The Root of Everything

The email arrived at 2:13 a.m., a single line beneath the subject: Conditional funding approved.

Aris stared at the words until they blurred into a smear of light. Her fingers hovered above the keyboard, trembling with relief she wouldn’t allow to take her. She stayed in the narrow pool of desk lamp glow and read the message again, then a third time, forcing her breath to slow before she clicked the attached document. The conditions were brutal: a skeletal budget, a three-week window, final results and samples or no disbursement of the second tranche. A liability waiver that made her vision tighten. She signed.

The apartment was quiet except for the buzz of the old refrigerator. On the wall opposite—pinned maps, satellite printouts, and annotated botanical sketches layered like a palimpsest—Jardim do Diabo was a pale, green secret wreathed in cloud. Devil’s Garden. A name whispered in logging camps and dismissed in faculty lounges. She’d followed the rumor through nineteen papers and six contradictory accounts until she’d found the pattern. A river braid. A ridge that split mist like a blade. A microclimate that didn’t belong on any standard chart. And at the center, what the indigenous stories called a flower that heals. An orchid that refused to die in memory.

Her sister’s photograph leaned against a stack of field journals—Mira at fifteen, dark hair pulled into a messy bun, her smile tilted. Aris touched the edge of the frame. “I’ve got it,” she said softly. “We’re going.”

She didn’t sleep. She pulled the equipment inventory into a new spreadsheet. She cut everything not essential and fought the compulsion to pack three times more than they could carry. The grant would cover a bush pilot, fuel, permits if she was careful. She sketched the route, redrew it with a contingency for weather and another for losing instruments. She checked the expiration dates on the antibiotics and added them anyway.

By dawn, the city outside her window began to stir. She made coffee and let it go cold on the desk. The call to Brazil felt like stepping off a ledge. Her Portuguese was careful and accented, but clear. The logistics coordinator she’d leaned on for weeks answered with a yawn and a dry chuckle when Aris explained she had funding at last. “If you’re going into the devil’s garden, doutora, you’ll need a devil to fly you.”

“I need a pilot who knows the interior,” Aris said. “Not a dev—”

He gave her a name anyway. Vance. Kaelen. Kael. “He’ll take you as far as air and engine allow,” the man said. “If he agrees.”

He answered on the third ring, voice rough with sleep or something like it. “Vance.”

“This is Dr. Aris Thorne,” she said, pushing the hair from her face. “I need a charter to the Rio Urucá basin. A drop near coordinates nineteen kilometers west of—”

“That’s not a charter,” he said, a low thread of amusement or warning in his tone. “That’s a crash waiting to happen.”

“It’s a delivery,” she said evenly. “I have maps and a plan. I’ll pay your rate.”

There was a pause. She imagined him weighing fuel costs against risk, or the boredom of routine flights against the tug of danger. “Meet me at the Santa Lúcia airstrip tomorrow at noon,” he said. “If your plan isn’t idiotic, we’ll talk.”

She exhaled when the line went dead. Her hands were unsteady again, nerves catching up with the decision her body had already made. She stood, tugged on a hoodie, and went to the narrow shelf where her field pack sat. The straps creaked when she lifted it. She packed deliberately—GPS, spare batteries sealed against moisture, a hand lens, sample vials cushioned in foam, sterile shears, a portable press, a water filter, a folded tarp. She tucked Mira’s photo inside the front pocket and paused, palm flat against the fabric. Fear and purpose fought in her throat, but purpose was heavier.

At the university, she signed out what she could under the radar. The lab tech eyed the list and raised a brow. “You’re not going into the state park next door.”

“I’ll be careful,” she said. The lie didn’t taste like one. Careful meant alive.

Her mentor’s office door was open. Dr. Rao didn’t stand when Aris stepped in; she never did. She interrogated ideas from a chair like a queen. “You look like you haven’t slept.”

“I secured the second grant,” Aris said, and watched Rao’s face shift, surprise shadowed by concern. “I’m leaving tonight.”

Rao’s gaze slid to the maps in Aris’s hand, then back. “You are chasing a myth.”

