Serpentine Squiggles

Somewhere above, as if waiting, the loversuns still shone.

Below that⁠ ⁠—⁠ past all the ash, dust and smoke⁠ ⁠—⁠ the two suns’ light became a vague hint, offering the lake’s surface to the shadows. And they accepted, waving their shadow tongues, swishing their shadow tails, and enveloping.

Trudging over the crumbly shell of this molten glass lake, you’d tire of the lack of light or company in your first breath cycle. The Berwem was vast and empty; there was only me and⁠ ⁠—⁠ somewhere I couldn’t see⁠ ⁠—⁠ my companion, Hinte.

Without dropping my prize, I hugged my wings a little closer to myself, and pouted. I had lost her again… but it was the lake’s fault, not mine.

I sighed, my tongue flicking out in starless habit, and, traitor it was, brushing the vomer on the roof of my mouth. I scented despite myself.

The lake could have smelled worse. Its ash just tasted… ashy, but its dust tasted like aluminum and copper, with little hints of electrum. If that were all, well, I think anyone could stand to scent precious metals all evening, if maybe without the mouthful of ash and dust it came with. Pervading them both, though, was a vog that choked and stung and reeked of smoke and sulfur like a horribly burnt dish of festering eggs.

The image gave me a little giggle. Maybe some frilly god had prepared the lake Berwem as a little bowl walled in by cliffs, turning up the heat with volcanic vents, adding in some weird crabs and weirder stones, and then sprinkling in so much ash and metal, all as some big joke.

The silliness lifted my thoughts off the vog that slithered down my panting throat, and off the wriggling, constricting shadows.

So I started forward like that, giggling, every step of my four night‍-​blue legs cracking the lake surface. It opened glowing breaks in the lake’s gray skin, like slit eyes that stared. I peered back at them.

Writhing under the skin, molten glass split the ground into brittle plates. Those plates rattled as they ground against each other, and the burning glass underneath hissed as the air vitrified it. Those rattles and hisses, taken together with the scaly plates and cracked eye slits, only completed the image.

I could imagine the lake as a meal all I wanted, but it would never stop feeling like it had swallowed me instead.

After that thought, I wasn’t laughing; the giggly tongue‍-​clicking stumbled in my throat and turned into a choked cough that bit into me, and⁠ ⁠—⁠ determined to drag up a yelp or a groan with it⁠ ⁠—⁠ stretched and overstayed itself for ten heartbeats, long after I’d gotten tired of it.

Coughing filled the air, and even when it waned it left my breaths wheezing. Its only accompaniment was the lake’s dim rumbling. The sound⁠ ⁠—⁠ the emptiness of it⁠ ⁠—⁠ stilled me. Fangs wet, I looked left and right, forward and backward, listlessly up and then finally down at my scaled blue feet.

I’d lost Hinte again, and now I was alone in the lake.

It wasn’t my fault. I’d tasted an opportunity scuttling along unawares and leapt for it. But we shouldn’t have lost each other so quickly.

Last time⁠ ⁠—⁠ every other time⁠ ⁠—⁠ she’d only gone as far as the edge of my sight, and it was a matter of leaping over to her. Now, I couldn’t see or hear her⁠ ⁠—⁠ I could smell her, but that was awash in everything else, nothing but a tinge. Hinte had been more than enveloped, she’d been swallowed, just like me.

My fangs dewed with a little bit more… saliva. It wasn’t sour, and it was only a few drops. They dripped onto my muzzle and slid and fell to the ground by my black‍-​covered feet. I looked up.

It’d be a bit easier to forgive the friend‍-​swallowing shadows if they hadn’t come from this stinking, sulfuric, vog‍-​stuffed air, or if they were at least thin enough to see farther than six strides ahead in.

I was glaring at the shadows now, but stopped myself with a cringe. Hinte would see me before I saw her. Would she catch me glaring and think I hated sifting? I couldn’t seem unappreciative.

From behind, a smell of boiled meat reached me, reminded me, and I squeezed the glasscrab held between my night‍-​blue wings⁠ ⁠—⁠ my prize. The dead gray form swung over my back, then bounced and fell into a bag opposite my lunch. I had gained something from getting lost, at least.

Glasscrabs. They were some weird lake creature said to have alchemical blood⁠ ⁠—⁠ disease‍-​purifying alchemical blood. And I would know, with how many long rings I’d lost poring over old, smelly scrolls about them, expecting Hinte to be impressed.

What the scrolls hadn’t mentioned was how flighty and stinky they were. Or how silly… though maybe that was just the one I’d found. Dumbly, it had scuttled right by me and Hinte as if we didn’t exist. So I’d pounced on it. A long‍-​sought alchemy ingredient walking right past? A chance to do something besides walk and ask unanswered questions? It should have been worth it. Instead, I’d lost Hinte again.

All four of my feet were digging into the ground, biting into it, as if the clinging would keep me from sliding swallowed down into the lake’s fiery maw⁠ ⁠—⁠ even though they would crack it open instead. Breathe, Kinri. The breath came clearly, but that was easier than relaxing my feet.

Confused, I breathed again, and the breath came just as clearly, as though the coughs had crawled further down my throat, into my breast, where they were just a faint wheezing. Maybe they’d rush back out any moment⁠ ⁠—⁠ but for now? They were gone.

I didn’t smile, but I spat out some dust. It left as a wet and cloudy spray, turning my mouth into a little volcano. I did it a few more times, making a little swirl in the air around me. You had heard of the legendary heroes that could breathe fire, but I could breathe dust. Tremble before me!

At that, I did smile a little. I didn’t dare laugh again, though. But I smiled. Because you had to stare at the silly side of things, keep everything positive. If I stopped, then the dewing would start.

Suddenly, a crack beneath me! I jumped. Dustone was shattering in my feet, and a storm of glowing cracks was ripping around me. I didn’t like how the ground was sinking.

I hadn’t been walking. I’d stilled on the spot, alone, swallowed up just like my companion, and laughing and coughing in that aloneness.

I breathed again, through my mouth, letting my tongue focus on just that haughty electrum smell. Releasing the shattered dustone in my feet, I stepped forward. Hinte hadn’t been swallowed by the vog and I wouldn’t be either. I just needed to find her. She knew the Berwem like a favorite scroll.

---

Below, furious molten glass burned beneath a façade of hardened dust and glaze. The heat of the lake’s blood rose and animated the air, driving it upward. I found it curious, as that same heat wore me down, draining my energy with every step I took toward… with every aimless step forward. No sign of Hinte.

As the lake clouds rose, they became a gray‍-​black ceiling above me. Looking up at that blackness, sunslight still filtered down in vague blotches, keeping their promise to the coiling shadows of the lake. At the sight, the white‍-​speckled frills on either side of my neck folded and sagged; I missed the suns.

My scaled feet, still slick with a black slime, scraped the ground as I walked on, leaving short lines above my footprints. More dust worked into my nails and between my toes. Despite the slime, I felt all of it.

I’d resigned myself to the sensation, but it still needled me. And there was nothing to distract from it. Every single step forward pressed more and more dust and glass bits into my soles! I shuddered. If only I could shed on command, and just my forelegs…

Maybe walking with bare forefeet wasn’t the absolute worst part of sifting, but the feeling crawled over me, always worming its way into my awareness. A pair of sandals, at least, spared my hindfeet.

Breathing, I wrenched my focus to other things. Like the drifting smell of my lunch, caught by an idle flick of my tongue. So faint, yet I savored the briny, acrid aroma of trout charred almost black⁠ ⁠—⁠ my favorite. Saliva moistened my mouth, and the smell twisted the waxing hunger in my belly into a mean knot.

I hadn’t eaten today, and the toil of sifting hatched an appetite I might go days before working up otherwise. My first canteen had already emptied itself, and we still hadn’t taken a break. And now, I could take one, and I needed to find Hinte instead.

“Hinte!” I called, as loud as I could, loud enough I felt a burning return to my throat.

She hadn’t wanted to bring me with her to the lake at all. But, after all my incessant prodding and pleading⁠ ⁠—⁠ which went nowhere⁠ ⁠—⁠ and after her rejections saying I would only slow her down or I would injure myself, I still kept asking to join her. I didn’t have anyone else.

“Hinte!” I called, lower, rubbing my throat with a wing.

After that, the cycles had danced by, and the moons had wound in their paths; in a word, the gray season approached, promising ash clouds and vog. I faltered then. The gray season would have definitely grounded her trips into the cliffs, and grounded any chance of mine to learn what she did there.

“Hinte?” My voice was barely above conversational, and that was the best I could do, now.

But the weather had done neither, because then she relented all asudden, leaving me slack‍-​tongued and wondering what changed. “Two days,” was what she told me, “and I will not wait.” With two days to prepare, I brought along a lunch, some light‍-​shielding goggles and my excitement, some thrill of adventure.

“Hinte,” I said, and it could have been called a whisper.

Now, after an evening spent in this stinking lake, I only had the lunch.

I opened my mouth to call again, and my voice didn’t cooperate. Instead, a cough. I tried covering my mouth, I tried breathing slower, I tried drinking more water from my limited supply. They all helped some, but my throat still hurt.

Now silent and slowing to a stop, I spread my wings and waved them around, bouncing a little and looking even sillier than it sounded. The ground buckled and cracked beneath me, but I prayed the stars it would hold… I was only bouncing a little bit. After a while of this, it was embarrassment and not tiredness that stopped me.

I was walking forward again with a sigh that sounded more like a growl. As I marched, on, I took pants, breathed calm, and tried focusing on other things. Like the little cracks that followed me everywhere. The ground was flexing and cracking all over, more than it had before I’d hopped around. I stopped again, frowning.

Then molten glass spurted up! Huge waves of heat struck me! My legs tensed, and my wings bristled. At that sudden flash of molten glass my scaly frills snapped open and covered my eyes. I still saw burning afterimages, but without my goggles there was nothing to be done.

The spurts caught me surprised every time, though they’d never touched me; but the heat waves exploding from the cracks singed my face. I hissed, and brought a wing to my head. That only made it worse, and I flinched back.

Only the top of my head was unsinged, as it was covered by a black headband. It always was.

The searing light waned, receding into a distant crack, and I moved my frills from my eyes and cleared my eyescales. Draw breaths, Kinri. Don’t think about the crawling pain on your face, focus on something else.

And I did. Even though it burned in more afterimages, I stared at the crack where the glass had spurted up. A new hole had been ripped open in the lake skin, and it wasn’t my fault, at all⁠ ⁠—⁠ that would be silly.

As I watched, the lake skin was healing itself, erasing the crack. When the molten glass met the air, it had cooled and vitrified, and the crack sealed. But dust⁠ ⁠—⁠ both floating in the air and piled on the ground⁠ ⁠—⁠ had fallen in, caked on, sintering with the cooling glaze as it hardened, creating brittle dustone instead of glass.

Here the Berwem healed itself; but it didn’t always. In places, the dustone skin would break naturally and stay that way, maintaining a kind of portal into the lake’s chaos and heat. Where these little spurts would only singe my scales, the breaks would burn, even from strides away. Hinte and I could avoid them⁠ ⁠—⁠ we did⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I only learned that after Hinte snatched me from the path to one. I hadn’t known about them then, and Hinte hadn’t told me anything.

I was learning now, of course. Before today, I hadn’t known all that much about the lake that had put my new home on the maps. And I admit, learning about the lake might have been fascinating, if it didn’t stink; if it wasn’t so hot; if the air wasn’t so dark and spooky; if the ground wasn’t the worst of lousy desert sand and ice‍-​covered water combined; if, honestly, if I just wasn’t here.

Maybe Hinte had been right to not want me joining her.

---

For all I missed having Hinte around, it didn’t really change that much. You were still sifting, in spirit: trudge warily over a flimsy skin; pray the stars it doesn’t smash open beneath you; bear the heat, and dryness, and dust; drink your water, but not too quickly; get used to the rumbling quiet, because Hinte definitely wasn’t going to make any talk.

And you know what? “I hate sifting.” My lips had already moved before I’d startled and covered them.

A jagged voice then came from the shadows. “Kinri?” it called

It stopped me between steps, and I seemed to burst, my legs punching me up, my wings spreading. I might have squeaked. But the voice sounded like Hinte, fearless Hinte, determined Hinte. So I hadn’t squeaked at all⁠ ⁠—⁠ I wouldn’t squeak with her watching. She’d brought me with her for a reason, and that reason couldn’t have been making pathetic sounds when she called my name. Even if it were completely out of nowhere, with no warning at all.

“Kinri?” she called again, from somewhere unseen. When she said it, my name sounded different; the stops came out a little harder, and the vowels came out a little higher. It made me pause before calling out⁠ ⁠—⁠ would she hear a garbled transmutation of her own name? The thought stopped me only for a second.

“Hinte!” I said, a smile lighting on my face and a coughing giggle crawling from my mouth. “I found you!” I was spreading my wings and waving them around again while I waited.

Down on the surface, where no one spoke my native Käärmkieli, I’d met with all manner of mispronunciations of my name. And, while the differences shone out, they didn’t needle me like other things did. It sounded like a new name, and the new name was exotic, the name of someone related to but distinct from who I had been. And that smiled me every time I heard it.

Maybe Hinte didn’t share that experience; she still had her native‍-​speaking grandparents. And I’d been learning foreign tongues⁠ ⁠—⁠ including hers⁠ ⁠—⁠ almost as soon as I could speak.

Lost in my thoughts, I jumped when a shadow glided beside me, and landed with a dusty crack. After a few beats the shadow resolved to figure clad in bright white and stalking forth. Hinte. I could hug her⁠ ⁠—⁠ she wouldn’t let me, but I could. I wanted to.

The dark‍-​scaled alchemist clutched something between her wing’s opposable alula and its membraned pinion, and it gave her strides purpose, and that was definitely what held me back.

You couldn’t make out whatever it was, but it brought along that same scent of glaze and metal, with the same hint of half‍-​boiled meat, like a creature slow‍-​cooked all its life. When she threw it toward me and eyestalks were whirling in the air, I knew it must be another glasscrab.

I reached to catch it⁠ ⁠—⁠ and the crab smacked against my foreleg. It fell on the dustone with another crack. I flinched, and wrinkled my frills: Would it have been so hard to just pass it to me? Smile gone, I snapped my tongue and aimed a glare at Hinte.

After barely stopping to sheath a knife that glinted a bright‍-​green, Hinte was already stepping away. Like usual.

Scowling, I snatched up the crab, then waved my tongue as I peered at it, thinking how I’d never expected a glasscrab to grow this big.

The crab had grown half as long as my foreleg, and its hard sooty flesh clung taut to a curling frame, with a half‍-​shattered glass carapace colored murky‍-​yellow and bulging along its tapered length. Taken all together, it looked a lost shard of the lake skin, ripped away and brought to life.

A deep hole pierced right in the middle of the crescent‍-​shaped head: the spot where Hinte’s knife had grounded it. The flesh inside the wound wasn’t bloody. It was dry and seemed tinted vaguely green.

Below the head, spindly limbs still writhed, twitching and contracting, until they faltered still. Horned eyestalks crawled out from the head, and pupils wavered with a sickly blue light just like the glowing stones we came to sift. Eyestalks stopped moving last of all, and glowing eyes faded in three heartbeats.

I shoved the crab into the bag at my side⁠ ⁠—⁠ but it caught on the hem and teetered out. Another crack of crab on dustone came and Hinte paused in her stride. My fangs burned. Before I dared glance at the bright‍-​white‍-​clad figure again, the crab had flown in the air and been knocked clacking into my bag.

When I looked over Hinte was striding on as though nothing had happened. And it hadn’t. I’d sat the crab in my bag without issue. I didn’t drop it. I wasn’t that useless.

The crab, parts hanging floppingly over the hem, might have disagreed. I pushed again, with a wing, forcing it in. But it was too big, its legs still flopping out and its horned eyestalks staring accusations at me. I sighed. At least they stopped glowing.

In my bag, that glasscrab joined the first and smaller crab in lifeless flopping, both well away⁠ ⁠—⁠ a whole me away⁠ ⁠—⁠ from my delectable lunch, a charred trout sitting alone, wiggling in the empty space of the bag slung over my other side.

My gaze moved forward, finding the bright‍-​white figure stalking forward alone, not looking back. Maybe Hinte had been so reluctant to bring me here because I wasn’t worthy, in her estimation. But I would bleed these crabs, brew her the purification mixture as a gift, and it would prove I could be an alchemist just like her. She would finally tell me why she came to the lake.

---

In the time it took me to pick up and bag the crab, the bright‍-​white figure had faded in the vog. When I flicked my tongue, there was her scent, minty grapes. The smell found her somewhere⁠ ⁠—⁠ not far⁠ ⁠—⁠ to my left. A leap and a short glide brought me along the scent gradient⁠ ⁠—⁠ some strides behind her, if I had to guess.

Was that grapey smell her perfume? Or something else? She wasn’t the type to use perfume, but that scent still outdid everything I had! It smelled better than my honey chamomile, at any rate.

Flicking for the smell again, slinking forward in a low‍-​walk, my mind was in my tongue’s whirling forks, my neck‍-​frills were folded, and my eyescales were flushed and cloudy. Then the scent of grapes sharpened at once. Sharp, like I was right next to her.

My frills flapped open and my eyescales cleared, but not fast enough. That was how my head met Hinte’s side, followed my haunches meeting the ground, then Hinte’s glass‍-​covered foot meeting the air just in front of my face.

That foot held her knife, and it had stopped just as the scowling wiver jerked her head around and saw that it was bumbling me, not anything dangerous.

“Ground yourself,” she said. With that and nothing else Hinte turned away. Around her, two dark frills waved and wrinkled, circling her head like scaly fans. All the while, her head was jerking around, looking for⁠ ⁠—⁠ or at⁠ ⁠—⁠ something outside the six strides I could see.

This was Hinte. Time with her had never been pleasant, not the way it had been with my brother. She didn’t make it so, and I wasn’t waiting for it. But I had to stop and stare at how silent and scowly she was this evening. Maybe she was shedding?

As I peered at her, though, and caught how her face relaxed when she looked away⁠ ⁠—⁠ the scowl dropped, her frills bent and twisted instead of standing straight⁠ ⁠—⁠ I frowned. There was still a slight clench in her jaw, as if from a distant irritation; but that had lingered all evening, and between everything else, there was obviously something more hiding there.

Was I the problem?

“Hinte‍-​gyfar?” I said, laying special non‍-​emphasis on the honorific.

She snapped her head back to me, lips curling into a frown, forked tongue slipping into her mouth⁠ ⁠—⁠ details I noticed only from being so close. Her face looked dark in the lake, her scales almost black. You could imagine they were anything⁠ ⁠—⁠ even a night‍-​blue⁠ ⁠—⁠ but in the light they would gleam a deep, dark‍-​green, the color of the forest‍-​dwellers.

Hinte’s eyes hid behind amber‍-​lensed goggles. Their straps looped around her head, made of a pitch‍-​black schizon that added a poisonous tinge to her scent. When the light hit the goggles just right, the wild, iridescent lenses turned her eyes into a chameleon’s.

I had to look up to meet her gaze, and when I did, those goggles bored into me, and I flinched.

“Sorry.” My voice drowned in the sound of the lake.

Hinte looked away again, and I breathed relief, but it was tiny.

When I followed her gaze⁠ ⁠—⁠ or tried to⁠ ⁠—⁠ some shadows moved. I tilted my head at nothing and might have looked silly, darting my eyes all around⁠ ⁠—⁠ but it was just ash, stuck onto my brilles, the clear scales covering both my eyes.

With my wing’s alula, I unhooked the glass canteen at my foreleg and swung it up to wet my tongue. Flicking up to my brilles, I licked the ash off and spat out. The taste stuck around, but I was used to it. I let some blood flow into the scales, and they clouded. I stopped the flow, and they cleared up.

Now I could see… better, I guess. At least I’d grounded the gritty feeling on my eyes.

Hinte was moving again, and I missed it. At the very edge of my sight, she was turning and looking back at me.

Somewhere, Hinte’d gained and mastered the skill of glaring with only her frills.

Those wide‍-​eyed, inexpressive goggles should have looked hatchly, or at least neutral. Maybe it was the way they caught the molten glow of the glass, or maybe it was the dark of her face‍-​scales that made them like bodyless eyes floating in the dark; but you knew she was glaring, even with her curling frills half‍-​shrouded.

Even without the goggles, Hinte had a certain intensity of gaze I’d seen before, on a dark‍-​blue‍-​scaled, silver‍-​eyed face like mine; only instead of glinting ice, hers was all fire.

Lifting myself into a striding high‍-​walk, I stepped to the figure with burning amber lenses. This wasn’t a manifestation of the serpentine lake, prepared to swallow me completely; it was my friend.

Hinte, cloaked bright‍-​white in perfect counterpoint to the shadows, was a like a beacon, someone who could guide and reassure me. Even trapped near‍-​blindly in the darkness, even suffocating in the noxious air, the sight of Hinte could ease the awful dewing, just a little.

So why did I feel compelled to return her glare?

I smiled and said, “Thank you for waiting.” It came natural.

Maybe you could hear a sigh, but you couldn’t have seen it. Hinte only said, “Pay attention. You are lost in your thoughts twice a ring. And every time, you get lost in the lake as well.” She curled her frills again.

Cringing, lowering my head, I only saw her turn by the movement of her forelegs. We walked on again. Hinte was slowing now, low‍-​walking, with lots of turns and glancing around⁠ ⁠—⁠ she’d found something, then. With a frown, I followed.

As she walked, Hinte switched between scanning the vog ahead and glancing down at her feet, like a tic. She avoided the crags or holes without a second thought, exuding a certain care that you wouldn’t even know existed if you only looked at me.

Abruptly, Hinte stopped, and I didn’t almost bump into her again. In fact, I backed up several paces, so you could never mistake that.

Meanwhile, the wiver was stopping, crouching and reaching into her bag. What came next was the cracking of punched dustone, the hissing of revealed glass, and a familiar atonal hum like teeth chattering, claws scraping and glass whining.

At an oblique angle, I sat and watched her claw into a sort of thick bump in the lake skin. Hinte would give me funny looks when she saw me watching; but right now, she was so focused on digging out another one of those annoying humming stones, she wouldn’t even notice. I peered at her, sifting her visage for clues.

On her short muzzle, Hinte’s lips rested in what wasn’t quite a frown; her face was set in a way which made that determined, unsmiling line of a mouth look natural. Below her mouth, rows of hornscales spiked her muzzle, and behind her head stabbed two larger horns⁠ ⁠—⁠ as long as my forefeet. They looked masculine. Where I came from, priests would disbud a wiver’s horns a few great dances after she hatched. I touched a frill to the smooth line of my own jaw, and to the flat disks behind my head. It was proper.

They didn’t do it that way in the forests, though. How did they manage there, if both genders looked so similar?

Was I getting lost in my thoughts again?

The plate of dustone I was on shifted again⁠ ⁠—⁠ Hinte’s digging disturbed the flow. Cracks etched out illegible screeds on the lake skin around my companion. Where before the slit eye breaks in the skin looked ravenous, these only looked perplexed.

Not wanting the ground to fall out under me, I stood and started high‍-​walking, over to the wiver foreleg‍-​deep in the burning lake. Maybe you could question my plan of walking toward what was tearing open the lake skin, but the wiver didn’t seem worried; and she’d never given me a choice besides trusting her.

I resisted glaring as I high‍-​walked toward the wiver in bright white, but I could say that was because Hinte’s… masculinity⁠ ⁠—⁠ or image of masculinity⁠ ⁠—⁠ gave her a creeping familiarity. It made it so easy to act like this, like we, were a continuation of⁠ ⁠—⁠ something else…

Suddenly, I unleashed another dust breath attack! The air in front of me filled with dust and I laughed⁠ ⁠—⁠ but it choked as I stumbled, even more blind in my own dust cloud.

Hinte, still digging, didn’t see any of that. I grinned, my brilles flushing triumphant, my frills spreading, and it all lasted until I almost ran into Hinte again, scraping to a stop one step away from her, my fangs dewing with sickly embarrassment.

“Um, Hinte‍-​gyfar?”

She didn’t stop digging. “What is it?”

“About earlier… where–where were you? I was looking for you and you’d just… left me. Why?”

“I stopped and killed the glasscrab.” Hinte whisked an idle wing toward my bag. “You did want them, right? I thought you might, and there had been one creeping around.”

“Well…” I looked up. “It’s just, it seemed like you were angry, throwing the glasscrab and all. Did I do something wrong?”

More dustone cracking. During a lull, Hinte asked, “Did you do something wrong?”

I twisted my head, peering at Hinte, then slowly said, “No?”

“Then why are you asking?” Hinte glanced over for just a moment, head atilt.

“I⁠ ⁠—⁠ nevermind.” I looked away. “So um.” I clouded my brilles, tongue working in thought. What to say, what to say. “Do you learn your alchemy stuff from your grandfather?” I’d never met Ushra, but I’d⁠ ⁠—⁠ heard of him.

I watched Hinte. It was something I’d learned early, how to use small talk to test someone’s hidden dewings.

Hinte hummed and said, “When he has the time for it.” I heard a sharper snap than any other. “Not very often. He has duties as a head alchemist and⁠ ⁠—” Hinte stopped, and peered back at me, before nodding and continuing, “—⁠ other projects, which I cannot help him with.” More cracking. “It is the same to me, I’ve learned the generalities and he will only teach me his specialty⁠ ⁠—⁠ medical alchemy. Healing is boring. I have my own projects.”

I breathed small relief. She wasn’t that mad at me, then.

Looking away, I pushed a little farther, adding, “Like these weird stones.” She didn’t stop me, so I asked, “What are the stones for, anyway? And why don’t you sift for shiny volcanic glass or fancy metals like everyone else?”

It’s all supposed to pay really well⁠ ⁠—⁠ the whole town was built around the Berwem for just that reason. Maybe the stones were even more valuable? But then everyone would be digging them up too.

I added, “Is it an alchemist thing?” But even then, I would have heard about it, with all the alchemy scrolls I’d suffered through.

Cracking. “How many times have you asked those questions?” Hinte glanced back again, and didn’t turn away, as if tired of looking back and forth.

I counted on my toes. As we walked to the lake⁠ ⁠—⁠ that’s one. When we found that glowing rainbow‍-​colored stone by the big pit⁠ ⁠—⁠ that’s two. “This is the third time, I think. But you always stay silent or say they’re for your studies or projects or something. Why can’t you tell me the real reason?”

Hinte turned away again. She said, “I am busy. I need to focus.” Like usual.

I huffed and turned away. Like usual. But, unanswered questions or no, at least I was helping my friend like this. That’s⁠ ⁠—⁠ what I wanted, right?

Was Hinte my friend? I liked spending time with her. But sometimes it felt like she only tolerated me.

Were we friends? Were we only companions?

---

At last, there came a final crack⁠ ⁠—⁠ followed by even more humming.

I still sat behind Hinte, watching, while I twiddled my foot’s halluxes, and fluttered my drooping frills. “So, you found another stone?” I asked.

Hinte glanced back at me without glaring. I might have said she smiled, but the absence of a frown was starting to look like a smile, after so much time alone with Hinte.

As she looked at me, instead of the usual molten glass glow⁠ ⁠—⁠ though there was still that⁠ ⁠—⁠ my companion was now lit up in a wavering blue light. The glow sloughed off the blue rock she’d just ripped from the dustone. The screeching hum had doubled after Hinte freed it⁠ ⁠—⁠ some awful thanks that was.

The dark‍-​green wiver would’ve punished it with a squeeze of her claws, and this would’ve cracked the stone, and caused two dozen tiny creatures that weren’t insects to swarm and panic across the stone’s surface. I hadn’t seen this; I knew from seeing it a half‍-​dozen times before.

Hinte’s mouth moved to answer me, but the noise of the new stone drowned her murmured answer.

Instead of asking for her to repeat, I stood up. After all, communication lay the in asking and answering, not in the question or answer. I’d had it drilled too many times to forget it.

By now the dark‍-​green wiver was finishing her work, and slipping her tongue back into her mouth. She wrapped the stone in stinky black cloth and slipped it into her bag. Her forelegs cracked with vitrified glass as she moved, and dust had kissed the black cloth where she’d held it.

Hinte stood, stood high, her legs vaulting her into an almost vertical high‍-​walk, and I mimed her. Finally, we were moving again. It fledged a small difference⁠ ⁠—⁠ the lake wasn’t any less thought‍-​numbing⁠ ⁠—⁠ but just moving my legs instead of sitting perked my frills up a notch.

Ahead of me, Hinte was padding across the lake skin with quick, purposeful strides. She could hold a high walk longer than me, than anyone I knew.

That was more my fault than any great skill on Hinte’s part⁠ ⁠—⁠ though she had some of that, too. Having spent her whole life on the surface, she had a wealth of adroitness in her gait that had eluded me, not to mention how she walked over the retiring lake skin as if it were actual ground.

I tossed my head at the thought, a frill brushing against my black headband. Where I grew up, walking didn’t matter. If you wanted to get somewhere, you flew there. When you needed to walk, you could slither for all the difference it would make!

When I looked again, Hinte had already stridden away. Not that she tried to, though she wouldn’t try not too, either. I had slowed down, and she hadn’t noticed.

I whipped my tail, and maybe a little growl thrummed in my chest. I walked toward Hinte, measuring words in my throat, peering for reasons not to say them.

A question tried to bubble up. “Why⁠ ⁠—” was what came out before I stopped. I saw Hinte turning, and now the question had to be finished. Every continuation sung to me: Why are you sifting crysts? Why were we still in the lake? Why wouldn’t you talk to me? Why can’t we be friends?

“—⁠ did the fired accountant cross the river?” I finished

I cringed as I said it, but I didn’t break eye with the wiver until she turned back away, wordless and sighing.

Hinte would expect me disappointed, so I hid my relief; but my tail swayed, my wheezing breaths came easier, and there was a slight tug at my lips. Still, it took effort⁠ ⁠—⁠ familiar but unpracticed⁠ ⁠—⁠ to hold my fangs dry and my face unreadable.

The relief soon flowed out of me, and then I could release my hold on myself, and relax. I’d found Hinte, and we were together and doing things again, moving. It was okay.

Maybe I should look around me, watch the six strides I could see. You could call these new sights, after all. I took them all in with a sigh and barely a clearing of my brilles; nothing like the slack‍-​tongued stares I’d given all of this when I first stepped into the lake.

Once, the rugged dustone crags and glowing liquid sand had been novel⁠ ⁠—⁠ impressive, even. But the gnarled ground and glass veins looked the same everywhere, only the distribution ever changed. So as my throat burned and my canteen emptied, the wonder faded.

You could say my eyes glazed over, but I was better than that.

Now, it was either watch the clouds swirl or watch Hinte do her determined sifter thing. It wasn’t much of a choice, honestly. I watched how she flicked her tongue out every few heartbeats⁠ ⁠—⁠ unlike me, who couldn’t bare the stench of this place. Or how her frills still adjusted as she walked along, even though I could hear nothing. I extended my own frills just to check again. Nothing! The lake skin rattled, our footsteps cracked the dustone, and my heart tapped in my breast⁠ ⁠—⁠ except I didn’t need frills to feel that last one.

I stared at her scaly ruffs, as if I could decipher the point of it, what she listened for. It felt like I had all of the pieces in my wings, I just needed to put them together.

But did I have to puzzle out every last thing she couldn’t be bothered to tell me?

My staring turned to gawking at the size of her frills. Even expanded, they extended less than a forefoot’s length from the top of her neck. They made my frills look huge. I folded mine back, pressed mine back until they might as well have merged with my scales.

My gaze shifted, catching her wings folded at her side. Like me, the hands of her wings rested beside her head, with long fingers that creased the membrane between them all along their extent. Her wings jutted back about a leg’s length past her haunches, but mine went further, even with Hinte being longer than me. That difference fledged a smile, my wings twitching and half‍-​spreading, my hindlegs digging a little deeper into the ground.

I didn’t just want to compare our wing lengths. My half‍-​spread wings bristled with an abstract sort of itch I could only scratch in the air.

Flying. I could fly right now. I should. My wings could move me faster, take me farther, than my legs ever would. But… I came here with Hinte. She wasn’t flying, and I would get lost in the lake without her.

“You are staring,” came a jagged voice ahead of me.

I jumped and gave her an indignant lift of my head⁠ ⁠—⁠ but the flush of my brilles and the sick sweetness on my fangs gave me away.

“Focus on the lake, Kinri.”

I bristled my wings, and frowned. After Hinte’d turned back away, I leapt high and flapped my wings until I was gliding in a lazy circle above her. I wasn’t hiding; even if she ignored the crack of dustone, she must hear the beating of my wings or at least see the mad dash of the stirred dust below.

My alulae twirled and my tail swished behind me. I was flying again! That’s what mattered. I bounced in the air a little. And I might have done it twice, if the motion hadn’t sent an awful throb through my skull. Now that I focused, there gnawed a weary ache on the fringes of my mind. It quivered with every flap of my wings. Ignore it.

Hinte’s dark‍-​green frills wrinkled a breath before she turned in full. “What are you doing?” she asked.

I tilted my head. “Um, flying? It’s so much better than trudge‍-​toeing over this lake! Come on, it’s high fun!”

“No. I didn’t come here to have fun, I came to sift. And I need to see where I am going, and I need to feel the crysts. On the ground.” She turned away.

“Oh… Well, can I fly, at least? Please?” I held out my forefeet.

“No. You will only tire yourself out. Walking is easier.” She started away.

Would I? In the sky, we’d all been trained to fly for long rings or even days at a time⁠ ⁠—⁠ but that had been soaring and gliding. Flying over the lake, with all the threshing, turning and twisting, just might tire me out.

So I relented, and my frills fell with my body. I crash‍-​landed. My knees bent, but I flapped my wings one last time, lifting me to a high‍-​stand.

Hinte’s pace was slower as I caught up. Slowly, barely, I followed her.

If my feet cracked just a little harder, if my claws dug a little deeper, it was only the strain of high‍-​walking wearing on me.

---

As I slinked along, my only warning was a sudden lurch. My hindleg tripped on a crag! I stumbled, flew forward. One foreleg buckled. I threw the other out to break my fall. But the leg punched through the ground! Dustone cracked, disintegrating, and a burst of dust sprayed onto my brilles.

Wings blasted out from my sides. A foreleg plunged into the molten sand. Incinerating heat ate at my scales, but I didn’t feel burning pain. Only a prickly, muted feeling. The molten sand’s viscid thickness slowed my fall. My wings spread to their full width. I threshed them.

My foreleg hit a cutting hardness in the lake! I fell right onto it. It ripped through scales, cutting me open. I screamed as the molten sand invaded the wound.

Despite my threshing, I crashed into the lake surface. Cracks rippled for strides around. Pieces of the lake skin broke apart, opening glowing cracks. Cracks that infuriated the air, and blasted heat and wind.

Hinte, just in front of me, had walked on, not noticing my misstep. But she jerked to a stop when I screamed. She leapt into the air, winging over to where I lay slumped on the ground.

I pulled my leg out from the lake. It brushed against the stone before emerging. But I overpulled when the resistance fell away, throwing myself to my side. Something fell out of my bag!

There was a burning hiss, and fear stabbed into my fangs. The crabs? Was the lake eating my crabs? I squeaked. Would I never give Hinte that alchemical gift? Would I never see anything other than that same long‍-​suffering glare in her eyes?

Breathe. You don’t need to care. Maybe it was taking off a mask, maybe it was putting one on, but I dried my fangs and steadied my face.

My foreleg was more important, I was more important, right now. The leg glistened a warm golden yellow. As I watched, it hardened to glass, glazing onto the scales. The new glass grew murky and speckled with flakes of stone and metal, already vitrifying where it met the air.

I flicked my tongue, smelling the sizzly glaze and the crackly dust. Rolling onto my belly, I pressed my glassy foreleg to the ground, and winced as pain raced up the leg. I tried again⁠ ⁠—⁠ less pain.

Convinced I could still walk, I looked to my side, where something had fallen out of my bag. I froze.

Beside where I lay, a gaping maw of burning sand opened, just as terrible as my dread had limned it. I’d avoided falling in by the narrowest margin.

Over that edge, in the burning smolders, my lunch sunk. My lunch, the trout I killed yesterday in preparation for this, incinerated as I stared.

It wasn’t the crabs… but I’d prepared for that, stopped caring about it. The lunch was for me, and that hurt more, right now.

As I watched the lake devour my lunch, a green wing nudged my side. I turned, meeting burning amber goggles. She made two quick motions, lifting her head in negation, then tossing it to the side in indifference. I caught her meaning.

No. It doesn’t matter.

…And she had a point. It could have been me eaten by the lake, instead of my lunch. I could have been maimed. I could have died! Draw two deep breaths. Then four. Then six. Let it go. You lived, that was enough.

I looked at the foreleg again, and groaned. Thanks to the plunge into the lake, my foreleg had gained a new coat of scales. Glass scales.

I pushed the white fabric off the glass. It wasn’t quite a sleeve⁠ ⁠—⁠ these suits didn’t have sleeves⁠ ⁠—⁠ but my leg had plunged almost to the hole in the torso. Any further, and it might have burned the fabric. Or maybe plastered it onto my scales, and that would be even more of a nightmare to clean.

The glass would still take forever to scrape off completely. I would have to wait until we left the lake, as much as it bothered me. But I slid my other foreleg over it, sloughing off some still‍-​liquid hunks of glass.

The pieces clinging to the gash pricked me as I pulled them off. But even the others still stuck to the scales and it was just unpleasant! It felt like peeling off molting scales too soon, before they were ready to shed. Something, I admitted, I did a lot as a hatchling.

I scowled at my attempt to shed these glass scales; it had come to the same result. My legs looked awful! The blackened, burned gash stretched a few claw lengths along my foreleg, bleeding and blistering. Lumps of mottled glass stuck out from my foreleg. And on the clear patches, the protective black slime oozed back, almost glued to my skin. The glass formed almost rubbery the closer it’d glazed to the slime; and the stuff flaked or crizzled more than it shattered.

My fangs dewed with tart frustration. Again, I let it fade. I had lived. I almost died…

---

Above me, Hinte stared, frills wrinkling as she huffed, sounding both annoyed and exasperated.

“Tongueless!” she said. “Did you hear none of your noise? You walk on the lake, not in it.” She made a walking gesture with four toes.

I cringed, looking down. Bleary dust had settled onto my brilles again, and I licked it away. “What?” I asked, my voice rough and coughing as I spoke. “Why–why is noise even a problem?” I looked at her, folding my frills back.

