Chapter 1
Some people are scared of the things that they cannot control. Like the flowing of water, the whistling of the wind, the crackling of fire, or the crunching of dirt. However, when you start to notice the little things, nature can often be explained by science. That is what I find so fascinating. Every anomaly, every odd coincidence can be explained by numbers, data, and math.
So when I saw “Violet Ontario” printed across my acceptance email, I wasn’t nearly as shocked as you might expect me to be. I knew that statistically, out of all the applicants, I was bound to be chosen. My grades, fieldwork hours, recommendations, and published observations all placed me well above average. How did I know I would still get chosen? Because I was the best. I am the best. Or at the very least, I had spent the last four years making sure I would be. That was all the reassurance I needed to know that Aviline Tech’s research program wouldn’t dare pass up an opportunity to have me working for them.
I leaned back in my desk chair, the glow from my laptop reflecting against the darkened window beside me. Outside, the sky was wrapped in one of those pale gray mornings where the fog sat low over everything, swallowing the tops of buildings and softening the edges of the world. The ocean was somewhere beyond the mist, close enough that the air drifting through my cracked window carried traces of salt with it. The light from my screen contrasted with the dulled scenery within the dorms.
My room smelled faintly like old paper and dried lavender. Not intentionally. My mother had a habit of hanging bundles of it around the place every time she visited me. She claimed it “made spaces feel calmer.” Personally, I thought it just made everything smell vaguely historical. Still, I had stopped caring about my mother's odd habits years ago.
The email remained open on my laptop.
AVILINE TECH CLIMATE RESEARCH INITIATIVE CONGRATULATIONS, VIOLET ONTARIO
Below the title sat paragraphs of information I had already read three separate times, despite having memorized most of it immediately. Departure schedules. Field assignments. Equipment requirements. Emergency procedures hidden carefully beneath optimistic language about opportunity and innovation.
My eyes drifted lower.
LOCATION: RESEARCH GROUNDS, SOUTHERN MEXICO.
Even reading the name felt humid somehow.
I had spent months studying the sanctuary we would work in before I applied. Satellite images. Ecological reports. Species catalogs. I had never worked with butterflies before, but that didn’t mean I would go in unprepared. I found migration records dating back almost twelve years, just to be safe. The cloud forests surrounding the butterfly sanctuary housed one of the most remarkable butterfly migration systems currently being studied in North America. The entire species had begun migrating along with recurring groups due to how well the program had been run. Now the number of butterflies was skyrocketing, and Aviline Tech wanted data on the progress.
Which was exactly why I applied.
My phone buzzed loudly against my desk, pulling me from my thoughts.
Ella. Of course. I stared at her name for a moment before answering. “Well?!” she asked immediately. No hello. No introduction. Just one word overflowing with enough excitement that could only match Ella’s voice.
“You literally live across the hall, Ella. How lazy are you?” I scoffed as Ella playfully frowned into the camera.
“ I just couldn’t wait that long to walk over and ask you myself. Besides, I may have just woken up,” she laughed sheepishly. I paused, glancing at the clock. 6:38 am. I suppose it was rather early.
“ Well, if you indeed are that curious, the answer is yes,” I replied. There was a sharp noise on the other end of the line that sounded suspiciously like her dropping something.
“Oh my God, Violet, you did not.” I pulled the phone slightly away from my ear.
“You are being dramatic.”
“You got into Aviline.”
“Yes. I just mentioned that”
“The Aviline.”
“There is only one company, Ella.”
“That’s not the point.”
I could practically hear her pacing through the phone now, floorboards creaking beneath rushed footsteps. “You realize how insane this is, right? Do you know how many people applied for this program?”
“Approximately eight thousand and forty, according to last year’s published numbers.”
There was a pause. “You are genuinely exhausting sometimes.”
“You’ve told me that before,” I responded blankly.
“I know Violet, I know!” Despite myself, the corner of my mouth lifted slightly. Ella had always spoken as if emotions were meant to be shared immediately, before they had the chance to settle into reason and methodical thinking. I never understood how she managed it so easily.
“You should be celebrating right now,” she said.
“I am currently sipping coffee right now. I am ‘celebrating’ ”
“That is not celebrating.”
“It is for me.”
“You know what we should do, we should get cake!” Ella’s grin filled my screen, and I couldn’t help smiling with her. Even if the constant excitement was a bit much, nothing could compare to how well Ella knew me.
“That is not needed at 6:30 in the morning, Ella,” I set aside my coffee mug and stood up. “ We still have work to do, remember.”
“Mhm… sure…”
“Ella…”
“Ugh! Fine. But the cake is still up for debate later this afternoon, alright, Violet?”
“As long as you’re happy, Ella.”
“That is literally all I have ever wanted,” she sighed dramatically, collapsing backward onto what looked like a pile of blankets. The camera tilted violently toward the ceiling before stabilizing again. “You know, one day you’re going to wake up and realize life is supposed to be fun.”
“I have fun.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“Color-coding field notes is not fun, Violet.”
“It is when people stop making avoidable mistakes.”
Ella groaned loudly enough that I instinctively pulled the phone away from my ear again. “You are impossible.”
“And yet you continue speaking to me voluntarily.”
“That’s because I’ve grown emotionally attached against my will.” A soft laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Ella immediately pointed accusingly at the screen. “There. That. You laughed.”
“I did not.”
“You literally just did.”
“I exhaled slightly harder than usual.”
“Oh, my God.” I could hear her smacking her forehead with the palms of her hand. “Ok, well, I’m going back to bed. I need at least forty more minutes of sleep before functioning as a human being.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. Goodnight, Violet.”
“It’s already–” Ella hung up on me. The screen went dark, leaving my room quiet again except for the distant hum of rain somewhere outside the dormitory building. I set my phone down carefully beside my laptop and moved toward the window. The fog had thickened while we were talking. It pressed softly against the glass, blurring the outlines of trees and buildings together until the entire campus looked unfinished, as though someone had sketched the world in pencil and forgotten to ink the details.
I liked mornings like this.
My fingers rested lightly against the cold windowpane as my mind drifted back toward the acceptance email still glowing behind me. Southern Mexico. Even now, the words felt distant in a way that was difficult to picture fully. I had spent so much time studying the sanctuary itself that it almost no longer felt real. I knew the average annual rainfall before I knew what the dormitories looked like.
Still, I could not deny the pull the place seemed to have. The sanctuary rested beside one of the largest cloud forests in the region, a protected ecosystem dense enough in some areas to remain almost entirely untouched. Certain butterfly species migrated through it seasonally in numbers so massive they altered the appearance of the trees themselves, coating branches in moving color like petals caught in the wind. I had seen photographs. Thousands of wings layered together in impossible shades of blue, gold, and black.
I returned to my desk, lowering myself back into the chair as I scrolled further through the acceptance documents. Most of it was standard procedural information, exactly the kind of carefully worded liability language expected from a research organization trying not to get sued internationally.
Field safety guidelines. Weather precautions. Wildlife interaction restrictions.
Then my attention caught briefly on another section.
FIELD PARTNER ASSIGNMENT: EZRA VALE
When were we assigned partners? I reread it. Ezra. What a strange name.