“I’m chasing a biochemical pathway,” Aris said. “The compounds described in the 1962 Silva paper—”

“—were anecdotal,” Rao cut in. “Tales flex in the mouths of men who want to be believed.” She softened a fraction. “You think you can fix her.” Not a question. A scalpel to the center.

Aris’s jaw tightened; the familiar ache flared. “I can try.”

Rao’s lips pressed into a thin line, then curved in resignation. “Then go. Bring me something worth the trouble I will endure on your behalf. And don’t die.”

Aris almost smiled. “I’ll do my best.”

She left campus with her pack heavier and her spine straighter. The plane ticket to Manaus was bought with miles and luck. The overnight flight was a blur of dry cabin air and the glow of the seatback map. When she landed, heat swallowed her, wet and immediate. She shouldered her pack and moved through the airport on autopilot: currency exchange, a quick call to confirm supplies waiting at a small outfitter whose owner had promised her a machete sturdy enough to outlast everything else.

By the time a sunburned taxi driver dropped her at Santa Lúcia, the sky had gone white-hot, the tarmac shimmering. The airstrip was a ribbon of dirt carved from green. A handful of planes sat with their noses pointed toward the horizon like animals sniffing a scent. The office was a plywood box with a fan that spun listlessly. The woman behind the counter barely looked up as Aris signed the manifest and handed over a folded stack of reals for fuel and a hangar fee she hoped existed.

She stepped back into the glare, hand raised to shade her eyes, and scanned the run-up line. Her pulse kicked for no reason she could name. She wasn’t looking for a face. She was looking for a man who could fly into a blank space on a map and not flinch, and for the first time since the email, doubt pushed through the armor she’d wrapped around herself.

The sound of a radial engine clearing its throat rolled over the strip. A de Havilland Beaver, sun-faded and stubborn-looking, taxied toward her. Aris drew a breath and set her shoulders, fingers closing over the strap of her pack. The door swung open, and a man climbed out, tall and spare, stepping onto the wing as if the plane were an extension of his body.

He saw her, gaze cutting through heat-haze, and jumped down. He didn’t smile. He didn’t offer a hand. “Dr. Thorne?”

“Aris,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. “You must be Kael Vance.”

Her goal sat like a weight in her chest, simple and impossible. An orchid that could change the shape of her sister’s future. A jungle that would try to swallow them. She lifted her chin. “I have a plan.”

He stopped close enough that she could see the fine dust clinging to the stubble along his jaw. His eyes were a flat, cool gray that didn’t soften when they landed on her. He wore a sun-bleached tee and cargo pants that had seen years of hard work, a faded canvas holster at his hip carrying a multi-tool and something that looked like a flare. Scar tissue traced a line through his left eyebrow, disappearing into the hair that curled slightly at his nape.

“You’re smaller than I pictured,” he said, taking in her pack, the neat coils of rope, the sealed equipment bins lined up like obedient soldiers. “And you brought a lab.”

“It’s a field kit,” she said, keeping her voice even. “Everything has a purpose.”

He looked over her shoulder at the Beaver, then back at her. “Everything in that list weighs too much. You want to get into the interior? You pack like you’re staying.” His gaze slid down, cataloging her quick-dry pants, the worn boots, the sweat already gathering at her hairline. He didn’t linger, but she felt the pass of it like a touch. “And you don’t look like you stay.”

She ignored the heat rising in her neck. “We can talk weight after we agree on a route.” She pulled a rolled map tube from her pack and handed it to him. “I have data you haven’t seen.”

He unsealed the cap with his teeth and shook the maps open, the paper catching the hot wind. He didn’t hold it gingerly. He glanced at the GPS grids, the handwritten notes, the satellite overlays she’d traced in red. “You’re thorough,” he said, neutral, then added, “Thorough doesn’t stop a downdraft or get you out when weather turns.”

“It helps prevent flying blind.” She took a step closer and pointed at a cluster of contour lines. The smell of him hit her—clean sweat, engine oil, sun. “There’s a corridor here. The mist pooling along this ridge creates a microclimate that—”

“Creates storms,” he cut in. “The Urucá likes to make her own moods. You think that’s a corridor; I think that’s where planes go to die.”

