“Not yet,” Mina said. She kept drawing, adding more cracks, which branched in thin lines like veins in a leaf.

The door swung open, and Mother popped her head in. “Mina? Anything?” She hadn’t heard Mina’s answer.

Mina shook her head.

“All right. Remember: when you’ve put in your bonding hours, you still have your chores.”

Mina nodded.

From the other side of the house, Gaton hollered, “Mother? Have you seen the garden shears? I left them in my boots, but they’re not there now.”

Sighing, Mother backed out, shutting the door behind her. “Why would you put scissors inside your boots?” Her footsteps thudded back down the stairs. “And have you taken Arde out in the north field yet?”

Crackle-crackle-crack!

Jumping up, Mina dropped her sketchbook. “Mother, it’s hatching!”

But Mother had already gone downstairs and been swallowed by the calls of the twins, demanding her attention, and of Gaton searching for his shears and now his boots. She didn’t know if he’d ever found his hammer, which he’d been missing at breakfast, but she didn’t care. Mina took a step toward her egg and forgot about everything else.

After two whole years, it was happening! Right now!

Thin cracks ran through the rainbow shell. Awed, she laid her hand on the cracks, her fingertips touching several at once. “Come on,” she whispered. “You can do it.”

Her heart was beating so hard that she thought she’d crack out of her own skin. It’s really happening! My beast is coming! “Hatch!” she cheered it on. She traced the veins—​they radiated from one spot on the shell. She hadn’t drawn them exactly right. Some cracks were longer, and some connected like edges of a puzzle piece.

Crack!

She felt it! The shell bulged under her hand.

Crack! A shard popped out. She saw a claw poke through and then scramble at the hole, widening it. Digging her fingers in, she helped, yanking away bits of shell. More claws poked through. Chunks of shell fell to the floor. And then a scaly yellow arm burst out of the hole.

Claws opened and closed on air.

Mina felt herself smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt. She broke the hole open wider, and then she reached inside and helped her beast climb out.

The beast spilled onto the quilts around the egg, lifted his head, and turned toward Mina. He looked like a small dragon with a serpent-like body and stocky arms and legs. He had brilliant yellow scales. His face was like a lizard crossed with a puppy, and Mina thought it was the most adorable face she’d ever seen.

«Hello, Mina. I am Pixit.»

Mina heard her beast’s voice inside her head like a cascade of bells. Gaton didn’t tell me how beautiful he’d sound. She felt tears prick her eyes. “Hello, Pixit,” she whispered.