Lyra Stellwyn's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

Lyra was loading the truck for the coast when something small hit the porch boards. She dropped the pack and reached for her knife. Rei went silent on her shoulder, which was worse than any warning shout. Lyra opened the door slow. A tiny dragon lay on its side by the mat. Silver scales, green along the ridges, one wing folded wrong under its body. Blood pooled where a metal band had cut into its hind leg. The band was stamped with a Severance mark she already knew. It could not have been more than a week out of the shell. She swore under her breath. The receipt with the coast turnoff was in her pocket. The fox was asleep by the stove. She had a four-day window and she was burning an hour of it on the porch. She carried the hatchling inside anyway. It weighed almost nothing. Its breath came in short clicks. Rei hopped to the shelf above the table and watched without a sound. Lyra worked fast. She cut the band off with pliers and the leg bled worse, so she packed the wound with the moss her grandmother's notebook called good for burns. She splinted the wing with two sticks from the kindling box and strips of the shirt she had planned to sleep in. The hatchling did not fight her. It watched her face the whole time with green eyes too bright for something that small. Half an hour in, someone knocked. Lyra froze. Rei did not move. The knock came again, three light taps, then a voice she did not know. "I followed it here. Please. I'm not with them." She cracked the door on the chain. A slender man stood on the step in a stained lab uniform, deep blue skin, white hair, white eyes without pupils. A pale green squirrel creature clung to his collar. He was counting quietly under his breath, pointing at nothing. He stopped when he saw the hatchling on her table. "You got the band off," he said. "Good. It's keyed. They'll come for the signal in about six hours." Lyra's stomach dropped. "Six hours." "I cut the transmitter in the yard," he said. "You have maybe two days instead. I'm Noel. My mother worked the west wing. She left when she saw what they did to these." He looked at the splint. "You did that right." Lyra let him in because Rei had not gone still again. The hatchling's breathing eased. The clicks smoothed into something like sleep. She had saved it. She had also brought a stranger into her cabin, lost a day of her window, and put a tracked animal under her roof for at least a few more hours. The coast trip could not wait now. It had to happen tomorrow, ready or not, with two wounded creatures in the truck and a man she did not know riding along.