“I think that’s where the target species thrives,” she said. “I’m not guessing.”

He rolled the maps again and handed them back. “You’re chasing a ghost flower because a paper from sixty years ago said it glowed in the dark when a man was drunk enough.”

Her fingers tightened on the tube. “It wasn’t a drunk. It was a field anesthetist, and his blood chemistry logs correlate with—”

He held up a hand, the gesture not unkind, just done with this part of the conversation. His hands were rough, veins roped beneath tanned skin. “You talk like a professor,” he said. “The jungle doesn’t care how smart you are.”

“I know,” she said, and she let him see that she wasn’t naive. “I know what I’m asking.”

Something flickered in his eyes. Maybe he heard the edge in her voice, maybe he recognized the weight that forced her forward. He shifted his stance, shoulders rolling beneath the thin tee, and glanced at the bins again. “What’s in the cooler?”

“Sterile vials, buffered solution, a portable press,” she said. “Preservation is everything. If we find it, I need to get it out intact.”

“If,” he repeated, one corner of his mouth twitching as if he’d considered a smile and changed his mind. “You academics always think the jungle is a lab with worse lighting. It isn’t. It’s teeth and rot. It eats plans.”

“And yet you agreed to meet me,” she said, lifting her chin. “So either you like arguments, or you’re willing to hear me out.”

He looked past her at the shimmering runway. A dragonfly cut through the air between them, a flash of iridescence. “I agreed because the guy who called said you pay on time.” His gaze returned to her, leveling. “And because, occasionally, I fly fools when the money’s good.”

The words hit harder than she expected. She swallowed and nodded once. “Then take the money and fly me to where the fool needs to go.”

For a breath, they stood in a quiet standoff, heat humming around them. He broke it by moving to the nearest bin and flipping the latch. He lifted the lid—vials nested in foam, labeled in her neat, block script. He touched nothing, but his eyes scanned everything. “You labeled the vials in Portuguese.”

“It’s the field language,” she said. “And the people who might help us won’t want English shoved at them.”

That, unexpectedly, seemed to land somewhere favorable. He closed the bin and jerked his chin at the plane. “You know how to load a Beaver without getting me killed?”

“I read the manual,” she said dryly. “Twice.”

He stared at her again. This time his gaze wasn’t dismissive. It was measuring. He pointed to the aft cargo space. “Heavy stuff low and forward. Nothing loose. If we hit turbulence, I don’t want a microscope in my skull.”

“Fair.” She moved to lift a bin, but he reached it first. He hooked his fingers under the handles and set it on the wing with a flex of forearms that made heat crawl beneath her skin. He noticed her watching and arched a brow, not smug, just aware.

She looked away, pulled the tarp roll from her pack, and slid it into the side compartment. He worked beside her, efficient. Even his silence had weight. When they’d stowed half, he leaned against the fuselage and finally said, “So. Devil’s Garden.”

“Yes.”

He let the words hang. “You know why they call it that?”

“Names are stories,” she said, bracing for the lecture. “They grow around truths.”

“The truth is, people go in and don’t come out.” His voice stayed calm, but the line in his jaw tightened. “You’re not the first with big eyes and a noble reason.”

Her breath stuttered. Of course she wasn’t. “I don’t have big eyes.”

He glanced at her face, the blunt honesty of the look leaving her rooted. “You do when you talk about this plant.” He pushed off the fuselage, too close for a second, his height cutting the sun. She didn’t step back. “I’ll fly you,” he said. “I’ll take you as far as fuel and sky let me. But let’s be clear. When I say we turn around, we turn around. When I say we set down, you don’t ask why. You listen. That’s how you don’t die.”

She held his gaze. “And when I say we’re close, you don’t roll your eyes and call me a fool. You listen. That’s how we don’t waste our shot.”

He exhaled through his nose, something like a laugh but not quite. “Deal,” he said, though it didn’t sound like he believed in deals.