She snapped her tongue. “It awakens sleeping things, sleeping out the gray season. Rockwraiths,” she said, voice a growl. “They might eat you.”

“Eep!” I squeaked, and heard Hinte click her tongue, snickering. I growled. Why was she laughing at me? I didn’t want to be eaten! “Um. I think there was a rock⁠ ⁠—⁠ a stone down there. It cut me! I’ll grab it⁠ ⁠—⁠ then we can get away from here!”

“Yes, we should get away,” she said, lightness slipping out of her voice.

I focused on the stone.

Where I had almost fell through the ground gaped a still‍-​widening hole. Waves of heat blasted from the uncovered sand, and singed my face even more. If only these suits had masks… I raised a foreleg to cover my snout. But the blazing glass still hurt my eyes to look at, even with clouded brilles. I glanced at my broken goggles again, and sighed.

Cracks shot over the dustone and fringe pieces fell meltingly in; but soon the hole would stabilize, and the collapse would reverse. Again dust would cake onto the glass, and mix with the cooling glaze, hardening and creating another dustone scale for the lake’s facade.

Still lying on the ground where I fell, I stood. I shot a glare at Hinte. Would it have been so hard to just help me up?

I faltered on my hurt leg but leant into it. It looked intentional. Hinte would chide me again if she knew I had just injured myself. I wasn’t that useless.

Crouching to secure my footing, I prepared to wrench out the stone. Breathing once, twice, I broke through the new glass surface with my good foreleg, sliding the other in after it.

The prickling engulfed my legs again as I reached into the lake, pushing through with the sluggishness it imposed, and after a beat I grabbed the stone to pull it out⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I misjudged the weight, sending a flare of pain through my bad leg that cost me my grip on the stone; I braced myself before trying again, and this time I used only my good leg, and I managed it out, struggling with the weight and resistance of the lake.

The stone glowed a wavering pink and red, littered with flakes of deep purple. It almost looked pretty, the loathsome thing. Shaped like two jagged spheres welded together, it fit in my sole, but I couldn’t wrap my forefoot around it. It made that atonal, trembling hum and low clicking that and writhed resonatingly in my frills.

The glass coating the stone began to harden, but vibrations cracked the new glass, rattling it off. I turned it over. The stone had a few outjutting edges, and one of them, I suspected, was the one that had cut me! I flicked it with my claw, retalitating.

Vengeance inflicted, silliness restored, I gave the stone the grip of tight carefulness and the look of reluctant respect that it deserved. We had come out here for these stones, after all.

Together, Hinte and I sifted through the molten sand, hunting for these stinking rocks. It seemed easy at first⁠ ⁠—⁠ in the first ring we came across three in a row just poking out of the lake skin. The next few had us dredging through the incinerating glass to gather. For several long rings. I’d spent all evening in the Berwem.

But whatever secret lay behind these stones lifted Hinte. She had flown out into the cliffs every cycle in the few moons I had known her. I wanted to know why, and I wanted to help her.

So I took the stone and passed it to her, seeing how the lines of her face softened as her gaze moved from me to the stone. Watching her, I asked the stars that this time, unlike every other time, it would reveal something of the stones’ secret. I didn’t hold my breath, though.

She regarded the rock for a moment, then clenched her forefoot, digging her claws in. The stone cracked. Broken shards of the stone moved in mindless scuttling along the surface. Its clicking died, but the hum spiked, and became a piercing keen! I flinched.

Hinte shifted her grip, now holding the stone between two toes. She stared at the shards before sliding her tongue over the stone, taking dozens of the skittering fragments into her mouth. There was crunching. The glow of the stone faltered and the remaining flakes fell to the ground, made motionless.

Hinte had shown me this strangeness with the first stone we found, letting me taste the flakes. They had a strange sweetness I wasn’t sure if I liked.

Amber lenses stared at the stone, and you couldn’t make out any eye motions behind the goggles. The dark‍-​green wiver rotated the stone, so I imagined her eyes darting about, examining every angle.

After she placed it in her bag with a hum, I started to walk off, eager to avoid any hungry rockwraiths, but I stumbled. At least I didn’t fall over again.

Hinte looked at my bad foreleg. “You are injured,” said she.

I rubbed my leg. Would she see me as weak? Or think I was incompetent enough to trip into the lake and hurt myself? “No, I⁠ ⁠—”

“Stone‍-​frills, I said you are injured. Do not lie to me,” she hissed.

Hinte scraped her claws over the ground, beckoning me to come closer. It was one step forward before she snatched my injured foreleg. I pointed a wing at the wound, and she clawed off the coating glass.

The wound screamed and I yelped, but it became a ragged cough. “Hinte!” I rasped.

“Ground yourself. It is only a burn,” she said and kept working.

I spoke through clenched teeth. “I tried to tell you I’m fine,” I said, but even I found it weak.

“This burn will get worse if not treated. Do you want to keep this leg?” She looked at me, teeth flashing and frills only half‍-​folded.

“Yes…” I said, looking away. With the glass gone, she prodded the wound. I hissed. She withdrew a vial of clear ointment from her bag, known by a glyph that read ‘burn,’ but not in the local tongue. “Wait!” I said, “the black slime⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was supposed to prevent these burns.”

“It did,” she said. She uncorked the vial and scooped out a thimbleful in her claw. She rubbed it on the gash, repeating three times to cover the full length. “You cut open your leg in the sand. Your scutes were protected. The flesh underneath was not.”

“That’s so silly,” I said.

Hinte replaced the vial and groped around in her bag for a moment. “That is alchemy.” She produced a bandage, but put it back after a moment. Then, she produced the oozing black salve. “If you watch your step, you cannot fall.” She rubbed the salve over the gash.

The familiar prickling numbness seeped into my leg. The rest of the oily slime oozed between the glass and over the burned flesh, hugging and enveloping the new slime.

I glanced up at the alchemist. She wasn’t frowning, or scowling, or glaring. Instead, she watched the salve settle with intent, and rubbed a dollop more on a thin spot. And… she didn’t have to do that. Maybe she did care?

Hinte stood, about to leave. But before she turned, she pointed behind me. “You dropped a crab.” Then, she stalked off.

I squeaked and grabbed the crab. It was in my foot, and I poked it with a claw, hard; its precious blue blood slicked my toe.

The crabs’ blood would brew a purification mixture for to Hinte. Friends gave each other gifts, right?

Alchemy was one of the things that had brought us together. I… wasn’t an alchemist⁠ ⁠—⁠ couldn’t have been, really⁠ ⁠—⁠ so it wasn’t quite a common interest; but when I’d found her studying and she let it slip that she was an alchemist, I failed to recoil in fear or suspicion. Why would I? I had been in a similar position, once, with my brother as the understanding one. It almost felt like paying him back.

And if it gave me a chance to maybe become an alchemist, after a hatchhood of being told I could only be a Zenith, I’d thank the endless stars.

And that started with the crab’s purification mixture. I would make it, and prove myself. I’d transmute myself from someone Hinte could talk to, to someone she wanted to talk to. We could be friends.

It had made me smile, once. Now it only made me sigh.

---

For once, something new lay under the blackened ash sky and the fake glass stars shining from below instead of somewhere above me. Here, the crags and pits of the Berwem deepened, becoming troughs and valleys and gorges. Scaly plates of dustone met and hugged each other so tightly they folded together into mountains as high as my withers.

My clear‍-​eyed gawking clouded into a glare, and I punched one of those mountains. It cracked and crumbled to the ground in five or six pieces, the crack tickling my frills and pulling a hissing laugh from me. If only I could give this entire lake the same treatment…

In the belly of that fallen mountain, there sat a little hollowed‍-​out chamber. Little black sacks of slime and dust writhed inside. Lava slugs? I poked one and flipped it over. Had I interrupted their sleep? I picked up fragments of the tiny once‍-​mountaintop and placed them in something like a shelter.

“Sorry, little icky slugs,” I murmured to myself. Hinte stood a few paces away, watching me. I limped back toward her with a cringe and some whispered apology⁠ ⁠—⁠ it didn’t matter which.

She asked, “What was it?”

“Lava slugs,” I said. When Hinte gave me that frown, I added, “Let me guess: they’re also really dangerous and going to kill me and even a hatchling would have more sense than I do, right?” I didn’t think my tone would fray as much as it did.

She flicked her tongue. “No,” she said, and turned to walk off.

Huffing, I kept behind her. The gash’s bite on my leg loosened with every step, helped along by the ointment. While the bite fell away, its teeth still gnawed at the edges, and my legs’ soreness burned from within.

We walked on like that, at least until my frills wrinkled, catching some faint tickle. I looked ahead, at Hinte. Did she feel it? Her frills still fanned the same as before, tilting but not twitching⁠ ⁠—⁠ as if she knew enough not to be surprised or interested.

Because of course she would. I kicked another, even smaller mountain. She never tells me anything! I mouthed to myself. My imagined voice is deep and stormy, with clarity and anger I’d never allow into my voice otherwise. It’s like she can’t be bothered to explain even the simplest things!

I breathed calm. And again. I was calm.

I fanned my wings, and at this point I didn’t even bother to close my mouth, drawing in deep, refreshing pants. Well, refreshing by the lake’s standards, that is. The panting eased the searing heat to merely blazing, but dragged up another cough. I tried controlling my breath cycle to fan away some of the anger, but my throat still burned tender and summoned more coughs.

So I gave up and licked my eyes, only for them to catch more dust instants later. My gaze was clear enough to see Hinte, at least. Willing calmness into my voice, I spoke at last, doing everything I could to keep my fangs retracted.

“Hey, Hinte,” I said. She hitched her wings in acknowledgment, still walking. “Well… about these stones we are out here, um, sifting for⁠ ⁠—⁠ you still haven’t told me what this is all about.” I measured and weighed my next sentence. “This all seems so…pointless.” The words left me, and there was a certain emptiness where I’d kept them inside for so long.

We walked forward a few moments before Hinte answered, voice low.

“Maybe it is pointless⁠ ⁠—⁠ why do you care?”

“Well, that’s kind of my point? Why do I care about any of this⁠ ⁠—⁠ why should I care?”

“I don’t care if you care or not,” she said. But her tone sounded different, scented with emotion. Tilting my head, I licked my eyes and peered at the figure clad in bright white; I’d never seen Hinte with anything other than her impassive, abrasive mien. After a pause, she added, “I do not need your help. Get lost in the vog or quit bothering me.”

“Come on! I just want to know what this is all about⁠ ⁠—⁠ I’m curious.” I stepped closer. She looked at me, a frill tensed. When she spoke, I smelled her anger, but I heard a certain note of hesitation.

“I need to focus,” she said, voice now a growl. “Shut up or get lost.”

She kicked me with a hindleg. I stumbled and yelped.

“Hey!”

I lunged forward and swiped at her. But that swipe went wide as the bright‍-​white figure leant away. The pairs of her legs crossed, but she wove it into her gait without a hitch, walking forward as if nothing had happened.

But missing threw my balance off. About to teeter over, I threshed my wings and flailed. Between the two motions, I landed upright, but about to stumble again. This time though, I had all four of my feet on the ground.

“How dare you!” My voice came out airy and unwavering. The words hadn’t even left my mouth when my frills widened. I cringed. My legs stiffed, becoming loose and floaty dustone about to crack. As my tail coiled around a hindleg, I brought a wing to my mouth and coughed. It came easily with my throat already burned raw.

Rubbing my headband, I opened my mouth to try again. This time, my voice came out simper and stuttering, “What–what is up with you!”

Hinte paused for a moment before walking on, ignoring me.

My frills flared, and I bared my fangs. I leapt over Hinte. Spinning in the air, I landed in front of her with a crash, and stared up at her. As bold as I dewed, it all evaporated as I stood in front of a wiver a whole head taller than me.

The dark‍-​green alchemist looked even more angry, baring her wings and raising her tail. When I noticed, I averted my gaze, looking instead to her face. Her frills were cupped. She opened her mouth, teeth glinting, growling at me. It sounded more aggressive, less of a warning. As if she had played with me earlier and now, with fangs angled like knives, did not.

“Are–are you going to hurt me?”

She growled low.

“Okay, I get it⁠ ⁠—⁠ I get it. You want me to leave you alone. But I want to know what’s going on and you won’t tell me!”

She lunged at me.

I took a step back. “Gah⁠ ⁠—⁠ let me finish.” When her head snapped forward, I jumped. “Flick⁠ ⁠—⁠ if you want me to get lost so much, maybe–maybe I will.”

The dark‍-​green wiver tossed her head to the side. When I met her amber lenses, she hissed again and stalked off.

I watched her for a few beats before I startled in inspiration, and grinned. Low to the ground, I slinked after her.

“Hey Hinte!” I was shouting. “I’ll find more of these stinking stones than you, on my own⁠ ⁠—⁠ you will taste it!”

The figure in bright white stopped moving, as if torn between walking away and staying. It was like that for a few beats, and she didn’t turn; yet I found myself holding my breath cycle for it. In the distance the dark‍-​green wiver hissed low, and I strained to hear her.

“—⁠ fine. Five crysts. If you can find that, I will tell you,” she said before she stepped forward again, walking off… but I heard her speak once more, quietly, “Do not fall in again, Kinri.” And she strode away. Her bright‍-​white suit tended to a silhouette, then a shadow, then nothing in the darkness.

I sighed, seeming to shrink after my half‍-​shouted declarations. With my guide in white gone, the vog redoubled its suffocation. Was this conflict with Hinte inevitable? I had wanted us to be friends. Was that doomed to fail?

I coughed. Evil‍-​smelling vog crawled farther down my throat, promising more to come. Drinking from my canteen and licking my eyes clean, I turned away from my former companion’s path. I marched off into the darkness, one dragon enshadowed by a massive, volcanic lake.

Somewhere above, as if leaving, the lover suns still shone.

I was alone.

As I limped over the molten glass lake, only one set of footsteps cracked the crumbling skin. My heart floundered in my breast, still wracked even with the argument behind me. Salty, sour venom dewed on my fangs, my anger leaking out. My tail uncoiled from my leg, and I drew a shuddering breath, and bit back a cough.

Every motion and habit stood salient in my awareness, with no one else and nothing else to distract me. The vog renewed its constrictions, so much darker now without the figure in bright​-​white leading me. I took another breath.

I needed to dig up five more stones, prove to Hinte I could help her, and convince her to tell me the secret behind all this.

Five stones. We had collected about seven or eight together. Could I collect so many more before we left the Berwem? I needed time, but how much? I fanned my frills, listening for a sound I hadn’t heard since we left.

In town, we measured time in rings. High up on one of tallest cliffs, in the timekeeper’s belfry, they kept a massive glass carillon. It rang piercing and melodious, and rang fifty​-​four times a day. Four of those rings, the dawn rings and the dusk rings, sang the loudest. Ten of those rings sang loud too, loud enough to be heard deep in the cliffs by the sifters, the farmmasters, the patrolling guards and anyone else in the cliffs with or without a reason. The remaining rings, softer trills, had no such ambition; and you only heard them in the town.

We called the louder rings ‘long rings,’ and the smaller ones ‘short rings.’ If you needed to talk about something lasting longer than a few heartbeats or tongueflicks, you measured it with rings. Two rings, three rings, half a ring⁠ ⁠—⁠ even a third of a ring. (Digrif used that last one all the time, but I didn’t know why.) However they measured it, the town loathed using anything more descriptive than the plain, obtuse ‘ring.’ Yes, which ring is sometimes clear from context, but for me it never ever hurt to be precise.

Why? Because I had floundered for the first cycle living here. What else could all this talk of rings have been but another example of the Grymri’s frilly obsession with glass​-​working and metallurgy? So I dismissed it. And I had continued in my ignorance until Sinig​-​gyfar had lain me down and explained the system one day. I had blown the shop, the Llygaid Crwydro, a whole cowload of wet ash, a cowload that Mawrion​-​sofran told me to lash and lead back to the shop. But I had flown by the supplier two long rings after the ash had hardened and grown worthless. I almost lost my job that day.

I never lost count of rings, big or little, after that.

Stumbling over a crag brought me back to my senses with a gasp and a lightning strike pulse of my heart. I crouched, made my footing extra, extra secure and looked around, glaring at the vicious crags and spineless dustone skin.

My gaze softened as it lifted and roamed around me, looking for something to anchor my mind in the lake, instead of wandering through my memories. I looked at the shrouded blotches of sunslight, which had already moved from their last position.

Hinte had never told me when she planned for us to return. But we left town in the evening, three long rings before second dusk. The last proper long ring, reverberating through the cliffs around us, came vaguely on our way toward the lake; and on the tail of the first dusk ring, we’d flown down into the smoke and vog. Just one more would sound before the day alighted. I never lost count of rings.

So, came the natural question, when should I find and reunite with Hinte? After the second dusk ring? It sounded good enough and maybe gave me enough time to sift five stones⁠ ⁠—⁠ if I worked fast. The task pressed down upon me like that, knitting itself into a tight knot in my belly.

Starting forward again, I still eased the weight I placed on my injured foreleg. The tedium of marching over the Berwem gave me something to lose myself in, at least. Even if I could do without the dust and dirt in my foreclaws. Or the reeking vog burning my throat raw. Or the soreness settling into all of my limbs, but especially my forelegs, where the constant ripping away of glass felt like I didn’t even have scales there anymore.

I yelped when too much weight fell down on my injured foreleg. Without Hinte here, I could fly now. It would ease the strain on my legs. Should I? Flying took less time, put me in less danger, and I liked to fly. Hinte said it would tire me out, but unlike her, I would take breaks. Yet something she said echoed in my frills.

“I need to feel the crysts.”

“Oh, really?” I said aloud. Hinte had fanned her frills to feel that annoying hum. It tasted so obvious! How else had she found all of those half​-​buried crysts?

I fanned my frills, an imitation of that dark​-​green wiver. Five crysts. I could do this.

---

Even after a while, my frills hadn’t felt anything interesting. Only my amplified footfalls and the low, slow groan of the Berwem as the currents below distorted the skin.

Time had passed with nothing to show for it. Did Hinte have some secret trick for finding out these stones?

Sighing, coughing, I lifted my canteen to soothe my throat with another draught of alien coolness, and kissed the glass bottle. I should have brought a dozen more like it. Dressed in patriotic red and yellow cloth, the glass canteen stood tall and just wide enough I couldn’t wrap my foot around it. I could empty two of them between one long ring and the next, or just one if I rationed, and you had to ration in the lake.

I shook the thing. By now this second canteen had only a sixth left, maybe dozen or half again swallows. I did have one more of them, but it’s been ten swallows since I left Hinte, and I’d never gone this long without anything happening before.

What if I lowered my head really low as I walked? I had never seen Hinte do it, but it didn’t sound so silly to me. Though when my fourth, or maybe my fifth attempt at it revealed a faint rumbling below me, my eyes cleared and I had to choke down a sigh for fear of coughing again.

Doing it this way would only reveal stones sunken deep in the lake, out of reach. But… this was given me my only result since trying this gambit.

After some shuffling around to find the start of the hum, and some extra pacing I stood close enough above it, so I made to grab it. Maybe it did lay too deep in the lake to grab, but I needed to find five crysts. I needed to try.

I punched the ground. It broke with a sizzling crack. Three more punches opened a glowing hole in the skin. Prickling numbness once again enveloped my foreleg as I offered it to the lake. The molten maw swallowed me, first my claw, then my knee, then my upper leg⁠ ⁠—⁠ as far as I dared to reach. Toetips grazed the surface of the stone.

Staring into that glowing maw, there was an echo of the sound of dustone slamming against my stomach. My eyes paled, and for just a moment, I again teetered on the edge of that maw, with a fiery line of pain running up my leg, breaths away from joining my lunch in the burning lake.

Breathe, Kinri.

My fist had clenched in the lake. I relaxed it. Just a little bit farther, just a few more lines of scales swallowed, and I still couldn’t grasp the stone. But I wouldn’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ couldn’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ feed more of myself to the lake.

I pulled my foreleg out, wiping the glaze from my leg without thinking. But I stopped and sighed: no point.

I needed a plan to retrieve the stone. Could I reach in with both legs and wiggle it up? No, that could push it further down. If I had a stick or something, I could nudge or even pull it up. Hinte might have something like that. Anyone could think of it. Even if she didn’t sift submerged stones.

So, what angle was I not considering? All those ideas relied on bringing the stone closer to me. Could I bring myself closer to the stone? No, that sounded frilly. But no, they didn’t only bring the stone closer to me, they also brought the stone closer to the surface. Could I bring the surface closer to the stone?

My forefoot pressed down. The skin flexed. If I put more weight on, it would flex even more.

“And if I fell onto it…”

My wings spread. A leap, and several wing​-​beats had me in the air. When the vog blurred the ground below me, I stopped threshing. I plummeted. But I panicked, instinct animating my wings. My fall stopped a wing​-​beat above the ground.

Rising to that height again, I steeled myself. I needed to stop wasting time! So I dropped myself mid​-​flap, as if to trick myself into falling. And it worked; I crashed against the dustone. The crash beat the breath out of me, and the ground hit my legs like a lightning bolt. I bent and gave, falling onto my belly, but too late to save my legs from the pain.

I groaned. “This was a bad idea.”

The ground gave in its own way. The crash turned to a crater in the skin and then a wave rippling away from me. A massive crack filled my frills. It reverberated and echoed, the lake’s own pained groan. Hinte had said something earlier about sound attracting monsters, hadn’t she?

As if the blow to my legs wasn’t enough.

The crash to the dustone ripped wide my hole. Around it, the skin was shattering into several smaller plates. My crater dipped below the molten sand, and now glass trickled in at the fringes. I reached into the widened mouth again, looking away. My knee had sunk in before I touched the stone. I grasped it then, while sliding the leg’s pair in.

As it emerged from the lake, the vibration doubled. I sat the stone on one of the floating plates, near its middle, before wiping my forelegs hard, and only removing the largest hunks of glass.

My frills bristled at a distant crunch, but nothing emerged from the vog. The lake still groaned after my crash had upset the flow underneath, some of the plates still grinding together. They didn’t sound like that, though, so maybe the crash had done something unseen?

Grabbing the stone, I slinked away from the crater in a high walk. Moving with the stone in my feet, I stumbled and dropped it twice. I shifted it to my already injured leg. That helped, but not enough to not make me feel like a tortoise.

The crater faded behind me. I slowed down, and lifted the stone, my eyes clearing to see it. It looked a chalky white​-​green, in a saucer​-​like shape thickening at the center. Any lingering glass glazed and cracked on the vibrating surface.

The vibration, weaker than the others, took long moments to slough off the glass, longer than the other stones had taken. And the stone didn’t glow. And even its slow rumble of a hum sounded lazy and sluggish.

Despite this⁠ ⁠—⁠ or really because of it⁠ ⁠—⁠ I liked this stone, finding it so much less annoying than the others. And the little guy had become the first of my stones. He deserved a name. I should give him a cliff​-​dweller name, since he had hatched in the cliffs, in a way.

“Hrm. Maybe I can call you… Sterk?”

The stone rumbled his assent. It sounded the same as his usual rumbles, but he didn’t really mind⁠ ⁠—⁠ couldn’t, rather.

“Good! You’ll be Sterk, the deepest cryst.”

I dug my claws into the stone⁠ ⁠—⁠ for his own good, I swear! His hum sputtered for a beat before recovering. Fewer fragments scurried to life. I picked off two of them to eat. They tasted sour, with a misleading hint of sweetness. I popped my tongue at the stone.

“You’re an odd one, Sterk.” He fell into my other bag, opposite the glasscrabs, where once my trout had sat.

I had done it! I got a cryst on my own. One down, four more to go.

---

In my bag, Sterk rumbled and rumbled, and never waned or faltered. It almost grated, really. When I had passed the stones off to Hinte, I hadn’t heard a single click or keen afterward. It just showed, again, how little I knew about sifting. Sterk sat in my bag, yet when my feet pressed against the glassier, more resonant plates of dustone, I could close my eyes and hold him in my feet again, feel his sonorous rumbles against my scutes.

I looked around, then at the old boring lake skin. Here, it had grown a little thicker. Had I walked into some cold spot? Did I near some shore of the Berwem?

I kept slinking the way I’d come from the crater, no point in changing tracks. But as the ground became thicker and gnarlier, I should have; I had been walking to one of the shores.

The cooler air here washed over my scales, and the vog almost cleared, and that clearness inspired my breath to dance in and out of my lungs. My throat still itched raw, so I still coughed and coughed. I choked them down and looked about.

I’d found no hint of any crysts on my journey away from the crater. The knot in my stomach knit itself tighter. Coupling this with how still and quiet my frills felt, and how Hinte didn’t sift at the edges anyway, it meant crysts had to form closer toward the center of the lake.

It raised another question, though. Just how did crysts form? Maybe the Berwem heat had something to do with it⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was cooler at the marge.

Someone had to have wondered about this before, right? I’d look it up at the library tomorrow, or ask Chwithach​-​sofran about it. I might even find something on what point these wretched stones had. A backup plan, if Hinte chose not to tell me, or I failed to collect five crysts.

No, only if she chose not to tell. I would find five crysts.

Whatever the reason, those stones had to lie closer to the center. So I turned at a sharp angle against my old course. Just enough to send me toward new ground, but angled to ensure I would walk back into the Berwem itself. Unless I had bungled it entirely and now walked along the shore instead of away. But for that, I would have to have stumbled some kind of corner, right? I wasn’t that starless. Right?

The knot in my stomach lurched, waxing to a dribble of tart anticipation on my fangs. As if my gut spoke to me. You have a time limit, it might say. I shook my canteen. My sixth of water had halved.

When I coughed again, the flecks were bigger, with globs of red in the mucus that didn’t look good at all. I had more than one time limit. It would be an empty victory to offer a bag full of crysts to Hinte only to fall over fainted or worse in the next breath cycle.

I looked at the sky. After I stopped moving; because I would not trip again! In the almost clear air, the hazy outline of a sun hung above, rendered purple by the vog. Try as I might, I couldn’t find the sun’s partner. Taken with the color dying fading on the west horizon, you guessed it: first dusk had fallen.

Enyswm, the lonely sun hanging above, seemed to linger. With the vog distorting the sun’s disk, you could stare at the wiggly lines at the fringe until you saw a frown there, a glimpse of the solar sadness of a sun bereft, for today, of his eternal partner.

When the morning came, he would chase Oleuni across the sky for five more days until the crestday of the cycle, when he would catch her at last. Enyswm and Oleuni would embrace for a single, teeth​-​chattering day, before falling into the next phase of the dance, where Oleuni would chase Enyswm until she finally caught him. Again and again.

We were near the middle of the cycle, so Enyswm would hang in sky for half a long ring after Oleuni fell. Both suns had hung in the sky when we left town, and Oleuni’s final rays reached out as I watched. Altogether, time chipped away with every breath and tongueflick. Time I needed to gather four stones.

I slipped my tail into my bag, wrapping around Sterk. Any pride I had in finding him lighted, then. He was just one stone. I need five.

But Sterk rumbled his encouragement from my bag, his vibrations intensifying at my touch. Maybe his lifeless vibration had fluctuated or maybe Sterk, aware and appreciative, had just wished me well. The first sounded about right, but I liked the ring of the second.

Emboldened, my steps became a determined stride, a copy of Hinte. But, limping on my injured foreleg, I didn’t look half as graceful. Yet I settled into a rhythm, and strode forward like that.

Then Sterk hiccuped. I jerked to a stop. Sure, he acted weird for a cryst, but I had never heard a stone’s vibrations change so⁠ ⁠—⁠ abruptly. Granted, I hadn’t heard much of the stones anyway, owing to that mysterious silence whenever Hinte took a cryst. Maybe stones had acted this way all along? There had to be a sense to this. The endless stars bid the world lawful.

Shuffling around, my frills angling about in every way, I felt the hiccup come again from one side. I walked along a path of the hiccups. Soon after, Sterk’s new stutters overtook his rumbles. The vibrations became a quick, rolling rhythm, and grew uneven as we tended close to the source.

I followed Sterk’s rumbling like that, giggling at the oddity of following a rock’s lead. A brainless rock.

---

Something skittering in the distance crunched. I crouched, flattening on the ground, and peered toward the source. And a shadow emerged from the shadows.

It came into focus, a little glassy rock scurrying forth. A glasscrab! Horned eyestalks gyrated, scrutinizing the world. It moved toward me, its steps settling into rhythm with Sterk’s new hum. The glowing eyes of the crab stared at my bag. Did crysts attract glasscrabs?

“Oh,thank you, Sterk. You are such a good rock,” I said before I leapt, some instinct taking over. I landed with a crash. The crab bolted! I growled. How could something so resembling a rock scurry around like an oversized insect?

But my foreleg was already in motion, expecting my prey’s fright. I clawed at an eyestalk, slashing, then ripping it from the crab. But the little bug wasn’t defenseless! Its other eye jabbed at me, and pierced my foot. I flicked my tongue. Something stunk. The crab’s smell? Urine?

I had killed the other one so much quicker than this⁠ ⁠—⁠ except it had been smaller, its glassy carapace under​-​developed. Grounding that one was simple. What to do about this one?

Glasscrab shells grew harder than the thin glass of the lake, and just punching it wouldn’t help. They were there to protect them from predators like me, after all.

I grabbed at the other eyestalk. It swerved out of the way! The crab writhed in my grasp. It ripped its last eyestalk out in its struggle! And, it scurried away like that. How were these things so agile!

Again, I leapt after it. But it expected me, even blind, and threw itself to the side.

“Come on, wretched little crab⁠ ⁠—⁠ I only want to ground you, drain your blood, then eat you.” Honestly, it wasn’t that bad of a deal. Better than living in the Berwem, for sure.

I landed beside the crab, farther away than the flightless little bug expected, and growled. Tired of playing with the crab, I punched the ground between us. Frowning, punching again, harder, the leg plunged into the lake. Little crab dug in, like fear. I grinned and lunged forth. My foreleg still prickled, plunged in the glass. It ripped wincingly through the skin as I leap forward.

I punched the crab with my free leg. It tipped without falling over. I grinned and brought my other leg under it and tore it out of the lake. Beneath the crab burst the skin! The crab flipped over. It landed on its back!

Did the little fiend have an answer to that as well? Before I could find out, I plunged my claw into its underbelly, ending the crafty little crab.

“I win.”

I twisted my claw inside the crab to be sure. After I cleaned off the icky blue blood, the crab slipped into my crab bag. It fit, but tightly. With my other bag only for crysts⁠ ⁠—⁠ five of them⁠ ⁠—⁠ I couldn’t ground another crab without abandoning its body. Three should be enough, though.

Turning to where the crab appeared, I walked over: and under the skin, revealed by the crab’s earlier digging, lay another pink cryst. Yes!

I collected the thing. It matched the Sterk in size, and unlike the drab green stone, it glowed happily. Already, fragments scuttled across the surface, stirred most around some holes on the surface.

So, did the crabs feed on these crysts? It raised another question: What were the scuttling fragments? I’d taken them to be some living part of the stones, but maybe the vibrations just attracted them as well.

Should I name the new stone? It didn’t have the personality of Sterk, so maybe it didn’t deserve a proper name. How about something simple and silly, like ‘the crabstone?’ Yes, that would work. The crabstone joined Sterk in my cryst bag.

“Now you have a friend,” I murmured, more to entertain myself than anything else.

After a while, my second empty canteen slipped in my bag as well. I dared a glance at the sky. But I had ventured far enough for the lake to obscure the sun. I saw only a glowing blotch nearing the horizon. Maybe a fifth or a fourth of my time had passed, I would guess. It added more haze to my already vague sense of starless doom.

As I fretted over time, I missed the skittering approach of too many glasscrabs to my side. Four, I counted. Was that what the pungent smell was? Some kind of signal, an attractant? Their eyestalks glowed, all four pairs. I could barely make out their silhouettes, they looked shadowy blotches in the darkness.

Like ghosts, angry spirits come to exact vengeance after I grounded their conspecific.

I stumbled backward. The crack of movement tore them into motion! They shot forward as a group, each as adroit and overspeedy as their fallen friend. I backpedaled, heart thundering in my breast. Two crabs were here.

Now I was in the air, and threshing my wings in escape.

As I flew away, I felt the weight of the new crab and its crabstone. Could I still fly away at the end of this, with three more crysts? Maybe the reason Hinte refused to fly was the stones weighing her down. She would never admit that, though.

Below me, the angry crabs milled about. Farther away, another, larger shadow moved in the vog. A fifth, but huge glasscrab? I didn’t know how big glasscrabs grew, but that shadow looked dragon​-​sized. But maybe vog, with its stirred dust clouds, had tricked my eyes. The lake had grown darker this close to second dusk.

---

My flight took me to a rough and uneven part of the Berwem, where raised blades of dustone stabbed skyward and bands of murky glass seemed the lake’s outjutting ribs. I landed there, after some beats of indecisive circling. Hinte was right; you couldn’t find crysts by flying.

Here, my footsteps came more solid, and sent thumps through the glassier spots. I coughed again, bringing tart dew to my fangs. The sound seemed to slink around the dustone blades and echo in the lake’s vast emptiness.

My breath, coughs and all, vitrified in my throat when a gruff voice answered the echoes from the shadows. Someone besides me and Hinte in the lake? Another sifter?

Nothing to fear, right?

That it wasn’t some monster, wasn’t a rockwraith, should’ve had me less afraid. But I was alone. I had already nearly died, and what would have happened if I hadn’t escaped the ghastly glasscrabs?

The dark clouds orbiting me didn’t grow any deeper, and the noxious vog didn’t burn any rawer. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that they did, just as I couldn’t shake the curdled fear that dewed on my fangs.

I looked left and right before my gaze drew to a flat​-​topped rib of dustone opposite the voice. Like a shield, this gray​-​black blade rose in front of the rib, just tall enough that I could nestle myself atop it and hide from view.

Peeking over the top of that shield, my frills worked and my tongue sifted the air. Footsteps padded from somewhere unseen, and a smell like shed skin and that oozing black slime wafted to me. Just when my pulsing heart had grown regular again, a dull white figure came into view. I ducked. My breath cycle stopped again, but the coughs wouldn’t be so courteous. They struggled and writhed in my throat, and despite covering my mouth with my forelegs, I could hear the coughs echoing.

The footsteps stopped. “Oi! I could hear you sneaking down behind me with half a frill. You got an ax with you?”

It took a shift of the lake’s grinding plates before my voice lighted in my throat. “I⁠ ⁠—⁠ I don’t?” Why would you need an ax to sift?

“Pity, pity.” They punctuated this with a scrape of their claws.

When I peeked back, the figure had disappeared. My head upturned just to catch them landing on a dustone rib just beside mine. I jumped, and stumbled back.

“Whoops! Didn’t mean to spook you⁠ ⁠—⁠ take my apologies,” the sifter said, waving an alula toward me. They wore a white suit like mine with a red and gold mask covering their face.

On either side of their mask’s mouth, black circles stuck out, and a dark form hung by their neck. I couldn’t make out more details at this distance, though. By their hindlegs was a deflated​-​looking bag not bigger than my own, and I could only tell it was empty by how it hung close and thin at their side.

Nothing to fear. “I⁠ ⁠—⁠ okay.” I brought my forefoot to my cheek, about to scratch it, but flinched with a gasp as I touched the tender rawness.

The sifter peered at me from their rib. The only thing visible about their eyes from this distance was their lack of goggles or protection. “That’s a nasty singing you have there⁠ ⁠—⁠ looking like you burnt your face to Anterth and back.”

“Um.” I brushed my face with a toe. “There was a really–really big hole. I almost fell in!”

The sifter laughed a short, one​-​note laugh, and said, “Was there? That’s why”⁠ ⁠—⁠ they tapped their red mask⁠ ⁠—⁠ “you wear one of these.”

I bowed my head, deeper, with more formality than I might if my heart didn’t still hammer in my frills, an old instinct still yet to fade from my hatchhood. The talk flagged there, and I stood on legs still trembling.

The sifter’s frills folded. “He’s getting late, isn’t he?” they said with an upward whisk of their wing.

“He?” I looked up where they pointed, head atilt. “Do you mean Enyswm?”

“Yes, old yellow’s gotten tired of spitting his rays⁠ ⁠—⁠ taking a rest soon.” The sifter punctuated this by spitting a twin stream of saliva off to the side.

I laughed a small laugh. “I almost wish they wouldn’t. I soured when Oleuni sunk⁠ ⁠—⁠ I don’t have a lot of time.”

They nodded. “Know exactly what you mean. But if the suns call it a day”⁠ ⁠—⁠ they gestured upward again⁠ ⁠—⁠ “then I say we should too. No place in the fires to be when it’s the dark.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “Not a great place to be in the day, either.”

“Don’t they all say that, heh. I’ve come to like it.” They pat their breast with a foreleg. “This your first flight in the fires? You act a little fledgly.”

I lowered my head.

“Then I’m doubly sure you should head back. Saw some white ones on the prowl not a ring earlier.” the sifter said. “And you need some fresh air in your lungs”⁠ ⁠—⁠ they chopped with their wing⁠ ⁠—⁠ “because that cough sounded like a wraith jumped right down your throat.”

“I uh, came with someone. I wouldn’t want to leave without her.”

“Lake’s a big place⁠ ⁠—⁠ don’t fly too far from each other. It’s not safe.”

I rubbed my cheek with an alula. “Are you with someone too?”

“Yes, my buddy let me lie down on these slabs while he let some streams flow.” They waved a wing behind them, pointing back the way they came. “I’m just here a​-​waiting.”

“I hope he doesn’t keep you waiting.” My frills relaxed, expanding beside my head and they caught something. “Do you feel that?”

Their frills perked in response, and they looked around for a bit before their gaze returned, and they hid their necklace with an alula. Their voice became a whisper. “The humming?”

“It feels like one of those crysts but not the same,” I said, nodding.

Their stance relaxed a bit, and their alula released the necklace. “Those odd glowing rocks? Didn’t know they had a fancy name. All I know is they’re supposed to be off and sourcerous. But I wondered, and picked this guy up”⁠ ⁠—⁠ he held up a necklace inlaid with a purple cryst, rough but also flat in places⁠ ⁠—⁠ “and sand it down sometimes. Once heard they ward off curses and fouls spirits, so I keep one or two around when I can manage it.”

When I saw the crysts, my brilles cleared, and when I said, “Do you think I could have that?” My high, quick voice failed to hide my eagerness.

“Hum?” He cocked his head. “What’d you need it for?”

“I uh, collect them?” My brilles clouded.

“Fine by me⁠ ⁠—⁠ had this one for about a cycle, it’s tasted better days.”

