Petunia

"Petunia, could I see you for a moment?" Ms. Dewmeadow's voice startled Petunia out of her concentration. She shook her head, trying to clear the fuzzy feeling in her eyes. By the time they'd got Soot back to the farm and settled the previous evening, it had been way past her normal bedtime and though she'd done her best, she felt rough this Monday morning.

The CEO was leaning through her office doorway, and had called out across the main office floor. Not unusual in itself, but today it made Petunia uneasy. If she was in trouble, Ms. Dewmeadow would have summoned her more discreetly, but it wasn't great to be being called to the boss's office so early in the week.

Petunia carefully locked her desktop and stood, automatically tugging her dress straight. It was fresh off the hanger this morning, of course, like always, but somehow today it felt rumpled. Her colleagues stared at her as she walked over to Ms. Dewmeadow's door, and she tried not to think too hard about them. The other staff weren't hostile to her – if anything they tended to dote on her, sometimes a bit suffocatingly – but she was beginning to feel an odd sense of distance from them, and this wasn't helping.

Ms. Dewmeadow backed inside her office as Petunia approached, holding the door to let her in and then closing it carefully behind them. She waved at the seat in front of her desk as she walked round to her own chair. "How are you doing today, Petunia?"

"Good, thank you, Ms. Dewmeadow." Petunia folded her skirt neatly into the seat's plush upholstery as she sat and managed to resist the urge to pluck at her waist seam again. There was what looked like a gift hamper standing on the desk, the neck of a wine bottle poking out at the top. It was tall, towering over Petunia and even a bit over Ms. Dewmeadow.

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"I wanted to congratulate you on yesterday's result." Ms. Dewmeadow waved a hand at the hamper. "For you to share with young Phoebe."

Petunia blinked.

Ms. Dewmeadow laughed. "I told you I'd give you a bonus if you beat the CON team, didn't I? That's Augir, right?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"And Phoebe was ahead of both their riders at the end of the race, right?"

"Yeah..."

"I even got to watch her overtake one of them live, I think."

"You, um, you watched the race, Ms. Dewmeadow?" Petunia tried not to shiver. Somehow, she felt slightly guilty, even if it made total sense for the CEO to want to see what the team she sponsored was up to.

"I had it on the TV while I was doing stuff around the house yesterday, yeah. I didn't realise it could be so exciting."

"Oh, um, good."

"Actually, I had a question about something one of the broadcasters said."

Something in the way Ms. Dewmeadow said that made Petunia narrow her eyes. Her boss was slouching as normal in her chair, nothing looked different, but there had been an edge on her voice. Through a throat suddenly tight, Petunia said, "Yes?"

"Phoebe… is it true that she's from the Hyperio family?"

Despite her best efforts, Petunia felt her shoulders tighten, her posture shift. What could she say? She certainly couldn't spill all of Phoebe's secrets, Phoebe had barely even trusted her and Adelie with a vague idea of what had happened when she fell out with her parents. She took a deep breath. "She is, but…"

"I'd like to meet her." Ms. Dewmeadow sat forward, leaning on the desk. "Team sponsors can get passes to the races, right?"