6. The younglings will be born talkers.

SIX

The younglings will be born talkers.

Wednesday, May 2, 2057

North Lake Education District, Precinct 153

Cauldron City, Nebraska.

Two of the targeted doctors were heart surgeons with a good record of successful heart transplants. According to the theft reports, both had lost copies of expensive medical books on the subject of organ donation. All had been antique titles released closer to the development of transplant techniques, implying that the culprit had wanted to take a closer look at the old way transplants had been done. The books covered most organ types, including those missing from the victims.

Armed with that knowledge, I took photos of the files, emailed them to myself, and locked the papers in my personal safe until the morning .

Within five minutes of finishing, the Black Dragon of New York arrived, and he’d brought enough dinner for everyone, including Lance and Rubella. The hummingbirds swarmed him while he knocked, and it only took a moment to determine that the dragon had somehow earned their love.

I helped him carry in dinner, which had come from the Portuguese place and the Brazilian place next door. “You can come in, too,” I told the hummingbirds.

All save for the nesting females darted in to join us, and after several checks with those outside, Marrinni came in as well.

I foresaw opening and closing the door often to let the little male out to make certain everyone in his family was safe and sound.

Hot on the heels of the Black Dragon of New York came Dr. Erik and Gloria. I intercepted them at the door, gestured to the nesting hummingbirds, and said, “Can you check on their health and their babies, please? I’ll pay for the work, of course.”

“I’ll send the bill to Captain Farthan,” Dr. Erik replied. “They’re station birds, right?”

“Marrinni is the male with all these nests, and he’s a station bird. I think these were living at Jace’s place, but Marrinni has been assigned to me, and he was ordered to keep me company, so I had his family transferred here. They just arrived. They have eggs.”

Gloria giggled, stood on her toes to kiss my cheek, and opened the door to go inside. “I’ll check on everyone in the house while you check on everyone outside of it, Dad. ”

I waited for her to enter before saying, “There are a lot more beings inside the house, so she just gave herself extra work.”

Dr. Erik chuckled at that, and he went to the nests to introduce himself to the females. The instant the word ‘doctor’ left his mouth, the females abandoned their nests, landed on his shoulder, and flung themselves at him.

“They’re desperate to make sure their babies are okay,” I translated.

Hummingbirds had limited ways of expressing themselves, and they flung themselves at people whom they truly adored or might help them in a pinch.

Mothers of any species worried for their babies, and hummingbirds, sentient or otherwise, were no different.

Dr. Erik took long enough to reassure all three mothers and give them gentle pettings before investigating their nests.

“Ah, that’s why the concern.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Mundane hummingbirds only have two eggs at a time at most. This lot has seventeen eggs between the three of them. That’s a lot of work for these little ladies. They’ve made larger than normal nests, but I’m going to do everyone a favor and transfer some of the eggs to the other nests. Call in the other ladies, would you?”

I went to do as told, opened the door, and said, “Hummingbirds, please come here. Dr. Erik is looking at your nests.”

Marrinni zipped over, landed on my shoulder, and pressed close to my throat. I cooed to him, petted his tiny breast, and promised everything would be all right .

It took Dr. Erik a few extra minutes to explain that the three moms had way too many eggs for them to safely care for, and he asked if any of the other mothers would mind taking on some eggs to help make certain all the babies survived.

Not a single bird hesitated, and they all zipped to their nests, landing beside them to give the black unicorn room to work.

“All right, Lovell. The next job is yours. You have refined magic and can levitate things with grace.”

I could, and I could do so with no harm to something even as fragile as a hummingbird egg. “How do you want me to distribute the eggs?”

After a moment of thought and consideration of all the eggs, he assigned eggs to nests, and I took care with moving them, making use of one of the premade rocks I kept in my pocket designed for delicate work.

I could lift the oils of a fingerprint without breaking the precious pattern with my magic. A hummingbird egg was as sturdy as stone compared to that.

It took me twenty minutes, but I moved all the eggs as told, and Dr. Erik assigned each bird a role in caring for the developing babies.