They finished loading in curt synchronization. Sweat slid down her spine, and a strand of hair stuck to her neck. When he brushed past to secure the last strap, his arm grazed her shoulder. The contact was brief, accidental, and sent a sharp, unwelcome awareness down her arm. He didn’t react, or he pretended not to.

He swung himself up into the cockpit and glanced back. “You sit right seat. Don’t touch anything unless I tell you.”

She climbed in, the seat creaking under her weight, and buckled herself in. The Beaver smelled like leather, fuel, and a clean undertone that was just him. He handed her a headset, the worn cushion warm from the sun.

He flicked switches, his movements economical and practiced. “Last chance to back out, doutora.”

She slid the headset on and met his eyes. “No.”

He nodded once, expression unreadable, and turned the key. The engine coughed, caught, and the plane trembled around them, as ready as he was skeptical. He leaned out the window to shout at a mechanic to pull the chocks, then looked at her again, mouth close to the mic. “Strap in. The devil doesn’t like guests.”

They taxied slow, the prop churning hot air through the open side window. Aris’s fingers itched. The panel was a museum of switches, some labeled with tape, some with paint rubbed to ghosts. She leaned in, scanning the altimeter’s sticky needle, the worn flap lever, the spiderweb crack in the corner of the windscreen.

“When was your last annual inspection?” she asked, more clinical than accusing, but the question hung like judgment.

Kael’s jaw flexed. “Last month. Certified mechanic in Manaus. You want his number?”

“The magnetic compass is bubbled,” she said, pointing. “And your attitude indicator drifts half a degree every ten seconds.”

He glanced at the instruments, then at her, dry. “And you measured that in the half minute you’ve been studying my dash?”

“I measured it when you started the engine.” Her pulse beat high and quick. “And your ELT—”

“Functional,” he cut in. “Tested. You hear it if I flip the switch and piss off the whole airfield?”

She pressed her lips together, then unlatched her harness. “I want to see your maintenance log.”

He killed the grin that threatened. There wasn’t a grin. Only a flat line of mouth. “Sit down.”

She popped the door and slid back onto the float. Heat blasted her. Kael swore under his breath and followed, boots clanging on metal. She moved to the nose, running a hand along a seam where rivets puckered slightly. “This panel took a hit,” she said. “The skin’s been replaced.”

“Three years ago,” he said. “Bird strike on takeoff, no structural damage beyond the nose. Re-skinned, re-riveted, inspected.” His patience was smoke, thin and curling. “You going to tap the tires while you’re at it?”

“I was going to ask about tread,” she said, already crouching. She pressed two fingers to the rubber, then stood and moved to the struts, the float mounts, the tension of the wires. She smelled sun on metal, gasoline, him. He shadowed her, close, not touching, presence a pressure at her back.

“Safety protocols,” she said, standing. “We’ll follow mine.”

That got a laugh, short and sharp. “Your protocols don’t fly a Beaver in weather that turns on a coin.”

“My protocols prevent us from flying into a thunderhead because you have a gut feeling we can beat it.” She pulled a folded flight plan from her pocket and spread it on the wing. “We take the north-eastern approach to the Urucá. The ridge generates the microclimate we need, but the western side is where convective uplift is strongest mid-afternoon. If we leave at dawn, hug the river, and circle to the east, we can avoid cumulus build.”

His eyes cut to the map. “You want to add two hours of fuel burn for a kinder view.”

“I want to live.”

His hand flattened on the wing above her map, the corded tendons in his wrist stark. “I’ve flown this jungle for six years. Your lines and your nice red circles don’t change what happens when wind shears coming off that ridge start tossing us like we’re paper. We take the direct south route. It’s a morning flight, and we’re heavy. Less time over trees means more options if something goes wrong.”

“Your direct route crosses two known storm cells by noon,” she said. “You’re betting on luck.”

“I’m betting on reading the sky.” He pushed off and leaned in, his shadow falling across the paper, across her hands. His voice dropped, not soft. “I know the colors this air turns before it breaks. I know what birds do when the updraft is wrong. I know what the river surface looks like when gusts are coming. Your satellite doesn’t.”

Her heart thudded fast. She met his eyes. “And my satellite doesn’t care about your pride.”

