The bird had his eyes closed and was breathing slowly, deliberately, through his mouth, trying to calm himself.

“Honestly? I can’t let you out. Even if I wanted to, I don’t have the authority.” I shrugged, lowering my tone to a soothing pitch. “But I can make this much easier for you. We can open those windows, and even the door.” I pointed at the top of the staircase. “In the morning, you’ll see sunlight from the kitchen. That’d be better, right? Might just make this bearable?”

“Open the door,” he demanded, the dual tones of his voice almost united in both pitch and intensity. Feathers sprouted from his arms, and one fluttered to the floor. He flinched and his left arm jerked. Startled, I jumped back and smacked my bad elbow on Marc’s arm. He steadied me with one hand, and I stepped forward again. The thunderbird hadn’t noticed. His focus was riveted on the closed door, as if he were willing it to open on its own. “Open it,” he repeated.

“Give me your name.”

“Open the window.” He forced his gaze from the door and met mine briefly, before his head jerked toward the closed windows and his hair disappeared beneath a crown of shorter, paler brown feathers.

“Your name.”

He groaned, and his legs began to shake against the concrete floor, his knobby knees knocking together over and over. “Kai.”

“Kai what?” I stepped closer to the bars, thrilled by my progress and fascinated by his reaction.

“We don’t have last names. We aren’t human.” He spat the last word as if it were an insult, as if it burned his tongue, in spite of the sweat now dripping steadily from his head feathers.

“Get the window.” I turned to Marc, but he was already halfway across the basement. He flipped the latch on the first pane and tilted the glass forward.

Cold, dry air swirled into the room, almost visible in the damp warmth of the basement. Kai exhaled deeply. His crown feathers receded into his skull and he opened his eyes. He wasn’t all better. It would take more than a fresh breeze for that. But he could cope now.

“Good. Now, let’s get acquainted.” Metal scraped concrete at my back, and I sank into the folding metal chair Marc had set behind me. “Where do you live? Where is your flock?”

“It’s a Flight,” he spat. “And you couldn’t get there if you wanted to. But you don’t want to. Trust me.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’d shred you in about two seconds.”

“Like your friend shredded ours? In the field just past the tree line?”

Kai cocked his head again and raised one brow. “Something like that.”

“Why can’t I get to your home?”

“Because you can’t fly.”

“What does that mean?” Marc set a second chair beside mine. “You live in a tree? ’Cause we can climb.”

But Kai only set his injured arm in his lap and pressed his lips firmly together. He was done talking about his home.