We sit with that.
"Can I ask you something?" I say.
"Always."
"This room." I look at the candle, the green walls. "I always feel calmer in here. I thought it was the routine." I pause. "Is that you?"
Lumi's cheeks do something. Subtle — she's controlled, always controlled — but it's there. "My omega biology does have a passive calming effect on—"
"On wolves in proximity." I stare at her. "That's been you this whole time."
"It's not intentional—"
"Lumi." I gesture between us. "I walk in here and my shoulders drop and I tell you things I don't tell anyone and I thought I was getting better at trusting people." I pause. "I need a candle for my room."
She laughs — an actual laugh, surprised out of her, warm and real. "It doesn't work like that. You can't bottle it."
"That's extremely unfair." I lean back into the couch. "Everyone in my vicinity drops to the floor. Wolves go to their knees." I look at her. "You just make people feel calm and safe."
"You make people feel anchored," she says. The laughter still in her voice.
"I know. It's meaningful. It's what I am." I look at her. "But calm vibes, Lumi. Calm vibes."
She presses her lips together. "I'll see what I can do about a candle."
"Thank you."
"Same time next week," she says.
"I'll be here."
I get up to go. At the door I stop.
"Lumi."
She looks at me.
"Neal," I say. "Does he knock now?"
A beat of silence.
"He knocks or joins, only two options that work," she says laughing.
I go.
Chapter twelve
Cal's lab is in the admin building, which means crossing the compound, which means the cold, which means Leo complaining about the cold for the entire outdoor walk in a way that is somehow both irritating and companionable.
"I don't see why I have to be here," he says.
"Cal wants to restart the coursework. The reclassification knocked the schedule."
"The coursework was already an insult to my intelligence."
"And yet you failed the last module."
He opens the lab door for me with an exaggerated flourish. "I was distracted."
