“Yes, sir!” Ozorne said. “It’s as good as magic, with all the birds, and the smaller animals. Even the larger ones. You never know what will come in the night, either—it isn’t always us bringing you something, is it?”
“No, it is not,” Lindhall said as Arram scooped up a handful of water and held it for Preet. She drank daintily, without spills. As he was thinking she was unreal, she flipped several drops into his face with her beak. When he yelped, she fluffed up her feathers and preened.
“You don’t act like any baby bird I’ve seen,” he told her. Those were tiny, bald scraps, blind and squalling, or bald heaps in menagerie nests or in Hulak’s trees.
“Nor should you expect her to,” Lindhall said.
Ozorne and Lindhall fitted the dome over the hooks in the metal base that kept it secure. Lindhall filled one dish with seed. He handed the other to Arram. “Water, if you please,” he instructed.
Arram obeyed. Ozorne extracted a small handful of straw for bedding and placed it inside the cage. Arram set the water dish down next to the seed.
“Put her inside,” Lindhall instructed.
Fortunately, Arram was setting Preet on the straw when she realized he meant to leave her there. She waved her tiny wings and began to screech, a powerful noise from so tiny a creature. Lindhall bent and pulled a dark, folded cloth from under the table, then changed his mind and traded it for a white one. He quickly shook it out and covered the cage with it. Slowly Preet quieted. Her last, tiny whistles made Arram’s mouth tremble. He felt like a monster for leaving her.
“She will be fine once she sleeps,” Lindhall assured the youths as he ushered them out of the workroom. With a wave of his hand he dismissed the light from the glowing lamps overhead. The room was left in darkness as he closed the door. Arram thought he heard a last, faint peep and bit his lip.
Something chimed delicately nearby.
Lindhall halted the conversation he was having with Ozorne, saying, “Ah! It’s an hour before dawn.”
“What made that sound, Master?” Ozorne asked.
“A wonderful device sent to me from Jindazhen. It can be spelled to chime any hour you wish—very convenient for heavy sleepers, which I am not, or for those who lose track of time, which I so often do,” Lindhall replied. “If you two hurry off, Arram will have time to bathe before his lesson with Yadeen. Oh, and lads…”
The two were about to leave. They faced him.
“Keeping Preet here is a stopgap. I suggest it only because examinations are coming, and she will be distraction enough without Arram having to care for her all day as well as all night. Before the spring term begins I shall make more liberal arrangements for your housing, Arram.”
The youths looked at each other, panicked, but said nothing. Lindhall was a master; they were students. They knew they’d been lucky to room together for so long.
“Now run along,” Master Lindhall ordered as he began to clean up.
“Thank you, Master Lindhall,” Ozorne said. No matter how upset he might be, he never forgot his manners.
“Oh!” Arram exclaimed. “Yes—yes, thank you, Master.”
Lindhall called after them, “There is a door to the hall around the corner.”
They took it.
The time until the autumn examinations sped by, thanks to Preet. Ozorne and Varice tried to study with the little bird in the room, but they found her too distracting, and they soon abandoned Arram to her care. Arram didn’t find Preet distracting in the least, even when she insisted on perching on his shoulder as he studied.
The only time she made a fuss was late on the fifth night he tried to return her to her cage. As he opened its door, she flapped her wings and squalled. When Arram clasped her to move her more easily, she dug her tiny claws into his sleeve and screeched louder. Master Lindhall arrived, clad in his nightgown, bleary-eyed and unhappy.
“Preet!” he snapped. She silenced. “I spent my day with cases of hoof rot! I have earned my rest! Continue this and you will go to the birds’ menagerie, do you understand me?”
He stormed out and slammed the door after him. Arram waited a few precious moments, thinking, He’s just like Ozorne when Ozorne can’t sleep.
When he was certain the master would not return, Arram looked at the bird. She had turned herself into a fuzzy ball. “He didn’t mean it, Preet. But I have to sleep, too.”
She raised her head and quietly squawked.
Arram looked at her. “Is that it, then?” he asked, his voice croaking with weariness. “What if I roll over and mash you?”
Preet simply regarded him with her wide, sparkling eyes.
Arram sighed. “I have to put you back in the cage in the morning, understand? No yelling from you. No argument.”
She cackled.
Arram took the cloth that was supposed to cover the cage and made it into a nest beside his pillow. “There.” He placed the bird on it and blew out his lamp; he was still unable to call small fires or extinguish them without disaster. “Good night, trouble,” he murmured as he pulled the blanket over his shoulders.
She chuckled softly. He was asleep in an instant.
Lindhall’s predawn waking device played its musical tune, forcing a moan from Arram. He didn’t know which he hated more, that delightful sound or the fact that he was wide awake before he’d heard it. About to sit up, he halted. Something made him wary. Sensing weight against his neck, he gently placed a hand there and touched feathers. Preet twittered at him.
“How long have you been there?” he demanded as he put her into her cage.
Preet did her best to tuck her head under her stubby wing and pretend that she was slumbering. Arram smiled grimly. “Very well—you may sleep with me, since you managed to stay unsquashed,” he told her. “But if you misbehave during the day, or refuse to stay in the cage when I’m not here, I will put you back in the cage at night and wear wax earplugs, understand?”
She made a small chuckling noise, almost like a tiny stream bubbling over rocks.
“That had better mean yes,” he told her.
She made the sound again. Satisfied, Arram straightened his bed. Then he ran to bathe and change into daytime clothes.
The weeks progressed in the same fashion, for the most part. Ozorne and Varice always insisted on visiting Preet for a short time after supper before they adjourned to a library to study for examinations. Arram and Lindhall’s students, the ones who worked inside his quarters and across the hall, devised a bargain in which they could visit when the clocks chimed the hour to meet and marvel over the new bird. They stayed only for the turn of a very brief timing glass so that Arram could return to his studies, and they never came after the next-to-last hour of the day, so he might get a good seven hours’ sleep. Lindhall popped in now and then to see how Preet was doing.