Two babies were at risk, but he spent the time to infuse their fragile shells with his magic until he seemed satisfied everyone would survive.

Those eggs went to the most experienced of Marrinni’s females, an older bird who would only live for a few more years.

I suspected she would live a little longer than expected, as Dr. Erik handled her for a few extra minutes compared to the other birds.

Once he finished his work, he herded us inside, waving to Lance and Rubella, who landed in front of my house as dragons and transformed into their human shapes. As promised, they’d brought potted trees and flowers, although I questioned how they’d carried twenty each. “Take extra care with the temperature buffering, Lance. A few of the eggs are particularly delicate, and the younglings will be born talkers.”

Ah. Dr. Erik must have sensed them within their shells. Having hatchlings talking out of the shell would cause me problems, but they were problems I was happy to have.

“You got it. It’ll take an army to bust into your porch, and your front lawn will be a thing of flowered beauty once we’re done with it. And we’ll preserve as much of your clovers as we can—and convince your other residents to only eat permitted food. Do get yourself offerings for your other residents.”

All right. Rabbit food would be on the agenda. “Can you plant some stuff they can eat?”

Rubella narrowed her eyes, considered my lawn, and nodded before transforming back to her draconic form. “I shall do this. I will also get a patio set for two and the paving stones for that area. You will want to enjoy your little lawn and its many wonders. I will also contact our gardener and get him to add your place to the rotation. He will charge you fairly for the work, and he will care for your other residents.”

“Can we keep it to no more than five hundred a month?” I begged.

“You won’t have to pay any of it,” she assured me. “The bill will go to the station for caring for your sentients. Little Jace will have his bill reduced for the areas of his property housing sentients. You will find your earnings increased due to the loss of your lawn to the needs of the police birds. It will be fine.”

Right. Lance and Rubella had practically adopted Jace when he’d purchased the house. With so many dragons adoring the white unicorn, he was likely the safest being in the entire city.

Before I could even thank her, she took off, and I sighed at the insanity of it all. “Thank you, Lance.”

“You’re welcome. I’m going to safeguard the entire front lawn and your porch, which should be sufficient space for the birds. The protections already set on the house itself will suffice for their needs. They’ll be able to fly around, have treats that come from something other than the feeder, and have numerous safe havens. I’ll install a bird hole for them so they can come and go in the house as they please.”

That would spare my door hinges and my sanity. “How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing. I’m going to bill that mean old opal for the work. It’ll amuse me, and he can’t say no. It’s a necessity. How many birds will be living here?”

“Marrinni has fourteen ladies, and they’re going to be tending to seventeen eggs. I think he has fourteen, judging from the number of nests and the counting I was able to do. There might be one or two extra kicking around that don’t have nests.”

Lance counted nests and nodded his agreement with my assessment. The female hummingbirds, who all settled to protect their new eggs, kept a close eye on the dragon .

“He is going to make sure your nests stay the appropriate temperature, and he’s going to protect the lawn from anything that might hurt you,” I told them.

The hummingbirds relaxed, and they regarded the dragon with adoration.

“They’re so expressive.” Lance cooed at all the females, and he took his time lightly stroking his finger over each delicate head. “Your babies will be as safe as I can make them, okay? You’ll be safe, too. And if you become scared, you’ll be able to go into the house to hide. Your nests will be quite safe, though. And Lovell? Go inside and start making coffee. This is going to take an hour or two. The beans are in canvas sacks with the plants.”

I recognized a dismissal when I heard one, and I went off the porch to discover five bags of beans had become ten, and two of the bags were Robusta instead of Arabica. “Excuse me, sir?”

“The Robusta beans are for pranking people who cross us.”

I eyed the bag with disdain. “You’re going to make me try to make this crap tolerable, aren’t you?”

“That would be the ultimate prank, Lovell. If I give a snob Robusta beans, and they like it, you will be the crowned ruler over all bean roasters.”

“You better send your wife to pick up a few more bags of this garbage—and I am not paying for any Robusta beans.”

“Deal. You roast on my dime, and I will inflict true torment on any who get in my way.”