He breathed out, a flare of heat in the narrow space between them. “You think this is pride?”

“I think you’re used to being the only authority in the cockpit,” she said. “I respect that. But I’m not dead weight, and I didn’t come here to let someone else make choices with my life without data.”

He held there, eyes searching her face in a way that unwound something small and tight in her stomach. Then he peeled his hand off the wing and stabbed a finger at her route. “Fine. Your east approach. But we leave at first light. We keep our altitude. And if I say we divert, we divert. No debate, no ‘but the orchid.’”

She swallowed, the word orchid catching at a raw place. “Agreed. And if I say the humidity profile and canopy density shift means we’re within the target range, we don’t waste time arguing about ghost stories.”

His mouth flattened. “You really believe this thing is out there.”

“Yes.” She didn’t look away. “I have to.”

The silence stretched. He broke it with a shrug that looked careless and wasn’t. “Then let me get us there in one piece.”

She rolled the map in with steady fingers. “Let me get us there in the right piece.”

He huffed and jerked his chin toward the tail. “Weight and balance. You still want to see the log?”

“Yes.”

He was gone a moment, then back with a battered binder. He slapped it into her hands. She flipped, scanning entries—compressions, oil changes, the annual, the ELT test, the nose repair he’d mentioned. Everything was in order. Her throat loosened a fraction. She handed it back. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me for doing my job,” he said, but the edge had dulled. “You’re thorough. I’ll give you that.”

She climbed back into the cockpit, heat shimmering on the dash. He slid in beside her and shut the door with a hard pull, sealing them in the small space. His forearm brushed her chest strap as he reached across her for the window latch, and the brief contact shot a spark under her skin. She stared at the windshield and pretended she didn’t feel the prickle of awareness.

“Run your mouth on the radio only when I tell you,” he said, settling the headset over his ears. “Transponder stays on. You don’t touch the yoke unless mine is dead.”

“Copy,” she said, steady, even as her nerves sang.

He looked at her again, measuring. The engine growled as he brought it back to life. “You’re a lot of work, doutora.”

“You too,” she said. “But you’re the one with the bubbled compass.”

He snorted, a reluctant echo of humor. “Keep your eyes on the sky. I’ll keep mine on the air.” He rolled them forward, the Beaver shivering with intent. “We’ll do this your way. Until your way gets us killed.”

“We’ll do this our way,” she said, voice low, conviction threading through the words. “And we won’t die.”

He didn’t answer, but his grip on the throttle tightened, and for the first time since she’d seen him, the corner of his mouth lifted—there and gone. Outside, the runway stretched, a ribbon of heat and promise pointing them toward the green wall that hid everything she wanted and everything that could take it away.

The Beaver lifted, floats skimming once, twice, then the water let go. The jungle unrolled beneath them like an endless, breathing organism, a dense canopy that hid the river’s silver spine. Heat shimmered in the cockpit, sweat gathering at Aris’s temples and the base of her throat. She forced herself to breathe and not stare at the attitude indicator’s lazy drift. She had her own instruments.

She slid the map tube from under her seat and unlatched it, extracting a tight roll of glossy prints and laminated maps marked with her precise handwriting. He cut her a glance, a curt warning in it, but she already had her headset mic tilted toward her mouth.

“These aren’t just lines and circles,” she said, keeping her voice even over the engine’s steady roar. “They’re composites—USGS elevation with my satellite humidity data and a twelve-month wind pattern overlay. The microclimate we’re targeting forms here.” She tapped a translucent sheet and held it up so it caught the light; her fingertip landed on a pale blue patch in a sea of green. “East of the Urucá, three ridgelines north of your route.”

Kael didn’t look down immediately, his attention flicking from horizon to gauges and back. Finally, he angled his head, skepticism cutting a lean line through his features. “That overlay’s cute. Humidity changes by the hour out here.”

“So does convection,” she replied, sliding the top sheet aside to reveal a false-color image. “But not the underlying topography. This is a recent LIDAR scan. See those depressions? Limestone sinkholes, shallow. The Orchid of Life is rumored to prefer karst systems because they trap mist and leach minerals. It’s not a myth without basis—it’s a species adapted to a micro-ecology that’s rare but predictable.”

