I lay on the sloping perch and watched Minna tap away at her tablet. The sound from the screen droned on about the weather forecasts, but it was just boring background noise. The bank had been just as uneventful as the rest of the buildings we had checked, and had left me with nothing else to do but think about what Trenil and Minna had said.

Which I kept doing even when we got back to the hotel room, and all through dinner, and even after, up until now.

I closed my eyes, and spent a long, long moment hoping as hard as I could that Trenil was right.

I opened my eyes.

I spread my wings and glided down to land on Minna's leg.

I looked up at her.

"Hi, Minna... there are some things I need to tell you."

I waited with a horrible sense of nervousness and trepidation as Minna looked down at me. I had done it. There was no going back now - however Minna was going to react, however our relationship was about to change, for better or worse... there was nothing I could do to stop it. I felt my stomach tangle up in knots and desperately hoped that my friend was not about to hate me.

There was a brief moment of incomprehension on her face... and I felt the tension inside me vanish as Minna's confusion faded away to joy. She looked down and slowly set the tablet down on the table, and I heard her whisper quietly as she did. "I knew it." She looked back up at me with a growing smile. "Hello, Nate."

I blinked up at her. That... had not been the reaction I had been expecting. "Um. Aren't you surprised I can talk? That I'm smart?"

She smiled a little more and shook her head. "No. Well. Maybe a little, that you can use actual words. But..." She looked over her shoulder and motioned towards where my harness was hanging from the hook on the wall. "I was pretty sure that you were smarter than you were letting on, even if I didn't know just how much of our language you could understand, or that you could actually talk. There have been a few points where you seemed to react to things I had said in ways that didn't make sense. Words you responded to that you shouldn't have understood, ways you reacted that didn't fit what I knew of your instincts and training. And points where it felt like you had communicated with me. A few dreams I had - like the idea for your name, which just so happened to be a gift from Trenil a few days later as if he had seen the same dream too, a few memories that didn't quite seem like they were mine. The image of an unfamiliar shuttle's manual just popping into my head. How did you get that, by the way?"

I sighed a little. This was not what I had expected at all. All those months of worrying... and Minna had already figured it out on her own. She had known what I really was this entire time.

And it hadn't bothered my friend at all.

"Trenil looked it up and showed it to Ivy. She passed it to me, and I passed it to you."

"Ahh. So Trenil knows too. I've been trying to figure out if the rest of the bond handlers actually knew, or if it was being kept a secret from them too."

I looked back at her blankly. "When did you figure it out? That I wasn't just an animal?"

She frowned a little and looked back at her tablet for a moment before she answered thoughtfully. "I think it was really back when we first hunted down that sicora. There were little clues before that, but I didn't start putting anything together until then. You were just so worked up and angry about the sicora, and almost seemed desperate to go fight it... and then you suddenly calmed down when one of the guards called out that it was dead. From several houses away, in the middle of the night."

Minna smiled a little more and looked back at me. "There was no way you could have seen that it had died from where we were. The only explanation I could come up with was that you had somehow understood what he had said, even though there shouldn't have been any way you could have been trained to react to those words. At least not by then; I hadn't taught you them." She motioned aimlessly with her hand. "After that I paid more attention and noticed other little things that didn't quite fit or add up. How quickly you picked up the training, some little reactions you had when you didn't seem to think you were being watched."

"I assumed you were scared to let me know for some reason, and I was worried about frightening you - at first because you had only just come back, and I was worried you might leave again if I did something that upset you too badly, and later because I had just gotten used to it. I wasn't sure why you were keeping it a secret or how much you could actually understand or communicate, but I assumed you had a good reason for it, and would tell me when and if you were ever ready to. I thought about bringing it up to Trenil and the other bond handlers, but I was pretty sure they would just think I was an overexcited kid imagining things that weren't there. So I decided to wait for a bit and see if you did anything like... well, this."

My ear tufts dropped in chagrin. All that time of careful pretending... all those moments of worrying what she would think of me... and she had known all along.

