I cackled again at his tangled reasoning. “But what’s her actual name? Or did you forget it?”
“No! Her name is—” He coughed once. “Eniava.”
“Eniava?” I raised a single, perplexed eyebrow. “It doesn’t seem that amazing to me.”
“Yeah, well.” There was laughter in his voice, as if he was plotting with the gang of devils that surely lived in his head. “She’s not from here.”
“You’re making this up.”
He just laughed harder.
“Alright, you done snooping on my mate?”
“I’m not?—”
“Or are you chickening out on this video call because you’re not prepared enough, Bunny Doc?”
With a small grin, I fixed my bun, inserted an extra pen into the mix, and checked that I didn’t have a chocolate mustache.
And switched to video.
The screen was dark. The seconds passed, and I watched my reflection prop her chin on her palm. He didn’t say a word.Odd.
I stared at the black screen, waiting, tapping a finger on my lips. Then I blew a raspberry.
“Is your shirt the same color as your hair?”
I blinked, glanced down, then looked back at the screen. “What?”
“They look the same color.”
“Is that your way of asking if I dyed my hair?”
“No. Did you? It’s a nice color.”
“It’s natural.”
“With the light, I can see red tones. I didn’t know you had red tones,” he grumbled, sounding irritated, and I chuckled.
“And I didn’t know you cared about hair pigmentation.”
He huffed a laugh. “I don’t.”
“Should I need a hair change, I’ll be sure to book a salon consultation with you first.”
In the end, we spent the next three hours with me repeating an endless list of names, pointing to fake organs that I showed him on the video, while he corrected me and quizzed me a ridiculous number of times on the spleen. And I had to admit, I’d never enjoyed studying so much in my whole life.
I dreamed of a black animal. I thought it was a wolf, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t see it walk on four legs, but it had black fur and eyes so crimson I thought they were bleeding from their sockets.
All it did in my dream was sit outside throughout the night, moonlight kissing its gleaming fur, gazing up at a window. At the crack of dawn, the great beast disappeared into the woods, leaving behind a long, drawn-out howl, like the last vestiges of night clinging to the dawn of a new day.
Ah, dreams…
When I woke up in Amaia’s bed with her next to me, clutching a pillow to her chest, it was seven thirty in the morning. I’d slept for five hours. Well, the world would see a grumpy Yvaine today, when she was especially facing off a day filled with classes, a shift at the hospital, and a family dinner.
When I heard the shower start, I realized that Makena was already up, while Tiziano was whistling in the kitchen. I smelled something delicious; he must have been cooking.
To my surprise, I noticed a white box next to the window, which was slightly ajar. I frowned and staggered up, still groggy.