He adjusted the trim with two fingers, eyes narrowing as he glanced at the patchwork she held. “Where did you get LIDAR that clean?”

“Private grant,” she said, not bothering to hide the pride. “And a friend who owes me favors in remote sensing.” She shifted, careful not to bump his arm, and laid the lamination over her lap, securing the corner with the edge of her thigh so it wouldn’t slide. “We don’t need to guess. The east approach sits downwind of this ridge complex. On a dawn flight, the air is stable, and the moisture hasn’t burned off. That’s our window.”

He didn’t answer. He banked slightly to skirt a tower of cumulus sharpening to their right, the white mass throwing a shadow over the canopy that moved like a living thing. She watched the river’s surface for cat’s paws, watched the treetops for sudden shiver—signs he’d told her about back on the ground. She logged them silently and returned to the map.

“You said birds tell you what the air is doing,” she murmured. “Look along the eastern treeline.” She pointed again, and he glanced, a fraction of a second longer this time. “There are roost markers on the survey photos—guano stains. Old, but in consistent bands below the ridge. That suggests steady updraft patterns there at dawn that they use to launch. If we keep to this edge, we avoid most of the shear until the sun starts moving hard.”

He made a noncommittal sound, but his jaw eased. “You planning to fly the plane with a printout?”

“I’m planning to keep us out of a storm cell I can see forming on your ‘direct south route.’” She tilted her chin toward the far horizon, where a haze thickened into the bruised underside of a building storm. “We thread the river until this bend,” she traced, “then climb to clear the lowest saddle. There’s a shallow basin behind it that holds mist. That’s where the orchids could be.”

He let the silence stretch, testing the air with minute elevator adjustments. The plane settled into an easy hum. Finally, he reached over without comment and took the edge of the LIDAR sheet with his free hand, holding it steady so he could study it while keeping the yoke. His fingertips grazed the side of her thigh through her pants as he caught the corner. Her breath hitched before she caught it. He pretended not to notice. Or maybe he didn’t feel it.

“Karst,” he said, his voice stripped down to function. “You’re saying caves.”

“Small ones,” she said. “Collapsed, mostly. Enough to create pockets where spray and shade do unusual things. The orchids don’t want sunlight. They want constancy and mineral-rich condensation. This basin, this saddle—look at the heat map. It’s cooler than its elevation suggests. There’s water moving under the surface.”

He nodded once, eyes flicking to the false-color gradient, then to the horizon again. “You ran moisture algorithms on this?”

“I wrote them,” she said, unable to keep the softness from her tone. “It’s crude compared to a full atmospheric model, but I cross-checked with on-the-ground botany surveys and local reports. This isn’t a shot in the dark.”

He blew a breath out through his nose, almost a laugh, but not dismissive this time. “You came loaded.”

She felt the tight thread inside her unwind a notch. “You hired me for a reason, even if you don’t like it yet.”

“I hired you because you paid my rate,” he said, but some of the dry edge had gone quiet, replaced by something like reluctant curiosity. He pushed the yoke a hair, leveling out as they slipped past the thunderhead’s far reach. “Your markers line up with a spot I’d avoid on instinct. Not because of weather. Because I’ve never had a reason to go into that bowl.” A beat. “Maybe now I do.”

The concession was small and unexpected, and it warmed her in a place that had nothing to do with heat. She nodded, eyes on the translucent layers spread over her lap. “We have one shot. If we miss the window, the afternoon convection will tear this plan apart.”

He glanced at her again, more openly this time, studying the seriousness in her face. “You’re not reckless.”

“No,” she said quietly. “I don’t have that luxury.”

He grunted, a spare sound that could have meant anything. He adjusted their heading by a degree, just enough that any outside observer would miss it, but she saw the change. He was aligning with her route.

“Tell me when you want the climb,” he said. “If that saddle looks like you think it does, we’ll clear it while you still have your precious stable air.”

Her lips curved despite herself. “Two minutes.”