My frills flared up, and I laughed. The sifter leapt forward, stumbling onto my mound with an oof. Slipping the cryst from their neck and banging it against the ground until it fell from the necklace, they were laughing. After they picked it up with their wing, the necklace slipped back around their neck.

“Here you are,” they said. “Though I’d ask you don’t let it drop how you got it⁠ ⁠—⁠ they’re supposed to be sourcerous.”

I accepted it, wagged my tail. Then I caught myself and forced the thing to hang between my hindlegs again. Three crysts. I’ve gotten more than halfway there! The new cryst glowed weaker than the others. It didn’t look as drab as Sterk, but it wavered more than the crabstone.

“Thank you!” I paused. “Um, I didn’t get your name? I’m Kinri. Miss Kinri.”

They toss their head in response, though there may have been a small start at my name. They said, “Mister Wrang. And it’s no problem.” He glanced away. Waving his tongue, he seemed to hunt for a new topic.

I said, “But I don’t really have much time. So if you don’t…”

“I don’t. Go find your friend and some rest.” He waved a wing. “Dwylla guide you.”

“You too.” I hesitated for a moment before I turned and slinked away.

I leapt into the air, and again flew over the lake’s surface. Soon the outjutting ribs and dustone blades faded behind me and the Berwem smoothed itself below me. Three crysts.

---

I risked two swallows of my canteen while I flew. As I brought the tall, cloth​-​wrapped glass to my mouth, my hold slipped on the wet dew coating it. The canteen didn’t fall out of my grasp, but I overcompensated and knocked it from my own claws.

It dropped, spitting my water as it fell.

I glided down after it, but not fast enough to catch it. And in the hazy air, I’m not sure if I could, even if I had been. Cracks and crunches reached me as the canteen skittered across the surface.

The fear struck me that the glass of the canteen would shatter. The Gwymri knew how to make sturdy glass, but still, I had bought that canteen and my money wouldn’t last forever.

The ground here grew mountainous and rough. Not quite like where I had met the sifter, but my canteen seemed to have rolled into one of the valleys between a circle of dustone mounds.

As I slinked around those mounds, wings brushing across the surface on either side of me, the hum of Sterk and the crabstone shifted. Had I even felt anything? So slight. But I needed to take every lead. So my wings folded and I fanned my frills.

Circling took so much longer on the ground! After four long, tight loops around the area, the vibrations really did seem to change as I moved. I was standing on the very edge of the effect.

Slinking forward, the shift came, a slight hiccup in the squeaky pitch of the crabstone, and a ghostly quickening in Sterk’s rhythm. Following it, I found another pink stone. Just one more and I’d win!

Not wanting to think of another name, I would call the newcomer ‘crabstone the second.’ It looked a copy of the first crabstone, anyway.

What about the purple stone? I’d call it ‘the sifter stone.’ I’d just pass them all to Hinte anyway, so names didn’t matter at all.

After I dug up the new stone, I cracked it and waved it around for its effect on the other stones. The chorus altered so subtly. The motley group almost worked like a kind of cryst detector. But would this cryst detector still work? Sterk’s first hiccup had come jarring, startling. This second, I had all but missed.

Taking out the three other stones, I sat all them on the ground and slid them about and waved my frills. The crabstones acted stoic: their pitch wavering by less than nothing when I moved Sterk. They didn’t even react to each other, only to the drab green stone. The weak sifter stone ignored the others, sputtering in anxious isolation.

Sterk sung enough for then all, though. His rhythmic vibrations altered tone and timbre as I moved the pink pair around, but not the purple one. His hum surged and swelled, but the effect diminished when either crabstone was near enough. When Sterk touched a crabstone, the effect became a whisper or suggestion, the same subtle shifts that had hinted at the second crabstone.

I frowned. Putting either pink cryst near Sterk grounded his detection ability. And when both were near, he didn’t even register the sifter stone.

A cryst detector would be useful. Could I regain Sterk’s detection ability? I could hide the crabstones somewhere and carry only Sterk. But then glasscrabs might find and damage the stones, I couldn’t risk that. I could place them high, on some cliff. But I didn’t know these cliffs very well. If I won, and then I⁠ ⁠—⁠ forgot where I hide the stones… I’d crumble. And I had no more room in my crab bag, so I couldn’t even keep them in separate bags. I coughed a sigh. At least, the effect had helped while it lasted. And some good things happened. I found my fourth stone!

My frills were dancing beside my head, and I gave an excited squeak. It irritated my ornery throat, spawned another cough and salty tears on my fangs. One more cryst to go! I gathered up the stones, and paused to smile at the purple stone. So close.

How much time did I have left, though? Sifter stone still in foot, I looked up, but it was then that several skittering crunches reached me.

I waved my tongue. A boiled meat smell suffused the air. My frills fanned. The crunches came from all around me. I looked. Glasscrabs crawled over the mounds.

One crabby thing skittered at me! With its speed it looked to fly. Eyestalks waved at the purple cryst in my foot.

Another crab hurtled into my hindleg! Horned eyestalks pierced white fabric and scales under. I lashed with my tail. The crab didn’t budge. I kicked it. It stumbled back a pace.

I growled, and the crabs scuttled forward. Why did they act so aggressive? They’re supposed to be flighty little prey. I flicked my tongue again, finding the urine scent on me. Oh.

The crab in front of me lunged at my cryst​-​carrying foot! I meet it with a punch, but it didn’t stumble back as much as it should have. The foot dropped the cryst, and I jumped back.

But I stepped on the other crab. It stabbed me! I growled, and leapt. But with one foot on a writhing crab, it failed. I fell onto my side. The crabs scuttled forward as a swarm. My breath caught… but they swarmed over the fallen cryst.

Horned eyestalks were stabbing as the tide of crabs advanced. Blood dripped onto my forelegs, and it was cool. Were they fighting each other? If they thought there was only the one cryst, it fledged sense. The sifter stone couldn’t feed them all. Or even one, if crabs eat the fragments.

I burst up, clawing my way to a stand. I pushed at the crabs to give me enough footing to leap. The crabs attacked the stinking foreleg more than the other, so I used that to heard them away. With a spot clear enough, I leapt a few strides. I ran, and leapt into the air, flying away from the crabs.

---

…Three crysts.

What had brought the crabs back? My stinking foreleg? The vibrations from my cryst experiments? A curse from the Cloud Constructor?

Landing again, some distance from the crabs, I pulled out my last canteen and poured a clawful of water over my stinking foreleg. It took an eighth of water I wouldn’t be able to drink. But if it would ward off the crabs, I needed it.

Shaking the canteen, I looked up. Two crysts to go, now. How much time remained to collect them? I flew above the vog to glance at Enyswm, where he dipped over to the horizon. Already, the second dusk was falling. I fell with it.

Was this it? Would I lose my gambit, and slink back to Hinte cloudy​-​eyed and coily​-​tailed? I had tried, nearly fledged it. I had come so close. I couldn’t lose now, when winning was right above me.

Right?

My legs had turned to brittle dustone and my frills locked beside my head. But I breathed. I couldn’t lose. My mouth opened, air rushing down my throat, into my lungs and the air sacs in my breast. As I exhaled, the air from my lungs left me, and the air from the sacs flowed into my lungs. I inhaled again, and the cycle repeated. But the air from my first inhale had grown stale, and left me with my next exhalation.

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. A cycle. Heartbeats came in discrete thumps; but blood kept flow in the troughs. Breath came in discrete draughts; but fresh air seeped in at each step.

Deeper in my breast, that knot of doom still knit itself. I took the peace and focus of just breathing and tried to untie that knot, to give me room to breathe on a more abstract level. When I pulled at the strings, tugged at the loops, the knot just grew tighter. I huffed frustration, and instead clawed and ripped at the knot. But the frayed strings twisted together, waxing to an awful cross​-​tied mess of thread that was even worse because you knew it was frayed so bad it couldn’t be untied normally because you ruined it.

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. I really dragged at mental exercises. They didn’t work for me. I just had to let go and fly forward anyway. Drop the knot. Lick the tart venom from my fangs.

Okay, now I needed to think. Where were crysts most likely to be? Without knowing how crysts form, or how the glass flowed below the skin, I didn’t know where to hunt for crysts.

I could fly to the center, where the crysts might grow thicker. But that meant more glasscrabs who would attack me, and I couldn’t take more of them. And then there loomed a specter of whatever hunted crabs.

Because there had to be something hunting and eating the crabs, we had learned that bit of ecology from our tutors early. Where there was something tasty to eat, something lived to eat it. Carnivores tasted pretty nasty, but herbivores tasted better.

Did stone​-​eating count as being herbivorous? Well, maybe not, but they did taste good at any rate. Not good enough to justify stepping into the awful lake, but some sad creature had to live here, eating them anyway.

Maybe the rockwraiths Hinte had mentioned ate glasscrabs. She said they aestivated, but it didn’t seem a very deep sleep if I could wake them. The Berwem was no place to stay at night, and the center seemed even worse. Flying there meant more fiendish glasscrabs and maybe rockwraiths.

Rockwraiths. They might eat you.

I couldn’t fly out to the center and get eaten! More than I wanted to impress Hinte, more than I wanted not to pass out in the vog.

And then, it came. A deep, melodious chime resonating in the high cliffs, reverberated in the warm glass, and ringing in my frills. Six notes, a simple, insistent melody repeated seven times. A tune no one could forget.

If I said the second dusk ring gave me courage or confidence, I would lie. I couldn’t really say I found any sort of inner strength or resolve. No, my frills deflated, my tail fell slack, my eyes clouded. My lungs and sacs emptied, and for a few heartbeats they stayed that way.

I let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a squeak and a cry. This wasn’t a realization I could dodge by joking or staring at the silly side of things: I had lost.

I thought of Hinte. She had been right.

Tongueless. Stone​-​frills.

I don’t need your help.

It felt petty, and it was. But I didn’t want her to be right. I wanted us to be friends. I… I was better than this, wasn’t I?

Could I really accept this loss if I had one last card in my wings, a card I wouldn’t play because I was too scared? If it took me this long to get three stones, I had no chance of finding the last two before it grew too dark.

I had to take the risk. The center was my only option.

---

High above the skin, I saw the cliffs on either side, and the three big canyons that fed into the Berwem. Toward the center of the lake, off by a good flight, a dark, box​-​like shape sat low to the ground, looking the size of several houses. The surrounding lake skin looked flat, regular. Had someone built something in the lake? What did they use it for? Maybe it had something to do with sifting, the only thing this lake was good for.

I angled myself for the center, past the black box, and glided down. The fresh air up here only irritated my throat. Another cough ripped itself from me as I descended.

My steep angle brought me to the ground before I reached the center. So I adjusted my course again, flapping my wings and taking a bounding flight over the lake to the center. Several moments and dozens of wing​-​beats later, I felt the center before I reached it. A subtle hum prickled my frills at the edges, and built as I flew. It grated, and only tended worse as I drew closer. Never enough to annoy, but so, so unpleasant!

My heart lurched, and tangy anticipation bedewed my fangs. If I could feel this hum, then the glasscrabs, who lived on the humming stones, would feel it as well. I didn’t want to deal with another troop of glasscrabs, who would only grow more vicious with their numbers.

The hum waxed as I approached. A hum this large must come from a massive cryst or some big collection of them. No way I could carry either myself.

Beneath me, glassy rocks scurried away from the hum. What? I lowered myself, glancing about. Glasscrabs bolted over the ground, fleeing. I tilted my head.

A long silvery creature lunged from the darkness! It slammed into the slowest crab. The crab lurched. But the creature bit down. There was a crunch. The prey gave high​-​pitched cry while the slender thing shook the crab in its mouth. Crunches now paired with shattering glass​-​cracks, and the cry redoubled, waxing to a keening shriek. The crab bled blue and wet. Blood glistened in the flickering light of its eyestalks.

Another silvery white form lunged at another slow crab. I lowered further, examining the crab​-​killing things. Six legs sprawled out from the slender body. Yet the creature almost slithered around, the legs hurtling it about, not quite lifting the belly from the ground. Eyes bulged out of its head, glowing like the crabs, but so much dimmer. It had the gaze of a newt that hunted.

I flew low enough for my wings to blow dust on the ground. The glasscrabs fled, oblivious to me, and the predators did not turn from their meals. I saw beaked, munching heads; they looked fat and bulbous, like frogs or salamanders. Where eyestalks had stabbed the things, they bled oily black.

Something slammed into my upper leg! It bit into the glass there, scraping it away. It folded around my foreleg, hindlegs gripping me. My balance fell away. I spun in the air.

A single thought flared in my mind:crush it. Flailing wings spun me faster. I controlled it, angling for the attacker to smash into the lake under me.

I had flown close to the ground. We crashed in breaths, strides away from both the fleeing crabs and the other predators. I couldn’t see either. A short distance away, I heard cracking steps and skittering crunches.

My attacker gave a pained yelp. It turned into a growl and I growled back. This stinking creature attacked me. Why would it do that? Did I smell like a glasscrab?

The creature was writhing under me. When I moved my leg away, it slipped! The creature lunged at my throat! I stared as its glassy, metallic beak, sharp and glinting at the end of its snout, caught a red molten glow. My heart skipped a beat and I drew a final breath.

A glassy green claw punched at the thing. The lunge missed me. I drew another breath.

“Hinte?” I said, voice cracking with fear.

The bright​-​white figure grabbed the beast. She stabbed it again in the side before it broke free. Her knife was glowing, a shimmering green that swirled along the blade. Hinte was growling low and feral.

My attacker returned it. The smaller creature, half as long as either of us, couldn’t match Hinte’s growl. It looked from my rescuer to me, still yarling.

I growled too, bolstered by Hinte’s rescue. It came quieter, faltering. When Hinte made to lunge at the creature, it backpedaled.

Crystalline slime stuck to the scales of the thing, swirlingly iridescent, reflective and translucent. Its jerky motion flung globs of the slime; they hardened to dark orbs on the ground.

I jumped to my feet, lowering my head. Growling again, I stared down the creature, it stepped back, once, twice. It looked to the side, where the crabs had fled.

The crabs were all gone, and the other silvery predators had run away. The creature gave a last, defiant growl, then turned all slow. Its left side was not there. It leapt and crashed beak​-​first into the Berwem. The ground was shattered, and the creature was plunged into the molten glass.

I gave a silly, wuthered grin, and might have laughed a bit. I lived, again. I almost died, again. My foreleg felt the shattered glass there. The creature had been a scratch away from ripping into me. It left me with what felt like bruises.

The bright​-​white figure turned to me, crouching. She placed the knife in her bag. Her amber goggles hid her gaze, but she frowned just below it. She folded her frills.

“Bringing you here was a mistake,” she said.

“What?” I said, stamping a foot. “I’ve found crysts! I can do this!”

She flicked a wing to the side. “And all of those crashes? I could track you in my sleep. You could not even go a ring before getting yourself mauled by olms.”

“But–but I have you?” I spread my wings. “We can be a team!”

She whisked a wing to the side. “Imagine if I had not been right behind you. You would be dead.”

My brilles cleared. “But⁠ ⁠—”

“I am not interested in sifting with someone tongueless as yourself.” The wiver stood up.

“Hinte! I found four⁠ ⁠—⁠ three crysts on my own. Is that worth nothing to you?”

“Show me,” she said, tongue flicking.

I unstrapped my cryst bag. Opening the top, I revealed Sterk and the crabstones. She hummed.

“Well,” I said, “how many did you find, huh?” I couldn’t help the hint of smug that crept into my voice. She looked to me, frills folding back. I made a ‘go on’ gesture with the alulae of my wings.

“Two, thanks to scenting after you.”

“So, I win?” I blew my tongue at Hinte.

She turned around, then stalked off, muttering something about hatchlings. I chased after her, sighing. The vog ripped another cough from me, but a wetness stuck in my throat. Coughing again, harder, I spat out dark mucus that tasted metallic, but unlike any of the metals I could smell in the air. I peered at the dust​-​congealed blood, alit by molten light. It was flecked with red.

Shivering, I scraped into step beside Hinte, and we marched off together like that. My tongue relished Hinte’s grapey smell, and a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. I didn’t walk by myself anymore. With that, the knot in my stomach unraveled, and a weight lifted from my back. It was all I had wanted.

I wasn’t alone.

Up above, past the lake’s shroud, there were birds, clouds and stars. I looked at the gray blackness above, hunting for something outside the mind​-​numbing tedium of the lake. My last canteen had drained to a half. We hadn’t encountered any rockwraiths.

At one point I’d scribbled flat, imagined monsters in the dust while Hinte wrenched at an uncooperative cryst. My scribbled rockwraith had snarled with massive claws dripping gore, mouth agape with angled sword​-​teeth and streams of caustic venom flying forth. I’d smiled but not laughed, and that kept my throat satisfied.

By now I wouldn’t complain to see a real rockwraith. As long as it prowled far in the distance, downwind of us, and with no chance under the sky of eating me. But no. Instead I sifted, seeing the same three things over and over again. The ash clouds were still cloudy. The glass crags were still craggy. And Hinte was still Hinte.

We’d found another stone. Well, I did, not Hinte⁠ ⁠—⁠ even if she wouldn’t accept that. We had argued up and down about it awhile before I tried making my argument with a thrown rock. She retorted with a bigger rock and we did that again before she uncovered another cryst that way.

I dug up a messy red gemstone, too! Hinte hadn’t taken it, so I kept it. It looked a wrinkly raisin, red​-​streaked and translucent. So maybe not the kind of raisin you’d want to eat. We saw another glasscrab too! But it ran off when we approached and I couldn’t catch it with my tired, hurt legs and by the time Hinte looked over at me it had fled.

That’d deflated me, and it lasted until I found another stone, one which was my find, with no quibbling from Hinte. I’d preened and wagged my frills at the dark​-​green wiver. That lasted until she decided we should check again for another.

My stomach growled, my forefeet looked⁠ ⁠—⁠ and felt⁠ ⁠—⁠ like a tornado passed through, and my legs were sagging.

Hinte was peering at me, and I put my wings under my snout and shrunk my frills in my closest to a pleading hatchling.

She didn’t even twitch a frill. “Well?” The dark​-​green wiver frowned beneath amber goggles, head snaking forward and tilted.

I sighed and said, “No, I don’t think⁠ ⁠—⁠ there are no more stones down there. I don’t see the point.” My voice tended hoarse and small. My throat was about to melt, at this point. Even my saliva tasted coppery.

Hinte bared her fangs, unfolded her wings and spread them, and she already was bigger. When she growled I slumped. I wouldn’t have another fight with her so soon. I twisted my head toward the hole.

Waves of heat swelled out and crashed into my face, my scales rawer and tenderer. I stared at the molten maw, my eyes seeking out currents, flows or anything that might move other crysts, if any others existed. The cracks clawing out from the hole had the lake skin crumbling or trembling. Under my claws the ground wobbled. I shifted my footing, and winced when weight fell on my gashed foreleg.

Crouching down, I doomed my sore but gashless foreleg to that hungry maw. The lake had eaten, devoured, my lunch, and that hadn’t sated it. Hinte stepped me, frills swiveling as she plopped down a few strides away, punching her own hole in the dustone with a single hit.

A few moments, and my claw grazed something hard dragging along in the currents. Toes traced it in the sand. It felt about the size and shape of a ring, but larger by a notch. Not holding out for anything of note, I pulled the hard loop out and shook away glass. I poked and ripped at the glass on the loop.

I peered at the melty thing. Glass sloughed off the hot gray metal, and revealed was an iron loop twisting deeply around itself, lousy with pointy barbs and a rough all around. I gave a secret smile and rolled the loop into my sole, and held that foreleg out to Hinte. A moment passed before she glanced over. The wiver flicked her tongue and looked up at me, head atilt.

I let my expression turn solemn. “It reminded me of you,” I said.

Wrenching a foot out she took the loop of metal, and regarded it for all of breath, and then glared at me, bared her fangs. From them the wiver spat at my my sole, venom projecting out in twin streams. They splashed on my foot, leaving a faint salty smell.

“Eww!” I squeaked, driving my foot into the molten sand, waving it wildly around. More glass creapt into splits and lines of my foot, but I forget that for the act.

And it worked! A small smile had lighted on Hinte’s face, until she hid it. She brushed it off with a glance away, to the lake. I glanced around with her. As I shifted, the move tore a crack. The plate beneath me sunk. Glass flowed onto it.

In heartbeats, the glass had crept to me. Because it had cooled even as it flowed, it crawled like so many toes. Still, some of it got onto the bright white fabric at my hindlegs or belly. With the sand cool enough to spare the stuff, it threatened less than it just annoyed. Still, I squirmed and talked reason to my companion:

“Hinte,” I said, and waved a wing at her, “I told you there’s nothing else down there.” My hoarse voice was faltering.

She said nothing, still peering at the lake surface. I glared at her. Why did she have to be so difficult? She looked over the ground again. Her focus settled on a spot a few strides away. She lay down there, and again had her foreleg in the lake with a single punch.

Several beats of sweeping her leg through the glass, then she pulled out a stone flickering green and blue. I made myself cringe and glance at her as she stood, but it held no hint of smugness.

She cracked the stone, and this time she let the scuttling fragments fall to the dustone. They skittered about there for a bit, and not long afterward faltered motionless. Hinte walked forward without me, not quite waiting for me, but not striding off.

It took moments to stand up. The gashed foreleg was folded under the weight, and even the other foreleg was bruised, and only good in contrast. Wounds ached. Like that, I took care trotting after her. I was a few steps away, and she turned to me. The wiver looked to my foreleg.

“It still hurts?” she asked.

I tried to say ‘it does,’ but it came out an alien croak. I lowered my head instead. She said nothing else, turning around, walking on.

My canteen dwindled to a third as we roamed straightly the surface of the lake. The glowing cracks in the dustone shrunk or fell away. Were we walking toward a shore of the lake? I let my hopes well up. Would I finally get a break?

---

In the distance, the gray​-​black vog gave way to a grayer, blacker wall of crumbling dustone. Sprawling cliffs sheltered, the Berwem, on three sides. On the last side, there was also a cliff⁠ ⁠—⁠ that one opened to a ravine. As far as I knew, through that ravine wound the usual route into the Berwem.

We’d taken a different route: a long, winding detour through the farmlands and emptiness on the outskirts of town, doubling back through caves and trenches in the cliffs, climaxing in a glide down from the top of the cliffs right into the lake!

The vog thinned here on the shore, and I had a better view of only the gnarled crags and crevices. Covering all the ground and piling like waves, the gravel here looked the lake’s exiles, half tough clinker rocks and half wild​-​looking lapilli fragments. In the troughs of those waves, you sometimes saw glimpses of the fire clay insulating the lake bottom and encircling cliffs; or sometimes you only saw gyras of built up volcanic hair, glassy and brittle. Things calmed and flattened the farther you got away from the lake, and by the cliffs walls it was proper ground again.

If that sounds all very lake shore, like no particular places as much as a kind of place, well, you’d be right. You couldn’t even tell which edge of the lake this was.

Hinte walked up to the wall, slowing to a stop at the base. She lay and without looking to me unstrapped her bag. Setting it in front of her, she withdrew her canteen⁠ ⁠—⁠ a blue and pink bit of leather bright even in the dark⁠ ⁠—⁠ and a roast the size of my foreleg, wrapped in greasy leaf​-​paper. Unwrapped with haste, it was six​-​legged squirrel with each limb splayed.

They were everywhere down here, but I hadn’t heard of them back home, in the sky. There, the closest we’d dealt with were winged rats, pests that climbed the skywires to glide from there down to every corner of the cities. We raised nets everywhere to keep them out. Sometimes it worked.

Hinte finished unwrapping and ripped into the squirrel roast. I turned away.

The ground here grew more solid than the mix of dustone and glass covering the lake itself. I crouched to lay down, and as I lowered myself, a wave weary lightheaded throbbed. Lying down fully, I settled a strides away from the eating wiver, and snaked a tail into my bag for my trout lunch.

My tail curled around air, even after I’d remembered.

Hunger roiled in my belly, and it had been long rings of exertion already. I couldn’t ignore it. I looked around, my gaze still avoiding Hinte, and I glared at the voggy lake.

Could I eat a raw glasscrab? Maybe not the highest idea. Even besides all the glass and weird soot on it. No scuttling fragments would remain on the any of the stones, either. I scratched my belly, and just scowled down at the ground.

Dust crunched. A wing prodded my side, and I looked up. The dark​-​green wiver stood above me, holding her squirrel between her alula and pinion. Taking the squirrel in both forefeet, she ripped. It was two halfs. One leg was already eaten, and she offered the half with three legs.

“Thank you,” I whispered

She didn’t say anything, just stepped away, returned to her spot. I looked at the squirrel. It was no trout, but I had gotten hungry. I bit into it and ripped out a chunk of meat.

The taste was lighter than I’d like, but I savored it, and took care to grind the smaller bones with my teeth and suck the marrow. I almost let out a hum of enjoyment. But that sort of thing annoyed Hinte. It would be rude. I liked messing with her, but she had just given me some of her lunch. She didn’t have to do that. So I reigned myself in, aimed at my meal.

Knowing the pace Hinte liked, I tore the rest of the roast to pieces as I chewed. And that was what my feet did while I ate, mixed with dusty swallows from my glass canteen. When I finished, a quarter of my last canteen remained. If I listened, I couldn’t hear Hinte eating. Had she finished before me?

A tap on my withers. I turned. Hinte held out a small glass bottle, half​-​full of water. I took it, bemused, before she grabbed a blotchy blue vial in the thumb of her wing. Passing that to me as well, she explained, “Pour that into the bottle, then shake it. It will help your headache.”

“Huh?”

“The clouds,” she pointed her wing toward the vog over the lake, then added, “They are noxious. Breathing them in is harmful. This solution will heal your lungs.” She paused. “But only if you breathe in the fumes. It cannot do that from your blood. Drinking would only heal your throat as you swallow.”

“What? My throat is about to turn to ash and you waited until now to give me this?” My fangs unfolded as I said this, but I retracted them.

She snapped her bag shut with her tail. “I have a limited supply of this mixture.” Pointing to herself, she said, “I can wait until I leave the lake before I use it.”

Then pointing to me, the wiver added, “But you are handling the fumes poorly”⁠ ⁠—⁠ her head darted forward⁠ ⁠—⁠ “because you decided to slink to the center of the lake without thinking.” She looked away. “So I am letting you use the mixture now. Unless you will wait until we leave the lake.” Her tone on the last sentence floundered. It sounded a statement, but it seemed a question.

If Hinte could wait until we leave the lake, I could too! I wasn’t weak or impatient. When I tried to voice my indignant, ‘Of course!’ It came out a voiceless croak that grew into a coughing fit. A coppery taste touched my tongue, but I might have been imaging it.

“No…” I squeezed out several beats later.

My forelegs found the top and uncorked the bottle as I glared at the lake’s gravelly shore. After following the instructions, I passed the vial back. The blue substance settled at the bottom of the bottle. I shook it, dissolving and mixing up the stuff. The liquid settled, waning to a muddy blue with misty vapors rising and congealing into clouds at the top.

My foreleg hesitated as I brought the bottle to my mouth⁠ ⁠—⁠ as it should when drinking unknown mixtures; but I had already tried some of Hinte’s concoctions, and her grandfather was Ushra. She wouldn’t make some novice mistake that could ground me or worse.

“Give it some time to settle.”

I lowered my head and waited. My thoughts drifted to the vog, then to the lake, and then to the stone we came here to retrieve.

“How many did those last two give us?”

“Those were ten and eleven,” she said. “We will collect three more and then we will head back.”

Three more?

“What? But I’ve been out here for so long! Why don’t we collect one more, while we head back?” Hinte didn’t reply, as always⁠ ⁠—⁠ she didn’t argue, she just stated her will and let the world march in step.

I growled. Spending a whole evening with Hinte wore on my nerves. My claws scored the lapilli gravel as I crouched, my wings spreading on their own. I could really go for a nice, relaxing flight in the southern cliffs. Maybe even sit on the highest peak far in the southwest, where the red​-​beaked pterosaurs made their nests, and you could watch cloud fortresses drift by.

I rubbed my headband. The sleek and floaty architecture of the sky inspired in a way that escaped the silly squatness and heavy sprawlingness of cliff​-​dweller buildings. Feeding little scraps of meat to those pterosaurs, sitting under wind​-​warped clouds, I could cloud my eyes and imagine the little peak I lay on didn’t connect to the ground.

The dustone scales back there, floating over a lake of glass, didn’t connect to the ground either. I sighed. As comfortable as I would be there, I would be alone.

---

My gaze fell from the sky to the dark lake shore, roaming a bit before lighting on the green wiver beside me. Peering at her, I replied, late and disconnected, “Well, does my red gem thingy count as a cryst?” I tried to smirk a bit.

“I told you, no.” Hinte had a page of fernpaper in a claw, held so that I couldn’t see, and with her other claw she traced something across the page.

“How do you know? It looks like a sweet raisin, maybe it’s a new type of those weird fragments.” I brought the gem to my mouth and bit. The hard gem resisted and slipped and scraped against my gums. “Ow.”

Hinte muttered something. I didn’t hear it, but it was two syllables and I could guess the sounds.

“Fine, maybe it isn’t a cryst. I’ll bribe you, then.” I affected my voice, bringing it closer to what I might use selling something in the Llygaid Crwydro, but exaggerated. “Listen up! One priceless, legendary gemstone, right here, yours today for an escort out of this awful, horrible lake. What do you say?”

Hinte lowered her page and looked at me. I only saw her lips, and they couldn’t decide what expression to take. The lines of her eyes hinted at behind the goggles a blank stare, and in the end the blankness infected her lips, forcing them into a line.

I smiled at her anyway⁠ ⁠—⁠ maybe my smile could infect her too. “Fine. What if I told you it held the secret to eternal life, then? You’re an alchemist, you can’t resist.”

“I could,” she said, her tone seeming to walk away from me, “I have enough gyras in front of me to rediscover it if you had, and you haven’t.” After that she looked away, and after that she said something that started with, “And it doesn’t matter regardless, as I…” but trailed into a mutter fast enough to hide the ending.

“What was that?”

Hinte kept her head turned. It was ten breaths before she said, “I’m in the cliffs. Immortality doesn’t matter anymore.”

My head tilted. “But… Chwithach​-​sofran said the reason forest​-​dwellers came to the cliffs in the first place was the hunt for eternal life.”

She said silence for a beat, then turned back around, snapping her tongue. “If I wanted your immortality raisin, I could have kept it.” She spat at the gem I still held up, but I whipped it out of the way before the venom could land.

“No way⁠ ⁠—⁠ I dug this one up for sure. You aren’t taking credit for this too.”

Hinte tossed her head, looking back at her paper. “Check the bottle,” she said.

Blowing my tongue at her, I checked the bottle⁠ ⁠—⁠ the blue liquid had grown opaque. A thick cloud of vapors whirled at the top. I uncorked it again.

The vapors erupted from the bottle! I pushed my snout toward them and breathed them in. It smelled like chemical mint, and it felt like my nose and throat froze and quivered. I inhaled as much as I could manage. But I overdid it, and I choked a little… yet the raw melting evil biting cough didn’t rise in my throat. I breathed again, and sighed a nice, relieved sigh.

After a few seconds to gather my breath, I inhaled the remainder of those merciful fumes. When the liquid didn’t look to be emitting any more vapor, I took a final, deep breath of it.

“Drink it.” Hinte’s voice came from beside me.

“What? You said it wouldn’t do anything if I drank it.”

“No, it will not heal your lungs if you drink it. Respira is two sibling mixtures. One to heal the lungs. The other to alleviate sinus headaches. One evaporates to fumes. The other remains a liquid. Drink the liquid,” she said, making chopping motions with her wing like she explained it for the fifth time to a hatchling. …This was my first time hearing it.

“Okay, okay.” I drank the solution. The freezing feeling came again, as the liquid slid down my throat. I choked in surprise! Where the last had felt a breath of freezing, shuddering surprise, this one felt a deep, dancing relief washing down my throat. Where it flowed, my throat felt twice as big, and every last trace of raw numbness melted, in a good way.

After a few more swallows the bottle emptied and I sucked down breath in deep pants. The relieving sensation followed the liquid’s path, flowing down to my stomach and settling. The feeling lingered, slow to leave, but when it did, my throat was electric and amazing.

I looked to Hinte’s dark​-​green frowning face with a smile. “Thank you, Hinte!” I said, drawing my wings together and curling their alulae into each other. Her frown only flattened, but between her relaxing brow and expanding frills, in her face lurked a smile held just below the surface.

I worked the bottle into my left bag. Though smaller than Hinte’s, it didn’t hold as much, only the three crysts from earlier and the jagged, uncut red gemstone we dug up. While I had thought it looked high pretty, Hinte said it was a dud. In the other bag, I had the three glasscrabs.

“Hey, Hinte,” I said. She turned to me, head tilting. “Do you have any empty glasses?”

She nodded, and dipped into her bag. Now I had a glass I could almost fit my claw into. I reached my tail into my bag, and clenched it around nothing.

“…And a knife?” I whispered.

Inscrutable yellow lenses stared at me. I could imagine the withering look hidden there. I cringed, turning away. In a moment, a knife slid over the dusty ground. It was in my feet.

The blade of the knife cooled my toes. It was night black and streaked with white⁠ ⁠—⁠ was it obsidian? But the streaks weren’t pure white; they seemed almost glassy. The knife’s hilt was leather, instead of the schizon that made up the rest of her things, and the hilt’s base was very concave in a way that looked like it would fit perfectly on a ball. Looking closer, there was an odd hole in the center of the base. What for? I flicked my tongue, and peered at it.

This knife had glowed when Hinte’d wielded it, but it seemed just like an ordinary knife, now. Was it the same one? I turned it over. Near the hilt black oleaginous blood gelled, and it smelled like the silvery white things. More black blood was streaked up the blade⁠ ⁠—⁠ had Hinte tried to wipe it clean?

“What were those things, Hinte?” I said, rubbing my leg where the creature had scraped glass away. “The silvery ones. Were they rockwraiths?”

“I told you no,” she said, squeezing her frills as if the notion were ridiculous. She whisked a wing, and finished, “Those were glazed olms, and they shouldn’t have been awake this late in the day.” She said it staring at me, frills narrowed. It sounded like an accusation. What had I done?

Clicking my tongue, laughing it off, I searched and said, “Glazed olms? Really? I thought you were joking. It–it sounded like some kind of exotic cuisine. Or maybe a perfume.” I said it, and looked down. My feet were turning the knife over and picking at the blood. Hardened and sticky, when I poked the blood with a claw, it scraped off.

She was folding the wrapper of her roast and placing it in her bag. “Olms taste awful. Their meat is gamey and breeds rot and disease. Only fit for alchemy.”

“What sort of mixtures are they used for?” I stopped picking the knife. It was clean, or the closest to clean I could manage, so I looked up at my companion, licking my eyes and fanning my frills.

Hinte’s own frills flexed in thought. “Their slime is used in glazeward. Their blood is a coolant,” she paused, looking up. An alula found her cheek, scratching. “Their integument is pretty. Some use them for trinkets or shoes or something. You would.” The wrinkle in her frills said what she thought of that.

“Yeah!” I said. “I like silver, it’s a good color.” My eyes were silver, and what else could they be but the best color? I put an alulae on both of my cheeks, and mimed Hinte’s thoughtful scratching. “And glazeward, hmm… That’s the salve?” I asked.

The dark​-​green wiver took a drink from her canteen and ignored my question, continuing where she left off. “The rest of their anatomy is obscure and poorly studied,” she said, making a vague gesture with her wing.

“Well, do you know why’s that?” I scooted closer.

“Glazed olms are vicious and secretive. They live in the molten glass, so one sees them only when they emerge from the lake. Luring them out fails half the time, and their internals are unlike other creatures, and that confuses anatomists,” she said.

I lowered my head, humming, then said, “Why do they have to be so dangerous, though?”

Hinte curled her lip. “They are no danger if you stay away from their territory. If you had not tromped to the center of the lake, nothing would have happened. No danger.”

“Will you let up about that already! I wouldn’t have tried to go to the center if you had told me anything at all. Why do you keep bringing it up?”

Her tail lashed. “You asked.” Lowering her head, staring at me, she asked, “Do you have any other questions?” The words were growled, her fangs visible.

“No–no.” I looked away, frills folding back and tail coiling over my leg. Unstrapping my bag, I took out the crabs and lay them out beside the knife. I had everything I needed this time.

I gave one last, half​-​glaring glance to the bright​-​white figure. She drank from her blue and pink canteen, clutching it tight, and stared out over the lake. If I stared at the foot clutching the canteen, I could see the crystalline droplets, still clinging from when she punched the olm.

---

The smallest glasscrab was the first we’d found⁠ ⁠—⁠ first I’d found. I grounded it with my own claws. My foot opened and closed, miming the piercing and ripping that had punctuated the first glasscrab.

I scratched my headband. In the sky, you couldn’t hunt on your own. On the surface, it was normal. I liked it. The Houses regulated hunting with heavy fines and constant guard patrols, because reckless hunting endangered populations.

After the hatchy, House​-​less precursors to the Constellation had driven entire species extinct, the Houses declared poaching one of the lowest crimes, and made three great dances of ecology tutoring a prerequisite for any hunting.

And so, our lessons went, we had the foresight of the Houses to thank whenever we had more to eat than skyrats or thornroots.

I snatched up the crab, turning it over in my claws. The bodies of these ‘crabs’ didn’t look anything like what we had in the skylakes. Even apart from the glassy shells, they had those flickering eyestalks, those twelve spindly legs that moved when I touched them, and a skeletal underbelly that didn’t look crab​-​like at all, at all.

They looked more like walking rocks than anything else. Vicious, relentless walking rocks. I flicked the crab’s eyestalk. This one hadn’t given me such an annoying fight, but it still shared blood⁠ ⁠—⁠ precious blood⁠ ⁠—⁠ with that obnoxious little insect! Ripping out its own eyestalks? Summoning a bunch of ghostly avengers? Maybe they grew squalled in this miserable lake. I wouldn’t stay sane either.

The last drops of water smacked against the glass as I shook my last canteen. It had emptied, and now I lacked water.

I steadied the knife for a few beats, worried about stabbing myself in the dark of the shore. Holding the knife steady, I pierced the heart. Blood oozed out from the long dead crab with lifeless lethargy. I pressed the dead crab over the glass.

