. “I know you’re not crazy about her, but I think she’s good for stuff like this if you’re willing to trust her.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?” he says. “Willing to trust her?”
“No, crazy about her,” I say. His eyes twitch over to my face and he raises his hand to cover his mouth, like if I can’t see his growing smile I won’t notice the way the rest of his features light up.
“You don’t miss a thing,” he says when he drops his hand.
“Except for whatever causes me to faint and get nosebleeds.”
Behind us Manx is rallying the group to start walking again.
“You’re smart, O,” he says. “You’ll figure it out.”
“Maybe.” I shake my head. “I just wanted to work with animals. Now it’s like I have a curse that’s keeping me from doing it.”
It feels good to say this to him, as if we’re trading confessions. In a way, he was my first confidant about all the recent strangeness in my life. He was there when most of it began, after all. He turns and looks at me, his expression soft.
“You never know—maybe it’s a gift,” he says, smiling a lopsided smile. Then he’s gone, walking back toward the group—toward Yaya—leaving me on the edge of the path alone.
We continue down the trail for what seems like hours. It’s hard to tell how much time has passed in jungle this dense. I enjoy the feeling of time oozing into itself, punctuated by the brief water breaks. I’m so relaxed that I almost forget I’m supposed to be questioning Dr. Espada. I’m just gearing up to find an angle into broaching the topic of the egg when there’s a sharp cry from the front of the group.
I think it’s a signal at first, and try to remember what that particular sound means, but then I realize that Manx, her face creased with anxiety, is crouched over one of her finders who is sprawled on the path. Her hands are working quickly, rummaging in her pack and coming out with cloth.
“What happened?” Alma asks.
No one answers. Dr. Espada breaks away from where he’s been walking with us and hurries toward Manx and the finders.
“It looks like something bit him,” Rondo says, craning his neck. We move toward where the finder is sprawled. The bite had pierced the fabric of the skinsuit at his calf. Manx has cut off the suit from the knee down, and the bite mark bulges ugly and purple right on the muscle. It looks like it might just be swollen at first. But then, like a tiny, abrupt volcano, the swelling bursts and blood seeps from it, leaking out and down his leg before dripping to the jungle floor.
“Stars,” Manx says, looking over each of her shoulders. “Start tracking now.”
One of the other finders immediately opens her pack and yanks out her slate.
“Tracking what?” Jaquot says.
“Hurry, hurry,” the wounded finder says. He’s sitting up now, and I think he’s looking at the wound, but instead his eyes are scanning the jungle around us.
“What is it? Is it poisonous?” I say.
“Yes, a morgantan bite contains venom. But it’s not the poison we have to worry about,” Manx says quickly, her hand emerging from her pack with a tube of solution, fitting it to a syringe, and injecting it into the finder’s leg. The swelling lessens almost immediately but the blood continues to flow freely. “It’s the smell of the blood. Stars. Damn, damn, damn.”
“Anything on the sensors?” Dr. Espada snaps, turning to the young finder who holds a slate close to her face, her eyes searching. Her face goes ashen and she turns her eyes up to Dr. Espada.
“Yes,” she says.
“God,” Dr. Espada says. “One whiffed us. We need to move. Now.”
Manx has just finished tying a tight knot of fabric around the injured finder’s bite, hoisting him up from the ground. He stands on the leg easily, but his face is still twisted. I thought it was pain I was seeing, but now I realize that it’s terror.
Alma is clinging to my arm—I’m not even sure she’s aware she’s doing it. Her eyes go back and forth between Dr. Espada and Manx.