Chapter 58: Dani’s Moth Chose Me And She Didn’t Get A Vote?!

Soren reached the third-floor archive at four-twelve in the afternoon.

The morning had become afternoon in the gap between Joan’s office and now. Selah was in the infirmary and stable.

Maren had walked him to the archive elevator without saying anything, then walked away without saying anything either.

She had said one thing earlier in his room.

She had said Dani’s heart rate spiked every time Soren’s name came up in conversation.

Maren had delivered the report the way she delivered any tactical observation, with her fox ears flat and her arms crossed, while she sat on his bed staring at the wall.

He had filed it.

Now he was at the archive.

Dani Sloan looked up when he walked in.

The archive was a long narrow room lined with file cases and one wide table where Dani worked. Her moth was on the table next to her left hand, wings folded, very still.

She did not stand up.

"You shouldn’t be here," she said. "You should be writing the after-action on the cafeteria."

"I wrote it."

"In your head."

"In my head."

She watched him cross the room. The moth turned its body very slightly toward him without moving its wings.

"I told you I’m not partnering with you."

Soren stopped at the edge of the table.

"You said that while standing at my door but your heart rate elevated."

Dani’s eyes narrowed.

"Maren told you that?"

"Maren tells me everything."

"That is not a thing you should be allowed to say out..."

"You’re not denying it."

She did not deny it. She picked up the pen she had not been using and tapped it once on the table, then put it down.

The moth opened its wings half an inch.

Dani went still in the way people went still when they were trying to keep a small creature on their hand calm.

"No," she said to the moth. "Not yet."

The moth opened its wings the rest of the way.

◆◆◆◆

Soren had read about Resonance Moths in the original novel.

The book had given them one paragraph because the original protagonist had never met one.

The novel had filed them under auxiliary tamer-type abilities and moved on.

Now he was standing two feet away from one with its wings out and he was running everything he knew about the species through what he was actually seeing.

Resonance Moths did not bond through standard tamer systems.

They bonded through frequency match.

Emotional attunement was the technical term in the registry.

The moth chose a host whose internal frequency matched its own and the choice was not negotiable, was not survey-able, and could not be vetoed by the moth’s existing partner.

The moth chose.

The existing partner kept her bond and acquired a second one through the moth’s bridge.

In the entire registry there were seven recorded cases.

Six of them had ended with the existing partner falling in love with the chosen host.

The seventh case ended differently and the file did not say how.

The moth lifted off the table.

It flew the two feet to Soren and landed on the back of his right palm.

Its wings pulsed gold twice.

[DING! — Bond: Resonance Moth. Indirect. Dani Sloan 1/60 (indirect pathway).]

Dani made a sound that was not a word.

The moth’s antennae touched the skin of his hand once and then settled.

Soren felt a low warmth at the base of his neck that did not come from his own body. It did not announce itself the way Yara’s bond did, did not push the way Selah’s did.

It just arrived and settled in like it had always been there and was only now letting him notice.

Dani sat down in her chair without meaning to. Her knees went first.

"Oh no," she said.

She was looking at his face and her eyes were not focusing on him exactly, they were focusing one inch behind him on something invisible.

"You’re in the southwest corner of the room," she said. "You were three steps east of the elevator when you came in. You are standing exactly seven steps from me. You ate a granola bar at three forty."

"I did eat a granola bar at three forty."

Her face went red.

"Oh no."

Soren held the moth up at eye level. It pulsed gold once more and walked in a small circle on the back of his hand.

"Welcome to the team," he said.

"I said I’m not..."

"Your moth disagrees."

Dani put her hands over her face.

She kept them there for one full breath, then dropped them.

"I am the file-keeper," she said. "I am not an asset, I am not the bonded partner. I am the person who documents what happens to the bonded partners after the bonded partners have done the bonding."

"You are now also the person who documents what happens to herself."

"That is not better."

"It is also not worse."

She looked at him across the table. The moth was still on his hand.

"What does it feel like for you?" she asked.

"Quiet. A low hum at the base of my skull, no pressure, no demand, no pulse."

"Mine has a pulse."

"How fast?"

"Sixty-eight a minute. Yours."

He did not answer that out loud because she had already answered it for both of them.

She tapped the table once.

"This complicates everything," she said. " I do not register as a full bonded entity in any system the Bureau or the Council can detect. The moth registers. I read through it."

"That makes you invisible to Hira Vasquez’s classification grid."

"Yes."

"That makes you the only one of us who is."

She was quiet.

The moth walked from Soren’s hand onto his sleeve and from his sleeve back onto the table. It stopped halfway between them.

Dani looked at it.

"I am going to need a new filing system," she said.

"Joan already used that one."

"Then I am going to need a different new filing system."

Soren picked up the pen Dani had not been using.

He wrote one line on the corner of her notepad and turned it so she could read.

INTERNAL REGISTRY. BEARER 8. ACTIVE WITNESS.

Dani read it.

She picked the pen up from him, drew a line under his line, and added one of her own.

WITNESS BONDED. STATUS: COMPROMISED.

Then she put the pen down.

"My moth is happy," she said. "I want it on record that this is not the same as me being happy."

"Recorded."

The moth’s wings pulsed gold a third time and folded.

Dani looked down at the registry note she had just written under his. Her hand stayed on the pen.

"You are going to use this," she said.

"Yes."

"You should know that I am going to let you."

She did not say anything else. The moth did not move.

Soren stood up, slid the notepad an inch closer to her, and went toward the door.

At the door he looked back once.

Dani had not picked up the pen again. She was watching the moth while her cheeks were full red.