The blood of these crabs allowed one to brew the Munditi Sieve, or ‘the Sieve of Purity.’ One of Chwithach’s scrolls, titled ‘A New Reaction of Crescent Crab Blood and Recipes Thereof,’ had called the Sieve the second most powerful detector of disease and impurity; but still the most powerful non​-​magical technique. According to ‘On the Ecology and Distribution of Extant Crescent Crabs,’ glasscrab blood is weaker than the blood of crescent crabs, the rainbow​-​shelled crabs that infested the rocky shores in the west.

Those shores lay a few long rings’ flight west, but I couldn’t fly out there and bag any unless I bought a new glider to handle the added weight. I’d already sold the one I had flown down to the cliffs on, because I would stay in Gwymr/Frina. So I wouldn’t need it.

I’d’ve needed to acquire a writ to leave town, anyway. The extra inconvenience of finding and bleeding crescent crabs overwhelmed the slight extra effectiveness of their blood.

And with the way Hinte treated me, would I even want to?

The blood dripped like sand through a ringglass, so the underbelly was stabbed once again.

I twisted the knife. Would it ground her to just tell me even half of why all this mattered?

I wrenched the knife and bled the crab into the jar again. Why even bring me out here if I was nothing more than a drag?

I squeezed the crab, my claws digging in and wasted blood dribbling out over my forefeet. Why, if we weren’t even friends?

I made my claws loosen their bleeding grip. Was I of any use at all?

I breathed.

A steady glow appeared, white like the glair around an egg yolk. I whisked my wings in front of my face, shadowing my eyes as they adjusted to the new light. In response, the glow waned, now a third as bright. My wing lowered, and the source, a glowing glairy liquid trapped behind glass, settled onto the ground a few strides away.

Was this my ornery companion being considerate?

“Hinte?”

The bright​-​white figure standing above the light hitched her wings. “It is too dark to work with a knife. Unless you plan to bleed yourself.”

I laughed, faltering and anxious as I stabbed the next crab and placed it over its jar. “Um. Do you still think⁠ ⁠—” Do you still think bringing me here was a mistake? “Do you think I was any help at all today?”

“Aside from almost killing yourself twice?”

I slammed my wings on the ground. “I wasn’t killing myself!” I looked down. “It was the olm thingies.”

“You shouldn’t have wandered off on your own. What were you thinking would happen?” She waved her foreleg away.

I looked back at Hinte, frills flattened. “If it was so dangerous, why didn’t you stop me?”

Lowering her wings, she said, “Do you want to ride on my back like a little hatchling too?”

“No! I just wanted to help.”

“You would have helped me more by staying with me.”

I looked away. “I’m sorry. But I was at least some help, wasn’t I?”

Hinte, on the other side of the light, looked away. When her face was cast in shadows, she spoke. “Sure. We found more crysts today than I have on my own. But if I have to answer one more of your questions, I will toss you in the lake myself.”

“Really?” The words had already left my mouth when I ducked. Lapilli crunched under Hinte’s landing. “Sorry. Rhetorical question? Nevermind!” I scooted back from the bright​-​white figure.

She tossed her head. “No, not really. I would not save you just to throw it away. No matter how annoying you are.”

Annoying?

Huffing and leaping again, Hinte flipped back to her side of the lantern.

The drip of the crab’s blood slowed. I poked into the next crab, widened the hole, and let it flow into the next jar.

I gazed, cloudy​-​eyed, at the filling jar. By this point my canteen had been sipped down to a fifth. After a hundred heartbeats, or thirty breath cycles, or twenty tongue flicks, maybe even a short ring, the blood filled a jar within a scratch of the top.

Another glass. Another crab. Another crab. Another glass. I kept up like this, almost meditative, filling the last of the glasses to their brims. As second dusk fell, the shore darkened around our bubble of glairy light, the last rays of Enyswm smoldering on the horizon and stars arriving statelily in the sky above. My gaze lifted at the thought, frills fluttering; and they fell still and folded back when I saw the lake’s cloud obscuring the starry sky.

My wings found the empty canteen tied to my forelegs. I shook it again, acting from pure habit, and heard droplets of water hitting the sides of the glass. I had come to rely on the steady drain of my canteen to tell time. Nothing else to measured long periods like thirst.

The last crab bled into the last jar as I sighed. When that jar had filled, yet more blood still flowed out of the largest crab. But I didn’t want to bother Hinte about it, and three jars would work well enough.

I sealed the last glass, and looked at its contents. Skeletal white filaments reached throughout the baby blue blood. I sloshed it around. It didn’t look perfect. Not at all how it looked in the waxy alchemy scrolls I’d pored over to impress Hinte with my skill and knowledge.

It looked… okay. I didn’t have any of the special equipment needed to do a fancy bleeding. No ice​-​coolers, of course, and no needles to take blood or any of the esoteric alchemical agents to stabilize it. Though it helped that I didn’t care about farming or keeping it alive, and I didn’t need to deal with a writhing, struggling, alive crab.

A growl slipped out at the memory of those scrolls. Sifting through them for actionable information was almost a preparation for sifting through this lake. They had been so full of obscure and technical terminology, pedantry and indirection⁠ ⁠—⁠ and none of it was fun! I had enough half​-​remembered trivia from my patchy tutoring, and a little help from Chwithach​-​sofran, to work through it.

When next my brilles cleared, and I saw the glairy light had left. I found Hinte and the light, already several strides away and slinking back into the lake’s clouds.

She might have a dewed a drop of consideration, but not for her pacing. I sighed.

---

When we entered the lake again, the lake seemed intent on demonstrating, by contrast, how clear and breathable was the shore’s hazy air. The fumes made threatening gestures as they drew down my throat, but even as we walked right into the burning sulfur, the electricity warded coughs.

So we walked, me taunting the lake with soft clicky laughs. The vog began to thicken, and the heat began to build. Ashy clouds drifted as we walked, gusted by some unseen wind. Strides later, there was no doubting that we were once again over the Berwem.

My head tilted as I looked around in the darkness. Murky glass glowed and molten cracks shimmered, illuminating the lake from underneath, enough that I could now see more than I had by the cliff.

I threw slack​-​tongued glances around. Then it dawned on me that second dusk had fallen. So night engulfed the world outside of the cloudy lake. But inside the lake? There was scarce difference.

Hinte waved the shining glass lantern as she walked, but the darkness wouldn’t release its coil on the lake just so. When the light hit out​-​jutting crags, it cut long shadowy fangs on the skin. The clouds still swirled and had taken on a cryptic, half​-​shadowed appearance, seeming to hide something.

I shivered. We should have finished in the lake by now! Why was Hinte still out here?

Three more crysts. When we found three more of those blasted stones and left, I would not miss anything about this lake. My feet curled into the dusty ground beneath me.

Volcanic cobble paved the roads of Gwymr/Frina. Red and amber lamps lined the roads. And chiming, insistent bells rang again and again throughout the day.

So much better than cracking, unstable dust. Better than painfully bright glaze radiating out of distorting, murky glass. Better than sizzling breaks and rumbling plates.

Had that backwater little town begun to feel like a home?

“The Berwem could make a tornado feel like home,” I murmured. Hinte glanced at me, tilting. “Just missing town.”

Why had I convinced Hinte to bring me here, again? I had wanted to know to where she disappeared every cycle and what she did there. Both questions had their answers long coming.

Staring up into the sky, gaze sifting for a glimpse of the endless stars or a moon, I dug through my memories and sighed.

I had grown more and more dubious with Hinte after we set off. We had left from the west gate, yet the Berwem lay east of town. Our path through the cliffs and badlands wound and doubled back on itself. We walked. When we flew, it was low to the ground, shielded by overhangs or through a canyon. It worried me.

But, with a long ring echoing in our frills, we reached the Berwem. Hinte answered any questions with growls or terse non​-​answers. When the vog appeared and the lake’s heat crept upon us, I decided to voice my second question, albeit without hope of an answer. “What are we doing here?” I had asked.

“Sifting,” was all of her answer.

I had learned just what sifting entailed, and that left both my questions answered. But those answers had only raised two more questions in their end. Why was Hinte so drafty about entering the lake? “Avoiding monsters,” she had said. Which was something, I thought, but I wasn’t sure what. But she fledged no attempt to answer the second new question. What was so appealing about these crysts?

But despite my frustration, and her almost deliberate abrasiveness, we still played around, still smiled and had fun. She shared her lunch with me. She saved me from that glazed olm!

Maybe we were friends?

And maybe if she didn’t want to tell me what this was all about, she might have a reason that went beyond being mean or difficult.

I had been prying. I had been maybe a little annoying. I should respect her privacy.

---

We marched over the surface of the lake, and I shook my canteen again, still hearing droplets pinging against the glass. If the canteen had water in it, would I have drank a fifth by now?

Hinte fanned her frills again. My fangs dewed with the ghost of irritation.

I decided to say it. “Hey Hinte?” She glanced over. “I’m sorry for being so⁠ ⁠—⁠ annoying, earlier. I wanted to know what this is all about⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I guess I never realized you might have good reasons not to tell me. I promise I won’t ask anymore questions.”

Hinte didn’t glance away for a long moment. “I do have reasons not to tell you. That does not mean do not ask questions. It means do not keep asking the same questions.”

“Got it. So uh, can I ask one that’s been bugging me for a while? I kinda figured it out, but to be sure.”

Hinte held her breath.

“Well, why are you doing that?” I asked, flicking my tongue. “It’s how you feel the crysts, right?”

“Yes.”

“Aright. And why can’t I feel the crysts humming in your bag?”

“Those are damaged and wrapped in schizon to diminish vibration. But the others”⁠ ⁠—⁠ she waved a wing over the lake around us⁠ ⁠—⁠ “are neither wrapped nor cracked. You can hear the vibration from strides away, if you listen closely,” she said. Her tone sounded deliberate, almost practiced, as if she recited something or echoed someone.

It was obvious, but having my guesses confirmed pulled little drops of excitement onto my fangs. Perking up, I strained again to feel the telling vibrations. I failed to find the five stones that Hinte demanded. Maybe I had another chance to impress her, by helping her here.

My frills filtered the steady cracking of our footsteps and the slow rattling of the lake, hunting again for a telling hum. Finding it, my frills hitched in excitement. When I turned, it was only the faint vibration of the crysts already in Hinte’s bag. Awh. Still, I kept trying, though there was nothing to show for it. But I was not discouraged, I mimed Hinte’s patience.

As we walked on, after perhaps another sixth of my imagined canteen, the freezing in my gut began to flow outward and extend across my entire body. Reaching my head, it sharpened my thoughts to fine points, and grounded the lurching weariness in my head. I hadn’t even noticed the headache! I just conflated it with the overall awfulness of sifting.

“How long have you been at this?” I wondered aloud.

“Almost sixteen cycles,” she said. “I pick many of the stones nearest to the surface after a day or two of sifting. So I wait a cycle for the tides to dredge more crysts to the surface⁠ ⁠—⁠ sometimes longer, if we are busy.” My frills twisted. She might trudge back out here tomorrow?

I would refuse if she asked. I was almost sorry. But this just wasn’t for me.

She added moments later, “But I do not always come to the lake. Sometimes I hunt for rare flowers in the cliff’s patches of vegetation. Or for fungus in the depths of the caves. It depends on⁠ ⁠—⁠ it varies.”

“What! We could have been out in the cliffs picking flowers and instead you dragged me to this blazing hot lake! What did I ever do you?”

“Well, we⁠ ⁠—⁠ I needed the crysts most of all right now,” she said “and both moons are out in full tonight⁠ ⁠—⁠ it is a great evening for sifting.” Her next step faltered, and she looked off in the distant vog.

Huh? I stargazed every clear night, and I don’t remember Laswaith even waxing yet⁠ ⁠—⁠ and the engulfing blackness of the vog hid both moons, anyway. Why would we even be sifting in the darkness?

I didn’t voice those objections. Hinte said she had been doing this for a couple great dances. I trusted her.

I settled for saying, “We better go flower​-​picking next time, then.” I flared my wings in mock aggression.

“Sure.”

Wait, what? Had someone gone and replaced Hinte with someone reasonable? I let the issue drop. What had I said or done to bring out this weird side of Hinte? She’d always been so guarded whenever I had asked what she did in the cliffs. It took two whole cycles to get her to bring me along. This openness only hatched me more questions. And taking my suggestion just so? She never let things be that simple.

Could I push her further?

“Oh! And maybe we could invite Uvidet​-​cyf and make a day out of it!”

“No.”

“Aw.” I relaxed my wings. It was worth a shot, at least.

“I am not trying to ruin your fun, Kinri,” she said, “though it is a nice side​-​reaction.”

I crinkled my frills.

The dark​-​green wiver looked away and up before whisking her wing vaguely. “The cliffs are not more forgiving than the lake,” she said, “they are only another set of dangers. I can handle myself. I can guide you. But hatchsitting two rookies is too dangerous.”

I pressed my frills against the side of my head. Hatchsitting?

“Well,” I started, not giving her a reaction, “why can’t we just bring along whoever showed you how to navigate the cliffs?”

Hinte remained silent for a bit, frills working. “Quiet, we need to focus,” Hinte said, then strode forward without me, our usual formation. I sighed and picked at my scales as we walked, scraping clean the glass and sand. Every few seconds, I glanced up at the ground in front of me, and traced my next few steps. She might gut me if I stumbled into the lake again.

Another sixth of my imagined canteen would have drained by now. Let’s call it ghost canteen. It sounded cooler, like a magical artifact. Why yes, it is I, Kinri, the dust​-​breather, bearer of the immortality raisin, wielder of the ancient ghost​-​canteen of power and mystery.

A faint hum built as I walked along. I had missed it! Humming with excitement, I slinked back toward it, a few strides to my left, just two paces behind me.

Breathing twice, I punched through the dustone. My gashless leg flailed in the muck, blind as it reached for a cryst I could only feel. Stretching, I felt the tip of my claws graze the stone. The rest of my foreleg slipped in until I could wrap my claws around it. Pulling out, it glowed a glimmering purple, oblong and angular. I passed it to Hinte. She cracked it, wrapped it and stored it. I might have seen some new expression on her face, but in shadows cast by the lantern, I couldn’t be sure.

I brought myself to a high​-​walk, and slipped beside Hinte before she could start off. This time, we walked off together. Turning to meet her gaze behind the amber goggles, I smiled at her. The dark​-​green wiver just flicked her tongue. But she smiled back after a beat.

I tried to pick at my scales again, but it was tricky when I was walking in step, instead of shuffling behind and sprinting forward whenever I fell too far behind.

Hinte slowed without stopping, looking at a spot somewhere to her left. She started forward a little before deciding against it, and regained her pace seamlessly. Walking beside her like this, I saw how much longer Hinte was than me. I didn’t look back after that.

We trudged forth for several long moments, silent. The clouds blew past, the gust redoubling. But it was no obstacle. Visibility was as terrible as ever. After another few moments of steady silence, the dark​-​green wiver jerked to a stop. Her tongue flicked out, waving in the air.

“Kinri. Do you smell that?” Hinte growled, low and wary. Her wings and tail both rose, tense. She turned to me, any earlier smiles gone. “I smell blood.” A quiver of anticipation lighted on her fangs.

Well. I couldn’t complain of boredom now.

“Kinri. Do you smell that? I smell blood.”

I flicked my tongue and whirled its forks. After a beat it was pressed against the roof of my mouth, and I only smelled the evil sulfur of the Berwem. I ignored it and grasped for the tastes at the fringes. Grape and chamomile? No. Boily crab meat? No.Faint sweat and blood blowing in from the distance⁠ ⁠—⁠ there it is.

What had happened? The lake was stingy with life. And for what it did allow, none were mammals. Was it something wandered and lost in the lake? Had it come here on purpose? Why here, and what did it want? Was it dead? Had something attacked it? But why⁠ ⁠—

“Follow me.” Hinte’s voice stole into my fluttering mess of questions. The command to do something felt so simple, so commonsense, almost not worth giving. But it worked.

Then I waved my tongue.

“Hinte?” I saw her turn back to me, fangs bared. “Are we going toward the blood? It might be⁠ ⁠—⁠ it’s dangerous. We should head back to town and⁠ ⁠—”

“You can go back.” The wiver stalked off.

I hissed. Really, I could handle this⁠ ⁠—⁠ whatever this was, right? If Hinte could handle it, if I had Hinte there with me, things would go fine.

And if I did go back, what would she think? That I had no wind under my wings? That I really was useless?

I strode into step beside her, unfolding my wings and stalking forward.

As we went, the smell loomed more hauntingly, danger limned in scent. The closer we went, and the surer I was that even when I held my tongue the stink clung. Shadows were twisting into shapes suggesting what monster lay at the source⁠ ⁠—⁠ a dying furless wolf, lethally pursued by an angry, hungry pack⁠ ⁠—⁠ a towering, lumbering gorilla injured and overready to kill just to quietly recover⁠ ⁠—⁠ some horse​-​like creature hunted by strange primitive dragons whose language I didn’t speak and⁠ ⁠—

I licked my eyes.

I was walking over the empty lake, sheltered in glairy lantern light; Hinte was right beside, and nothing moved in the dark, dirty mist of the lake. The only sound was the lake rumbling and the wind almost laughing. The smell that had stood so salient to me still wafted faint, distant.

---

My wings had drooped, and my stalking faded to a march, then a simple low​-​walk, and now I just slinked after Hinte. At least the smell had grown stronger.

With the suns cast away, only the ground beneath us could hint at any true movement⁠ ⁠—⁠ and dustone covered the lake to the shores and then some. Now, though, no more molten glass burst up, and the murky veins grew fainter; we must have come to another shore.

When my next breath didn’t try to burn my throat, I couldn’t help but laugh: Free of the lake once more!

Far away from this shore, a rising cliff wall dipped and split along its length; and in the split a little narrow gully snaked into the wall, and wound upward.

I looked up at the cliff, then across, as far as the faint glairy rays illumed. If it weren’t night, this would make a fun place to fly around. Imagine leaping from one of the tall⁠ ⁠—⁠ but not too tall⁠ ⁠—⁠ heights of the cliff and trying to glide back into the gully! I wiggled my wings.

We approached, and you could see that the gully was just a big, steep dip in the cliff wall: it had a sheer face that met that ground at what wasn’t a right angle.

The bright​-​white figure leapt and lighted onto the face. Her claws dug into the gnarls and crags, and she walked up the wall. I lighted and walked after her. My feet held tight to the cliff face, and my wings fluttered at my sides. Yes, climbing clouded next to flying, but it beat walking like an olm beat a glasscrab.

At the top, the gully narrowed enough I had to follow behind Hinte, instead of slinking beside her. I crinkled frills and pouted, but marched on.

Another knot was knitting in my stomach, stinking of anxious dread. I stretched out my wings, and let my alulae trail against the gully walls. Even at the widest parts, my wings could only unfold halfway. Gliding in here would be a trick, then. You’d have to balance gliding in and wrecking your wings with falling in and wrecking your legs.

I waved my tongue. What sort of awful creature awaited us at our destination? Would we have to face down whatever monster had attacked? Would we find we weren’t the only things lured in? They might eat you.

The pressing heat waned and dusty air grew clearer, deigning me the privilege of seeing a dozen strides ahead, instead of six. Still the air was bone​-​dry, and I licked droplets out of my canteen. Our path wound higher, and at the top the cliff wall rolled above, being a small overhang.

The smell grew stronger than ever. Was this the source?

I licked spicy venom from my fangs.

Hinte slinked forward, close to the ground. The path became a plateau as it wound upward and overlooked a hill rolling down to another, deeper gully. The dark​-​green wiver walked to very edge of the path, stopping at the ledge.

Standing beside her, I followed her gaze. There, under the ledge, in a flat stretch of the hill dotted with boulders, lay a creature on its back.

The head looked flat, without a snout, and the trunk of the creature looked long, yet stocky. Not as long as a dragon, but the proportions didn’t make it easy to tell. Was it the shoulders? The high placement of the forelegs? The way the hindlegs flowed out from the torso?

Then my eyes cleared. It only had four limbs!

The scales gleamed silver⁠ ⁠—⁠ no, they weren’t scales. Some kind of outfit covered the skin.

My legs were tensed and my claws gripped the ground. I looked behind me, at my escape route.

Hinte’d bared her teeth, and inched forward with clear brilles and fanned frills. Was it dangerous? Before I could ask, she leapt from the ledge, and landed away from the body. Corpse? It didn’t flinch or react at all.

I snapped my tongue at the wiver. What if it had been dangerous? She had called me careless.

I leapt down after her.

One of the creature’s forelegs had three slashes running down its length, and bleeding holes ran in an almost​-​circle on its outfit⁠ ⁠—⁠ armor?⁠ ⁠—⁠ like something had tried taking a bite out of it. Its blood pooled underneath, draining into the undisturbed, sandy gravel all around it. In the pool lay a bladed weapon, held in a worn, beat​-​up sheath.

The head lolled as we approached, but it didn’t react beyond that. It looked… familiar. Some creature I’d learned of from my tutors, but never encountered.

“Uh… what is this thing, Hinte?” I asked as I landed in front of her, so as not to spook her. As Hinte glanced at me, I added, “It looks⁠ ⁠—⁠ it looks like some kind of… ape? I’ve never seen one outside of textbooks. Or zoos, maybe.” My tongue wriggled in my mouth, some strange taste tickling the edges.

“Yes,” she said, peering at the blood. “It is an ape. A sentient species. They cannot survive the heat of the Berwem, without our alchemy and preperation. So they stay away. This pitiful creature will expire soon. If it has not already.”

As if in response, the ape gave a cough and a struggled movement. I flinched, but Hinte stepped forward, standing above the ape. Her weight shifted a bit to the side. Then, a claw flew, ripping out the ape’s throat. I jumped, but the knot in my stomach unraveled. It couldn’t do anything now.

“What–what was it doing here?”

“I do not know,” Hinte said, an unbloodied foot falling over the other. “But we will return to town and inform the faer.”

“Why?” I flicked my tongue, glancing at the ape and its pool of blood.

The dark​-​green wiver peered at me. “Imagine if this were an unmarked sky​-​dweller instead of a human. Do you see why that would be a problem?”

A frill brushed against my headband. “But that’s different, the sky​-​dweller probably fell.” I looked again at the pool of blood, then up above us, at the overhang.

“My point flies. Imagine it were a Pteroni, then. What would you think?”

“That they were up to something? Pteroni are drafty,” I said, still peering at the overhang.

“This ape is up to something. Humans are not just exotic creatures. They can war and plot like dragons.”

“Okay,” I said. Then, “Hey, does this pool of blood look off to you?”

Hinte looked to the corpse, tilting her head.

“There’s no blood trail leading anywhere, and the scent trail starts here and doesn’t go anywhere.”

“And there are no footprints leading here.” She looked at me. “You think it fell.”

“I do.” I looked up at the overhang. “Do you think there might be more of them?” Waving my tongue, I added, “I can smell more sweat⁠ ⁠—⁠ and cooked crab meat.”

“Yes. We can fly up and investigate.”

“Um, can you? I can, uh, stay and watch the body.”

Hinte watched me a long moment before humming and saying, “As you wish.” As she said this, she stepped away, her tail unstrapping her bag and lantern, then offering them out to me. “Hold these.”

“Okay,” I said, getting the bag’s strap loose around my neck. “Ow. Why is there so much weight in this?” Holding the bag for one instant was enough to steal all my wondering about why she never flew while looking for stones.

“Emergencies,” she said. “And I can fly just fine with it.”

“If you like going slow, maybe.” I peeked in the bag. “Hey, your canteens are in here.”

“Yes, they are.”

“Well, my canteens are a little empty and I ran out, so uh… can I⁠ ⁠—”

“Yes,” she snapped, already turning around and unfolding her wings. “Do not drink more than half of one.”

She was unfolding her wings to their full extent, only three strides in either direction. After running for a few beats, she flapped her wings, and leapt high. The bright​-​white figure rose with heavy beats of her wings, looking a silhouette, then a shadow, then a vague hint in the smoky night air. She reached the overhang, and disappeared.

---

Alone, I looked at the ape. Its snoutless face and lanky limbs seemed squished or distorted, like someone pulled a dragon out of shape and peeled their scales off. I hissed at it, but seeing the gore below its head relaxed me just a nudge. It wouldn’t, couldn’t, get back up and haunt me. Right?

Circling it, inching forward with the lantern, I reached the body. As I neared, a strange taste lit on my tongue, sourly metallic and like a storm. It called to mind the aluminum lightning rods you saw at the fringes of skylands⁠ ⁠—⁠ only so much stronger and pungent, like a metal dying.

I’d still rather smell it than look at it.

Stopping before it, I looked closer at the silver outfit with dozens of little plates overlapping each other like fake scales. Gentle, wary prodding gave the feeling of some hard, light metal. Aluminum? Where did it get aluminum? Aglare in the white lantern​-​light, looking dull and scratched, the plates at least seemed of fitting quality.

I picked up a limb near the head. With a foreleg shorter than mine, with toes thinner, stubbier, and missing a whole digit, with claws that were round and negligible, you could only call this a cheap imitation of a dragon foreleg.

I folded its foot, flicking my tongue at how⁠ ⁠—⁠ useless it seemed. The foot only had one opposable hallux, where I had two sitting on either side of my sole. Could it even walk up trees or cliff faces without two halluxes?

Elsewhere, the torso was shorter but almost half a forefoot thicker… was even this thing longer than me? Frills crinkling, I aligned myself to check⁠ ⁠—⁠ but no, it wasn’t. I smiled. The weird legs just confused things, again. With my head next to its, my legs came out well past the end of the belly.

I rolled my head, and forced my gaze higher. Behind its silver outfit was dark skin, nearly black, covering the face, features like stacked slabs. Two recessed green eyes poked out, orbited by little hairs. More hairs sprouted out above its head too, long as one of my toes and white.

I stepped back, trying to fit it all together, and couldn’t.

Its forelegs and hindlegs had an alien disparateness. Maybe my legs were asymmetric, too⁠ ⁠—⁠ hindlegs a little bigger and stronger, to launch me into the air⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I could still walk on both pairs, and all four of my feet could manipulate.

This ape’s oblong hindfeet had to make terrible manipulators. And it couldn’t possibly walk on those forelegs. Did it walk only on its hindlegs? How did it not teeter over? And was its underbelly exposed as it moved?

Why did it only have four limbs? It wasn’t the most baffling — yet even the gorillas or chimps had the full six limbs.

“What a strange creature,” I said to no one. Maybe the gods had created them as a joke.

A black cloth covered its face, so I hooked it in my claw and tore it off. Hidden by the cloth, the ape had a fleshy protrusion with two holes. A nose? Below that sat a mouth, circled by light brown lips.

I stuck a claw between its lips and opened its mouth. Inside, I saw little yellow teeth and a pink tongue blackened down its center. I gasped.

It had no fangs!

Fangs limned emotion and feeling. A dragon without fangs was devoid of expression, of life. Poets called the fangs the wings of the soul⁠ ⁠—⁠ where the heart lurched the body into motion, its pulses nurturing animal feelings like anger or fear, and its warmth expressing comfort or lust, the fangs dewed with scented venom that betrayed your complex, innermost feelings.

And this creature had none! Yet Hinte claimed it was somehow sentient…

I turned around, sitting with the ape firmly out of my sight. My heart calmed at once.

---

I had never guarded anything before, but I tried what I could. Which meant idly looking around and up, for all the nothing that it did. My frills still were fanned, and my tongue flicked out every twelve or thirteen heartbeats, scenting the air.

My tart fangs dried, and less attention left me. There really was nothing else here, and Hinte would return soon enough. A sigh followed by pacing, by slowly flapping my wings, by sitting back down and fluttering my feet, and another sigh. Then came some playing in the rocks or dust, and sculpting small figures and inscribing random silliness: glyphs for flowers (a spiked circle) or for love (two tails entwined).

I erased them to make room for more. After all the walking, I decided I wouldn’t move around more than I needed to. Sitting like this reminded me of the soreness in my legs, but also soothed it some. I shot a glance at the overhang with clouding eyes and tightening brows. The moment Hinte returned, we would have to walk back home.

There was a sigh. Hinte and I seemed so different. We had things in common, of course we did⁠ ⁠—⁠ we liked seafood, and scrolls, and hunting; we hated brumating, and how the townsdragons look at us when we pass. I hadn’t even initiated our relationship; she found me. I just⁠ ⁠—⁠ couldn’t taste what she saw in me.

A new smell arose as I sat. My tongue waved, and identified the foul stench: feces and urine. I glanced at the corpse, but I held my tongue and continued looking away. Nothing to do about it. Nothing I wanted to do.

All around, you could hear the lake’s distant cracks and grinding, and the soughing of the wind, and the quiet; it didn’t fill the air, it didn’t envelop you, but it remained there in the background, a dark suggestion.

I told myself there were no worries, no rockwraithes or glazed olms or skinhounds or wildcats or anything; and Hinte would return soon and how silly would I look scared of nothing?

I didn’t like how close I felt right now to little hatchling Kinri, flapping at shadows and squalled by monsters. I really didn’t like how I could almost hear the echoes of a key harp, humming in a time​-​warped tuning, and over it a deep and stormy voice, restrained into a pitched murmur just for me. I didn’t like that I wanted to sing along with her.

I looked around again, all around, and made sure no one could hear me but the corpse.

I murmured, and the voice was definitely Kinri, all Kinri. She sung:

I wiped my fangs. What you just heard, that was the anthem of my family⁠ ⁠—⁠ except for the last, half​-​breathed line; that was just for me.

It had been gyras and gyras since I’d heard the anthem sung to me, yet only dances since I heard (and not really listened) to it simply being played, for crowds, at gatherings. And yet, I still remembered it with that long since dried voice and destroyed key harp, because there was something deeply personal, some verity, that the rote recitals⁠ ⁠—⁠ backed instead by high strings and drums⁠ ⁠—⁠ seemed to lack; something that had came aflame when she limned it with her violin and restrained voice.

My fangs had dewed again, and this time it smelled tart; I didn’t wipe them. Instead I just sat like that, letting my past ring out in my mind and clawing more scribbly distractions in the gravel.

Suddenly glass cracked in the distance! My frills flared. I was jumping to my feet, and turning. A shadow lurched in the darkness! I leapt away, rolling behind one of the boulders on the hillside. My forelegs shook, and my wings hugged my body.

The cracks came closer, hurried and heavy. They stopped for a beat before hurrying away just as fast.

I had held my breath. My wings hugged me tight enough I could feel a strain on their membranes. While my breath stopped, my heart thrashed, its pulse waxing to an unsteady flow of frantic energy to my legs and my wings.

When the energy dragged me into motion again, I peered out from behind the boulder; but as I stared, nothing moved in the vog.

“Hinte?” I called. No response. My heart urged me to move again, but I remained behind my boulder. After my heartbeat reduced to just racing, instead of thrashing, I heard footfalls approaching. I flicked my tongue, and found the metallic lightning taste fading.

“Hinte?” I called again, half as loud and a quarter as confident.

A high, throaty laugh came, followed by, “Guess again!”

I peaked from behind the boulder. A figure clad in a ragged​-​white sifting suit stepped into the circle of glairy light. There was faint jingling as they wiggled their frills.

The sifter asked, “Got an ax on you?” When I shook my head, they just shrugged.

“Did–did you see anything?” I asked, a quiver in my voice. “Something was moving in the vog and it came almost right over here by me and gah.” I ended with something between yell and a groan.

The dragon lifted their head. “Nah, but I heard something stomping around somewhere around here. Obviously a white one or something in that vein.” Their voice had an exaggerated highness to it, pitched cynical and saccharine. It was a voice you had to try to make.

Still, I stepped from the behind my boulder. Strange voice aside, they looked and talked like another sifter, not some lake monster. I walked back toward the body. Where the sheathed weapon had sat, only the drying pool of blood remained.

“Whatever it was ran off with a weapon.”

“Did it smell like metal? White ones love to chew on metal.” The dragon was hitching their wings at me. Withy the lantern you could see her yellow​-​brown plain​-​dweller scales and face round like a pear.

Tilting my head, I asked, “Doesn’t everything in this lake smell like metal?”

The yellow​-​brown dragon hissed a laugh. “Obviously.” They flicked their tongue and added, “except you smell like some weird perfume.”

I looked away and scratched the ground.

“Anyway, point is white ones smell like sourness and metal, crabbies smell like dinner and metal, and sifters smell like cheap metal and broken dreams.” They wiggled a frill, and it faintly jingled.

“Well, I guess.” I glanced back at the sifter. “Aren’t we a little far from the lake? I think olms⁠ ⁠—⁠ white ones live in the glass.”

“They can walk halfway to Gwymr/Frina when they get hungry, obviously.”

“Okay.” I was looking up to the gray blackness above. After a beat, I asked, “You’re a sifter, aren’t you?”

They nodded, pointing to their ragged​-​white sifting suit and for a moment lifting a rod out of their bag with a tail.

“So, do you know this other sifter out there tonight? They carry around weird necklaces and give advice. And they’re kinda nice.”

“Ah yeah, that’s my buddy. Bit my flanks to stick with him in the lake, wanting to stick together, then changed his chime as soon as he tasted that scent.” The yellow​-​brown dragon stepped forward, jerking a wing at the body. “I’m reasoning that’s it?”

I poked the corpse. “This is what we found. I thought there might be a few others, so my⁠ ⁠—⁠ companion went to check them out.”

The sifter scratched their neck. “So, why do you think these things are here?”

I looked up again. “I don’t know. They’re away from the lake. Maybe they wandered in the wrong direction before being attacked or something.”

The yellow​-​brown dragon twisted their head. “I reason that makes sense. Came by to check on that noise, so I’ll be heading back to my buddy⁠ ⁠—⁠ or wait for him, whatever. Seen what I snuck away to see.”

“Okay. I need to stick around to watch this body. So um, fair winds.”

“Yeah. Fairer winds to you.” They turned around but looked back at me. “And pray don’t tell anyone I’m still in the lake. My boss would fly down my throat if she knew. Thanks!”

I waved a wing as they grinned and turned away.

The dragon in ragged​-​white started to walk off, then spun right back around. “Oh, and I obviously feel a little shit for this, but it’s drier than my grandma’s vent out here and Dwylla knows I didn’t plan on staying in the fires this long. You have a swallow of water to spare?”

“Um, yeah. There’s a canteen in this bag right here, just let me find it.” I dug through Hinte’s bag⁠ ⁠—⁠ it had to be near the top, but she had her own system for ordering the pockets. “Uh, here it is. Please don’t drink more than half.”

“Obviously. I wouldn’t dare.” They took the blue​-​and​-​pink canteen and poured it into her mouth, without touching her lips to it. “Aah. Thank you, miss. You’re a savior.” The sifter turned around again, and began stepping away. They glanced back. “Get home safe, alright?”

And with that, the ragged​-​white figure disappeared into the dark of the lake.

---

Faint flaps came from high in the air. A different, familiar shadow glided or fell downward. Some of my fear slipped away. Hinte had finally returned! But her descent looked unsteady, and from her legs swung big forms.

I slinked from the boulder to meet her, her bag banging against my breast. The dark​-​green wiver hit the graveling rocks with a loud crunch and yelp that turned my slink into a run. I met her atop what was almost a pile of apes⁠ ⁠—⁠ three of them.

“Are you alright?”

Instead of answering, she tried to stand, and seemed to succeed. On her feet, she started rolling the apes onto their backs, moving some of them easier than others.

Hinte glanced at me, pointing her wing at the first body⁠ ⁠—⁠ now corpse⁠ ⁠—⁠ whose scent had led us here.

“Carry the body, we are heading back to town now,” she said.

I lowered my head, and licked worry from my fangs, and turned to the corpse, staring, hesitating. Hinte hurried me with a hiss, and stepped forward.

Setting her bag down, stretching my legs, breathing deeply, I grabbed the body and heaved it over my back. I sagged with the weight. With somewhere between two and three good legs, it was a fight to stay on my feet. After working the body between my wings, I wiggled until it stopped sliding around. Legs were dangling off behind and beside me.

Blood dribbled onto my sifting suit. Inside, I squirmed⁠ ⁠—⁠ but this was not the time for such things.

Then, Hinte was behind me, and righting the corpse’s placement. She folded the ape’s legs so they didn’t dangle behind me. My fangs burned⁠ ⁠—⁠ Hinte wasn’t so short to need that.

She had rope, and the ape was tied to my back. Afterward, I was fidgeting, whipping my tail around and wrapping myself in my wings. I couldn’t fly with this weight! Hinte could barely glide down with it, and she was bigger… stronger than me.

When the dark​-​green wiver snapped her tongue behind me, I quit fidgeting and blew my tongue at her. Instead of keeping up the exchange, though, she dropped her rope and turned around, crouching, her belly almost touching the ground.

I peered at her for a beat.

Oh, did she want me to place the corpses on her back? That was… a good idea, really. I should have thought of it.

Before hefting the bodies, I looked over them, only half​-​interested. One ape had also had its throat torn out, another having cuts at its stomach and legs, and a last bled from a bite on its shoulders. They only had a few items: bags smelling of dried food or tanned hide; scabbards sitting empty; a strapped, sheathed weapon hanging and swinging as I grabbed its sliced​-​up owner. That human also had a curve of gray wood wrapped around their breast. A bow?

After placing two bodies on her back, I asked, “Don’t you want me to carry just as many of these creatures?” I said, then added in a thinner, wavering voice, “I’m not that weak!”

“You are injured,” Hinte said, waving a wing. “Now stop wasting time. This is important.”

I cringed, but the last corpse, whose dead forelimb was caught around a unempty scabbard, was on her back. I needed to mess with the placement again and again to keep the bodies stable. As I worked, my eye caught a bloody gash in Hinte’s wing.

“What happened to your wing?” I asked.

“Wait until we are with the faer,” she hissed, “I will tell the story once.”

“Should we at least wrap it or something?”

“No, it is not that serious.” I lifted my head, giving her one incredulous look before snapping my tongue and murmuring, “If you say so.”

I could point out that she was injured too, so her argument didn’t fly anymore; but my injury hurt my walking, and hers didn’t. She was right. This was important. No time for pettiness.

I bent down for the rope, amd saw a large, bloody tear in the sleeve of her right hindleg! The cut wrapped halfway around her leg and the white sleeve had only caught part of it. Where it didn’t, the hindleg was red. I let out an exasperated hiss and stood up.

“Hinte, your hindleg is bleeding.”

“What? Oh, that. Does it look so bad? It felt like nothing.”

“Of course it looks bad⁠ ⁠—⁠ your leg is bleeding!” I said as I stepped closer to Hinte, reaching to get some bandages or something out of her bag. “Where’d you put that ointment from earlier?”

