“A week? Absolutely not.” She scowled at me.

I looked down at the fledgling in my hands. But he was so cute. Dangerous, but cute. “We’d work around your schedule.”

She shook her head, already turning away.

“You’re not even going to say goodbye?” I lifted Dammit up. Surely she couldn’t say no to—

“No, I’m not going to say goodbye! It’s a bird!” She threw me another scowl over her shoulder. “It’s not like they have real feelings, you know.” She waved her hands at me and Dammit. “Bird!” She opened the door, muttering about “weird animal mages.” As soon as Dammit saw she was leaving, he got agitated, flapping his tiny wings. My heart broke for the little guy.

I tried to stay calm. I really did. As my mentor was always telling me, humans were just as much the patient as the animals. The problem was that humans were absolute shit sometimes. Like right now. Animals might eat you for food, but they’re not dicks about it. I was out the exam room door before I could stop myself, my hands cradling Dammit.

“Oh yeah? At least birds don’t pay gobs of money to stick rocks up their vaginas! I hope he gave you blisters! Big blisters! And they’re really uncomfortable!” I’d like to say it wasn’t my finest moment, but let’s be honest—I’d done worse.

Dammit screeched, and I was immediately filled with shame. My raised voice wasn’t helping Dammit’s panicked misery, which was evident to me with every feather rustle and squawk. I’m so sorry, little buddy.

“Get hexed!” Ms. Davis threw over her shoulder but didn’t look back, just left the clinic as fast as her legs could carry her. The waiting room was dead silent, the human patients blinking owlishly at me while dragging their animals closer to them.

Well, shit. Handling the client? C minus. Caring for Dammit? B, at best. Representing the clinic? Fail, fail, fail.

“You’re in so much trouble.” Lainey clicked open a file on the computer. “In the meantime, I’m going to put her on the ‘no return’ list.” Lainey was an apprentice like me, working under Dr. Larsen to become a fully licensed Switch, which in this case was not a sex thing but referred to an animal mage who specialized in pairing and bonding familiars to their human counterparts.

As part of our apprenticeship, we had to work reception as well as handle technician duties, because Ami Larsen believed that you should understand every aspect of how a clinic works. While Lainey and I were both great with the magic aspect of our jobs, Lainey was actually good with people, and I…shouted at them in reception about vagina blisters.

My shoulders sagged a little, causing Dammit to give me his own sympathetic noises. “Tell me she at least paid.”

Lainey’s grin was beatific. “She paid the exam cost up front—wanted to streamline her appointment. Our costs are covered.” Lainey clicked her way into Ms. Davis’s file, her brown eyes lighting up. “And now I’m marking her down for illegal dumping of a protected creature.” She waved a hand at an imposing stack of paperwork. “She didn’t fill out the forms.” Lainey tsked. Lainey was the only person I knew whose “tsk” had ominous tones. Like most animal mages, she was fiercely protective of animals.