Dragons. One day, I would learn I could not give them even an inch. They would take a mile and smile about it the entire trip. “Very well. But if you make Paul freak out and trash local property, the damage bill is yours.”

“I promise I won’t prank your partner with the bad beans. Elephants are a force of nature, and I don’t wish to nurse bruises this week.”

Rather than whine he technically wasn’t my partner for this shift rotation, I ferried all the beans onto my porch and took the first bag of Arabica inside to be transformed into delicious brew.

Wednesday, May 2, 2057

North Lake Education District, Precinct 153

Cauldron City, Nebraska.

My kitchen was too small for the seven people packed into it, but Lance and Rubella wanted to stand, the Black Dragon of New York enjoyed propping up walls, the black unicorns refused to stand because they’d been standing all day, and I wouldn’t get to sit until I finished making coffee and roasting beans, which left an extra chair in case I did get a chance to take a load off. Someone would have to clear the chair of papers, but as I had a lot of coffee to make and roasting to do, it could wait. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about setting a table properly.

Everyone had fallen onto the Black Dragon of New York’s culinary offerings with glee.

Once I had given everyone a basic cup of coffee from my brew machine, I said, “Thank you all for coming, I really appreciate it.”

Lance saluted me, Rubella grinned and waved, and everyone else gave the customary replies as they saw fit. Dr. Erik leaned back in his seat, balancing on two legs. “I’m glad that you’re taking the reins of this investigation for a while. Jace was driving himself to the brink of madness.”

“I’m sure he’ll have plenty of chances to go mad while working as a detective. It wasn’t that he had done anything wrong. We just didn’t have all the information needed to actually make sense of everything. And he tried to put things together in a way that makes some sense, and he couldn’t understand the inconsistencies arising because of it. Now that we know there are at least three groups all working at once, things will be easier to untangle.” I bowed my head, wondering if any of us could make sense of it. “Jace doesn’t have the time nor energy to do the background research—and he doesn’t yet understand how much of the background research he’ll have to do. That is not a slight against him. He’s new, and it was more than a little cruel to put him on that case while fresh. Of course, the captain had no idea how complicated the case would become when doing the assignment.”

When I lifted my head, Dr. Erik regarded me through narrowed eyes. “Why are you so fatigued?”

“I stole the captain’s shoes in the middle of the night, brought them all to the station early, and worked a full shift. After I’m done giving everyone copious amounts of good coffee and I finish this first batch of roasting, I’m going to bed.”

“Go in for a half day. I’ll call Nathan myself and make certain he understands he’ll be courting illness with both of you if you try to work a full shift tomorrow. The hummingbirds could use the extra time, too. Actually, I’ll call in sick for Marrinni so he can tend to his females. A paid day of quiet will do him good.” The black unicorn glanced in the direction of my front porch. “I’ll send the foals over to check on them daily. It’s good monitoring practice, and they can give me a call if there’s anything amiss with any of the eggs. The treatments I did should be sufficient to get all the babies into the world alive, though. And the treatments I did was no fault of the mothers. They had way too many eggs each. We might have to look into why they all had so many eggs, though. They normally have two.”

The overabundance of eggs would worry me, and I’d have a talk with Marrinni about his females—and planning which females had eggs each season and transferring eggs to other nests as needed. That way, all of his females could have babies to tend to without any one mother being overwhelmed. “That works, thank you. So, I’m starting my research from scratch, and Dr. Lerrans is running under false credentials. His official records are being stricken, as there’s zero evidence he actually has official education in medical sciences.”

Dr. Erik frowned. “How did he pull that off?”

“That’s what we don’t know yet. I found the inconsistencies with his record and spent a chunk of my day sorting it out with the schools. That’s part of what I wanted to ask you. How could a doctor, who isn’t formally trained at being a doctor, pass himself off as a surgeon?”

I marveled the man was able to shift his weight on my chair while balancing it on two legs to retrieve his phone. After a few moments of fussing with the device, the black unicorn said, “His performance record is tolerable. He’s had a few deaths deemed questionable, but most of his operations have been successful with few complications. Some of these complications I can’t fault him for. Bad luck does happen in our field, and it happens fairly often. At first glance, his performance appears to be acceptable. Where was he educated? He has not been flagged as dangerous—at least not in his practice or with his hospital work. When being honest, his performance is slightly above average.”