“No, not that. If it is so bad, grab die Wunderv⁠ ⁠—⁠ grab the flat pink container near the bottom of the bag.” I followed her words, grabbing the container, opening it. “Rub a little of it on the surf–” she cut off with a hiss of pain, “–ace… Not too much, it’s for⁠ ⁠—⁠ ah!⁠ ⁠—⁠ for emergencies. I do not have much.” I hesitated, but then she said, “Kinri, you do me no favors by stopping. Finish.” So I did.

She said, “Now get the bandage and be done with it.” The bandages were already near the top of the bag. “You will need to roll up the sleeve some.” The bandages unrolled onto her leg and had a pin stuck through to hold them. While I had the chance, I did this all to ripped wing. She clicked her tongue, but didn’t tell me to stop.

She said, “Now finish placing the bodies. And do not complain about my injury. I won’t untie and retie your knot just so you can feel helpful.”

Ugh. So stubborn! I placed and adjusted the last body without saying anything. The rope was looped twice around Hinte, and I let her tie the knot.

When she finished, the dark​-​green wiver looked up to my smiling; and she only peered at me, flicking her tongue. Her lips might have twitched upward for just an instant before her serious frown won out, and I couldn’t tell if I had even seen anything.

I sighed, and looked up. Shaking the body, feeling the blood dripping onto my suit, I said, “It’s like it’s us versus the rest of the lake, right, Hinte?”

It’s like it’s us versus the rest of the family, right, sis? My headband was uneven. I straightened it with an alula.

Hinte growled. “Us?”

“Um, nevermind.”

We walked away, and I was behind Hinte.

---

My left foreleg still ached as I walked after her, and the extra weight didn’t help at all. But I bore it. This was important, wasn’t it?

So we set off, heading to Gwymr/Frina, to the faer. Along the way Hinte took out a kind of orb. A yellow​-​white light shone from the center, past the clear liquid and the two glass shells of the object. Beneath, four legs sprouted from the orb at wide angles.

The compass had a bunch of colored pebbles on the shell and they rolled as Hinte handled it. She turned the outer shell of the compass until the glyph for ‘south’ was over the white pebble, the south stone. Metal guards limited the inner shell’s rotation⁠ ⁠—⁠ without them you could flip east and west, and leave yourself starless and confused. Well, at least, without the suns to mark east and west you would be.

I peeked at the compass from behind Hinte. Sky’s compasses could have up to twenty guides, but surface dwellers wouldn’t need as many. I counted seven. White south and black north, green Ceiwad and violet Laswaith, blue Oleuni and yellow Enyswm, and a red stone I couldn’t place.

That stone danced across the sphere, at the very bottom, never rising above the horizon. Was it something below us? Or maybe something was interfering? You’d hear of cursed locations that wrecked compasses, like iron​-​smited caves or yellow mangrove copses. My brother had told me there even was a maelstrom in the deepest south that sucked skylands right out of the air! It would totally fit for the Berwem to be cursed. It would explain so much, really.

Oh! Maybe it was a real cryst detector! That would be great to have, and exactly the sort of thing Hinte would have without telling me. But it was fine. I’d let her have her secretes.

While I thought, we were walking on. Again Hinte did not press on at her frantic pace. Some more ghost canteen​-​swallows later, and Hinte might have faltered. She moved on as if nothing had happened, but we walked slower after that.

The pace felt almost relaxing after the brisk marches through the lake. The burden I carried didn’t hurt, but I guessed it might balance whatever soothing the slower stride did for my legs. We walked back into the dust and smoke and heat of the Berwem, and I groaned.

The sound turned Hinte’s head, and she peered at me, lips pursed. “Why do you still have my bag?”

I looked down. “Oh! Um. I forgot?”

“Give it here.”

I slipped my head through the strap and footed the bag to her.

Taking the bag, the dark​-​green wiver reached in with one wing, without looking, and pulled out another small glass bottle. “Here. You’ll want this. More respira. Use it when you need it.”

“Oh, now you think to give it to me before we walk into the lake’s death clouds.” I was joking, but it feel like that didn’t come out in my tone.

Hinte frowned at me, frills flaring. “Only because I had not realized how much weaker your throat was. I can take it back.”

“No, no, it’s fine. Thank you, Hinte.” I smiled, and Hinte’s frills relaxed, and her frown eased.

We continued on with me walking even further behind Hinte. Somehow, that amazing electric feeling was less amazing, and that awful burden pressed harder into my back.

“Did anything happen while I was gone?” Hinte asked after some time, as if it had slipped her mind. She slowed even further, and I had to reply face​-​to​-​face.

Pray don’t tell.

“Uh…no. Well, sort of. There were these footsteps once that ran up the human and took its sword. I think it was a olm looking for metal or something.”

“You didn’t see it?”

“I… hid? It happened really quick, I didn’t know what the cracking sound could’ve been.”

Hinte stayed silent for beat. Then, “Anything else?”

“There was this shadow at the edge of my vision once. Um, I guess it might have been the size of dragon or less. It was gone when I looked at it. I think it was a shadow or something,” I said, hugging my wings to my body.

“And you ignored it?” She stared at me, eyes unreadable behind her goggles and face stark in the lantern light.

“No? I mean⁠ ⁠—⁠ there is nothing out on the lake here this late at night.”

Hinte continued to stare at me, incredulous, like I said something silly. I glanced down to my claws. It wasn’t convincing — I knew it wasn’t convincing. But I didn’t want it to be. I was done lying, and the new Kinri was painfully, stutteringly transparent. I could lie, I just didn’t want to.

Hinte’s fangs were salty. “Tongueless!” she said. “That could have been something important. Imagine what a dragon out here at the same time as these humans could be up to.”

I said, “I’m sorry.” She said nothing. We walked on, the darkness outside our bubble of glairy light seeming so much more intense, seeming to hide known and unknown terrors. Staring at it, as I had grown to do in my day in the lake, I saw the darkness was more intense. Night had fallen long outside of the lake.

What could a dragon out here be up to? Hinte and I weren’t up to anything. And the two sifters seemed nice enough. I tried to imagine what a dragon out here at the same as these humans could be up to, and couldn’t really think of anything. I slacked that line of thought, and went back to staring⁠ ⁠—⁠ no, how about ‘meditating?’⁠ ⁠—⁠ I went back to meditating on the blackened vog.

Our footfalls made even bigger cracks in the dustone, and though it held, the ground now flexed with our steps. My thoughts were drifting; I was pretty bad at meditating.

I shook my empty canteen. My ghost canteen would have half​-​emptied by now, wouldn’t it? It sounded frilly, but trust me, it tracked the time better than ‘a while.’

Did dragons working late into the night invent their own ghost rings to track time? Maybe if you needed to track time for something you shouldn’t need to do it at night anyway. Nights were for sleeping and star​-​gazing.

The corpse on my back shifted as I stumbled over some pointed, furrowed ground. “Why are we carrying all these bodies back home?” I asked.

“Proof,” Hinte said. “The faer will believe us, but not everyone. The bodies will assure them.”

“All of them?”

“They will have information and evidence we would not know to check. One of the apes is still alive, unconscious. Rhyfel and his⁠ ⁠—⁠ inquirers will investigate them and taste whatever is at the root, here.”

I didn’t say anything else, and followed behind in silence. As I walked, I thought to the ape on my back. I recalled the blood dripping onto my suit. Something about that piqued me.

“Hinte,” I said. Her wings hitched in acknowledgment. “Why was the creature injured when we found it? Was it attacked?”

“Yes, that was a rockwraith bite.”

“How can you tell?”

“The behavior is a tell. Almost nothing is active in the cliffs near the gray season. Glasscrabs would not attack unless provoked. Crawlers would not leave remains. Only rockwraiths will fly away after you stop moving.”

“What! You said they would eat me!”

She only snickered. I smacked her in the side with my wing. Waving her tongue at me, she shifted onto her hindlegs to retaliate, but faltered, and yelped, and fell toward me, wings flailing. I caught her. She got back over her feet and I let her stand on her own.

“Okay, let’s stop.”

She only rolled her head at me, looking away.

“You can’t carry all of that weight with your hindleg injured! You’ll only make it worse!”

“I am fine,” she said, high​-​walking away again. I followed, reluctant. Back where we’d just played, an even bigger crack had broken the lake skin. Glass oozed out in places, but the open veins were small.

I caught up to Hinte, then we walked on a few sips. It reminded me of how boring this was. I should have brought a kazoo or something. Hinte would hate it. Or maybe a flute! Did I still have that flute I would sneak away to play when I was a fledgling? I hoped I packed it in one of the bags I hadn’t opened yet. I’d only brought a few things with me when I left.

Two thumps came from the right of me. I turned to them. A pause. My heart quickened. The last time something stirred in the vog, I had cowered, disappointed Hinte.

So I bravely slinked after the thumps.

“Kinri!”

I spun back around, almost stumbling. On Hinte’s back, one of the apes moved! It struggled to its feet while Hinte tried to knock it off. She spread her wings to block it. But without me following, the ape leapt behind her. She lashed her tail. It wrapped around the ape’s hindleg. The thing tripped over.

It carried another ape corpse on its shoulder, one with its throat torn. It flopped to the ground with it. The ape stabbed down with its forefoot. Hinte groaned, but held fast. The ape twisted the knife stuck in Hinte’s tail, and dragged it. Hinte screamed and released her hold.

The thing picked up the corpse, starting away. I was landing behind it. Slash at it. I caught the armor of the corpse. Pull. The ape was overpowering me, and I only snapped some links of the armor.

I crouched to leap at it, and then Hinte groaned. Stopping, I turned to her.

She growled, fangs dripping. “What are you doing?”

“You are injured and⁠ ⁠—”

“And the ape is getting away.”

I stepped closer to her. “It can’t outfly us and it can’t hide from us. If we found them once, we can find them again.”

She flared her frills. “I do not need your help. Go. I will join you.”

“But⁠ ⁠—”

“Stone​-​frills, listen to me for once. Go.”

I ripped at my rope, the human falling to the lake skin. My bag was unstrapped and left there.

Bravely, I went, waving my tongue in the air, and smelling the sweat and blood of the fleeing ape.

We hunted.

I’d learned hunting from my tutors, but some details were different on the surface. In the sky you could exhaust yourself and fall to your death, or drop your prey and lose it forever. But the basics hadn’t changed: every predator had its own unique skills, own way of hunting its prey. Without a lot of strength, or any deadly venom or really big claws, you had to rely on teamwork and better senses⁠ ⁠—⁠ your eyes, frills, and above all else, your tongue.

Hunting on the ground was so much safer, so much more secure, than what I grew up on; the surface had a ton of flightless prey, like so many easy pickings.

For example: the ape I now hunted. Not just injured and exhausted, it also lugged around a corpse, and there was no thought at all in tracking the fear and sweat. How could these creatures survive in the first place?

I flew low and slow, in a bounding flight, holding my breath for the ape to relax or stop moving⁠ ⁠—⁠ and for Hinte to finish bandaging her tail. It was only one wound⁠ ⁠— the first fight with the apes was worse. I couldn’t help the knot of worry in my stomach, but I could think. Hinte would be okay. She had to be.

The beating of my wings filled the air around me, and clear venom bedewed my fangs. There was a faint tinge to it, but I couldn’t taste what. I let the thought light and felt the beating of my wings. I was alone again. But that didn’t matter as much as the lightning flutter in my heart, flashing through my veins.

I flicked my tongue, waving it in the air before pressing it to my vomer. Moving my head to either side, I built a sense of direction, of scent gradients. A new smell had appeared: urine, off to the side of the ape’s old path.

Was it that scared? It should be. That flightless monkey had hurt my friend. I would hurt it.

The mixed scent of urine and blood didn’t move in the next few moments. Was it tired at last? Did it think I lost its trail?

I flapped my wings, harder, anger straightening my slow bounding flight. I could keep waiting for Hinte, or I could catch the human myself and show her. I was swooping down to the spot, growling.

On the ground, I only saw a wet puddle and scraps of torn, bloody cloth. I landed, flicking my tongue again. Near the puddle sat a circular human canteen, black and smelling of sharp, dead leather. And around it there were other splashed wet spots, like water pour out, that smelled slightly of sweat. I tilted my head before jerking it up. It had rinsed its scent, even if partially. I should have gone after it with the chance.

I smelled drops of blood on the ground here, leading off in a kind of trail. There were footprints too, vague things, and they seemed to stop suddenly with the urine puddle. I leapt up, flying low along where the blood pointed, waiting for the urine scent to fade, the distant blood and sweat to come clear again.

Soon came distant flapping, closing in on me. I kept flying, but slower. I started, “Is your tail⁠ ⁠—”

She caught up and cut me off in moments, her voice a sharp growl: “Tongueless! What are you doing over here?”

“Following the ape’s trail?” I said.

“The urine was a misdirection. The same trick it pulled to escape. And you fell for it again.”

She flipped away then, flying opposite me. I flew after her, catching up in a few beats. Flying was something I did better than her, at least. I slowed my pace to fly beside her, and smiled at her.

“Go,” she said. “This is not the time to talk. You can fly faster, then catch the ape. Do not show off.”

With a crinkling of my frills, I did as she said.

The smell found me again, coming from the distance, the other side of the spot where we left our bags. Hinte had been right. This human was tricky.

Without waiting for Hinte or for the human to tire, I winged low after them until I could see the human jogging over the dustone. It moved fast, even with its weight. Had it kept that pace the entire time? At least we can fly. It might have escaped us if we had to chase it on foot.

Fanning my frills, they caught a familiar skittering crunch. Below me, a dozen glasscrabs scurried in pursuit of the human! I needed to be quick. The human looked back as it ran. It held a glowing pink cryst in its mouth and there was a similar glow in its forefeet.

What was it up to? Would it try to use the crysts to make the glasscrabs attack me? The crabs were scurrying behind it. I could land in front of the human, trap it between the crabs and me.

Threshing my wings, I overtook the human. After twisting in the air and crashing in front of the ape, I glared, fangs out, wings spread. The ape flinched, and clutched its hold on the corpse slung over its shoulder.

I growled and stepped forward. “Got you,” I said. From my fangs, I spat a stream of weak venom at its face. It would only irritate, but it’d buy me a few seconds.

The ape brought its free leg to its eyes, and my venom splattered on its armored sleeve, dripping and soaking and useless.

Its other foreleg moved to its mouth, and there came a quick dissonant whistle. It repeated the notes, three times, and never lowered its foreleg.

And then, the ape spoke. “No.” Its voice sounded garbled. “Get you.” In its mouth, The hisses and growls of our language felt forced and alien.

The ape threw the pink cryst at my feet; then it reached into a pocket. A foot​-​sized clay orb was in its forefeet before flying at my face. The clay orb fell short, and cracked apart on the ground.

The contents exploded!

My world became blinding white light that mocked the suns and stars. My frills fell over my eyes⁠ ⁠—⁠ but when I moved them, only suffocating blind darkness was there.

Somewhere near me a wet rag smacked onto the ground, stinking of the musky scent the crab had marked me with earlier. After this came cracking footfalls sprinting away from me. The skittering crunches came upon me in heartbeats. I flapped my wings to scare them, to give me space to leap up and land a few strides away.

I was backpedaling from the crunches, and calling, “Hinte!”

The reply was as a crash on the dustone. “What now, stone​-​frills?”

“I’m blinded!”

“No, you are fine. I have seen that effect before, from ignited kakaros leaves. It overstimulates the eyes to impair vision. The effect vanishes in seconds.”

I looked around, breathing, breathing until the world started to clear.

“Oh, okay,” I said, my voice small. Some tartness came to my fangs, and a twist to my voice as I added, “This ape has too many tricks under its wings!”

Hinte tilted her head. “Apes do not have wings.”

“It’s a saying⁠ ⁠—⁠ my point is that the ape is crafty, okay? We might have to work together to catch it.” I looked to the writhing mass of crabs. They’d ripped the ape’s wet rag to shreds, and were climbing over each other to chance at the cryst.

“It only has time for all of these ploys because you fall for the most apterous tricks. Let me handle this.” Hinte turned around, crouching.

“Can we at least try my plan?” A tiny bit of pleading entered my tone.

Hinte didn’t take off.

“It’s simple, I’ll–I’ll distract the ape, and you can attack where it isn’t expecting.”

“How will you do that?”

“It spoke to me earlier⁠ ⁠—⁠ it sounded like a horrible monster, but it speaks and understands. We can use that.”

---

My frills were dancing beside my head. My plan is going to be awesome⁠ ⁠—⁠ Hinte will taste it. After waving my own tongue in the air, I leapt up again, and raced after the apes’ scent. As I flew after it, I heard whistles resounding across the lake. The notes sounded complex, cacophonous, unmusical. Then came another complex whistling, from far behind me. That couldn’t be good.

As I drew in on the ape, my frills folded and I prayed the endless stars my plan would work.

I yelled, “Hey ape!” It felt like a leap.

The reply was more whistling, the human not even glancing up⁠ ⁠—⁠ then, it spoke. “Betrayer,” was the distorted answer, its tongue garbling our sibilants. It sounded like it had a lisp.

“Can we just talk? I’m so tired of chasing you.”

“You betray.” Another whistle, a single note response.

“Hey, we’re only here for the crysts. The little glowy stone things. You have another. I know you do.” I prayed you did.

Its whistling held for longer, with another short response.

This time the human was leading no glasscrab attack force; I overtook and crashed down in front of it again. I could lunge, bite its neck, end it all right now. What stopped me was the image of Hinte crashing to the ground after fighting the apes — wings punctures, legs slashed at — and she was better then me. She’d had more of a surprise.

I prayed the endless stars my plan would work, because it had to expect a direct fight on some level.

The human was clutching the corpse on its shoulder tighter, and had managed a single step backward. Breathing in massive pants, its body swayed with exhaustion. It recovered like molten glass turning to brittle dustone, and at length slowly spoke, maybe tasting that I didn’t attack it, or move at all, really.

“I no want death dragon.” Its words came out sounding deliberated, yet it must have a weak grasp of y Draig, as told by its word choice.

“Me neither,” I said, not sure how to respond or even what it meant. The ape stared at me, eyeing every inch of my body for motion. It spoke again after breaths and breaths.

“My friend,” it said, patting the corpse. “Dearest friend. Comrade. I bury comrade. Is all. Please.”

I raised a foreleg, and the ape started back and lifted its other limb, toes splayed.

“Please. I want no death.”

“I want cryst. Glowy stone, please.”

The ape stared. But its face shifted, eye​-​cover things squeezing together. Maybe it tasted my meaning? It reached again into a pocket.

Now I tensed, wary of another blinding orb. But it produced the pink stone, holding it out.

It didn’t step closer, so I stepped forth. The foreleg holding its friend shifted. I reached for the cryst. That other foreleg stabbed at my neck.

“Death!” it yelled. Its friend was falling to the ground beside it.

I screamed out of the way. The blade was slicing the scales of my neck.

A bright​-​white figure swooped from the sky, growling. Hinte dropped onto the human, claws slashing its neck. Blood gushed. Hinte ripped at the human’s stomach.

Already exhausted, the human crumbled. To the ground it fell beside its comrade. Its forefoot felt along the ground, seeking and finding that of its dearest friend. The human coughed, chest wounds and vog catching up to it. In between its death coughs, the ape yelled its last words.

“You–you monster.” It gave one last sputter and moved no more.

“That took long enough,” Hinte said.

I stared at the human. I didn’t look at the slick knife, I didn’t feel my neck. I was looking at Hinte. I was saying, “Um. We–we’re not monsters, right? They had this coming?”

The wiver glanced at me, goggles sparing me her withering look. She spoke, sounding practiced. “Yes. The apes are trespassing on Gwymr/Frina’s land. They attacked us. We were escorting them to the faer, and they resisted.” She whisked a wing. “We need to return to town, now. While the faer is awake.”

“Can⁠ ⁠—” I sputtered, and stopped a moment to compose my words. “Can we just leave? Let the Frinan guard handle all of this. We aren’t cut out for any of this. We’ll get hurt. We’ll get killed! It’s not worth it, Hinte,” I pushed word and sentence from my mouth, and it felt like breaths against a bonfire. Her face was passive, though — she only watched me. “Please, Hinte. Let’s just leave.”

Hinte had inclined her head, almost thoughtful. She had the look of someone unlistening and determined, and already building her answer.

When the wiver snapped her gaze down, I followed — she was looking at the pink cryst by my feet, and said, “That is one of our crysts.”

I snapped my tongue. “I don’t —”

“Did you listen while you flew? The whistling was call and response, a code.”

“So? You left the apes alive.”

“I left one ape alive.”

Dustone cracked hard as I dropped to my belly and lay there. “Then the apes can raise the dead and I really don’t want to help you fight them.”

“Not even Ushra could raise the dead. Not even —” Hinte stopped. “Apes play tricks, Kinri. It pretended to die.”

My back was to the bright​-​white figure, now.

“My bags are back there. My crysts. Your crysts, that you worked so hard for.”

I picked up the pink cryst, shook my head. “I don’t care about crysts. I just got them so that you’d think I was actually worth something for once. That I was helpful.” I dropped the cryst.

“You would be helpful standing against the humans with me.” A wing snapped open, pointing at the human. “Look at what we have already done.”

“Look at what almost happened!” I finally touched the wet sting at my neck as I lifted to show the dark​-​green wiver. “That knife cut my neck! A little more pressure, and I would be dead!.” I finally looked down, because I knew my fangs smelled sour, but at least it didn’t have to look it. “What was that you were saying earlier?”

She said, “I cannot raise the dead.”

I didn’t have to say anything else.

Hinte inclined her head, and left.

---

I lay there and dewed for a bit.

I couldn’t stay. The heat, my thirst, the stinking vog, everything awful about this lake would get to me eventually. I don’t know why I lay there⁠ ⁠— but if I moved, where would I go?

I’d wanted things to be simple. When I came to the land of glass and secrets, it wasn’t for anything big⁠ ⁠—⁠ there were my brother’s plans, looming, but those were nothing but an excuse, a chimerical hope. I’d thought I wanted the simple life, somewhere small and cozy to live, maybe find a cute drake, maybe lay a few eggs.

All my life, I never really worried about death. It was something only the nadir had to worry about, something only my sister had to understand.

I — didn’t like it.

The sound of beating wings found me then, coming back around. I found the dark figure in the distant vog. Her flight looked faltering and lopsided. Why? Because her wing membrane is bandaged, because her wing was stabbed, because she fought the humans, because I had let her fly to the overhang alone, just like I was letting her fly to the last ape alone.

What difference would I make, anyway?

I’d bravely flown to the center of the lake for crysts⁠ ⁠—⁠ and got my lungs poisoned. I needed Hinte to save me from the glazed olms. I bravely slinked after a strange sound in the lake⁠ ⁠—⁠ and let the human escape. I needed Hinte to save me from that human.

I wanted Hinte to finally admit I was useful, and she didn’t because I wasn’t. She’d even warned me that being loud in the lake would wake rockwraiths. I was probably the reason the first human had been attacked at all.

This was all my fault. Maybe if I left the lake entirely, things would go right for once.

I stood up. This wasn’t giving up. I still had the crab blood, I could still brew the Munditi Sieve. I leapt in the air, and started winging back to where this mess started, where my bags still sat.

I flew my lonely flight through the vasty lake. The plates still rumbled beneath me, and the wind still seemed to laugh in my inner ear. In the distance, distorted by endless echoes, the last ape was whistling. It repeated the same sequence of notes, again and again. The spaces between them grew shorter and shorter, and the notes faster and frantic.

Then, it stopped.

Time wound longer, and I didn’t count ghost​-​swallows, after what happened last time I tried to drink while flying. At last, I came near where we’d left our bags.

All around circled a moat of molten glass, only a few strides wide. The glass revealed blasted the air above it, stirring it into a vortex of swirling dust. A wave of heat barreled into me like an angry varjotuoksu player with one last chance to win.

The swirling clouds here concealed whatever behind the moat with our bags⁠ ⁠— the clouds looked even darker than usual, an inky blackness.

At my pace, Hinte had to have already flown into the vortex, but I stayed, landing with only a small, light flex of the lake skin, and peering long into the swirling clouds.

You could hope it was just my bags and Hinte on the other side, but it was a windless hope. Who’d dug the moat?

My head twitched. I shook it a few times, the muscles of my neck seeming to have a mind of their own. Had the wuthering excitement of the day already caught up to me? Steady as I tried to be, the twitching in my neck grew worse, and burning.

I was pacing around the moat. The human had to know Hinte had another dragon with her. They’d expect me. But would they expect me to run? I just need to slip in the moat, grab my bags and get out of here. That’s all.

My looping around the moat continued. Could I enter on a side they wouldn’t expect? Maybe if I flew in, or crawled in, or covered myself in dust⁠ ⁠—

I needed to step in. My nerve was strongest now. If I flagged, maybe it’d never be done.

I took a breath, then leapt over the moat.

---

First thing you saw was my crab stabbed and discarded on the fringe.

I had its blood, but still felt some kind of loss. I fluttered my wings to soften my landing, but I still crashed onto the dustone island.

A twang sounded, followed by jagged voice shrieking. My gaze snapped up.

The dark​-​green wiver faltered low in the air. Her right wing half​-​folded and she rolled to the ground, landing rough.

“Hinte!” I called. My eyes traced the path of the projectile back to a alien figure hobbled on the ground steps from our bags.

The ape turned to me, whipping around a gray weapon. The bow!

I rolled. My wings curled on their own. The arrow flew over my body. I whipped my head around⁠ ⁠—⁠ but this new island had no cover at all, at all.

A biting spear of pain stabbed into my shoulder. I screamed. My legs scrambled under me. I managed a stand, and faltered in the very next second as I half​-​leapt, half​-​stepped away.

The straight bow tracked my movements with precise jerks. I leapt, threshing my wings, and flew up.

From up here, you could see the breaks in the skin, still glowing, where Hinte and I had played around, and steps from the hobbled figure you could see the bags I’d snuck in here to grab; but only in the that single moment of calm before you saw the human and its jerking its gray weapon up at you, its face contorted in some toothy expression.

I swerved and twisted in the air as three more arrows stabbed a course toward me. On the ground, trails of blood streaked all along the moat, and led to and from the spot where the human sat hobbled.

Another spear of pain bit into my wing! My next flap faltered, and the wing was spasming. I spun in the air. Breathless, I made a scream empty and choked.

At the very edge of the island, the lake skin crashed into me. Forelegs, hindlegs, wings, tail, head, all scrambling. It was all I could do to not fall into the lake.

Live.

My wings writhed, and pain flooded them to the tips of every finger. The arrow had hit the base of my wing, and not punctured the membrane. My breath drew back into me, and I clamped down on my scream.

Maybe the human would hope I was dead?

Another twang came and went with a splitting pop of the ground beside me, and answered was my question.

But a growl had come with it. Did… did Hinte ruin the ape’s aim at the last moment?

I struggled to my feet. Hinte stood by the human, and in her claws gripped the human foreleg. The human now crouched, gray bow dropped by its side.

The humans other forefoot swung at her, and she backed off just as quick.

Bronze gleamed between them, catching molten light.

The human had a shortsword and waved it at Hinte.

If Hinte pressed the attack, it would stab her. If I flew at it, it could stab or slash either of us. The human looked weak, holding itself in a crouch, supporting with its other leg. If I’d learned anything in the last few minutes, I couldn’t underestimate the ape. It thought it could give one good hit before we killed it, and I would too.

“Put your blade down, ape,” Hinte said between growls. “We will kill you. You cannot win this. Ground yourself, and we will let you live.”

The ape looked to me. When its gaze moved, Hinte stepped forward. The ape jabbed its blade forward. “Smite you dragon. Betrayer,” it said. “Either move I kill.”

Hinte flared her frills in anger. Her bloody wings spread, but she did not step forward again.

I looked to my bag. There had to be a way out of this that didn’t end with us more injured than we already were. “Hinte,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ her wings hitched without her gaze leaving the ape⁠ ⁠—⁠ “that raisin⁠ ⁠—⁠ gemstone we found, it wasn’t a cryst, but is it worth anything?”

“Ja.” Hinte hadn’t even paused. She leapt backward. I wondered why for all of a heartbeat. The ape said it would kill us if we moved, but it now couldn’t even reach either of us.

I leapt without more hesitation, and crashed down beside my bag. Now, both of us stood on either side of the ape. The ape, stepping after Hinte, flinched at my landing.

My forefoot slipped into my bag. Past the crab blood, I grabbed the raisin​-​looking gem. A third the size of my sole, it slid into my foot.

The ape half​-​turned, the shortsword still angled at Hinte. But then, it reached to its side, pulling out a long knife and pointed it at me.

What? Wasn’t I worthy of a whole sword? I was a fearsome dragon too! Just because I was smaller than Hinte didn’t mean anything.

I groaned. When I snatched away indignance, worry bubbled. Just how prepared were these humans? “Hinte, how did you even fight these things alone?”

Hinte paused a bit before answering, not looking at me. “They were sleeping.”

The human waved its blade.

Okay. Time for action. “Don’t kill us, please!” I said. The hairs above the human’s eyes shifted, moving closer to its eyes. “We’ll let you go, we don’t want to fight anymore. Look, we’ll even pay you.” I lifted my forefoot, showing the gemstone.

The human stared at me. I outstretched my forefoot, slowly. My toes fell away, freeing the human to pick it up. But it stayed where it was, keeping the two strides between us.

“Hinte, get back.” She looked at me, head tilted. “The human won’t take the payment if you’re right there, free to attack it. Get yourself back.” I injected a little bit of cold authority in my voice, just like mother had taught me. The same tone you’d use to order servants or hatchlings around. I hoped it didn’t sound too condescending.

Scowling, she stepped back, once, twice, thrice. The human stared at the dark​-​green dragon, nodded its sword toward the ground. Hinte crouched, and her wings folded back. The human stepped toward me, still keeping Hinte in its sight. I folded my frills back, hid my tail, anything to avoid looking threatening, avoid setting it off. When the human grabbed the gemstone, I grabbed its forefoot in return. My other foreleg came up to grab his sword leg, and I yelled, “Now!”

Hinte was already leaping, meeting the human on the other side in heartbeats. She dug her claws into the ape’s neck. Her venom smelled salty. She brought her claw up to rip at the other side of its throat.

Again, a human crumbled under her and died, eyes wide, feet searching for something to hold onto. It coughed and spat up blood, and I didn’t like how much like a grimace that look on its face was.

---

I breathed. It was over. “We won.” I didn’t mean to say that aloud.

“You had a good plan,” she said.

“Not really my idea, the first ape did it first. I guess it was… revenge.” I heard her hum. “Is revenge supposed to feel good?”

“Yes. We gave them what they deserved.”

I look at the human, eyes and mouth widened even in death. “But they’re dead.”

“Yes,” she said, drawing out the word. She waved her tongue.

“It doesn’t feel like we fledged a difference.”

“We didn’t make things better. We stopped them from making things worse.”

“Oh… that makes sense.” I looked up.

Her wings spread and her bandaged tail stood straight, and she asked, half​-​growling, “What took you so long?”

“Um,” I started. I was leaving you to fight the human alone. “I wasn’t flying right into an obvious trap?” Shift the focus, shift the blame.

Hinte jerked at that, looking to her wing. I followed her gaze. There, an arrow punctured her wing.

That pulled a gasp. “They got your wing again! When did that happened?” I reached at her wing. She didn’t move, and let me wriggle the arrow out.

“That rat shot me as I flew in,” she answered. Then added, “It dumped our crysts in the lake.”

“How many?”

“All the crysts in my bag.” As she spoke, her fangs had unfolded.

“I’m sorry.” I looked down, shuffling over to my bag.

“For what?”

“My plan earlier with the cryst — I told the ape we wanted its stone, so maybe it told this one in its whistling code.”

“The ape was spiteful. It just wanted to destroy something we valued. A hatchling could figure out that the crysts were of value.”

I glanced at her bag. The left side was empty of crysts, only having a folded black cloth, and in the right bag, her mixtures sat knocked over and strewn about. I stepped closer and leaned over. “Hey, where is that flat pink container from earlier?”

Hinte looked down, and cursed. “That ashwitted weasel. Look.”

I followed her pointing wing. The pink container sat open by the ape’s gray bow, almost a third of it scoped out.

“Was it trying to heal itself?”

“It heard me telling you to use it for my wounds.” She snapped her tongue. “No dragon medicine will help the apes, let alone die Wunder. We are of different superclass.” The wiver kicked the ape’s corpse. Her foot hit something, and she flicked her tongue. Digging into the folds of the ape’s corpse, she found another of the blinding orbs.

“Ooh, are you going to study the humans’ alchemy?”

She hummed yes, placing it in her bag before grabbing more rope from it, and slipping the whole bag around her side, straps tightening. Near the bag, one of my glasscrabs lay with a knife sticking out, turned almost inside out.

I asked, “What was it doing with my glasscrab?”

Hinte glanced over, flicking her tongue. “Extracting pheromones from its glands,” she said. “They provoke aggression and cooperative defense in other crabs. It would be needed for its trick with the crabs earlier.”

“So what — did this human extract these… pheromones and then pass it off to the other?”

“Yes, when you fell for its urine bait, it gave it a chance to double back and grab the rag from the other human, scented with the pheromones.”

“All the way back? Stars above. How did they pull this off in less than a long ring?” I reached down to pick up the crab, but Hinte snapped her tongue.

“Leave it for the carrion​-​eaters. You have two others. That one is nearly ruined.”

I hummed. Stepping back toward my bag, I found a bottle of my crab blood spilled out. Desperation or pointless vandalism? I still had two glasses.

I nosed into my bag, and squeaked a little. Sterk was still alive! Was it because he didn’t glow? The human must have missed him. Hinte had twisted her neck to look at me. I pulled the drab green stone from my bag and set him on my head.

“Look, Hinte! We still have Sterk.”

Hinte’s neck just twisted further.

“He was the first cryst I found when I set off on my own. He was pretty weird, though.”

“You were pretty weird. Talking to yourself, talking to rocks, talking to glasscrabs. Did you shed your sense last cycle?”

“Hey, I talk to apes too! It saved our flanks twice now.”

“Every single ape here died by my claws.”

“And I pointed out the apes on the overhang and distracted the others.”

“You also were too scared to track down the first human, or the last human.”

I thrust the green cryst at Hinte. “Well, is he worth anything?”

Hinte took it with her wing, looking it over with wrinkled frills. “It is underdeveloped. It should have been buried deep in the lake. How did you find this?”

“Um. I sort of… pushed the lake down until I could pull it out.”

Hinte hissed a laugh. “Only you would think of doing something like that.” She turned Sterk around a few times. “Do you want to keep it?”

“Not really? I only found him for you, so you can keep him.”

But Hinte walked over to the two human corpses, leaving me with the cryst.

Watching Hinte heave the humans onto her back, my alula felt my chin. “So. You said only one human was left alive?”

“Ja. And I said the last one feigned death. Its wound was fatal. That is why it went nowhere after I left it here.” She walked over the other bodies.

“Okay, then make sure the last human is dead. I don’t want any more tricks.”

“It is dead. Otherwise it would have done something to help the other.”

“Okay,” I said, reaching into her bag to get some bandages for my neck. She pushed my foreleg away and passed the bandages to me herself. I looked up “You didn’t feel them moving or anything?”

Hinte took a moment to respond. “I felt them shifting. I assumed my steps had jostled them.”

“Alright, I guess.” I tightened my bag straps. “How did it dig the moat?”

The wiver pointed at a long metal rod with a rubber handle and a mesh sieve at the other end. I slinked over, picked it up. The cured​-​rubber handle slid right into my foot, my halluxes finding their grooves, and my toes wrapping and settling around it.

I waved it around some, and pointed it at Hinte in a challenge, and swung it with a yarl. She peered at me. As the rod swung, it folded limp in the air. A sigh, andI spat disappointed salty venom at it. It was folded further and fell into my bag.

I snapped my tongue at Hinte, daring her to laugh. She did. I crinkled my frills.

“So. Do you think I can dig up crysts with this?”

She nodded slow. I smiled and my frills bounced. After it found my bag, I said “I don’t suppose we can forget about the other corpses?” I held the end of my snout with my wings.

As Hinte stepped over to me, she was shaking her had. Grabbing a green container, she said, “Here.” It wiggled as she opened it. It was scooped in her claws and wiped across my neck. The pain of the bleeding line dimmed, feeling cool and sandy.

Hinte bent her frills a bit when she noticed the arrow sticking out of my wings’ shoulder. When she pulled it out, I yelped and the wing spasmed again; but the green jelly soon grounded the pain.

“Thank you, Hinte.”

She didn’t smile, but her frills relaxed a touch.

---

After we returned to the other bodies, I’d grabbed last intact crabstone, and Hinte’d placed both of the humans on my back for me. For a few steps, I thought I’d at long won our argument about carrying equal weights.

As we set off again, my legs buckled under the weight and I slumped over. Hinte growled a complaint, and shuffled the bodies between us again.

I was following farther behind her than earlier. As we walked on, I dwelt on the more than two forefeet difference in length between us, the muscled thickness of her legs, and her wider frame. She even stood taller than me! When I sighed, the lake air had begun cracking the numb shell of the respira.

We marched on all the same, and along the way, we passed the spot where the human had blinded me. The glasscrabs had all left, leaving only the stinking rag and the dim pink cryst. I felt the distant shudder of the other crabstone every few heartbeats, a far cry from what it had felt like before the crabs devoured it.

“Hinte, do you want to get that other cryst? It feels kind of pathetic — but it’s something, right?” I pointed my wing at the cryst. Hinte tossed her head in indifference. I slinked over at the dying cryst, then placed it in my bag. “Oh, and did you want the remains of that other blinding orb thing? It couldn’t hurt to have two to study, right?”

“Bring it.”

“Okay!” I squeaked. I scooped up clay shards of the orb before putting them in my bag. After I returned to Hinte, she started walking again. I settled into step beside her. Prodding her with a wing, I gave her a smile. “We make a nice team, don’t we?”

She tossed her head, but nodded after a beat. “You aren’t so tongueless when you stop to think.”

I beamed at her compliment.

With my tail, I reached into my left bag, feeling its contents. Only the crysts I gathered, and the gem. “I hate that the only time I come with you everything goes wrong and you ended up with almost no crysts.”

Hinte looked away, wings shifty as she considered my words. A few moments passed before she replied.

“I had a feeling something would go wrong, this time. It is why I allowed you come along.”

I waved my tongue.

“Huh? You knew something would go wrong? How?”

Hinte looked down at the lake skin. Glass gushed up under her feet, but she adjusted her steps. “No, I did not know,” she said. When she looked back to me, her teeth were visible, though her fangs had retracted. “It was… Call it superstition or intuition. Do not worry about it.”