“Two minutes,” he repeated, half to her, half to the plane, and his hand flexed on the throttle. The forest kept rolling under them, a slow heartbeat. He held the LIDAR steady for another breath, glanced once more, then gave it back, fingers brushing hers as he released the corner. Warm, dry skin on skin for a second too long. Her pulse skittered. He pulled away.

“Don’t get cocky,” he said, but it lacked sting. “I still don’t let passengers fly.”

“I don’t need to fly,” she said. “I need to find a flower.”

He made a low sound that might have been amusement. “Then let me get us to your flower without decorating a tree.”

“Twelve hundred feet,” she said, eyes on the altimeter. “Now.”

He eased the nose up with smooth pressure, the Beaver responding like a creature that trusted him. The engine note deepened, and they rose, the canopy flattening, then dropping away. The ridge lifted to meet them, then fell back. Beyond it, mist pooled pale and promising, caught in the curve of the land exactly where her maps said it would be.

He saw it too. “Huh,” he said, quiet, almost to himself. The grudging respect was there, small and shining. “Okay, doutora. I see your bowl.”

They leveled in the cool stillness above the basin, the world momentarily gentled. Tension didn’t vanish between them. It settled differently, less adversarial and more charged, humming in the narrowed space of the cockpit where his shoulder was a constant presence against the edge of her awareness. She folded the maps, careful, her fingers steady. His hand stayed on the yoke, easy, and his mouth—flat too long—tilted in the bare suggestion of a smile.

“Your data earns you five minutes,” he said. “Use them.”

She met his eyes, the engine drumming around them, and nodded. “I will.”

They touched down at the strip like a returning breath. Heat rolled over them when the door swung open, the metallic scent of hot fuel and dust replacing the clean cold of altitude. Aris unbuckled and gathered her maps, sliding them back into the tube with careful fingers. Kael climbed out first and dropped to the packed dirt, stretching his back until it popped beneath the thin cotton of his shirt. When he turned, the expression he wore wasn’t exactly friendly, but it wasn’t dismissive anymore either.

“Show me what else you’re bringing,” he said, voice even, as she handed him the map tube.

She moved to the shaded edge of the hangar where her remaining cases sat stacked with military precision. He glanced at the labels, at the dimensions, calculating weight and balance as if by sight. She rattled off numbers—kilograms, center of gravity, fuel burn margin—while he listened with a stillness that had a weight of its own.

“This one goes forward,” he said, tapping a case marked Preservation Kit. “Heavy gear in the rear I can trim for. Fragile stays with you.”

He hefted the preservation kit. It looked wrong in his hands, too clean, too white. She stepped closer, her palm brushing his forearm. “Careful. It’s shock-mounted but not indestructible.”

His gaze cut to her hand. She didn’t pull it back. The cord in his jaw eased. “I’m not going to toss it,” he said, then lifted it into the plane with care she felt like a small victory.

They worked without commentary after that. She passed cases up; he slid them into place, securing tie-downs, threading webbing through rings with quick, practiced motions. The tarp of heat pressing down only made their movements more deliberate. Sweat traced a line down her spine. He handed her a bottle from a crate, his knuckles dusted with oil.

“Drink,” he said.

She took a swallow, the water warm and welcome, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Thank you.”

He nodded, setting a tool aside. “You got insurance on that LIDAR data?” he asked, gesturing to the tube now bungeed to the bulkhead.

“A copy in my laptop. Another in a cloud drive,” she said. “But if the laptop goes, the redundancy isn’t perfect.”

He grunted approval. “We’ll strap the laptop under your seat. If I tell you to ditch, you take that and the preservation kit. Everything else can burn.”

She met his eyes. “Don’t talk like that.”

“Planning isn’t a hex,” he said simply, and there was no meanness in it. Just honesty earned in places she hadn’t been.

They maneuvered the last crate—reagents sealed in foam—and she leaned in beside him to tighten the strap. Their shoulders pressed for a breath. He smelled like sun and clean sweat and the faint bite of aviation fuel, and the contact jolted her with an awareness that had nothing to do with friction from earlier. Her pulse hummed low. He didn’t move away immediately, and a nerve in his cheek pulsed before he stepped back, clearing his throat.