“Was he doing difficult work?” I asked, aware how someone could learn off the easy jobs until they faked it through the more challenging work. In some cases, detectives were trained in that fashion.

However, we always partnered the new detectives with experienced detectives to mitigate the damage such training methods often caused.

“I can check, just give me a few minutes. I’ll have to pull up his performance records by year.”

While Dr. Erik did that, I cleaned the coffee maker and prepared it for another round, as I foresaw us all needing a great deal of coffee. “Gloria, while your father does that, what can you tell us about organ donations?”

“There are three primary ways we get organs for donations—four if you don’t mind a harsher reality of life.”

“Hit us with all four, please,” I requested.

Miranda gave her pen a click and prepared to take notes, and she regarded the young black unicorn with interest. “Trauma donations, old age donations, purchased donations, and voluntary donations from family members?”

Gloria clapped. “Well done, Miranda! That’s exactly it. The purchased donations would be the ones where donors are paid, which is that system we were talking about on the phone. Most don’t acknowledge old age donations, because who wants someone’s ancient, used organ?”

Miranda raised her hand. “If I were dying and an ancient, used organ would buy me time, I would accept such an organ with a smile and eternal gratitude. I don’t find anything questionable about it, not even if the donor indicated they were old, dying, and would like a little help dying in the process of donating an organ.”

“And that would be the harsher reality of life portion of this discussion.”

I grinned at Miranda. “I’m telling the captain you’re clever. I’m sure he’ll react accordingly.”

“You mean by flipping his lid because I don’t have a high school diploma?”

“The chaos will be glorious. He’s going to be so angry that someone as smart as you lacks a diploma. That means you’ll be getting your diploma sooner than later so you can pursue higher education faster.”

Gloria regarded my cadet with the sort of expression warning me of trouble. “If you have any inclination to learn the medical arts, we have a program.”

Well, I could save Miranda from such a fate, and I grinned before saying, “I recommend getting your certification to be a paramedic. I’m two or three courses away from being able to test.”

Dr. Erik glared at me over the screen of his phone. “Not with me you haven’t!”

“I’ve taken most of my courses online, and there’s an education center in Precinct 101 I go to for the hands on work.”

“You will repeat your hands on work with me, Detective Lovell!”

I laughed over having nettled the black unicorn. “If you give me a good discount, I don’t mind repeating the courses with Miranda. I’m not confident in my abilities. I took it online because I’m slow learning medical stuff. It let me repeat the courses as many times as needed to actually understand it.” I winced at my admission. “I wanted to learn how to do it without relying on magicker tricks. It turns out I have zero actual aptitude.”

“I’ll get you both a full ride through the program, and I’ll make sure you’re registered for the magicker version of our course as well,” he promised. “How good are you at CPR?”

I sighed, as I already had needed to put my CPR usage to the test several times in recent months. “That’s one thing I’m good at. All of my patients survived until reaching the hospital, but I don’t know what happened to them after arrival.”

Gloria smiled, got up, and gave me a hug. “That’s the most we would ever, ever ask of someone trying to help someone else. You made a difference. That you got them all to the hospital is great. Miranda, we’re going to have to work on his confidence. The gentle souls, like him, are always afraid of not doing enough.”

“I’m not sure how I can help, but I’ll do my best.”

“Just remind him doing something is always better than doing nothing. Even if that something is checking and determining there is nothing that can be done. Sometimes, death beats us before we have a chance to do anything at all. But even checking is something.” Gloria patted my back and returned to her seat. “So, Miranda. We will peel the secrets out of you, so you may as well tell us now. What do you shapeshift into? We want to make certain we are able to receive you if you have to come to the hospital.”

“I shift into a marten.”

“Weasel family,” Dr. Erik commented, and he tapped at his screen. “American? Pine? Beech?”

“Sable.”

