Only after the rescue truck had disappeared into the snowy night did Dr. Aris finally sit down with them in the quiet clinic. He looked exhausted. “You saved them, but you almost killed them by accident,” he said softly. He explained that those weren’t domestic kittens—they were Manuls, or Pallas’s Cats, a rare species native to the highest peaks of the Himalayas and the Siberian steppes.
“They suffer from what we call ‘lowland sickness,'” Aris explained. “Their bodies are built for thin, sterile air. Down here in the valley, the air is too thick, too humid, and full of bacteria their immune systems aren’t built to handle.” Fiona looked up, still processing the shock. “But they were fine at first. Why didn’t they get sick right away?” Aris nodded. “The storm. That arctic blast brought in a massive high-pressure front of freezing, dry air. For those first forty-eight hours, your farm felt just like the Siberian mountains. But as soon as the weather cleared and the humidity rose, they started to drown in our air.” He patted John’s shoulder. “You were the bridge, John. You kept them alive just long enough for the mountain to take them back.”