“You really think we’re going to find it,” he said, not a question.

“I know we can,” she answered, softer. “With your flying and my maps.”

He wiped his hands on a rag, then rolled it tight. “Terms,” he said finally. “We do it my way when I say it’s about safety. You don’t argue with me in the air. On the ground, terrain calls are yours. If I say we stop, we stop. If you say a plant is dangerous, I don’t touch it.”

Her mouth curved. “Deal. You don’t eat anything unless I’ve approved it. You don’t wade into water without me reading it first. And if I tell you not to cut, you sheath that machete.”

He snorted, amused. “Fair.”

They shook on it without ceremony. His hand dwarfed hers, rough skin catching lightly against her palm. Heat flared from that simple contact, awareness coiling low in her belly. He didn’t squeeze too hard. He held just enough to let her feel his intent. She let herself return it, feeling the steadiness in the bones of his grip, the callus at the base of his fingers.

Something quiet and undeniable settled in the space between them. Not friendship. Not yet. But an alignment of need and purpose that felt like a cord drawn taut and anchored at both ends.

He let go, and she felt the absence like a cool draft. He stepped into the cockpit to run another quick check, voice drifting back to her as he called out instrument readings to himself. She closed the cargo door and latched it, testing the seal twice.

“Fuel at ninety percent,” he said. “Weight’s good. We’ll be heavy in the heat, but she’ll lift. I’ll grab a second tarp. Rain’s coming.” He tipped his chin toward the far line of dark sky.

“I’ll secure the rest,” she said. She crouched and adjusted the tie-downs again, fingers nimble, double-checking the buckles. When she stood, he was watching her from the cockpit, one hand braced on the doorframe.

“You always work like this?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“Like the plane will punish you if you miss one detail.”

She thought of her sister’s pale face, the way her chest rose too fast at night. “I can’t afford mistakes,” she said.

He studied her for a long heartbeat. “Then we won’t make any.” No bravado. No false promise. Just a steady statement that slid under her skin.

They loaded the last bag, a roll of clothes and field journals. She tucked a pen into the spiral of one. He reached past her to adjust a strap and the brush of his arm along the side of her breast was accidental but real. Her breath caught. His eyes flicked to her mouth and away so fast she could have imagined it.

He cleared his throat. “Wheels up in ten.”

She nodded. “I’ll use the restroom,” she said, because if she didn’t move she was going to stand there and stare.

He laughed once, low. “Back there is a hole and a bucket. You sure you want to pretend otherwise?”

She gave him a look that should have withered a seedling. “I meant here. In a proper building.”

He held up his hands. “Go. I’ll file a local hop.”

She walked toward the cinderblock office. The interior was dim, a fan rattling overhead. In the restroom, she splashed cool water on her wrists and throat, calmed the prickly surge under her skin. In the spotted mirror, a woman stared back with damp hair curling at her temples, determination firming her mouth. She pressed her lips together, then let them soften. When she returned, he was outside, talking quietly to the manager in rapid Portuguese, his posture loose but alert.

He finished, shook the man’s hand, and turned to her. “We’re clear,” he said. “Weather window is short, but it’s good. You ready, doutora?”

She lifted her chin. “I’ve been ready.”

He gestured to the plane. “After you.”

She climbed in, the cabin familiar now, the scent of oil and canvas oddly comforting. He followed and pulled the door shut with a solid clack that sealed them into their shared mission. As he reached past her to secure the latch, his sleeve brushed her shoulder. He didn’t move away immediately. Neither did she.

They didn’t say anything. They didn’t need to. The truce sat between them like a third presence, quiet and conditional and real. He strapped in, hands moving with focused economy. She buckled her harness and set the map tube by her feet, fingers steady on the cap.

He looked at her, holding her gaze for a beat that stretched. “Let’s go find your flower,” he said, voice low.

“Let’s,” she answered. Their needs weren’t the same, but for now they ran in parallel, pulling them forward together as the prop spun up and the plane shuddered alive beneath them.