“Keep her,” Gloria instructed. “A magicker and a shapeshifter will often produce shapeshifting magickers, and sable martens are adorable. We could have entire herds of them running around Cauldron City.”

To spare myself from the insanity, I checked on my coffee roaster. My rotary roaster, which had cost me several thousand dollars, could handle five pounds at a time, and I had precision temperature controls. With a mixture of magic and technology, I had preheated the roaster to just over two hundred degrees for a lighter roast.

I would do a batch of coffee at every degree range between two hundred and two twenty, with the darkest of the roasts being removed and rapidly cooled with magic in the cooler I’d built from scratch.

My magic would provide cool air flow over the beans, the rotary discs would move the beans so the air could get around every bean, and I would be left with the perfect roast, free of any charring or burnt flavoring.

If I wanted burnt coffee, I would go to a commercial coffee shop.

I estimated I had less than thirty seconds before the first batch was done just right. While I monitored with my magic, I turned on the second device, brushed my fingertips to the runes I’d etched into the machine itself, and waited for the moment I needed to pull out the drum and dump it into the cooler.

Everyone in my kitchen was wise enough to get out of my way while I placed the steaming beans into the rotating pan that would render perfect beans momentarily.

While my magic did its important work, I turned on my faucet as hot it would go, waited for a few moments, and went about rinsing out the drum. Once it cooled enough to safely add soap, I washed out all the leftover oils and made certain it was fully sterilized, using more magic to purge the drum of any leftover essence of coffee.

“He’s working magic, isn’t he?” Miranda asked in a low tone.

“He is,” the Black Dragon of New York confirmed. “It’s all minor workings for the most part, but he’s using magic to confirm the precise moment his beans need to come out of the roaster, more magic to cool the beans so they stop cooking immediately, and even more magic to make certain the oils from the previous batch are gone. I don’t think he’s done anything beyond confirm the temperature for his beans and use magic to determine the precise moment his roasting work is done. It’s rather fascinating to watch, really.”

“I’m doing a flight of beans,” I informed them, going to work to scoop out the next five pounds of beans that would go into the drum, which I then put into the rotary machine to do the turning work for me. I set the machine’s temperature to one degree higher than I had before, inserted the drum without beans, and waited. “I’m doing one temperature increments for the same duration on this flight so you can taste the difference temperature makes. I’ll do the same temperature but ten seconds longer per roast on the next flight so you can taste the difference time makes. I’ll keep doing this until I run out of beans. Once I run out of the good beans, I’ll see if I can do anything to salvage those awful Robusta beans I have.”

As the dragons had bought fifty pound bags of beans instead of ten pound bags, I would be rolling around in beans and roasting for most of the week. The two troublemakers grinned at me.

“You should have specified the size of the bags before sending dragons out to play fetch,” Lance informed me.

“While you are not wrong, I’m only giving every household one pound of each batch. Gloria, you get to pick your favorite of the roasts we test, and I’ll give you a ten pound bag of that. We’ll test out of that black dragon’s beans.”

The Black Dragon of New York laughed at me. “I’m content with taking a slightly smaller share of beans while we taste test your coffee.”

Miranda eyed me. “You’re not keeping any for yourself?”

I pointed at the entire fifty pound bag I’d reserved for my use. “That is mine, and I’m not sharing it with anyone except you.”

The cadet giggled. “I would have thought you’d keep some of your own flight.”

“I’ve done this numerous times. It’s how I learned to make coffee. I know exactly what roast I like best, down to the second, and I will make that as my last roast for the night. I’ll even let these freeloaders try it.”

“Looks like we’re going to be staying here all night,” Dr. Erik informed his daughter. “Call your mother and tell her I’m going to need my laptop, please. I must earn us good coffee.”

“Please tell your mother that I’ll make her a five pound bag of her preferred type of coffee for dealing with me keeping Dr. Erik out late tonight,” I requested.

“That’s how you get my mother over here, and she’ll dote all over those hummingbirds.”

“She can dote on them if she wants, and if she wants to continue working with the fragile eggs, they could use her special brand of love,” Dr. Erik replied. “Just warn her about them before she gets here. I don’t want to hear her crying over the sorry state of those eggs.”