“You… you could have at least told me. You never tell me anything.”

“You never listen. I told you it was dangerous. I told you that you would get hurt.”

“Being dangerous is different from having dangers. There is glass and cliffs and maybe I would get burned or fall or something. But you never said anything about olms, rockwraiths, humans or any of this!” My wing moved to my neck, feeling the bandages over the knife wound. “I could have died. So many times.”

“No, I was right there. I would not let you die.”

I looked up, wings drawing together. There had to be something to say to that. But it never found its way to my lips. The talk frayed apart.

The surface of the lake grew rugged and hilly again. At first it looked like we might have come back to where I met the first sifter, but no blades of dustone stabbed up, and the bands of dustone never grew more pronounced. The winds whipped up again, tossing dust at us and soughing through unseen crevices.

Hinte’s frills expanded, adjusting forward and back. “Do you feel that, Kinri?”

I flared my frills before my eyes cleared and a drop of curdled fear came to my fangs. “More whistling. Hinte! I thought you killed all the humans?”

“I did. This human could not have been above the overhang.”

I looked around, waiting for another monster to jump out of the vog. When I spoke, I hid my fangs and turned away, so Hinte couldn’t smell my fear. “Well, what are we supposed to do now? We can’t fight them like this, with this much weight.”

Hinte punched the ground. “And we cannot leave the bodies when the human might steal one again.”

I looked around. “So we run?”

A high, throaty laugh came from behind, followed by, “Oh! What we running from?”

I yelled, leaping across to land behind Hinte. I crouched on the ground, my head swerving around to find the human.

“It is a dragon, Kinri.”

“Oh,” I said, standing up without looking at Hinte. I looked around until I caught sight of a yellow​-​brown dragon in ragged​-​white sifting suit. “Hey, it’s you again.”

“Again?” Hinte turned, waving her tongue at me.

“Um.” I broke eye and lowered my head as I said to the sifter, “Can I tell her? She’s trustworthy.”

The sifter waved a wing. “Go ahead. She’s obviously on the same road as us.” They still spoke with that odd, artificially saccharine voice. I didn’t know what to make of it.

I gave Hinte my best cloudy​-​eyed, flatten​-​frill look. “So um, when I was watching the body, this sifter⁠ ⁠—”

“Mawla. Miss Mawla.” Her frills folded up, clinking slightly.

“Okay. Mawla came up and we talked for a bit but she told me not to tell anyone.” I did a double take at the yellow​-​brown dragon. “Wait, you’re a wiver?”

She rolled her head. “Obviously. Do you need to see my vent?”

“Eww, no. Keep it covered, please?”

“Your call. Why is it so surprising?”

“Mawla sounds like a drake’s name,” Hinte murmured.

“What?” Her frills snapped out with a harsh clack.

“Nothing,” was said.

Mawla rolled her neck and looked back to me.

“Its just… your partner. They made it seem you were… you know.”

Mawla’s dark eyes clouded. A wing rose to her face, and she said, “Obviously,” before muttering, “Dwylla’s rotting crotch. You make one sexy joke and they never forget.”

“But why would they, uh, imply…” I twirled my alulae.

“Oh well, you see, I had one of those sifting rods and some salve. So when Lilian had ripped her suit⁠ ⁠—”

“Nevermind, I don’t want to know.” My tail constricted my leg. I licked my fangs.

“What? Have you never had your cloaca —”

“Gah!” I turned to Hinte. “Save me,” I whispered.

Hinte frowned, but turned to the yellow​-​brown dragon. “Why are you alone in the lake?” she asked.

“I can handle myself just fine.” Mawla’s frills were contracting.

“But you had a friend, didn’t you? I’d think you two would have reunited by now.”

“Ah yeah. I did, after talking to Kinri like he asked. But the ashwit wouldn’t stop nagging my head off about slinking off on my own earlier. Got tired of hearing it.”

“Oh. That drags.”

“It’s been a while coming. He’s absolutely insufferable, and I obviously couldn’t take any more.”

It sounded familiar. If Hinte had pressed with how sifting on my own was such a bad idea, would I have gotten tired of hearing it, too? Would I have slinked back to Gwymr/Frina alone and friendless?

“You should have stayed together. There are wraiths and apes out in the lake tonight.”

“You can fuck right off with that.” The yellow​-​brown wiver whisked a wing. “There aren’t wraiths out this season, and you two took care of all the apes.”

Hinte tossed her head. “It’s tongueless.”

“Like I said, fuck right off. I didn’t slough one cat​-​tongued lout for another.”

Hinte already had her fangs out, and she stepped toward the sifter.

Distract her, unbalance her. I didn’t want a fight. “Hey Hinte,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ she stopped, half​-​turned⁠ ⁠—⁠ “Don’t you sift alone too when I’m not here?”

“That is different. The lake is less dangerous by day.”

“Then why are we here now?”

“Because of the humans.”

“But⁠ ⁠—”

She growled at me.

My cold, airy voice started, “Hinte —”

Walking home alone, friendless.

“—⁠ I’m sorry,” my normal, whining voice finished. “You’ve been doing this for longer than I have, you must know what you’re doing.”

Hinte’s frills fanned, and she turned away from me. She turned away from Mawla too, stalking away from the both of us.

Alone, Mawla looked at me, smiling with clear eyes. “I saw that. You were about to bite into her.”

“I don’t bite.”

“I mean with your voice.” She wagged her alulae. “Bare your spirit. Rip into her. You know.”

“I didn’t want to push her away.” I looked over to Hinte walking away.

“You⁠ ⁠—⁠ hey, what’s your name?”

“Kinri.”

“The sky​-​dweller? Huh. Small town. Well, Kinri, I don’t see why you don’t call your bets and let her on her way. She’s a fire waiting to burn something.”

“She’s not all bad. We’ve just had a mess of a day.”

“Like a storm. Yeah, I smell you.” The sifter flicked her tongue. “Still, her act reeks. You’re too nice for her.”

“I don’t think so.” I looked up, then over to Hinte. I started after her, but glanced at the sifter. “You want to come with us?”

“Dwylla no. If it were just you, I’d leap at the chance. But I’ve had enough of her for today. Catch you on the wind.”

“Bye!” I said.

And ragged​-​white figure was gone.

---

When I caught up to Hinte, she had taken out her compass, righting her path. I spoke before she did, “I’m sorry again. It’s kind of ashy for me to fault you for not telling me things when I did the same to you.”

I meant the apology; but a part of me couldn’t help but note just how well this move flew. She either had to forgive me for hiding things, or admit she shouldn’t have hid things from me.

“You kept a promise.”

“Um, I did,” I said.

Hinte had looked away, staring off into the lake’s shroud. Hinte’s lantern had created something of a wall between us and the darkness. In it, it felt like we walked a little closer together.

My ghost canteen dwindled, and after a while I turned to Hinte. She glanced at me once, twice, each a few moments apart. The third time, she spoke, “Kinri.”

I turned to her, head tilted.

“You have not bothered me about why I collect these crysts again.”

“I sort of decided you must have a good reason for being so secretive.”

She paused. “I remember. But we agreed I would tell you if you found five crysts. It was a promise.”

“But I only found three.”

She lifted her head. “No. You found one after you tripped. Three after you decided you were good enough to sift on your own. And one just before we ate my lunch.”

We weren’t only counting the stones I found on my own? “I guess,” I said. “Wait, what about that other crysts I found, after we reunited and before the last one?”

“I found that one, not you.”

“Uh, no. That was definitely me.”

Hinte jerked her head toward me, fangs out.

I squeaked. “Okay, okay, you really totally for​-​sure found that stone. Can you tell me your secrets now?” I couldn’t help the eagerness in my tone. Would my last question alight for good?

We walked in silence for a few beats before Hinte spoke again in a distant tone. “They are curiosities. They hum like instruments. So musicians will incorporate them in their acts. They glow like lamps. So the wealthy will use them as decorations.”

I hummed an acknowledgment, and she continued.

“But few will seek them out, as they serve neither purpose well. Crushed kakaros leaves are brighter, and milkmoth extract is a more reliable light. Even the hum is fickle, and crysts with pleasant vibrations are rare. And then, their glow and hum fades over time, dying in two or three moons.”

I tilted my head. “Then why bother?” She waited a long moment before responding.

“Certain collectors will buy them, after a property that is — not well known,” she said. Then, in a low whisper, “The idea is that crysts are magical. Anti​-​magical. Warping energies, disrupting or distorting enchantments.” She waved her wing around.

Staring at her, I said, “What does that mean?”

The dark​-​green wiver snapped her tongue, and she slipped a wing back to her bag while slowing to a stop. She paused for a moment. “You still have my knife,” she said. “Can you bring it out?” She reached deeper into her bag.

Her knife was held in my alula, and she took it. From her bag, she’d gotten a metallic sphere, and it was pressed against the base of the knife. It came into place with a snap, and it was twisted. Shimmering green crawled up the black knife, emanating from the once​-​white streaks on the blade.

“This is a magical knife. Its cuts will desiccate and atrophy any organic matter it penetrates. Pay attention.” The dark​-​green wiver took the limb from one of the apes on her back and sliced deep into it. Blood didn’t rush forth, and the skin around it fell blackened and cracked. The ever​-​present, ash​-​stirring wind acted moments later, blowing dust from the limb. In moments, it looked as if she’d carved away flesh some dances ago, instead of a making simple cut breaths before. The only break in the atrophied blackness of the flesh was the white of bone.

“Now, watch this.”

The dark​-​green wiver held the knife tight in her wings while she fell to her haunches. She pulled out a rod with a glowing tip that looked a cryst someone had bothered to cut and polish. It glowed, but didn’t hum. The wiver held it and did something⁠ ⁠—⁠ maybe a finger shifted, I couldn’t be sure⁠ ⁠—⁠ and then it hummed.

Where the other crysts hummed low and discordant, this — whatever it was — sounded loud and… less discordant? The tones were focused and clearer in a way the others weren’t, without sounding pleasant at all.

The knife reacted an instant later. The glow flickered, and wavered between green and an off blue, and dimmed until, for a moment, it was half​-​invisible. It was still dimming, slower, and when the green was all gone, Hinte swiped the blade against the ape’s opposite limb. Thick, clotted blood oozed out, but that was it

“That is what it means, Kinri​-​gyfar.” Hinte pulled the little sphere from the knife, and held it out to me.

“You’re giving it back?”

“For now, you need it more than I do.”

“But I don’t get the little death sphere to go with it?”

“You’d cripple or kill yourself.”

Huffing, I glanced away. Did I want to risk it? That knife could destroy me if I slipped up once.

“Fine,” I said, kicking a pebble. When I looked up, Hinte had started walking again, and was glancing back at me.

I started after her. Scratching my cheek, I said, “So, that’s anti​-​magic.” I looked up, licking my brilles. “Is that why that other stone in your compass was all wonky?”

“What?”

“I don’t remember the color. It was the only one that didn’t have anything to do with the poles, or any celestial sphere.”

“The red one,” she said.

“What does it do? Is it some kind of cryst​-​detector?”

“No,” Hinte said, slapping a frill over a goggle lens. She continued in her lecturing, reciting tone. “It tracks the flow of the earth. It predicts earthquakes and eruptions.”

“You need your compass to do that?”

“No, but it is useful for navigating underground, especially in iron​-​smited caves. There are many in the cliffs.”

“Oh, okay.”

We walked awhile. A sound came in the distance, lost in the rattling and cracks. It might have been flapping or the wind.

So I knew at last why Hinte sifted crysts. And it fledged sense that she wouldn’t tell me. Magic was poisonous and maddening. Whatever freaky reputation alchemists had, mages could be so much worse. I still don’t get why this was worth hiding from me. I was a sky​-​dweller, a House sky​-​dweller at that. We didn’t shun magic the same way Gwymr/Frina did.

Looking up, I rubbed my headband. As I did, my mind slinked back over Hinte’s words, picking through implication. Other mages lived in Gwymr/Frina? Collectors, plural?

I poked Hinte. “You were saying something about collectors and magic?”

She lowered her head. “I collect the stones for them. But they are not common. You know the story.” I looked up to the black​-​dust sky, one phrase on my mind: The Inquiry. Hinte spoke first. “A jewel cutter, Glyster, is our⁠ ⁠—⁠ my only client until the white season passes.”

“But then —” I started, but the words alighted in my mouth as a slender black form flew from the vog toward Hinte.

And like that, we were hunted.

“Hinte!” I yelled out.

On the other side of the dark​-​green wiver a slender, black thing shot out from the vog. Like an arrow it plunged into Hinte’s side. I didn’t see the bite⁠ ⁠—⁠ but Hinte growled deep in pain. I was yelling out in fear, in useless warning. My wings twitched but the sight had vitrified me.

Another shadow flew at her neck. The wiver twisted — the creature flew close, belly running along her neck, a near​-​miss. There was a hissing growl.

Sudden knife​-​claws raked down my back. They tore into my sifting suit, and left small cuts. The shadow above me yarled, vicious. I felt the impact of more claws —⁠ but no pain. Blood flowed down my neck. Not mine.

The human! It’d saved me. Teeth sunk into my side — a fourth shadow. It ripped through the white suit and slashed my scales. I buckled. Head smashed into the ground.

Hinte’s fight came as a mess of yelps and growls, almost in turn. The wiver’s cries tended more frequent and pained. Did she need my help? What could I do?

I flailed my wings at the toothy thing beside me. It growled and backed off. I fled. Above me, one still ripped or slashed at the human. I clawed at the ropes. They split!

I leapt high, the bloody corpse falling to the ground. Dare to look back⁠ ⁠—⁠ the trick worked. The third continued to rip into the corpse.

Below Hinte was fighting her pair of shadows. One gnawed on her right hindleg —⁠ ouch. The other circled around to lunge at her neck again. But that was all I glimpsed.

In the air, the fourth shadow still chased me! I smacked it with my tail. It bit my tail! I curled in the air, growling. I grabbed onto the shadow and we crashed into the lake surface. The lake skin fractured and split open fiery gashes.

With a free forefoot, I reached for the mouth of the creature. Force it closed. I reached⁠ ⁠—

The shadow bit me! Its teeth cracked the glass and pierced the scutes. I grabbed its lower jaw.

Distantly, Hinte screamed.

No!

Holding it in two feet, I swung the shadow. Land in the lake, please! But as I let go, the third thing came. It lunged at a foreleg. Old glass bore the brunt.

It clawed again and I saw it draw blood. I kept swinging — but the other creature ruined my aim! I could only slam the shadow on the lake skin, shattering dustone. I pushed harder, to submerge it. The other shadow was lunging again! At my neck!

I wouldn’t. I dodged away, and it only clawed my face — but it clawed again and again. Blood dripping down my face, I couldn’t submerge the shadow. I gave up.

I wasn’t a fighter. The lake had worn me away. Even with the frenetic, fatal energy in my blood⁠ ⁠—⁠ I could give up. It was what I did. The thought rang out in my head, but its echo was something⁠ ⁠—⁠ different:

Rockwraiths will fly away after you stop moving. Hinte’s voice, the distant wiver who hadn’t seen me stand up to humans.

I feigned death, and fell limp. The two wraiths — what else could they be? — they continued to claw or bite at me. I screamed, but I let the sound falter and die. They stopped, and — brilles clouded — I could feel them staring at me, waiting.

Breathe, low, breathe calm. I had to think! They had caught Hinte by surprise, injured her even more. She was over there, alone. I had to help her.

But how? I needed to make them stop attacking her. Distract them? Lure them away?

A vague memory came to me, another echo that wasn’t my voice.

It awakens sleeping things, sleeping out the gray season.

The gray season. When volcanic activity waxed with the coming perigee of Laswaith, the great moon of violence. When the animals in the lake estivated to weather the heat and ash. But if these wraiths were still active, well, they had to eat something. The glasscrabs ate the crysts. And what else could the wraiths eat but glasscrabs?

Breaking my feigned death, I did a quick dart to my bag, where glasscrabs poked out. The wraith lunged in the corner of my eye. I rushed a crab out. Then threw it out in front of me. It paused, and peered at the crab, tongues flicking. I leapt up, running in the opposite direction. The two wraiths disappeared in the distant darkness behind me.

When no razor fangs came crushing down on my legs, I breathed. I did it!

Away from the wraiths I was again limping on injured legs. My left forefoot had teeth marks down its middle. My right foreleg had three bleeding breaks in the glass. Adding to the pain, my face dripped blood from numerous swipes, both deep and shallow, and the horrible bite on my belly. Despite all of this, the pain felt distant, muted.

Free from the fight, I could flee. Fly up into the sky and glide back to Gwymr/Frina. Hinte needed my help, but would I even make a difference? Maybe it was better if at least one of us lived. She could understand that, right?

That same echo:

I would not let you die.

No, she would try to save me. I needed to stop cowering. She had saved me twice⁠ ⁠—⁠ I could show my thanks. And, well, I’d been some help against the humans, hadn’t I? If I could just think…

---

I had a plan, I just needed to find Hinte. She’d been fleeing last you saw, and I’d… gone in the opposite direction. Aching legs slipped me into a high walk. I slinked over the gnarled ground as fast as I dared. The new speed ripped pain in my forelegs, but it didn’t matter.

The fight made ripples over the lake skin. The fractured and bulging ground turned to another obstacle standing against me. In the nighttime vog I was half​-​blind; but I could do better than just hope Hinte was in this direction; the burning cracks ripped open left me half​-​sighted.

The stark bright of the molten glass seemed to darken the vog even more. I could see almost nothing but what had been limned by the wake of the fight.

Moments of stealth passed like this, and I was tripping over my claws with spicy anticipation on my fangs.

At last I came back around to Hinte and her attackers.

First thing you saw: the fading white glowy stuff spilled all over the ground. What you smelt? Blood in the air. Tart and spicy venom. And rank, stinky wraiths.

Dogged by rockwraiths, Hinte fell into a crouch, and stumbled into a leap⁠ ⁠—⁠ a lopsided leap that was brought low in breaths by the wraiths. She tried, again and again.

With an injured hindleg and wing, the bright​-​white figure couldn’t fly away. You were built to fly, take that away and how much was left?

“Hinte!” I shouted. “I have a plan — play dead!”

Already falling and crashing on the surface, she didn’t get up⁠ ⁠—⁠ I just prayed the endless stars it was on purpose.

Breath, Kinri.

My last glasscrab was in my feet, held tight, and I pulled back and aimed. Between the bright​-​white figure and me it landed aright. One wraith glanced at it. And it went back to biting Hinte!

A growl left my lips. I had one last gambit. It might throw away all I’d worked for —⁠ but if I succeeded, it had to be worth it.

A glass came from my bag, a glass of glasscrab blood. I unlidded and threw it over the crab corpse. As it fell, the contents spilled out below it. It landed with a crack.

Both wraiths looked, this time. Hinte stayed still.

Breaths passed.

A wraith jerked its head back at Hinte. No!

My last glass was in my feet before I could think, before it was flying low over the lake skin before it smacked into a crag with a big pop that was only loud because it was so quiet all around and⁠ ⁠—

A rockwraith moved. It ambled twitchingly over toward the crab and the spilled blood.

I still held my breath, but something eased when I saw the other, larger rockwraith lunge after the first with a gait that was like a very efficient limp.

At the creature, I peered. Like the cloudwraiths above, these things scented the air with two tongues. Long, curling forelegs doubled as three​-​clawed wings, wyvern​-​like. Hindlegs looked almost draconic, monstrous limbs for leaping into the air. And midwings sat between those two pairs, much wider than the snakelike body was long.

When the first wraith reached the crab, a small bite was taken. This smaller wraith then hopped onto it, and grasped the corpse in its hindfeet. The leader leapt winging away, and the smaller followed, lugging the crab.

The rockwraiths winged over to where I’d left larger crab. There, my once​-​attackers were still taking ravenous bites out of the first crab. The leader landed and in turn nipped both of the hungry wraiths. Cowed, they fell in line as the leader clutched the big crab and led them winging off.

In formation, they all flew away, victorious.

---

I had lost my crabs. I had lost the crab blood. My face and legs were red and wet. But, just maybe, there was a victory of my own: I had survived. And Hinte? The stars had to have spared her. They had to.

My wings took me toward the spilled white glow on the ground, the glair​-​like stuff pooling out around her lantern like a cracked egg. The dark​-​green wiver lay on the ground, in the same spot where I’d told her to play dead.

With the wraiths gone, the frenetic energy in my limbs faded. My wounds roused awake, and I faltered in the sky. When I crashed, I fell to my side and stayed there for a bit.

“…Kinri?” came a certain jagged voice. A head rose, and the lines of that dark​-​green face came to life. The amber goggles still hid her eyes, but I imagined behind them, eyes opened and searched around.

“Hinte!”

“It’s over? Your plan worked.” Hinte had shifted from her slumped position. She now crouched on her hindlegs, forelegs and wings supporting her weight. Others might look frail in that position. She only looked defiant.

“It did.” I looked away. “But it–it feels like a defeat.”

“It is not defeat until you can no longer play,” Hinte said, sounding like an echo. When my head didn’t rise with her words, she added, sounding more urging, “Kinri. Those are the same wraiths that killed the human. I smelled the blood on it. We lived.”

“But — you killed that human.” I glanced tilting back to her.

“It was a mercy killing. After the wraiths attacked, it could only die. I decided when.”

“I–I guess.” I sighed in relief. Hinte had survived with me. Not even a defeat like this could keep her down! My legs relaxed with the calming breath, and I buckled before I caught myself.

With that fight feeling so far behind me, injuries from earlier screamed. The pain fired up through my legs and side, winging from my mouth as a pained groan. Hinte stared at me, hidden gaze meeting mine, lines of her face softening further.

I looked away, again. “How bad are your injuries?” I asked.

“…They got my wings and hindlegs. Again. I will not fly for a half​-​cycle, at least.”

“That’s harsh. Do we — do you have enough medicine for that?”

“No. Not for both of us⁠ ⁠—⁠ I saw the wraith bite your side. And your face is more red than blue.” My frill wrinkled. “I shall bandage it up. Did they get your legs?” I nodded. “Feh. We can start with that, then.” She shifted, digging into her bag.

“No — I think you got the worst of it. Could we start with your legs?” I said, and rubbed my gashed foreleg with my other foot.

Hinte stared, for a breath. “Do it, then.” She turned around so that both of her forelegs faced me, then nudged three containers toward me. They looked vague forms in the darkness. Crouching down, I examined and unlidded two containers⁠ ⁠—⁠ one, the clear ointment from earlier in a small, ball​-​like vial; the other, a translucent green substance in flat container. When I picked in up, its contents wiggled.

“What do all these mixtures do?” I asked. I had to learn more about alchemy if I was to impress Hinte without the Sieve. No shame in just asking, right?

“It varies.” Hinte’s voice was clear and steady, as if this were any other talk at any other time. When the lid came off the clear green mixture, and she tapped my claw with a wing. “No, save that for the small cuts. The pink one.”

I did, but not before wiggling it again. “This looks like jelly~”

Hinte clicked, and I smiled. Like that, I started applying it to her legs. She winced. As if to distract herself, Hinte’s earlier tone returned and she continued, “That green mixture there is die kleine Heylpflanze, a simple mixture of nutrients and healthful plants.” She shifted her weight a bit, and relaxed the leg I worked on.

“The ingredients are cheap, or as near as alchemicals are to cheap; and it is straightforward to ferment and cool. Even if some tongueless alchemist managed to botch it up⁠ ⁠—” a grunt was swallowed as I switched to the other hindleg “—⁠ you would more than likely get something inadequate or useless than lethal.”

I’d taken too little of the pink solution, so I stopped to get more. Hinte grumbled, and said, “Do not use too much⁠ ⁠—⁠ die Wundervernarbung is powerful enough. And you must save some for yourself.” I only hummed. Would we need to ration it if that starless human hadn’t wasted a third of it?

“Regardless, that is die Heylpflanze. A pigeon of mixtures. Hatchlings brew it in our academies in their first gyras.”

I finished with her hindlegs. As if sensing this, the wiver put her leg down, and spread her wings. I stared at them, scowling at how the leathery membrane was littered with clawings and bitings all over.

Despite myself I was reminded of how small grew surface​-​dweller wings. Hinte’s wings were maybe three, maybe four times as long as her legs, while mine were near five times as long as my legs.

Focus, Kinri. This could take a while.

Hinte was saying, “Use die Heylpflanze for my wings.”

So I scooped out clawfuls of the stuff and lathered it onto her wings. “It sounds like the pink stuff is the more interesting of the two.”

“The pink mixture is die Wundervernarbung.” Why did her voice sound so songly? Her uttering that polysyllabic monster sounded almost an excited lilt, if that could ever describe Hinte’s voice.

The dark​-​green wiver just remained silent after that, and I caught the definite note in her tone. As if that name spoke for itself.

“What is the pink Wunder thingy?”

“Die Wundervernarbung. It means⁠ ⁠—”

“I know what it means. Wonderful scarring or something like that⁠ ⁠—⁠ I speak Drachenzunge, Hinte. You just can’t expect me to pronounce all of those big fat words you all have.” I had finished with the one wing, so I moved around to the other. “Tell me about the pink stuff, please.”

“Die Wundervernarbung” — (it was definitely a lilt) — “was a miracle, plain and simple.”

“Why?”

“Well, to understand, you need to know of die Verdorrenderpolypen.”

She paused there; I growled at her.

Rolling her head, she continued, “They are also, more briefly, called die Polypen or das Verdorrend⁠ ⁠—⁠ a parasitic, virulent plant disease, inventive, with relentless mutations and variations. Die Polypen are the tumors. Das Verdorrend⁠ ⁠—⁠ ‘the withering’ in y Draig⁠ ⁠—⁠ is the rot that creeps over the plants.”

A rockwraith had torn through her wing, leaving a puncture big enough to stick my toe through. I put some Heylpflanze around the edges. The stuff must have hurt less, because Hinte had stopped interrupting herself with gasps or yelps.

The wiver was continuing, “Eating an infected plant will not still you, but will sicken your stomach, and open you up to worse diseases. Das Verdorrend does not destroy the plants⁠ ⁠—⁠ or it would not be so dangerous⁠ ⁠—⁠ in the end, it renders them inedible and cancerous.”

“A blight?”

“Yes,” she said. Then her tone became at once less and more abstract: concrete, but like something which had long since stopped being concrete. “One day, a researcher, Faulchra, wasting away in some tiny farming village in the depths of the cold southern forests, had discovered a new formula. He never published, and it was near lost. But when he died some two hundred gyras ago, the notes and recipes were passed to his niece. That niece was a warrior instead of a scholar, so she gave the inheritance to a university.”

I found another puncture, in a fold, and I let out a low whining sound.

She said, “What?”

“Just — your wings look awful. You can’t even fly!”

Hinte’s claws dug into the ground. She said, “I will heal. Just finish applying the pflanze.”

“Okay.” I should have gotten to Hinte faster. All of my deliberation, having to convince myself not to just run away. And Hinte suffered for it. It wasn’t fair!

The wiver flicked her tongue, frills working as she found her place again. She said, “It took dances, but a Dozentin’s students investigated the notes, and within them discovered the Wunder mixture. Faulchra had devised a novel treatment for the polyps. His method was complex, grossly complex, but the idea was said to be brilliant.”

The lathering was finished, so I grabbed the bandages from her bags, and some sticky paper to keep them in place.

Hinte had paused, as if to remember or decide some detail. “I never cared for farming⁠ ⁠—⁠ but my grandfather had studied it extensively. He tells me the idea is to turn das Verdorrend against itself. It does not work⁠ ⁠—⁠ the mixture Faulchra discovered was as ineffective as it was convoluted. But the students had worked on it, simplified it.

“Because die Verdorrenderpolypen is a blight on crops, the research was carried out on a farm suffering from it. The farmer was lucky. But after cycles on the farm, moiling on the technique, with no results, the Dozentin, the students, the farmer, had all grown weary. The farmer did not understand the complexity and hard work that goes into alchemical research, and the students didn’t understand how long one must go with seemingly no results.

“When one student had lost their motivation and taken a rest from the work, the farmer grew finally irritated.”

It had taken Hinte that long to realize she could sit down and rest on her haunches. I blew my tongue at her, and she didn’t react.

She said, after another pause, “That irritation came to a bud when one of the animals ate one of their blighted test crops and grew very sick. The farm took the animal to the resting student and demanded it be healed.” Hinte was chopping her forelegs in the air in quick imitation, and then she dismissively tossed her head.

“The animal couldn’t be saved, and it would have been a waste regardless. But the student was stimulated by the interaction between the alchemically modified blight and the animal’s body. When they returned from the farm, the student refined the idea of mending flesh with polyps. Dozens of gyras later, he turned it into something usable, into die Wundervernarbung.

“That student was my grandfather. The new method had utilized the inventive mutations of the polyps to⁠ ⁠—⁠ I digress.”

I blew my tongue at Hinte again. I came that close to getting forest​-​dweller alchemy secrets for free!

The fledgling alchemist rolled her head. “The rest is history. Newly fledged, but historic. Die Wundervernarbung is⁠ ⁠—⁠ was the pride of clan Gären, and of the forests. We had been tweaking and refining it in the gyras since. My grandfather was at the forefront of the research until…” Hinte went silent, but it wasn’t her messing around again. I didn’t push.

“It is hard not to love it. It is — it is an amalgam of everything that is good about alchemy. Progress, simplification, making the world better.”

I had finished applying salve to her wing earlier, so I sat, listening to her finish her story. There was a heavy silence following her declaration. When I spoke, It felt like sullying a beautiful ideal with dull reality.

“I uh… finished with your wings.”

Hinte lowered her head. “Wrap my legs and I can start on your side.”

We did just that. I had no wonderful tales to regale Hinte with as she handled my injuries⁠ ⁠—⁠ so we worked in silence. But it was a good silence.

---

I thought I looked cool. With my face bandaged up, I was like some fierce war​-​mistress of the sky! It almost put a skip in my step, but my legs still ached. Hinte had wrapped my sides and face, but there hadn’t been enough bandages to cover my legs, so she lathered them with more Heylpflanze, then used a makeshift bandage from tattered strips of my sifting suit.

When I’d asked why not use the rest of the miracle mixture, she’d said, “Wundervernarbung should never be applied to any wound that will not be immediately dressed with sterile cloth. Any danger of contamination or infection is unacceptable.”

I hoped it hadn’t sounded like I questioned her judgment. I was just curious.

Before we’d set off, we needed to clean the blood from the damaged corpses. Without beating hearts, they didn’t bleed much — but it had been enough to bother Hinte. So we cleaned and half​-​wrapped the wounds of the corpses. Just enough not to drip onto us.

Hinte’d grabbed her glowing lantern, and dusted the liquid with something powdery that left the glow blazing and yellow​-​tinged, so even with two thirds spilled away, the visibility didn’t suffer.

Like that, we trudged on. As we must — we had a mission! And we nearly died carrying these bodies back to town, there was no way under the stars I would give up now.

Hinte still hadn’t told me how she had fought all of these apes at once. Even two had given us so much trouble. She said they were sleeping or something, right? But that couldn’t be the whole story if she had all of those injuries —⁠ which she did.

But I released my breath, and let my thoughts fray apart. Hinte didn’t like me bugging her, or repeating herself. I’d respect that. Maybe she’d stop calling me ‘stone​-​frills’ if I did.

By this point I had emptied my ghost canteen and refilled it with ghost water.

Would ghost water be that easy to find? Maybe I could just fill it with the vengeful spirit of all the water that must have died to make this lake so dry.

By now the vog was giving way to the blackened cliff walls orbiting the lakes. It was hard to distinguish these from the spot where we had lunch or the path to the plateau, but Hinte seemed to. She turned left here, gazing at the cliff wall, maybe reading patterns on it.

We traveled along the base of the cliff for a while, and eventually came up on the massive opening to the cave system, the usual way in and out of the Berwem.

We hadn’t entered here — so whyever leave this way? I glanced almost smirking at Hinte, and saw that her tail was lifted, and both her frills and wings stood on edge, flared. She looked irritated, either from the pain, exertion, or my antics. I liked teasing her, but I wouldn’t want to actually upset her. So I didn’t ask.

Signs of civilization greeted us as the crags of the lake shore gave way to a worn (though not paved) road. Along the edges of the road were black bamboo posts driven into the ground. Some were the occasional signpost, and the rest were lampposts, bright crimson, lighting the darkness of the cave. They stood a few heads taller than me, hanging off their rods, glowing sharply, with a diamond shape. The sight put me at ease. I hummed bright and tunefully.

It was still a long walk from here to Gwymr/Frina, but I could imagine myself taking it from here. This cave road branched more than too many times, but only a few of those branches were equal. Mostly the main road would slough off gravelly claw​-​dug passages; and it was clear which lead into town. Only four of the forks we passed even offered a paved alternative.

Long into our walk, the cave ceiling above us broke in places, letting fresh air and light in. Or it would have⁠ ⁠—⁠ because the breaks confirmed night had fallen in full. Only waxing Ceiwad and the endless stars shone above us. Violiet Laswaith flew dead and darkened in this part of the dance, to hatch again in the coming cycles. And with it, the white season.

It confirmed what I had known earlier. Hinte had said both moons were out tonight, but they weren’t.

I fell behind Hinte a little as I stared at the filaments. The red and yellow of the galaxy stretched across the sky, and I took more than a measure of solace in it. No matter where I drifted or wandered, this starry sky would always be there for me. Would always be mine.

My gaze didn’t fall from the sky as I caught up to Hinte, though it shifted as the cave ceiling above us. As I watched, the ceiling split and became the cliffs this country was known for, a welcome sign of our progress toward town.

---

On the cliff walls catwalks stretched along and across, but mostly along. They sat on two levels, the lower being two or three wing​-​beats above the ground, the higher almost ten or twenty. Dotted in​-​between the catwalks, the amber lamps lined the cliff faces, sparsely, all the way up to the very top and stretched into the distance. Around them stirred black wisps of moths or beetles, compelled to turn to buzzing ornamentation for the red light. The lamps peered like a myriad eyes staring us down as we dared to enter the town, all suspicious and wary.

A dull white figure stepped from further up the road, spat out by the shadows. The scent of black salve and shed skin followed them. And something metallic and lightninglike.

Between the white sifting suit and the red mask around their neck, I placed them as the sifter in the lake so long ago, Wrang. The absence of his mask revealed a greeny​-​brown​-​scaled, plain​-​dweller face, framed handsomely in horns.

“Aha! I taste you two have finally reunited. Glad I could be of assistance.”

I looked at the wiver just as she looked the same at me. “You know him?” I whispered.

“I came across him when I was scenting after you.” Hinte’s lips twitched. “They said you smelled lost and groping for trouble.”

I tossed my head, and turned back to the sifter. “So, did you ever reunite with your friend?”

The sifter looked up. “Ah yeah. Not long after your partner found me.” He whisked his wing behind him. “We hopped back to town, but I sent her on through the gate. Reasoned I could wait on the road, be sure you all flew aright.”

I smiled. “Thanks, we appreciate that.”

“All in a day, stranger. All in a day.”

Hinte glanced at me. But she snapped her tongue and looked back to the sifter. “What happened to the argument you two had? Mawla said you ditched her.”

“Ah, that. Yes, we had something of a falling out. She was being reckless, and I was concerned for her safety. But she’s determined to be alone. I’ll let her.”

Hinte looked at me. Her brows narrowed, but I couldn’t see her eyes under her goggles. I looked up at the stars.

The sifter cleared his throat. “So youse can make it back to town aright, or shall I accompany you two?”

“Well, that would be —”

“No.”

Wrang shrunk his frills at Hinte’s refusal. “Pity, pity. But I shan’t intrude.” He turned, tail waving. “Dwylla guide you,” he said.

I waved my wing. Then, “Oh! Wait up, wait up.” My waving turned more intense. The sifter stopped, turned back to me, tongue flicking. My tail wrapped around the pink cryst, the last crabstone, and tossed it to my forefeet. I presented the glowing pink stone to the sifter.

“Hey, that’s another one of those rocks. What’d you say they’re called? Crysts?”

“They are.” I held it out. “You can have it!”

“Truly? Thank you, thank you.”

As I passed it to them, I said, “Funny story about that one you gave me. You said they warded off evil spirits? I used it to lure away a bunch of glasscrabs.”

He grinned. “Glad I could serve you well.” He glanced up at the moons. “I suppose I’ll be leaving now, if that’s all?”

“Bye!”

And at that, the sifter turned and started off. As he left, I spotted a thin rod poking out of his bag, and flicked. A sheathed sword? Hadn’t his bag been empty the first time I saw him? And that meant he had to have gotten the sword in the lake⁠ ⁠—⁠ oh! He must have been the shadow in the cliff that’d scared me ten beats away and disappeared. He had been with Mawla, so it fledged sense.

That was a mystery solved, I guess. I was nodding my head as I fell into step beside the bright​-​white figure. Would the sifter keep the sword, or sell it? It would drag if something like that turned out to be worth a lot. I could’ve used the electrum.

As the sifter ran forward and leapt away, flying up the road, and as Hinte and I continued our march to town, I still turned over the new answer in my mind, spurred by a niggling doubt. I had a new answer, but somewhere, I was missing something.

My tongue started, and searched. The metallic lightning scent? What had that been about? It’d just faded out, and I’d ignored it at the time. But somehow, these humans had alchemy, and that weird scent might be significant, even if it was just the sword. Did the sifter have its source, now? I had tasted something similar.

And with that, it was back to questions I couldn’t answer, and I shook my head and spun my focus to my surroundings. A small silence had fallen between Hinte and me. When I turned to her, my dark​-​green​-​scaled companion was watching me.

I said, “He was nice.”

She tossed her head. “No. Ingratiating, anodyne. It smelled fake.”

“It’s still nice. It isn’t like they wanted anything.”

“Yet they got something all the same,” she said. Looked back at me, she added, “Their story doesn’t mix, even with itself. Mawla had said that she ditched him, but I mangled it on purpose. He didn’t catch it.”

“So? Maybe they misheard you or thought it would be rude to correct you.”

She grunted and turned, facing up the ravine again but she waited for me to turn and step forward before setting off.

The worn road became cobblestone beneath my claws, lined with tephra and murky glass. The texture felt so right after the dusty, crackling ground in the Berwem. I slid my claws over the stones as I walked, and relished the feel.

The cobble in the road became denser, the lamps lighting the path more common, and we walked on. Toward town, our meeting with the faer, and the long​-​awaited end to our adventure. Anticipation and dread wound in my glands. It wouldn’t be that simple, would it?

