Adelie

Adelie lifted another chair off the stack and placed it down by the table. At least with half the chairs placed, she wasn't having to reach quite so high to free each successive chair. Her arms were still sore from helping Ches and Elice load their various computers on and off the team's only trolley. Other teams had half a dozen roadies to do this stuff, but Tenebrae was feeling Stefan's absence. The big man was still on his way back from Rindburg with Petunia, their flight over four hours late.

Tamra shouldered the stable door open and dragged the trolley through, grunting as its wheels scraped black smears along the bottom of the door panel. Already the door needed a new paint job, and they hadn't had the stable key six hours yet. The trolley was piled high with sacks of dried food. The team was here for a long week – Soot's dietary needs in that time were an immense raw weight.

For all the physical effort, Tamra was grinning as they turned to the room. "Look who I found!"

Petunia followed the intern inside, her face slack, cheeks much rosier than usual, hair frizzed. She still had her suitcase with her, her laptop bag slung across her chest. Behind her, looking less rumpled only by virtue of normally being pretty scruffy, was Stefan.

Adelie set the chair down and walked over as Petunia said, "Sorry we're late."

"Don't worry about it." Phoebe pulled herself up from inside the piece of Ches' workstation that she'd been helping to assemble. As she joined Adelie and Petunia, she was smiling. "Not your fault if the flights are bad. You could have gone to the hotel and freshened up first."

"We wanted to get here and help with the setup." Petunia was doing her best, but she sounded almost out of breath, in a way that had nothing to do with any weight of her suitcase. "Were there any problems with registration?"

"Nah, the ICDA people were very understanding." Phoebe laughed. "It's not like I'm an easy person to impersonate."

Adelie didn't mention that in fact it had taken four phone calls and the good fortune to have arrived at the venue right before Lyonne and Lautern's Team Principal, who'd vouched for them. Petunia had accidentally taken the team's registration paperwork with her to Rindburg and the clerks had been unwilling to accept the digital copies she'd hastily scanned on her phone. No need to make the day any more gruelling for her by telling her that, though.

A look went between Phoebe and Petunia, so quickly that Adelie almost missed it. Neither of them liked Stefan much, for reasons Adelie didn't really understand. He brought a lot of knowledge to the team that helped compensate for Adelie's inexperience. Still, they were clearly waiting for the harness tech to be out of earshot for something.

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Trying to hurry Stefan along, Adelie gestured down the room and said, "Soot's doing good, he got his wings all stretched out coming over from the airfield and settled immediately." The dragon was a black lump in the middle of the stable floor, dozing with his snout curled under his wing. "I gave him a quick check-over but I haven't done the checklist."

Stefan nodded. "I will unpack my gear. Let me have ten minutes." He turned and walked over to the stack of packing crates by where Elice was setting up her workstation.

As soon as he was a few feet away, Petunia took a step closer to Phoebe, glancing surreptitiously over her shoulder. Adelie leaned in too. Petunia said, "Okay, do you want the good news first, or the good- I mean bad, I mean the bad, the bad news."

It was hard not to join in Phoebe's laugh at Petunia's stumble. The dragon rider said, "Gimme the good news, Petunia, let's start there."

"The good news, ok." Petunia still sounded a little tight for air. Adelie wondered whether it was just the flight delays or whether Stefan was bad travelling company. "We're solvent. Like, definitely. The sponsors we have now should cover costs for the full season, especially if we keep doing well."

Adelie watched Phoebe blink for a moment, her mouth hanging open. It did sound too good to be true, and Adelie could feel something fizzing up inside her own chest. Something like relief. Finally, Phoebe managed, "That's great, that's great, Petunia, well done. Thank you. Like, solvent, we can keep going, or solvent we can fully pay everyone?"

"We can pay everyone, and recruit the people we still need. Maybe even like a bonus here and there. I'll give you all the details in the team meeting." Petunia didn't quite look at them, but Adelie knew the smile on her face was shy pride. She couldn't imagine how hard the team manager must have worked to make this happen.

Phoebe grinned, started to speak and had to stop again, rubbing a hand over her face and letting out a weak chuckle. Then she said, "Ok, what's the bad news? The farm?"

Petunia nodded. "There's no way we can set up everything Stefan and his team will need there. We couldn't even get a good enough broadband line laid that far out, I tried every provider in the city."

"Damn. Well, we knew that was going to happen." Phoebe shrugged, still grinning, "I don't suppose you've made us rich enough we can afford to set up somewhere else ourselves?"

"No, I'm sorry." Petunia shook her head and looked down again. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. "What should we do?"

Phoebe didn't hesitate. "I'll talk to Angelo, the farm is his anyway, maybe he's got somewhere more in the city we can use instead."

"Angelo?" A chill went down Adelie's spine.

"Angelo Castelloro." Petunia's voice matched the creeping feeling in Adelie's gut.

"Relax, we're doing great, he's very happy with us, it'll be fine." Phoebe laughed, "Come on, let's finish setting everything up so we can have that meeting. I want everyone to know what you've achieved."

"Okay." Petunia brightened. "Marisa says hi, by the way."

Adelie frowned at Petunia, then glanced at Phoebe. Their eyes met in puzzlement. Adelie said, "Marisa..?"

"Yeah, at the farm." Petunia tilted her head slightly. "The ghost?"

Adelie's blood turned to ice. How did Petunia know the ghost had a name? The appointment with the witch from Pure Darkness to try to displace the spirit was still almost four weeks away, and Adelie hadn't said anything about it to the team. Something turned over uncomfortably in her gut, and she had to tense every muscle in her legs not to twitch.

She was about to risk opening her mouth when Phoebe, in a voice that sounded like it was being squeezed through a narrow tube, said, "There's a g-ghost at the f-farm?"