“You got it, Dad.” Gloria got up and headed for my porch. “Anything you want me to ask her to bring, Lovell?”

“We might need some more coffee cream and sugar,” I admitted.

“I’ll have her pick up both.”

“The laptop will let me do better research on Dr. Lerrans,” Dr. Erik confessed, and he waved his phone at me. “This is shit for that sort of detailed work, and as you’re bribing me with coffee, I want to make certain I get the best information for you as possible. I’m on call for emergencies tomorrow, and I’m tenth on the list, so unless we have another poisoning incident, I should be resting. That makes now an ideal time to get buzzed on coffee and do this sort of research work. I can also answer your questions while doing my share.”

“I appreciate that,” I replied, marveling over how the man had time to even breathe with how busy he tended to be. “Can my first question be about Jace’s hospital assignment?”

“Sure. ”

“Will he be all right?”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s being eaten alive with his general guilt over not being a proper unicorn. He loves being a cop, and frankly, he’d be a terrible doctor. But that doesn’t change the fact he lives to serve—and he feels he should be serving the people in the way that makes the most difference right now. And that’s in the ER, helping toxin patients. Having a cop in the hospitals will help with events, questioning as needed, and a million and one other things police are useful for. But having him in our ER means more people survive the toxin while we figure out an antidote for this damned thing. We’re making progress, but we aren’t making progress fast enough. And bless his sweet little pony heart, he’s starting to figure out how to communicate what he’s doing to the other colors. As soon as he figures out how to tell me what to do, we’ll be set. I can teach the other blacks, and we’ll conquer this thing. But for right now? He’s our best chance for the truly touchy patients. Something about his brand of magic just works against this toxin.”

“Do you think someone is going to target him with the toxin?” I asked, grimacing at the thought of someone poisoning the white unicorn.

“I think it’s probable, yes. That’s part of why I want to keep him near the hospitals. If someone does stick a dart in his shaggy pony rump, we’ll be there to get him through it. But yes, that is something that worries me. He’s disrupted a lot of plans. And we don’t know anything about our target beyond their complete lack of regard for human life.”

“Mercy is trying to frame the drug dealers in the necropolis for his crimes. But the drug dealers are working to establish the links to Mercy,” Miranda announced. “That’s why it’s so messy. It’s because the drug dealers want people to associate the toxin with Mercy. Mercy created it, but Mercy wants to frame the drug dealers.”

Every dragon in the room growled, and I cleared my throat until all three of them settled. “Dr. Erik, is it possible to create a vaccination for toxins?”

The black unicorn regarded me with a raised brow. “Yes and no. For example, there are experimental vaccines in the works for plants like poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak. These plants cause significant discomfort to many species, so preventative measures would be wise and free up doctor hours for other patients. However, it’s difficult getting sentient test subjects, and research using mice can only go so far. Nobody wants to go through three weeks of suffering for the initial study to then have to go through even more suffering to find out if the vaccines worked. Then there is the issue of side effects. Vaccination work is tricky on a good day. Antidotes are how most deal with poisons, but there are limited time windows in which antidotes can be used. Distribution of the antidote, if we can develop one, will be our worst challenge. However, the dead weight case has done a lot of good in some cases.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, frowning at the thought of there being any good from the murders of so many people.

“It has reminded people of the need for organ donors. Your conversation with my daughter was one of those reminders. We could take the wind out of this bastard’s sails just from improving our ability to acquire organs. With so many organs capable of being transferred with more organs being made suitable for living donations, we can accomplish his goals in a legal and ethical fashion. We still need to make certain this bastard and his little group falls, but the world will benefit from their existence. While it means he will leave a legacy, it’s a legacy that improves life and liberty for all.”

I understood the life portion of it, but liberty? I supposed having the freedom to live counted. Rather than ask, and possibly endure a lengthy lecture, I asked, “Has your general opinion on Dr. Lerrans changed?”