---

Towering above us stood the mighty Berwem gate, a mostly​-​stone wall blocking the ravine all the way to the very top of their faces. It bristled with images, and the lamps to make them legible even at night.

Dimly on one side lay crossed the pickax burning sieve of Gwymr/Frina, and on the other spread the flowing glass veins of the Berwem. Painted or stained in the center, almost (but not yet) in procession, marched the symbols of the faers: near to the center was the interleaved quill and bullion, guarding a minimal portrait of the current faer, the ruddy​-​red​-​scaled Mlaen; and beside it was the closed eye and single star at the shoulders likeness of the former faer, the heavenly​-​white​-​scaled Dwylla.

Painted or stained. That was ever the question in the cliffs. Maybe I would’ve gawked at the intense skill at molding glass that the Gwymri flaunted⁠ ⁠—⁠ if I had more than dimly understood what glass even was before leaving the sky.

Ahead, Six dragons guarded the gate, two at the bottom, four at the top, each wielding crimson lights. Three of the guards were naked, and two were close, but all wore the everywhere​-​present red and yellow sash of the Frinan guard.

Both guards at the gate’s base had red cliff​-​dweller scales: the left a near​-​black red and the right a muddy dark​-​red half​-​hidden by an ashcloak. One had a weapon strapped to their forelegs, but you couldn’t make out more than a sheath at this distance.

As we approached, the one on the right lifted a wing in salute or acknowledgment. When they spoke, it was with an alert energy that had me wondering if they had woken up less than a long ring ago for their job. My fangs tinged peppery. To be able to work at night, under the stars?

“Oi!” they said. “Long day in the lake, eh?” the muddy​-​red guard spoke. Their near​-​naked partner shifted, bringing a wing over their face. I glanced at the dark​-​green wiver, but she didn’t speak up.

My tail hung by my hindleg. I said, “You–you don’t know the half of it.”

“Ha, sounds like this was your first time. Enjoy the heat?”

“Not at all. But the smoke is worse.”

“I hear that, I hear that. ’tis what made me quit the sift myself, damn fumes were harshin my lungs.” The muddy​-​red guard made a motion like pained coughing, pressing one wing to their throat and one to their back. Their partner was rolling their head, snickering.

The dark​-​red dragon glanced my way again. In the dim light of the lamps a head tilted. “Hey,” they said, “what happened with your face? Those bandages look fresh.”

“Oh um… it was a rockwraith attack.”

“What⁠ ⁠—⁠ how many were there?” They lift their lamp, and shine more light on me. Their brows furrow with what they see. Why?

“F–four.”

Their partner whistled, but the dark​-​red guard said, “Four at once? Did you drop all your luck in the lake or something?”

“No,” the muddy​-​red guard said, “you smelling it wrong. Four at once, and they lived. You two ought to hit up a card game or lottery before you turn in, with that kind of luck.”

“I don’t know — four at once in this season? That takes a special kind of unlucky.”

“Maybe they got a bunch of luck and unluck — it balances out.”

I looked between the guards and the conversation which I seemed to have been bantered out of. Hinte had started forward again, muttering something about ‘ashwits.’ Did she mean me, or the guards? I stepped forward with her, and the muddy​-​red guard looked at me, and did a second take, and then a third take.

“Hey, what’s up with those corpses?”

The muddy​-​red guard looked from their friend to Hinte. “Corpses? Those are apes! Never seen one in person⁠ ⁠—⁠ you two have got to have a story to tell —”

“No,” Hinte said. “Our report is for the faer’s tongue only. This is important.”

“Sheesh. You’d think the world was ending or something.”

“Bet the faer’ll laugh in their face and just cook up the monkeys.”

The dark​-​red guard prodded their partner. “Little hatchling probably won’t even make it to the faer.”

“Yeah.”

A shadow moved in the corner of our sight, and we all turned to look, where a drake walked down the cliff wall. When the guards relaxed, so did I. The new dragon also wore the red and yellow sash, but also had a finely​-​woven halfrobe covering his barrel. It was gray​-​black, with a rock striking a pickax sown on the shoulder. A plain​-​dweller, his scales looked chocolate​-​brown, and his face lined with wrinkles and scars.

The newcomer hopped to the ground and ambled over in a lazy low​-​walk. As he approached he eyed the corpses on our backs, and waved their tongue. He gave us a smile.

He said, “Listen, I’ll take those apes off youse’s backs. Cart ’em over to our prefect, she’ll have ’em on Rhyfel’s back in no time at all.”

“That sounds —”

“No.”

I turned to Hinte, flicking my tongue. “Why not?”

“These ashwits would sooner eat the bodies. Or drop them from a cliff. I don’t trust them.”

The new guard said, “Now listen here you skink, we take our jobs seriously.”

“Yeah!”

“I’m old enough to be your grandfather. You’d better show some respect.”

Hinte snorted, then murmured so only I could hear her. “My Opa is older than this town.”

The guard. “What’s so funny?”

“You are. If you deserved respect, you wouldn’t be night watch.” Hinte regard the new guard, and you saw she was taller than him, bigger than him.

“I’m night watch to keep youse and your get safe at night. If I wasn’t here some Dyfnderi baddie could slip right in, slit your throat. Show some screaming respect.” The new guard had his tart​-​smelling fangs out, frills all awrithe.

Hinte laughed again. It was a throaty, high laugh; I’d never heard her laugh like that before. “Calm down, you aren’t stopping any baddies. They just don’t want to hurt an old dragon.”

The angry guard stepped forward, but the dark​-​red guard pressed a wing to them. “Ground yourself, Ffrom. Sofrani wouldn’t want any of us getting into trouble.”

“Your friend has the idea. You couldn’t handle us.”

The guards reacted as if struck. The angry guard pushed the blocking wing away, and the friend let them.

When the angry guard lunged, Hinte murmured, “Cover your eyes.” The last blinding orb appeared in her forefeet.

Then, I react. My frills fold over my face.

The orb smashed, and the guard yelped. A chorus of shouts rose, from the around us and from the guards above us.

A tail wrapped around my foreleg! I uncovered my eyes. The dark​-​green tail tugged my foreleg before releasing me. The sickly sweetness of chagrin rolled down my fangs. “Hey!”

Hinte smacked my leg with her tail. I was now stepping after her.

The dark​-​green wiver stood a few paces from the Berwem gate. I took a spot beside her as the guards recovered.

At that instant the trio of guards from above fell around us. One landed in front and two at our sides. A mix of reds and browns, one wearing an odd hat, another a tattered halfrobe. Some wielded weapons, but the ones with weapons had only cheap clubs.

The angry guard, though, pulled out a sword, a dull copper blade with blue flakes near the hilt.

Hinte had her head high. “We are alchemists. Let us pass.”

I smelled the curdled stench of fear on their fangs. But the angry dragon waved his sword. And instead of contracting in fear, their frills writhed in anger. Yet his stance was loose, as if wanted to flee instead of fight.

I didn’t want any more fights.

His claws dug into the gravelly ground. He’s about to lunge again, I heard, a mental whisper from somewhere distant and old.

Maybe it was a bloom of the same protectiveness of Hinte that had stood me against the humans, against the rockwraiths⁠ ⁠—⁠ or maybe somewhere deep, I’d finally tired of feeling so helpless. But whatever⁠ ⁠—⁠ because as if summoned, old instincts were whispering in my head, reading people like messy scrawled pages.

They’re all unbalanced, the instincts noted. Even the angry one. Self​-​disgust curled in my gut, but a plan spread its wings in my head, unperturbed.

Hinte growled, and I saw the soft weakness in the angry guard hardening as he built his confidence. He tried not to look it, but the orb had spooked him more than the others.

I spoke a single word, high and ariose, “Bow.” They were unbalanced, and I could remind them who was in control.

One guard, to my left, the closest, lowered themself into a bow. All it would take is one. I made as show of scanning the assembled guards. Two others bowed and even the other flinched. And the rest would fall in line.

As the guards around them fell into their bow, the angry guard broke his gaze, looking all around, bemused. His frill twitched before his legs, too, sprawled. His frills did not stop writhing, and he stood a head taller than the other bowed guards. But it was a bow, and I couldn’t push any farther without stretching my assumed authority thin.

My voice did not waver. “We must speak to the faer. Let us pass.”

The guards hesitated. But then the first two guards rose, and the rest followed, moving to the split in the middle of the gate. With one on either side, each grabbed a clawhold at the bottom of the gate. The angry guard’s partner and one of the guards at our flanks followed them; the angry guard stood high.

At once, the four dragons hefted and heaved the gate. It lifted with a fluidity that suggested Geunantic engineering. The guards pulled away from each other, and the gate opened, revealing the roads of Gwymr/Frina proper, lined with red lamps.

The gate opened only wide enough for the two of us to walk through. Hinte gave no acknowledgment as she passed, but with the tension uncurling, I found myself coiling my tail and taking furtive glances at the guards as we passed. Was there anything I could do to ease the fear we’d caused and exploited?

I gave the guards a simple, respectful salute, wings on either side of my head, frills pressed back. They stared, blank. …Did the surface have a different set of salutes than the sky?

“Oh well,” I murmured, and mirrored Hinte’s impassiveness. We slinked through the gate, and it was sliding closed behind us. The muddy​-​red guard spoke up as we left, in nervous tones as they tried to ease the tension we created.

“Can you even cook an ape —” The door shut.

---

The door shut, and I turned to my companion. “What the heck, Hinte?”

She growled. “Are you going to be weird about my tail again?” With the implicit message, ‘I don’t have time for this.’

I covered half of my face with a wing. “Yes, but that isn’t what’s important right now! Why did you provoke that guard? Why couldn’t we have just taken them up on their offer?”

“I did not lie. I do not trust that guard.”

“Why not?”

She whisked a wing. “Remember what he said? He would take the bodies to his prefect. Then that prefect would tell the high guard. Then the high guard would tell the faer. We would trust each of those dragons to take it seriously, then decide to pass it up the skein. If word ever reached the faer, it wouldn’t be within the night.”

That didn’t even answer my question. “Okay,” was what I said, though. “Still, why provoke him? It seemed like you were doing it on purpose.”

“We did not have time for their circling nonsense.”

“I thought it was funny.”

She grunted, then prodded me with a wing. “This is important.” She watched me lower my head, my frills folding. “What about you? Why make them bow?”

“I wanted to end it without fighting.” And it felt good. I hadn’t had anyone — bow to me in a long time.

“It would have resolved itself. None of those guards would risk attacking an alchemist.”

“The one with the sword was psyching himself up for another attack.”

“And they would have regretted it.” I tilted my head. She elaborated, “My Dozentin gave me an explosive. I could not use it over the lake. The skin is too weak. But they would have worn the scars on their face for gyras.”

“Then I’m glad I stepped in when I did.”

Hinte just flicked her tongue. “How did you know it would work?”

I looked away, licking my eyes and tracing the cliff wall. I felt the headband on the top of my head, the silky fibers. How to put this? “I dealt with dragons more cunning and more dangerous than him in the sky. So I know a few things about reading dragons and situations.”

“Then how did you miss how drafty that was? He came down only to ask about the apes, after we mention the faer.”

“How else would he have known about the bodies? It would be more suspicious if he came down before then.”

Hinte growled. “Did you see his reaction to the bodies? He looked at the bodies before he looked at us.”

“Um, so?”

“He had some ulterior. It is too clipped.”

“That’s kind of a big leap to make.”

“Remember how he phrased his plan, ‘I will take it,’ not ‘We will take it.’ He is working on his own.”

“Still, it’s a big leap, I think he thought he was doing us a favor, I think he is a good drake. And you almost hurt him!”

“Not every smile means well, stone​-​frills. Hide your fangs.”

I flinched. Hide your fangs? Where had I heard that before? My mind turned to the endless public events and decorum drills, the milieu that had infected my childhood as the great dances had piled on. Some frustration tensed in lines of my face⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I had already looked away.

My eyes rolled over our new surroundings, still not quite the familiar Frinan streets. The Berwem gate had spat us out on the outskirts of town, in a massive clearing that would seem desolate in the light, but, between the crooning of anurognaths, the faintly tickling wind and pale​-​green moonlight, became haunted.

The crimson lamps sat at odd intervals, marking out a cobbled path that we might have missed otherwise. As the cobbling grew thicker and the clearing narrowed, the red lamps had given way to amber, another welcome sign of progress. I glanced at my companion, smiling, but she still looked annoyed and almost angry. She shifted her load and strode forward without looking at me. As always, I turned and caught up.

The truth was, what Hinte had said made sense to me, on the same level, in the same sense, that the guards’ dynamic had made sense. But the idea that everyone had an ulterior, some cunning plan to downdraft you? I’d had enough of it back home. If I looked at the world that way, I would find plots whether they existed or not. And surely real, normal dragons weren’t like the walking masks from the courts and parties of the sky? They could be good. They had to be.

---

The outskirts of town this late felt empty. We passed only the occasional dragon, always someone dangerous​-​looking or some poor vagrant. Sometimes, shadows of fliers passed overhead; the ravine was wide enough for a single dragon to fly through.

A few of the passersby noticed our load. Most didn’t bother with a second glance. The few that did maybe wrote it off as some obscure creature we’d hunted. Only one startled in recognition. They stepped forward to ask about it, but Hinte hissed at them!

Her visage turned aggressive — which just meant exaggerating what was already there. The curious dragon backed off, slinking away into the night.

“Hinte, I think we should stop, take a small break.”

She looked back at me and didn’t even feign disagreement. We walked like that until we found a good spot to lay, a dew pond in one of the dead​-​end branches of the ravine, where the ground became softer and little weeds sprouted up. We both lay down, tired.

“Do not to fall asleep, Kinri,” she said. I only clicked my tongue as I settled down onto the ground. Unable to roll on to my back, I contented myself with upturning my head. I gazed again at the stars shining so bright in the sky above. We came far enough away from the cloudy lake to see the sky. I found Ceiwad again, somewhere in the east, a green​-​white circle speckled with dark spots. Scanning the rest of the sky, I hunted for the Master and his Serpent, two of my favorite constellations.

I saw, halfway up the sky, white lines streaking the sky — meteors. It would shower soon, and one of those meteors had been getting bigger and brighter every night.

My eyes drifted, my brilles clouding, and I remembered all the nights I spent under this same sky, tracing the stars with my mother’s sister, Vaale. She had showed me the calculations that tracked the wandering stars with unerring precision, and regaled me with the fantastical tales from the stargazers. That each star was a dancing pair as luminous as our two suns, but so far away they seemed as only pinpricks. That the wanderers were thriving worlds as lush and large as our own. That one day, maybe, we could make those worlds our own.

When I noticed my thoughts drifting, I stopped myself. I shouldn’t fall asleep. Standing up, I felt refreshed enough and ready to finish this. I looked to Hinte, lying in the dirt on her belly. Her frills fell over her head and she murmured to herself, lost in thought.

“Hinte,” I called. “Hinte!” I repeated.

Oh. She was never hearing the end of this.

Along the roads into Gwymr/Frina the scattered lamp​-​ and sign​-​posts mixed with bright​-​colored signs warning of trenches and sudden drops. Little glider​-​scorpions emerged from the deeper crevices, flitting in the night with the short, sporadic glides that named them. Often the whirring of bats rose with the calls and buzzes of the scorpions, but when one appeared, the other would grow silent, hiding or hunting.

We passed a few houses dotting the ravine at its widest, where the posts instead fenced off their yards. Here, netting rose from the fence​-​posts, and blocked any inward flight. The nets met big poles rising from the roofs, making the houses like spiderly pyramids.

One house was a little cottage with outer walls that gleamed where others faded invisibly; instead of black bamboo fences that blent with the night, the outer walls flaunted proud glassy bricks. It looked gaudy and frilly, and I shook my head, and drifted my eyes beyond the gate. Lit by a crimson lamp, the little garden inside looked dim and sad.

Around the garden sat a few piles of rocks — the strange air wells that gathering water down on the surface. In Tädet/Pimeys we had fog nets and collected water from the clouds⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I guessed this worked for them.

We continued on. My canteen had been refilled at the dew pond, but I’d hesitated at first⁠ ⁠—⁠ if I filled it, it meant no more ghost canteen. As cool as it sounded, I couldn’t really drink ghost water. And maybe a ghost wouldn’t have a problem with alighting twice.

Nearing the town proper, the roads became worse for walking, lined with filth and droppings. Muckrakers would try to clean them, but it wasn’t enough. Holding my tongue, I didn’t smell the worst of the stench, but the clean streets of Tädet/Pimeys stood clear in my mind.

I prodded Hinte, pointing a wing at the lower catwalk. It was about a wing​-​beat above us. She nodded.

With a powerful jump and three flaps that fought my corpse burden I landed on the catwalk, and glanced behind me. Back on the ground, Hinte’s wings bristled as she stalked toward a stairwall.

“Oops.”

Leaping down I landed beside the wiver with my tail coiled and my frills folded. “I’m sorry,” I said.

Hinte looked at me, lips almost forming words, but she folded her frills and tossed her head. She walked to the base of the stairwall, her gait still dripping fluidity and grace; it clashed with the weight she carried and with the trace of annoyance that bedewed her fangs. It left me idly wondering.

Before us, the stairwall rose, and it was everything that made craggy cliffs and old tree bark easy to climb. Foot​-​sized knobs protruded out, and toe​-​sized depression sunk in (bigger on the inside so you could hook your toes in them). We climbed up and stood upon the catwalks, blades of stone that jutted from the ravine walls. Suspension cords flew down from higher up to secure, and pillars stabbed obliquely into the walls to support.

Glassy feet clanked on the stone. While our glass cracked and grinded, shards caught and stuck in the black slime, reducing the sharp edges to mere pressure and dull pokes. Our scutes were thick enough to bear it, in any case.

I tossed agonizing glances at my black​-​coated and glass​-​molting legs; the sight pulled a disgusted squeak from my tongue. I wrenched my gaze away, and caught the black obelisk rising in the distance. Rising high and illumed by golden​-​white lights, you could call it a sort of beacon. As we walked on it grew larger. Standing a building or three away from the town hall, it made the perfect meter for our progress.

Maybe Hinte even aimed for the obelisk itself, to check the water clock. But I wouldn’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ shouldn’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ wear her patience any thinner by asking.

As the obelisk loomed larger, the passersby became more frequent, sometimes even an pair walked together in the night. The concerned or bewildered glances at our backs came more and more often. After one too many, Hinte hissed at me, jerking me into a wide break in the ravine face. She reached into her bag, grabbing two dark, folded cloaks and thrusting one out to me. I tilted my head.

Then my brilles flashed clear. I took one cloak and draped it over the corpse. The cloak’s placket fell and hung like a dress under my torso and the sleeves fell loosely over my limbs. I didn’t fasten them.

Hinte had put on her own cloak, its black fabric threaded with blue and pink, and pulled a cowl over her head. A moment passed where we adjusted each other’s cloaks, the dark​-​green wiver still not meeting my eyes.

She touched my headband, and I flinched back. The wiver hissed and backed off and turned away.

We set off again, and this time we didn’t attract many gazes. The few that lingered only looked curious instead of fearful or worried.

Like that, we continued on. Hinte still wouldn’t look at me, and I ran a tongue over my fangs.

We hadn’t reached the faer yet; I still had a chance to find some way to apologize, some way Hinte wouldn’t ignore.

---

The stars still shone high above me. As I gazed up at that sacred vista my vision melted into the chain of remembered nights I had spent under this very sky, stretching back to my hatchhood. The comfort of lying out under the sky on a warm night, with the breeze caressing my scales, with the hoots and shrieks of black owls filling my frills, it called out to me. But would I have preferred an evening lying out on a lonely cliff to this fang​-​wringing adventure with Hinte?

I let my gaze fall from the sky to the cloaked dragon in front of me. My tongue felt a drop of sweetness dew on my fangs and I let it stay there.

“Hey,” I started without looking up to my companion’s face, not checking if she was listening. “What–what did you mean when you said, hide your fangs, earlier?”

Instants stretched to moments, and moments stretched until they snapped under the strain. I glanced up at the dark​-​green wiver.

She met eye and at length a reply marched out. “It’s a saying.” Her brow narrowed, and she said, “You speak Drachenzunge. Have you not read of Jammra the squalled?”

I broke eye and looked at the ground, the dark​-​green wiver shaking her head and looking away too. The wiver didn’t turn, watching the road in front of her and glancing at the growing obelisk in the distance.

“Well,” I started at some point, “I’ve seen allusions, but my tutors never pressed more than the minimum, enough to call it a job finished. I never had the talent of my brother, or even my sister, and they never tried to make up for that.”

My companion clicked her tongued twice, but I couldn’t puzzle out the meaning. Maybe she couldn’t, either.

When I glanced back up, Hinte’s determined line had shifted just a little. “A pity. It’s a famous epic. Jammra was a peerless warrior, but he fought with his fangs instead of his claws. His nemesis was the twisted Wauchu, who desired to be queen, back when the forest still had queens. She was a wiver of evil and ruthlessness, and Jammra was a drake of compassion and courage, so he had sworn himself to stop her.”

The dark​-​green wiver halted for just a moment, and I caught up enough to walk beside her. She continued, “Their nadir, their final battle, was in the deep of winter, at the crest of a cycle. They met unexpectedly in a valley, each having come there alone, each to fight and kill a terrible Roggenwolf. Instead, they fought each other. Jammra, being a fearsome warrior, easily overpowered Wauchu. But before he could strike the final blow, she tried her final gambit. Seeking to exploit his compassionate nature, she told him of her miserable past.”

Hinte paused there, and flicked her tongue. It was a few breaths before she continued, “It is said that her tragedy was so great that Jammra’s fangs dewed with a magical sourness. Yet he had sworn an oath to defeat Wauchu, and a warrior held sworn oaths above all else. So he inflicted a final bite even as his fangs dewed very sourly. So great was his pity for her that his tears healed the villain of her evilness instead of stilling her.”

The wiver paused again, this time to watch me. She nodded. “When she came to, Jammra remained, and as his oath required so the battle would continue. To protect herself, Wauchu fought back. But Jammra now know his nemesis’s heart, and with it, lost his will to fight. So he let Wauchu defeat him.” Hinte stopped walking there, and looked at me.

“And so Jammra died,” she said, like a cadence. “Wauchu claimed the glory of slaying the Roggenwolf. She had lost her dark ambitions, and instead became famous heroine rivaling Jammra himself. But she fought with her claws and left no oath unfulfilled.”

Hinte lifted a forefoot, and clenched it. “And that’s why warriors must fight with their claws, not their fangs. And even if our duty causes us great sadness, we hide our fangs and carry it out.”

I tiled my head. “But… it ends just like that? Jammra just lost?”

“Yes.”

“So Wauchu won? But she’s the villain! She killed Jammra…” I looked down at the road below us.

Hinte tossed her head, but with my head turned I only caught her shadow twisting in the light of a passing lamp. “She wasn’t a villain at the end of the story.”

I drew my wings to my body. “You can’t just stop being a villain.”

“It’s how the story goes,” Hinte said, glancing at the obelisk. “Jammra’s magic venom healed Wauchu of all her wretchedness, and she became a great heroine.”

I slowed down a bit, licking my eyes and watching a ragged white figure walking in the ravine below. When my gaze returned to the catwalk, I caught up with the dark​-​green wiver. “Why couldn’t she just do that in the first place?”

Hinte tossed her head, then drummed her alula in the air as she said, “She wanted to become queen at all costs, get revenge on the ones who ended her clan.” She drummed her alula a few more times as if to say, and so on.

“Hey, that sounds interesting! Why’d you leave that part of the story out?”

“I left many things out.” She whisked her wing. “I told you what mattered.”

I waved my tongue. “I guess that makes sense. But if she only wanted justice, why was she so evil?”

“She broke promises and betrayed dragons to get her way.”

“Well…” I trailed off, tasting my words. My gaze trailed off with it.

A mother glider scorpion dodged from the catwalk and hid behind a rock, dozens of pink children wriggling in a pile on her back, nestled under her wings. Her pincers clicked, and her venomous tail glistened in the moonslight. But she held her children tight, and when one fell she stopped to pick it up.

Hinte looked at me, while I still watched the scorpion. She glanced at it, and forgot it just as quickly⁠ ⁠—⁠ as if she saw things like it everyday.

I settled for saying, “Nothing.”

Glancing back at Hinte, I rubbed my foreleg as I wondered how to explain just what annoyed me about her story. That phrase, hide your fangs, reminded me of similar phrases in Käärmkieli, the sort of maxims that had defined my childhood. I folded my frills back and my tail dropped limp between my legs.

Hide your fangs. But I had left the sky to do just the opposite, to feel and express whatever I wanted. Could I confess that to Hinte? How would I even start explaining? ‘Oh, one of your famous legends is completely wrong?’ ‘I think we shouldn’t hide our fangs even if it kills us?’ I had already frustrated her with one bit of carelessness.

I stopped watching the scorpion and sighed. “Why is it that Jammra, who was so good, had to fail and die, but Wauchu gets to fly free?”

“The world never forgot about Wauchu’s past. But she didn’t let that stop her.” Hinte glanced behind her. “My mother would say that stories are questions, not answers.”

Did I taste a tinge of sourness in the air?

Hinte continued, “She said Jammra stood for dragons who act with their emotions instead of their minds. It stilled him. But because Jammra created another great hero, because he had redeemed Wauchu, she thought his compassion wasn’t a failure. So she would say the story asks if compassion is worth sacrifice.” She glanced at me again, and this time I met her amber gaze.

I smiled. She frowned, but the swell of her frills wasn’t in annoyance. A beat passed with that, marked by an anurognath’s croon emerging from the night. Hinte broke with my gaze first, glancing at the obelisk. I looked up at the stars. The anurognath swooped down, nothing but slender shadow, flying from the highest catwalk and pouncing on something behind us. I didn’t turn, but my frills caught the screeches of a glider​-​scorpion. My gaze lifted higher.

Jammra couldn’t be a failure. But I didn’t really agree with redeeming Wauchu. If she was evil, some magic venom wouldn’t change that.

“I think that makes more sense,” I said, licking my eyes. “But you don’t agree?”

Hinte looked back again. “Ja, I said Jammra died, and Wauchu lived, so we should be more like Wauchu.”

“Wretched and miserable?”

“No, just winning. Living. Fulfilling our oaths,” she growled. “What I’m saying is, fight with your claws, hide your fangs.”

---

The dragons we saw, above and below, changed from random straglers and loners to the more usual crowds of Gwymr/Frina, but thinned this late in the night. We began to see real houses, either below the catwalks or built onto the ravine walls, and we had entered the town proper.

With two thirds of my canteen left, I heard an cheery, questioning voice call out, “Hinte?”

We turned in opposite directions, and I fanned out my frills, listening.

Hinte tapped me from behind with a wing. She said, “Over here.”

The source of the voice stood on the opposite catwalk, a warm gray dragon waving at us hard enough that his body jerked with his wing. Digrif. What rotten winds we’d run into him when I looked like this.

My frills flattened against my neck, my tail hidden in the folds of the cloak, and my alula came to my face to adjust the bandages until they felt flat and straight and wait, are they bloody? Dirty? Maybe I should pull the cloak’s hood over my head.

Wiping her goggles, Hinte looked left and right across the ravine, but no bridge connected our catwalks for as far as we could see in the dark. She waved him over. The warm gray dragon leapt over to our catwalk But he undershot, and fell until he grabbed the edge of the catwalk and pulled himself up.

Settling, he smiled at us. Even in the dark, his warm gray scales would catch your eye, halfway between the mottled grays of the mountain​-​dwellers and the reds of the local cliff​-​dwellers. Curling hornscales lined his long muzzle, and longer, straighter horns emerged from the top of his head.

In the darkness you only saw hints of the his laborer muscles, but I had looked at it enough to read the rest from those hints⁠ ⁠—⁠ the sort of tight, comfortable muscle you wouldn’t mind being embraced in at night.

Demons below, Digrif was cute. I wished we had a chance to talk more, but he never really noticed me. He never even remembered my name!

I licked my eyes. The warm gray dragon stood with a thin, dark​-​green ashcloak draped over him, not fastened to any legs; it billowed in the breeze. On his legs, plaid yellow and white sleeves clung loosely over his forelegs. On his back, he carried around a cardboard box, nestled between his wings. It hadn’t fallen or even flipped when he leapt over!

“Hey Hinte, hey Hinte’s friend,” he said with a wiggle of his frills that seemed like a wave too.

The wiver returned the greeting in a dismissive hiss. “Digrif. How unfortunate.”

“Oy, pleasant as ever.” He was drawing his alula together, across his neck. “But I see you were out in the cliffs again, off on your mysterious adventures.”

I clicked my tongue, a little. Hinte might’ve glared or just glanced.

Digrif looked at me. His dark​-​yellow eyes flickered in muted yellow sclerae, seeming to smile with him. “Oh, and you have an accomplice now! Why was I never invited?”

“Kinri has not bothered me for as long you have.”

Digrif’s head jerked up. “What? That’s the opposite of how it is supposed to work!” On his back, the box had slid back a bit. He jostled it, setting it aright. The warm​-​gray drake had stand high to meet Hinte’s low stand.

Hinte waved a wing. “No, it is working as designed. Doing it your way would encourage you two to bother me.” I gave Hinte a sidelong, tongue​-​waving glance. I’d never heard a line of reasoning so Hinte before.

Digrif’s head tilted as he unwrapped her twisty logic. “Hmm. That almost makes sense. But it’s still unreasonable. How can this be so asecret if she can just join you at random?”

“This was her first time,” she said.

“Well yeah, but I don’t get why I can’t come for once!” He upset the box again but caught it before it slid any.

Hinte glanced at the obelisk. “We need to leave now. This is important.”

“Huh? What happened?” Digrif asked.

“It is nothing to you.”

“Why so harsh? I’m only curious.”

“We just found some creatures in the cliffs,” I said.

He looked at me again, this time seeing the bandages on my face. When he jumped a bit, the box slid again. This time, he let it slide to the ground with a small thud. Looking back to me, taking in my bandaged face, his frills widened and he mouthed a ‘woah.’

I preened, fluttering my frills at him. Could he smell my chamomile perfume?

I said, “These, uh, humans. They injured Hinte, and we don’t really know what they were doing there.”

“Hm.” Digrif scratched his neck.

“So we were just heading to the faer to tell her what happened.”

“Oh, godsluck to you. I hope you’ll get there in time.”

“Thanks Digrif. I, uh, we appreciate it.”

“What are friends for?”

Staring at Digrif and his golden eyes, I strained to keep another flutter out of my frills. I looked up.

“Ooh!” I said, my gaze falling back to the warm gray dragon with another skip of my heart. “Hinte had said that having two fledgling sifters in the lake at once was really dangerous. So um, we couldn’t both have come? Maybe when you come we won’t all nearly die.”

I glanced at Hinte. She stared at me from my right, her visage looking extra vicious with the unnatural yellow of her goggles. I tried a smile, but gave up when her look remained unchanging, frills like glass.

“Yeesh. You two look sca​-​ry. Did these humans do this to you?”

“No,” I said. “It was uh… rockwraiths. It’s kind of a story. Maybe we can tell you later?” I glanced at Hinte.

“Ouch,” he said, wincing. “That’s a lot for one evening.”

“It was! It was⁠ ⁠—⁠ it’s like it’s us versus the rest of the lake.”

Hinte’s look changed, frills bending, face gaining a touch of — warmth? She said, “It was.”

Digrif must have sensed something different too, because he glanced to Hinte face glowing with curiosity, tongue flicking out all the way.

“We are leaving.” Hinte jerked me away. Turning to Digrif, she said, “I will tell about this, in the morning, at my home, over breakfast. Do not be late. For now, forget this.”

Digrif must have caught something in her tone, because he lowered his head instead of pressing. His farewell was, “Don’t wait for the falling rocks.” He waved us off.

I returned the wave, but Hinte had already twisted around. Giving me one last smile, he leapt to the opposite catwalk and slinked off. I turned to follow Hinte, but looked back one last time.

Digrif had left his box on the ground, and was rushing back to get it. He undershot the catwalk again, and this time he sailed past it, lighted somewhere on the ravine wall below us. But he climbed up again at some point, recovering his box at last.

My wings covered a muffled giggle at the whole sequence. Silly Digrif.

---

A violent thrum of strings echoed from farther up the ravine. The intervals came harsh and dissonant, like a composition from House Locrian. A nostalgic trickle dewed on my fangs, and I fanned my frills.

Further up the curve of the catwalk, several strides away, two dragons were sitting in the shadowy gulf perfectly between lampposts. Hindlegs dangled off the edge of the catwalk. Both had cloaks; only one wore the hood up.

The hoodless dragon waved his forelegs and brought them down in chopping motions. A thick, smooth voice was saying, “…a tad too disc⁠ ⁠—⁠ err, dissonant. Oh, try a root a few pitches thinner, like,” the hoodless dragon reached over, bringing down his foreleg. More strumming strings came, sounding thinner, less angry.

I was padding closer to the pair and slipping in front of Hinte, oddly pulled look at the closer figure. All you saw was a cloak that hid everything about them, with a color you couldn’t make out in the night⁠ ⁠—⁠ only that it had color.

In contrast, the bright, metallic strings of the instrument glinted; they looked brighter, more distinct, than anything else about the musician.

They pushed the other dragon away, alulae poking, before returning to strum the instrument in their wings⁠ ⁠—⁠ a vague, long form in the darkness, with a round shape in the middle. The playing still sounded dark and angry, but the discordant notes had receded a bit.

“Would it ground you to stick even one clear tick in there?” They shook their head. “Scarcely a smile in your spirit.”

The musician growled something, but it came out low and quiet.

The hoodless dragon whisked a wing. “Whatever. I know I’m not a musician. Why play me something unfinished?” When the speaker looked away, they caught our approach. “Look, more sifters. Mawla, these your consb–conspecifics?”

Behind them, near flush with the cliff face, a shadow shifted. Moonlight glinted over ragged white fabric, illuming a familiar sifting suit. Brown frills squinted and jingled.

“Yeah, them the crazy human​-​hunters I told you about,” came her saccharine voice.

The hoodless dragon leaned back, kicking their dangling hindlegs. “Human​-​hunters? Interesting.”

The strumming lulled for a few beats. The musician glanced up for once. “Did you catch them? I have heard humans are dreadfully difficult to catch.” For his tone and mien, you expected a growl⁠ ⁠—⁠ but his voice sounded precise and pitched in a way that didn’t clash with the music.

“We did,” Hinte had said without turning.

I gave some halting tongue​-​clicks, looking around over at the three dragons. “That’s a perfect description. Why do they have to be stinking clever?” The musician had looked at me when I spoke, and it took only a beat for their frills to wrinkle into a sneer, and fangs to tinge venomous. What was that about?

Mawla hitched her wings. “That’s nature keeping us on our toes.”

“I’d rather stay on my belly. It’s more comfortable.”

Hinte was in front of me now. She prodded me, then started pulling me along. I stumbled after her. We walked toward the dragons. The musician’s song was rising high before it fell to a crash of notes. It rose again, slower. Why did it seem familiar?

The hoodless figure spoke, shifting to get a better look at us. “So.” They held a long rod, dark and unidentifiable in the moonlight. You couldn’t tell if they pulled it out then or had just held it idly. They twirled and spun it in their forefeet, tossing it up and asking, “Did these humans have any treasures? Legend says that humans carry magical gemstone.” The rod fell back into their foot. “Or something.”

I glanced beside me. “Did you find anything like that, Hinte?”

“No.”

The rod​-​twirler spun their rod into the air. It tipped, and they caught it with a hindfoot. “Oh pity. One could hope,” they said. Beside them, the musician was glancing at the wiver beside me, frills thoughtful.

Mawla slid down beside the hoodless twirler, opposite the musician, and dangling her legs with them. She said, “Like they’d give you any treasure if there was any.”

“Oh, don’t doubt my persuasivity.”

“But I can, after you couldn’t even convince me to open my bag.” Mawla flicked her tongue at the sky, patting a bag by her haunches. “Face it, you couldn’t talk a sun into rising.”

The twirler was spinning the rod around their hindfeet. “I simply didn’t wish to have it.”

At this Mawla just rolled her head and glanced slowly around. Her dark eyes landed on me and stayed there, watching as I stepped forward with Hinte. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. I broke eye before it might last too long, looking over to the hoodless twirler or the once​-​sneering musician.

The twirler spun the rod around a toe a few times before saying, “Mawla, catch,” and tossing it into the air again.

Mawla looked at the twirler, face shadowed with the lamp behind her. Though the night hid her face, her wings drew together and the rod fell past her, cracking against the catwalk in time with her saying, “Nah.”

The twirler was reaching a wing past the sifter to stop the rod from rolling off. I wrenched my gaze from the three to follow after Hinte. The smooth voice was laughing, and after a beat addressed us:

“Oh, where are you two going so fast? Off on a moonlit date?” The twirler had tossed their rod back up, watching us with a smile.

“No!” I squeaked.

“No,” Hinte growled.

They caught the rod a heartbeat before it would smack them in the head. “Don’t bite me, ’twas a question.” The twirler spread their wings. “What other business is worth slinking so intently after, this time of night?” They tossed the rod up again, this time breaking eye to watch it.

The words fell from my mouth, “We’re going to the faer!” I took a moment to slow myself. “She’s going to get to the bottom of this human business.”

The rod fell past the twirler’s forelegs. It rolled down their dangling hindlegs and leapt from the curve at their hindfeet, flying into the air again. They caught it.

The musician hadn’t looked at me again, their gaze seeming fastened to the filthy road below. Their strumming quickened, and the discord fled from the song, waning to a floaty progression of chords that suffused the ravine. It became thin and implicating, rising, rising, rising to a climax.

The twirler tossed the rod again. “Is the cloudy faer even going to be awake this time of night?”

“Don’t you know?” Mawla replied. “The faer never sleeps. A friend told me so. The fires in the town hall never go dark.”

The twirler caught the rod, humming.

Meanwhile, the song fell to another discordant crash. The strumming became a wavering tremolo and stayed there for a bit while the musician spoke. “And he told you her secretary would eat you if you looked at them the wrong way as well?”

“Well, yeah,” Mawla was saying. “She’s the faer’s stray. The faer can’t even keep this town under control.”

Even when the musician laughed, it was in key. “Ashwits, everyone sleeps. Stories are stories.” The tremolo rose, rose, rose to a peak and lingered there for a bit. There was some odd nostalgia to it, even within all the darkness, but it was something I felt, rather than being there in the music. The melody was trembling at its peak; I expected it to crash again, and ruin the buildup. Instead it glided down, as if the chords carried the song back to its beginning. Emptily, because it denied it the implied climax once again, but still pleasant.