She frowned when she saw my ears fall. "If it helps, it wasn't just you. I mentioned some things while Ivy was around and saw her react to it. Like saying I had to step out for a minute to do something but that I would turn the heat lamp on when I got back, then find that she had already moved underneath the lamp while I was gone. Little things like that."

Well. There was that, at least. It hadn't been just my fault.

"If it's okay to ask... why did you hide it from me?" I looked up in time to see a bit of fear hidden somewhere deep in Minna's eyes, but it vanished almost as quickly as I had seen it.

I tilted my head at that. What was she afraid of? "The other fire lizards have a rule about not talking to anyone until we trust them. They're worried about what you might do to them if you know we're intelligent. I promised I would wait three months before saying anything."

Minna's frown grew a little. "You've been with me for longer than three months."

I grimaced. "Yeah..."

She watched me patiently, then spoke gently. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

I sighed and looked at her hand. At the scars there. "I was scared you would be mad at me if you knew I was smart. All the stuff I did to you, back when you were just trying to take care of and help me. Trying to apologize. Especially with how much it upended your life." I thought back over all those early memories of her, and how viciously I had treated her. How happy I had been to hurt this person who had now become my dearest friend. And of her words earlier, back in the market. "You didn't deserve any of that. I'm sorry."

I gathered up all the guilt and worry I had felt and sent that to her through the mindlink. She blinked and leaned back a little in surprise, then looked down to stare at me.

I shut my eyes and desperately hoped she wouldn't hate me for it all.

She was quiet for a long moment... then I felt her hands close around me and lift me from her leg. Minna pulled me to her chest and held me against her, and her hand began to stroke slowly down my back.

I felt a deep ache suddenly break open inside me, and I felt tears of relief start to form in my closed eyes. All the worry that had built up these past months, all the guilt I had felt at what I had done, all the regret that had been eating away at me... it all fell away as Minna's hand moved over my scales.

My friend forgave me.

"I was so sure... I thought that you were still angry at me. That what I had done was why you were trying to keep it a secret that you were smart. That you were still mad, and still scared." She went quiet for a moment as her hand pet down my back. "You had every right to be back then; I am not mad at you for it. You still do. I know the dog meant a lot to you. I am very, very sorry for what happened. For what I did to you."

I opened my eyes and looked up at her. I recognized the same worry on her face that I had been feeling - the fear that secretly, deep down, somebody I loved might actually hate me.

I stretched my neck up and nudged my head against her chin. "I... understand. You were protecting Lyzel. I'm not... I don't like what happened, and if I could change things so that hadn't happened, I would, but..." I tried to think of the words to say. I pulled my neck back and looked up at her, meeting her eyes. "I am very glad that you are my friend now."

Minna closed her eyes and nodded slowly. I saw tears starting to form in them, and her hand went still as she sniffled softly.

I rested my head against her chest and began to thrum gently.

Her hand began stroking over me after a few moments. Her voice sounded a little unsteady, but I could hear it was under control. "Will you tell me about her? Susie? I would like to know more about her."

I smiled and nodded up at my friend. "Of course. I think you would have liked each other..."

I heard the soft beep from Minna's tablet, the tone signifying she had started the dictation feature. "Weekly report." Minna's voice faltered, and she stopped talking. Her hand continued to stroke slowly along my back, but I felt it tremble slightly. Our conversation had upset her.

No. That wasn't quite right. She wasn't on the verge of tears because she was upset. She was overwhelmed, but not from sadness or anger.

I thrummed in her lap and nudged my head against the hand at my back.

Minna swallowed above me and began to speak... and I heard the happiness in her voice. The relief.

The love.

"Nate has forgiven me."

I heard another tap on the tablet, followed by the soft beep indicating the recording had stopped... then she pulled me up in her hands and cradled me closely to her. I stretched my wings out against her chest and curled my tail around her arm, just as I had done hundreds of times before, and thrummed happily in the warmth of her hug.