“He is an irredeemable asshole that deserves a fate worse than death. I can’t tell if he’s clever or simply succeeding because he was good at being secretive. And the fact we have multiple groups exposing his secrets tells me a few things. He has angered the wrong people. I think we need to look into who he has angered in other organizations and get their help. The enemy of our enemy might be our friend if we play our cards right. And right now? They’re being our friend. They’re exposing his crimes. The usage of this toxin bothers me, however. Who is truly behind the drug?”

“Mercy,” Miranda replied, and her tone allowed no argument. “None of the groups wants this drug on the market. The drug kills. It offers no highs, it has no addictive property. All it does is kill their buyers. That is not good for their profits. Mercy wants the drug users and dealers gone. I bet he hates them as much as he hates sexual predators. Don’t ask me why, though. I don’t know. I just know it’s Mercy versus everyone else. And everyone else is behind the appearance of the bodies that Mercy has been making. Of course, don’t look at me about the other groups. One wants me dead. One will take me dead or alive. The last one that I know of wants me alive. And while being wanted alive is a good thing, I’d just rather duck and get behind cover and wait for them to forget about me. I’ve decided I want to be a cop.”

“Well, Captain Farthan put you with the best detective for giving you the best chances of succeeding at that,” Dr. Erik replied. “Also, as a reminder to the police officer in the room and the cadet, fraternization is allowed in Cauldron City, and should you decide to fraternize, you do need to tell Captain Farthan. Ideally, both officers indulging in fraternization will see me in my office for appropriate forms of birth control or prenatal vitamins as needed.”

Miranda squeaked. I snorted, shook my head, and checked on the roaster, which had heated to the appropriate temperature. I poured the beans in, started the machine, and set the timer. “Why are we getting that lecture?”

“I’m not blind, nor am I stupid. You’re attracted to intelligent, capable women. She is attracted to intelligent, capable men who can use magic. While there are many intelligent and capable men at your station, you use magic, you’re incapable of treating her poorly, and you are one of the few men who made it through the academy without having to be sent back to preschool for viewing women as inferior beings.”

I raised a brow at that. “That’s hardly reason to go over the fraternization rules, Dr. Erik.”

Everyone in the room, including Miranda, stared at me as though I’d just said the dumbest damned thing in my entire life.

I sighed.

“Lovell, we need to work on that,” the black unicorn informed me.

“She’s my partner, Dr. Erik.”

“She can be your partner and your partner. I approve. ”

“I’ll approve, too, although I’ll be honest when I say I’m approving solely to irritate Nathan,” the Black Dragon of New York stated, and he smirked at me.

“Thanks, Grant,” I muttered.

“Aw, one of the babies actually knows my name, Erik.”

“And he was bold enough to actually use it. I’m impressed.” The black unicorn joined the menace from New York in smirking at me. “But seriously, should you two decide to pursue a nonprofessional relationship, come visit me in my office. I’ve found that police officers prefer to plan pregnancies to minimize disruptions to everyone’s career. Should you visit my office without a fuss, I’ll even have some of the colts and fillies I’ve got running around offer babysitting services so you can work without losing half of your paycheck to daycare.”

“You want to accept that offer,” Miranda informed me. “I know a daycare operator who watches six kids and earns half a million a year.”

I cringed at the thought of having to pay that sort of bill, which was well more than what I made in a year per child. “I don’t earn that much. I couldn’t pay that even if I wanted to!”

“That’s why you should accept that offer without complaint. That way, he eats the losses for the daycare bill, and should we decide to pursue a nonprofessional relationship, a significant expense is covered. Also, you should make certain that his offer covers until any and all children are of legal age to be left home alone.”

“That level of street smarts is worthy of blurted proposals and rushed weddings,” Dr. Erik informed me.

I recognized when I couldn’t win. “I’m not sure why everyone here is ganging up on me, but okay. Thank you for the reminder of the precinct’s lax fraternization rules, Dr. Erik.”

Everyone took a turn laughing at me, Miranda included. As I wanted her comfortable, I wouldn’t complain, although I had some serious questions about what the black unicorn thought he was doing. More importantly, I had questions regarding his reasons why he was pressuring us.

I doubted I would ever understand the denizens of Cauldron City.