Mawla was saying, “Everyone dies after a few dozen gyras, too. But I bet on you hearing the stories that the eternal faer lived three hundred. How you riddle that?”

“Not living in a slum does a wonder for your health.”

Mawla huffed, and jabbed the twirler beside her with a wing. “Smack him around with your fancy rod, would you?” the yellow​-​brown wiver asked.

The musician spoke low enough for their words to blend with the strumming and hide. Whatever they said, it only had Mawla scowling higher.

The twirler was nudging Mawla beside them, but spoke loud enough we could hear. They said, “Could be worse than the cloudy faer. They could bump into the treasurer.” They glanced over to me, then to Hinte. “Especially with scales like those. If you go, hope the faer has him leashed to some tax patents.

The musician suddenly struck a sharp interval. They said, “Why would the faer listen to you two, an exiled sky​-​rat and a traitorous alchemist? It’s a waste of time.” Neither their voice nor their playing had faltered. Mawla had stood up and stepped back toward the shadows of cliff face.

My voice became loud. To be heard in the ravine. “What in the wind is your problem? I’ve never even met you!” My wings flared and spread as I spoke.

The muscian turned their gaze back toward the road below. “If only I could retain that pleasure.” A single note now lingered, filling the ravine. Then it became a progression, crescendoing to another climax.

Hinte growled — the music paused — and the wiver at last deigneed to look at the figures ahead of us. “Shut up before I make that the first pleasure you lose tonight.”

I glanced at Hinte. She had turned to face the dragons, and salty venom scented her bared fangs. A smile tugged at my lips.

I looked back the musician, then said, “And what’s wrong with being an alchemist? Hinte hasn’t even betrayed anyone.”

“Her clan name proceeds her, just as your name proceeds you, Specter.”

My wings flared wide. The sheer loathing in his tone bit me. “My name is Kinri, not Specter. My family is irrelevant.”

The musician spat venom trailing out in the twin streams down to the road below.

A hindleg clad in ragged white kicked the musician. “Get over yourself, Bauume.”

Bauume and his strumming faltered, and he took breaths to keep his balance on the catwalk.

Mawla’s growling voice continued, “Kinri is alright. She grounded those humans and she’d ground you too.”

“You’ll regret this, mudling.” Bauume spread their wide wings. “This is a waste of my evening.” The musician dropped from his spot on the edge of the catwalk, gliding off into the night.

I’d never hear the end of that song.

“What was his problem?” I said.

“No idea.” Mawla rolled her head, turning the catwalk’s edge. “I just found these two after I sloughed that loser, Wrang. They seemed fragrant enough, and I had a night to ride out.”

“And,” the twirler started, “you can imagine I would enjoy her levity after spending an evening with that cat​-​tongued wraith of a drake.” I flinched. Hinte jerked her head.

“Maybe he spent all his good spirit on that music of his,” Mawla said.

Hinte glanced at the obelisk. “We are leaving.” Hinte turned again and stepped away.

“Oh, maybe don’t go to the faer with this.” The twirler was climbing to a stand in front of us. “Do you want the extra scrutiny?” They carefully tossed their rod.

“Yeah,” Mawla said, stepping away from the edge too. “Nobody needs the faer and her ten thousand laws waving a tongue in their direction.”

Hinte walked on. I stepped after her, saying, “But the faer needs to know.”

Mawla just waved her wing, and climbed onto the cliff wall behind her. “Yeah, but if it matters, then the guard will scent after it soon enough. No use shattering the glass. Let it fall on someone else’s head.”

“But… that just seems wrong.”

“Flick,” she said, looking down from the cliff, “you had a storm of a day and got a nice, tangy story to tell out of it.”

“I guess.” I had stopped moving, but Hinte stared at me from a few strides away.

“Isn’t that enough? You don’t need to call down another storm on top of that. And that’s all involving the faer is going to do for you.” Mawla reached the catwalk above us. She said, “Just hop in bed and rest up for another day in the lake, is what I say.” She climbed up the next catwalk, and waved her tail as she stepped out of view. “Sweetest luck, Kinri.”

“Mists hide you,” I said without thinking. Her laughter reached me, fading as ragged​-​white figure disappeared into the night.

“Kinri, stop wasting time.”

The twirler had caught their rod, but I hadn’t seen when. They stood there, blocking our path. They said, “Consider what I’ve said, Kinri. You don’t have anything to gain by taking this to the faer.” They paused. Instead of tossing their rod, they let it stand on their sole, balancing. “Don’t you want this day to be over?”

I did.

But I looked up at the rod​-​twirling dragon standing there, alone. I looked at the bright​-​white figure waiting for me to catch up to her.

I said, “Why would I listen to you? You’re alone, and both of your companions left you. I’m following Hinte.” I turned and strode toward the wiver, who had the presence⁠ ⁠—⁠ the height, the muscle⁠ ⁠—⁠ to force the twirler aside.

I wasn’t alone. If that meant calling down another storm, letting the glass shatter on my head, making this day even longer?

It’s what I wanted.

---

It hadn’t felt like not a long walk from there to the city center. This time we traveled without fuss. I had questions about the twirler perched on my lips, but the calm silence between Hinte and me along the way didn’t bear breaking. It felt like I’d made up for my thoughtlessness.

Here in the center of the town rose an obsidian pillar, a monument to Dwylla, who’d quelled the pits and turned the Berwem sifting outpost from a labor camp to a blossoming town. Cyfrin ac Dwylla had been the first name for the town, his honor. This obelisk was the town’s pride of the town, and it was to remember Dwylla, the eternal faer. It circed a few strides at the base and rising dozens of wing​-​beats into the air.

I stepped over to the base of the obsidian pillar. It met the ground in a stone fountain that doubled as a water clock. While Hinte checked the water clock, I gawked at the obelisk. The glassy black obsidian glimmered in the light of the Ceiwad and the yellow​-​white lamps lining it, and a simple line pattern engraved its surface.

Along the length of the pillar, the pattern tended to a few sparse lines that ran a few strides before turning or meeting another line. Simple, minimal. I guess it fit. Dragons always talked of the eternal faer being someone straightforward and plain.

At the bottom of the pillar was a small, flat likeness of that faer. Black and white opals were his eyes, tiny white aluminum plates were his scales, and brilliant stained glass was his tongue. The portrait showed him with his left foreleg raised in command and his right off to the side, wielding a pickax.

The pillar looked of Geunantic make. It wasn’t a hard guess to make, with that invasive purple eye symbol above the likeness’ wing. I’d seen it drawn, etched, engraved; peering from anything nearing related to Dyfnder/Geunant. Rainbow rays flew out from the eye, and above it, on the opposite side of the old faer’s likeness, there burned a fiery sun (you couldn’t tell which). That sun somehow had fewer rays outpouring than the purple eye.

Below the portrait lay a short dedication to the first faer of Gwymr/Frina.

‘Dwylla,’ it read, ‘of deepest gaze, whose wings shall shelter us now and forever.’

‘Take to the highest skies.’

‘612–960’

Even among high​-​class dragons, Dwylla had lived a very long time. He reigned for seven generations before alighting one night in his sleep. While he lived, he had been like a pillar of the town. The eternal faer, they had called him.

It was a story stuck with dragons and traveled far beyond the town because you couldn’t, as the usual went with rulers, pin Dwylla’s age on the work of a team of master alchemists. No, Dwylla had shunned alchemy. His superstitions had sparked the Inquiry and still lingered.

Before that, his longevity had attracted forest​-​ and ash​-​dwellers hungry for his secrets. I could wonder if the reason I’d been told to come here was some echo of that.

“Highest skies, mister faer,” I found myself murmuring.

Hinte prodded me, meaning she’d finished checking and we could leave. A fifth of the night had passed, but Mawla said the faer didn’t sleep. Even if they did, wasn’t it rumored she worked late into the night?

We walked the few blocks to the building. It felt like a long walk; flying would be so much faster. But even without Hinte’s injuries, we couldn’t fly with this sort of weight.

What waited for us at the town hall? Hinte said these apes trespassed in our territory. That they resisted their arrest. And they had fought and schemed and injured and made a mess of things.

I no want death dragon.

I bury comrade. Please.

Humans had no fangs, didn’t they? They deserved what we gave him, didn’t they?

Tracking down those two had felt so easy. Even their crafty resistance proved futile in the end. If the faer’s administration followed Hinte’s lead, tried to stop the other humans from making things worse, would that episode repeat again and again, but with the dragons on the offense?

You monster.

The human’s eyes had been wide, even in death. Even after Hinte had ended it all, its last gesture had been holding the foot of its dearest friend.

We didn’t make things better. Could I? Try to explain the humans’ side of things?

I looked up. Hinte was looking at me.

“You are dusty,” she said. I peered at her. Now that I was paying attention, my eyes caught the dust from the Berwem coating her suit and scales. I must look the same way.

“So are you,” I said.

“My scales are duller, it is harder to notice,” she said, “and I do not care.”

I smiled, and that seemed to be what she’d wanted, because she turned and we walked forward like that.

---

The town hall towered before us. Polished granite frame the building in regality. Shaped like a hexagon, it stood about a wing​-​beat or three high, and had two stories ringed with windows. The main entrance sat on the roof, and two ramps rolled down to the streets on either side

Clumps of night guards patrolled or kept watch, both on the building itself and the surrounding rooftops and walkways. I’d pulled the cloak’s hood up like Hinte and stuck closer to her, but none of them gave us unusual scrutiny. As we walked toward the town hall, we drew more attention⁠ ⁠—⁠ but how could it be otherwise?

From the base, one of the ramps spiraled us up to the roof. What was the point of these things? Stairwalls took up less space and were so much quicker.

The roof, a tiered thing, sprawled out, with the highest tier wrapping around and over most of it, dropping once near the roof’s center, before at last sinking down in three wide stair​-​steps to the doors. They slanted slightly, and had the holey look of futilely polished pumice. Silly material aside, the door had the massive, belittling look of something imperious; its presence seemed to command the rest of the roof.

Three alert guards ringed the roof, one in a prefect’s fullrobes, and the others naked. The red​-​scaled prefect was high​-​walking up as soon as we came off the ramp, and the others fell in sycophantic step behind them. Frowing, the prefect looked us up and down⁠ ⁠—⁠ mostly down, for me⁠ ⁠—⁠ and they said, “Move along. This is no shelter.”

Hinte stood high. “We have business with the faer.”

The prefect shook his head. “Save it for the morrow,” they said, and firmly, “Move along.”

“Oh, is the faer asleep?” I asked. Hinte glanced at me, and looked back to the prefect with a certain crook to her lips.

“Move along,” they said. One of the guards behind him, face wild with hornscales, stepped forward in punctuation.

Hinte stepped forward too, and she said, “My grandfather is Mlaen’s personal alchemist.”

The wild​-​horned dragon started to speak, but the prefect nudged hard with a wing, and only the prefect spoke, voice very calm or strained.

They said, “Then bring your grandfather here in the scales. I’m not swallowing your words alone.”

I didn’t like the way Hinte’s claws were out, scoring the gravel of the roof. I pouted up at the prefect. “But this is important!”

“It is a matter of the town’s security,” Hinte said, very level. After a breath, she added, “It could endanger the sifting parties.”

“Flick at yourselves.” It was the last guard who spoke, a plain​-​dweller so quiet I forgot them. They continued even as the prefect jabbed them, saying, “We let in someone that looks like you to do, and we’d have to let in every vagrant with an excuse. Move⁠ ⁠—”

The pumice doors slid open then, and a slender figure, scales dark​-​red slinked forth. Black and yellow robes rippled with their steps, and I watched their stride stopped just behind the prefect, and the two guards let them.

The prefect jumped with a yelp at a poke from the dark​-​red dragon. I laughed behind a wing, and Hinte wasn’t so nice.

A look like sour flames flickered at me and Hinte, before it snapped over to the offending dragon behind the prefect. At the prefect’s glaring, the newcomer flinched and cringed.

“I have a message,” said that dark​-​red dragon.

The prefect rolled head, and let the newcomer lean in near their frills, and whispered something.

“I see,” was the response. “Now spit off.” And with that, the dark​-​red dragon slinked back in faster than they slinked out. The prefect turned back to us, still looking sour, and said, “Seems the treasurer is aware of your coming, and vouches for your credibility. You may enter.”

I smiled and let out a cheer, but Hinte was frowning even deeper.

As the two guards strode back to their places, the prefect was turning away; but they added, “And he says to tell Ushra the lout owes him a favor, now.”

---

“This place looks so sad,” I murmured.

Like a husk the hall’s lamp​-​lit lobby lay empty this late into the night.

There were oil or glass paintings hanging on the walls, and two dusty scrollshelves. On the wall in front of us sat three corridors, all opposite the spiraling ramp the doors had spat out. Two corridors opened far to either side, one dark and silent, and the other lit with dim, dispersed light and the equally dim, dispersed murmurings of a few distant voices. The middle corridor was a ramp leading even deeper into the building.

Like usual with cliff​-​dweller buildings, it was half​-​underground.

Hinte stood beside me, looking like I felt. Inside the hall, she’d at last taken off her goggles. She glanced at me, and in her dark, near​-​black scelerae, her rust​-​orange eyes were flames and burned with an intensity that erased the tired, flagging lines of her face. I smiled at her, and she only inclined her head.

“Do you feel that?” I asked, rubbing a foot against a foreleg. “It feels like chasing down the humans or facing down the rockwraiths. Doom.”

Hinte remained silent, frowning in thought.

I looked up to the ceiling. The sight there lit my frills⁠ ⁠—⁠ a mosaic of stars! It covered the concave ceiling, stretching to where the ceiling curved back on itself. It wasn’t accurate. The night sky didn’t look anything like this; none of the stars or nebulae were positioned anywhere near any real formation in the sky. But the work looked so bright, so detailed, so unexpected, and so convincingly stellar, that I found myself forgiving the artist’s ignorance.

When I looked down, Hinte’s frills worked in thought. She said, after some time, “Yes. I worry if the faer will find some fault in defending ourselves against the humans or ask just why we were in the Berwem.”

“Or believe the two of us?” I asked.

She waved a wing. “No.Ushra is the faer’s personal alchemist. The musician only spat up superstitious slime. Mlaen is smarter than that.”

I looked downed, and scratched a bit at the rock floor. “Does it feel like there’s something deeper at work? Some… plot? The rod​-​twirler dragon didn’t want us going to the faer, and now the treasurer seems to wants us to.” My brilles flashed clear. “And the twirler didn’t seem to like the treasurer. What’s going on?”

Hinte looked at me the way she had when I’d ask about the crysts. She took forever to finally say something, and it was, “This country is not called the land of glass and secrets for nothing, Kinri.”

It was then that I heard footsteps padding up from one of the corridors —⁠ the dim one⁠ ⁠—⁠ and bringing a scent of ripening holly. A secretary flitted into the room, wearing a simple black and gold halfrobe covering her breast and falling over her forelegs.

Wings apart from her body, head held high, she didn’t look as small as I did. Instead, she stood eye​-​level with Hinte, but without the forest​-​dweller’s muscles. Her frills fanned as she stepped in, and they were half as long as Hinte’s. My own frills folded back at the sight, and I glanced at the floor.

She searched us as she entered, and clouded her yellow eyes when she saw me. Why? Was it one of those things that was just different on the surface? In the sky’s courts, clouding your eyes when you looked at someone meant, ‘You are unimportant, I don’t care about you! Flick, I don’t even need to see you clearly, ha ha.’

I clouded my own eyes in response, but I doubted it sent a very impressive message. The secretary smiled back, with her teeth. Her secretary would eat you if you looked at them the wrong way. I cleared my eyes and jerked my gaze back to the star mosaic.

Then I looked back at her.

The secretary’s scales caught the lobby’s lamplight, glinting a shimmering blue​-​green where her black and yellow robes didn’t cover them. Was she mixed sky and forest? I’d never seen anything like that. I opened my mouth to ask about it, but that was when her gaze left me.

The difference stung; the secretary smiled on seeing Hinte and waved her tail at her. “Oh, it’s Gronte’s granddaughter. Hello, Hinte! What brings you here this late?” she asked. Why did she sound so cheerful?

“Cynfe​-​sofran.” Hinte said, inclining her head. “We must see the faer at once.”

Cynfe. Oh, I’d heard of her. She’d come up in conversation sometimes, during nights at the inn. I would always wonder what she had done to earn so much ire. Was she that unpleasant, or something else? I glanced at her scales. Something else, maybe.

“Ooh? It must be important if you want to bother the faer with it! Why not tell it to me and I shall judge if it is important enough to bother her?”

Hinte pulled at her cloak enough to reveal the three dead apes tied to her back.

Cynfe’s smile disappeared in a heartbeat. “I see. I will alert the faer at once.”

---

The blue​-​green wiver slinked back up the ramp. In her wing​-​digits, she grasped a rolled up scroll of papyrus, and an inkwell. Her frills narrowed at Hinte, who’d inched closer to the corridor while the secretary was gone, but she said nothing, only dragging her claws along the carpet, beckoning us. Like that, she led us down the middle corridor.

It winded and finally opened to a room with a throne at the head and various mats along the fringes. The walls were decorated with more paintings, styled with the recurring golden yellow, bright against the gray granite.

The faer stood near the center of the room, waiting like a some shining white beacon. Nothing about her was white, yet you couldn’t shake the impression.

Her hornscales were colored like the rest of scales — a sort of ruddy red, almost, but not, brown; the look of recent​-​shaven hornscales. They lined top of her head and the bottom fringe of her face, spiky and giving her a wild look, but controlled, too: at just a glance, you could taste the care she took in maintaining her face. It still straddled the line of good taste⁠ ⁠—⁠ for someone of her position, at least.

The faer stood there in robes that only looked plain. They were colored patriotic red and yellows, yes, but those reds were deep, and the yellows were bright. You knew those dyes would cost far more than a few day’s meals.

All the symbols of Gwymr/Frina were inscribed along her robes, with fibers of woven glass. Those same stained glass fibers abound across her robes, marking the highlights and transitions and seams. Even in Gwymr/Frina, in the land of glass and secrets, it was a sight.

I bowed, alongside Hinte, splaying my wings and clouding my brilles. Hinte lowered her head to the carpet and raised her tail.

The faer didn’t wait to speak, though, her voice a tired growl. “My Cynfe​-​ann tells me this is a matter of utmost importance. We’ll skip the formalities.” Even as she spoke, her brilles were clouded, a look you might call bored, or sleepy.

The blue​-​green wiver twitched at the use of her name. Glancing at the faer, the secretary unrolled the scroll. Holding the page steady with both forefeet, she unlidded the inkwell with her wing​-​digits and dipped her other wing’s alula into it.

“Yes, my faer,” Hinte was saying. She rose from her bow, and I copied her. She didn’t hesitate to start telling our story. As she spoke, Cynfe was scratching lines onto the papyrus. “Kinri and I were sifting in the fields of the Berwem, when we tasted a suspicious scent: sweat and blood. We followed it out of the lake proper, to a hollow in the surrounding cliffs. There we came upon an injured, dying human.”

While the faer slowly flicked her tongue, Cynfe narrowed her brows, frills bristling as she stared at the page. She only lifted her head a fraction when she spoke, and asked, “Dying of what?”

“A rockwraith bite,” I said.

“I killed it,” Hinte continued, “and Kinri decided it must have fallen from an overhang above. There was no blood trail. I instructed her to watch the body, and I flew up to overhang. There I–I found two sleeping humans, and off to the side was another keeping guard. It was spooked by my arrival, and shouted, and woke up the other two.”

Cynfe dipped her wing​-​digit into the inkwell again, without taking her eyes from her page. I glanced back at Hinte. One forefoot was above another, scratching. Even when it stopped, it stayed there.

“I reacted as quickly as I could. I leapt at the guard, knocking it to the ground. I tore out its throat. By this point one of the others had reached me, and stabbed my wing. I clawed at it, knocking it away from me, so that I could focus on the last one. But it had stepped up behind me, and slashed its blade at the tendon of my hindleg. It backed away, and I turned and lunged at it and bit its shoulder. I knocked it down and returned the other one I knocked away.

“Taking that human alive would help your investigation, so I choked it until it stopped moving.” The faer shifted, toes curling. Cynfe looked up from her page again, eyeing the lumps under our cloaks.

“One of the humans is alive, then? Does it need restraint or medical attention?”

“…No,” Hinte said, “as we were returning to town, that human awoke, escaping with another human who had feigned its death. We tracked them down, and I killed them.”

Cynfe asked, “Where did your… companion get her injuries, if she did nothing?”

I shifted, my wings hugging my body and my tail around my hindleg. “We,” I started, “were uh, ambushed by rockwraiths as we were coming back⁠ ⁠—⁠ in the Berwem, it was very hard to see.”

“Rockwraiths, plural? How many were there?”

“Four.”

“You killed them?”

“No…”

“Kinri chased them off.”

I looked at her, head tilted. Her lips twitched. My tail squeezed my leg, and my frills preened. She prodded me with a wing, and I turned back to the faer and her secretary.

“Did anything else happen?”

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” Hinte said, “while I was gone Kinri spotted a shadow moving in the distant smoke. She chose not to pursue it,” she paused for a moment, “deciding that investigating was not worth leaving the one human unguarded.” After a beat, she added “That is all, my faer.”

“I see,” the faer said. “Have your injuries been treated?”

“Yes.”

“And where are these humans now?”

“I have them with me, faer.” Hinte once again pulled at her cloak. After she prodded me, I followed her example.

I blurted, “Do you believe us?”

The faer, maybe for the first time, really looked at me. Their frown became less of a smile as her face shifted in recognition, and she said, “It is beyond question that something is within all this. The details remain to be determined.”

The red wiver looked away from me like a weight lifting, and addressing no one in particular⁠ ⁠—⁠ implicitly, everyone⁠ ⁠—⁠ she said, “I suppose this merits some discussion.” She then turned to Cynfe, and to her she asked, “Is there anything pressing? No? Then who can we spare?”

Cynfe had met the faer’s gaze, eyes above above her page. “Treasurer Bariaeth is still here,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ the faer’s frills contracted tight⁠ ⁠—⁠ “as are Rhyfel and two of the prefects, who may or may not be still awake. The ridges’ advisers have left, as have two of the Dyfnderi advisers.” She brought an alula to her chin. “Only the military adviser, Adwyn, is still here.”

The faer waved her tongue slowly. “No great loss, then. Bring me the only two who’ll have something worth adding.”

“Rhyfel and Adwyn?”

“Of course.”

---

‘Adwyn,’ I half​-​murmured to myself. Did it have to be Adwyn? The Dyfnderi’s eyescales never clouded when he looked at me, and I had been indebted to him since the moment I walked through the stone gates of Gwymr/Frina. That debt hung, a dark cloud on the horizon.

We waited in that expectant silence awhile. I dared to watch the faer, silently. Just like the last time, her brilles never cleared, always remaining cloudy, like she was forever in danger of falling asleep on her feet.

The blue​-​green secretary came back down the ramp with a cliff​-​dweller and a canyon​-​dweller trailing behind her, flicking their tongues, bemused.

I looked on the left first, because I knew who was on the right. Beside Cynfe came a scarlet dragon swaggering forth with a savage grin, fangs bared. They took in the room with startlingly black eyes.

Golden​-​accented black armor clad the dragon — schizon by smell — enwoven with dark bamboo plates; armor which covered the front of the legs without hiding their muscular thickness. A sword strapped to the side, in a sheath, and above it was a holster not unlike it; I caught the high guard placing a thick scroll there, just as the dragon stepped in the room.

I could name all the emblems inscribed goldenly over the armor’s plates, glyphs for “battle,” “loyalty,” “Cyfrin,” among others. Seeming to eclipse the others, there was a glyph centered just below their neck, reading “Dwylla.” Centered though it was, it was fading.

There was that smell, that odor, of stabbing schizon, but it came subdued, faint and washed​-​out in a way that Hinte’s schizon stuff never smelled. As if this armor wanted to hide or disguise its material, and Hinte’s stuff wanted to brandish it. My tongue waved further, and I caught a strange, cloying scent on the high guard that I didn’t know how to place.

Studying the face like that, hard and commanding as it was, a mind occulted within those black eyes, and even the drake’s stance betraying loose power, I finally placed this Rhyfel as the head of the Frinan guard. He looked old; and there had been no likeness between the black and gold armor he wore and the red and yellow sashes of the guards I passed on the streets of town.

His father, Rhyfel the elder, had been the hero — then traitor — of Gwymr/Frina. I wonder how it felt to live in that shadow, to be expected both to live up to and escape from the legacy of highness Rhyfel? I supposed I was in a similar situation, dragging around my family name, Specter⁠ ⁠—⁠ but the difference was I did not care, something I doubted held for Rhyfel here. It must weigh.

He caught me looking, and grinned. It was a grin that reached his still​-​startlingly black eyes, and you wouldn’t have guessed that. “Heh. Kinri, is it? A crizzle to finally meet you.”

“Um. How do you know of me?”

“Adwyn talks of you every once or twice. And it’d be a trick to not at least know of the spooky new sky​-​dweller in town. With nobility no less⁠ ⁠—⁠ and don’t look like that, you don’t have a reputation. Not yet, I’d say.”

I shook my head, and broke eye with the black​-​eyed dragon, glancing to his right, at the orange drake I recognized at first glance, who was already looking at me, and smirking.

Adwyn wore a dark​-​blue dress curling under his midsection and contrasting the orange of his scales. The dress swirled with various glyphs, and the loose sleeves didn’t reach his lower legs. Most of the glyphs were foreign or unintelligible. I recognized only one, the stylized emblem of Dyfnder/Geunant: that same rainbow​-​rayed purple eye beneath a moon eclipsing a sun.

I met his gaze, and tried to hold it. Short lines were flowing out around his metallic​-​red eyes like rays, painted in some purple pigment dark enough to pass as black. His right foreleg was at his chin, rubbing, and his frills were flared.

Adwyn looked serious — yet he smiled back at me. “A fragrance to meet again, Kinri​-​ychy.” He looked to the corpses on our back, and his look changed as appropriate. He said, “Some shame it was to be within these circumstances.”

Rhyfel, though, never broke his grin.

With those dragons here, the faer waved her wings toward a corridor left of the throne. Cynfe and the drakes followed first, then the two of us. Together, we all walked down the corridor toward the meeting room.

Along the roads into Gwymr/Frina, we had reached the faer and the town hall. This had been our ultimate destination, the climax of our journey. We made it.

Would this day ever end? This entire adventure had passed in one day, in one evening. Yet, in my mind, in my aching legs, and in my relationship with Hinte, a whole cycle might have passed. More had happened today than in any other cycle of my life.

Routine dominated my days. Wake up before the second dawn ring, Kinri. Check by the coutiers, maybe your brother finally sent a letter. Go to moil at the Llygaid Crwydro every day, except (stars, don’t forget!) not on the purportedly​-​sacred crestdays and troughdays. Hope Cthwithach​-​sofran has time to teach you anything, else you’ll have nothing else to show the day wasn’t waste. Let Uvidet​-​gyfar drag you out to play cards at the Moyo​-​Makao every other day. Check by the courtiers again, you never know. If you grow bored of things⁠ ⁠—⁠ when you grow bored of things⁠ ⁠—⁠ you can beg the guards at the south gate to let you out, and fly some laps in the pretty red ravines south of town. Then sneak out at night and look at the endless stars.

All of the excitement and terror of this break from routine had exhausted me… but it was worth it, to spend some time with Hinte that wasn’t just phatic fumbling.

With that thought that my thoughts lighted back in the present, only to turn to a springing worry that maybe this all may just as well have ruined my chance to be friends with Hinte. Worries like company, and it wasn’t two breaths before my dewing turned to considering all big, important dragons around me and what they were thinking. Why was Adwyn glancing back at me? Why was Rhyfel walking so close to the orange drake? What were Cynfe and the faer murmuring about? Why did it sound like nothing related to the humans? Did Hinte feel as alone as she looked right now?

With my heartbeat quickening and my feet stumbling forward as we followed the faer toward the meeting room I found myself planning my next conversation with Hinte, searching long the face of the orange​-​eyed wiver, wracking my brain for something simple that might thrust us into a nice tension​-​wringing exchange⁠ ⁠—⁠ but nothing came, even when I opened my mouth hoping anything would come out nothing came, and I closed my mouth and licked my fangs⁠ ⁠—⁠ did anyone else smell my worry?⁠ ⁠—⁠ but maybe this wasn’t so serious, maybe this wasn’t worth all this worry?⁠ ⁠—⁠ and maybe you should slow down, calm down, and breathe, Kinri, and–and with that you find yourself finally slowing, stopping to breathe, and breathing deep. I continued on, relaxing my shoulders, and curling my neck. I was fine. This wasn’t anything to worry about.

I didn’t really know anyone here besides Hinte — and I couldn’t really have a normal conversation with the military adviser or the faer, anyway. Maybe secretary or the high guard? But the blue​-​green wiver padded in front of us, murmuring beside the faer, and even the scarlet​-​scaled high guard’s mere presence felt intimidating.

The atmosphere here sat so serious on my wings. My mindeye aimed searching, longing glances to the silly side of things. But the gyras spent in the courts and parties of sky, of my family dragging me to act just like them, obscured my sight, and all I felt were old instincts returning.

Keep your tail down, hang it by your hindlegs. Do not raise it, do not coil it. You are not some dewy​-​fanged slut or farm​-​wiver.

Clear your eyes when someone looks at you, keep your frills listening.

Keep your frills by your neck. No one wants to see them.

Flick your tongue if you must, but do not wave it. Nothing smells that good.

If some sot’s scent is so strong you can smell it, wave your tongue. They clearly think they smell that good.

Keep your fangs in your mouth, and keep your venom on your tongue. If I can smell your dew, something is wrong.

And hide your fangs, you are not some dewy​-​fanged slut or farm​-​wiver.

We’d reached a single black bamboo door, and when the faer inclined her head, Cynfe darted in front. The doors revealed a meeting room dim and empty. Light from the hall rushed forth, and met with the night sifting in from a wide window perched high at the opposite end of the room, a dance of moonlight, lamplight, and coy shadows cast by interminate, ambiguous movements of unseen figures.

Cynfe slinked in, quickly lighting the lamps that circled at the farthest fringes of the room. Now lit, those lamps reversed the flow of light pouring in through the window; and, revealed a simple room centered with a drab gray slab higher than my knee and orbited by soft mats, and further away, smaller and darker slabs. The triangle​-​like center slab was glaring with piercing yellow specks and brimming with long, angular streaks of red. Around the slab sat the nine long mats, concave and fit for lying in with some comfort⁠ ⁠—⁠ but not too much comfort: this was a meeting room.

Various maps scattered around the walls and surfaces in a mess, and vague books lined a single bookshelf. But the center of the slab’s surface lay blank. The faer walked to the farthest corner of the three, and stood there.

I watched the faer gesture Hinte toward one of the other slabs off the to the side. The black​-​cloaked wiver stepped over and dumped the bodies overtop the maps and I copied her. As we stepped away I saw Adwyn glancing over at the bodies, the orange drake’s features curling into a disgusted sneer. I found myself thinking of the ornery musician on the catwalks.

The faer had lain on the mat at the head of the slab, Cynfe beside the faer, and Rhyfel beside Adwyn, those two lying at a different corner of the slab, the orange drake brushing a wing against the other.

We could have lay beside the blue​-​green wiver — she seemed interesting, and I was doing a bad job of hiding my repeated glances at her scales or her black and gold robes. A secretary⁠ ⁠—⁠ maybe she could tell me what I had to do to become one.

I was stepping toward her when Hinte lay the last corner of the table, away from everyone else, and I didn’t have much a of choice then.

With that, the faer spoke, brilles cloudy, pulling a stack of paperwork from⁠ ⁠—⁠ somewhere. She said, “As we are all present and seated, Cynfe will you review the incident?”

---

The secretary recited Hinte’s account of this evening in rapid bursts of y Draig I had trouble following. The cliff tongue had always been my weakest, after Pteron, and the one I had used least until⁠ ⁠—⁠ a few dances ago.

I didn’t see need to listen, anyway. And I didn’t need to think about how I fit into all of this. It was easier to try to slip into the facade of old Kinri, be a passive observer, try to learn what all the dynamics here were.

Adwyn lounged on his mat. His frills twitched in listening, but it was effortless listening. Beside him, Rhyfel had a frown and frills spread wide, nodding at every word from the secretary.

The faer had said these two were the only two with anything worth saying on the matter. Adwyn, I could more than see; in all my experience with him, he’d never given an impression besides coiled, waiting intelligence. Rhyfel seem to have more to him than impressions, though.

The red wiver lay idly watching over the table. In front of her, she had a stack of pages dense with text and held in her wings a glass pen. You couldn’t know what sat on those pages, but it was what had occupied her while the secretary recited.

Now though, as her secretary’s speech seemed to be cadencing, she watched over the table with a certain intensity, even as her brilles remained deeply clouded, and even as she rubbed her eyes in apparent tiredness.

Maybe it was the power you knew lurked in those eyes, maybe it was the harsh but balanced angles of her face. Whatever it was, her gaze hardly left Adwyn and Rhyfel, and I was glad for that.

For their part, Adwyn frowned and Rhyfel nodded along.

“…and that is all.” The secretary wiver set a wetly inked page on the table and produced up another, this one blank.

When she finished, the mysterious high guard whistled loudly and turned his savage grin to Hinte. “Nice acts, Gronte​-​wyre. Mighty impressive,” he said. Beside him, Adwyn gave a thoughtful hum, and the faer was glancing between them. Rhyfel continued, “They must make ’em fierce in those forests! I know your boy, Ushra, from way back. The resembalance is something.”

The faer coughed then, and gave the high guard a pointed look. The high guard tilted his head, and she spoke low and casual, saying, “Your father knew Ushra. Your tongue slipped.”

“Yeah, yeah, Ushra and the ol’ Rhyfel — she knows the story, I reason. Suffer it to say I heard all the old drake’s stories of that drafty old alchemist.” His voice came loud in the room.

The blue​-​green wiver was glowering at him, frills wrinkling. She jotted down Rhyfel’s commentary with sharp jerks. As you glanced around, most were looking at Rhyfel, but Adwyn glanced at Cynfe.

The military adviser said, “The coordination and reaction of these humans gleans interesting.” He steepled his feet, and said to Hinte, “You stood your ground well, Gronte​-​wyre.” Hinte’s frills were twitching at the title. He continued, “What is it you do? You must work with Ushra in his clinic, correct?”

Rhyfel laughed. “If it’s still a clinic when you got to wait ’til the stars align with both moons on the crestday ’fore he deigns to overcharge you for an examination.”

Adwyn licked his eyes. “I can see the reasoning.” He waved an alula as he continued. “Ushra wants to keep his return to the cliffs a rumor. Seeing to anyone at all is going to reveal that in the long run. It is admirable that he does anyway.”

“Yeah yeah, he’s a good fellow — or was, maybe — but it doesn’t change that he charges out the sky. It’s not like he’s starving for pyrite, at all.”

“Then seeing anyone at all would be a charity, would it not? Irregardless,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ he looked back to the dark​-​green wiver⁠ ⁠—⁠ “you might have your claws full helping your grandfather, but I say you look like you would make a fine guard. Consider lighting by to see me and this lug here if you ever get tired of waiting around or cooking.” He gave a smile to Rhyfel.

Hinte looked to the ground at the offer, twiddling her claws.

I looked over to the faer, who’d returned to reading the paperwork in front of her. Beside her, the blue​-​green wiver had a glare to match Hinte’s.

Cynfe said, “Let’s not forget our topic.” You’d startle to know she only sounded as exasperated as she did. “Rhyfel, do you recognize these apes?”

The scarlet drake turned around to the corpses, flicking out his tongue and crooking his frills. Then at once, he folded frills back in some triumph. He was sliding to a stand, and saying “Ah yea, I know ’em. A breed from those wet plains off the rocky coasts. Called themselves the Ulfame, I recall.”

Adwyn stepped over to the scarlet drake, and together they picked through the human’s bags, the orange drake wearing an expression like having to wade through the filthy streets barefoot. They pried open cloth bags, and patted down their armor. My frills twitched. Would the humans have objected to treating their belongings like this?

Rhyfel lifted a leg of the human — the same leg which Hinte’s knife had… desiccated.

The high guard did laugh, but there was an complex undercurrent to it. “Like grandfather like father like daughter,” he said, and looked at Hinte. I didn’t catch the look, only the wiver stiffening beside me.

He only said, “Be careful, Hinte.”

---

It was a while, Cynfe marking over her transcriptions, the faer alternately reading her papers or peering blearily at the dragons lying. The sounds were the two drakes picking through bags, and whispering to each other. I flicked my tongue, and smelled the intermingling of the holly, the cloying smell, the eyepaint, the grapes and my chamomile. I didn’t wave my tongue, but I flicked it out just a little more. Try as I did, there wasn’t much more than that⁠ ⁠—⁠ maybe a lingering lunch, maybe some tasteful colonge. I did a little frown. Mlaen didn’t smell like much.

It felt like a long time. Maybe it was a matter of course, sitting here and twiddling my halluxes like I did, but it was a moment extended like there’d been a shortage of them.

At last, the orange drake came across some pouch, and tore into it, revealing a small folded piece of parchment. Unfolding it, looking over it, he said, “Ah, this must their script. So tiny! Rhyfel, you’ve studied languages⁠ ⁠—⁠ do you recognize any of this?”

The high guard took the parchment and scanned it. “Oh, the bloody Ulfame,” he said. After a moment, he added, “I recognize this script, of course⁠ ⁠—⁠ those apes love to borrow from each other. But I can’t ever keep hold of the difference between it, Kuazo and Jua​-​Mwanga,” he said, his tongue pronouncing with ease obscure syllables I’d never heard.

“Not too many to hold amind, at the very least. I’ll see what I can manage⁠ ⁠—⁠ but you’ll want to run this by ol’ Chwithach​-​gyfar over in that library of his, what’d he call it? …Yeah, the Sgrôli ac Neidr. That old snake knows more about these humans than I ever will. But I reckon I can taste the gist.”

Rhyfel scanned the page, for once his grin faltering, waning to an abstracted scowl. He stared the page, claw tracing and retracing the lines of the parchments’ script. He clouded his black eyes, and deliberated for a moment, then two, then ten. They cleared. When he spoke, the contemplation had tarnished all his earlier mirth.

“This is an odd dialect… But I can easily make out some talk of payment and travel⁠ ⁠—⁠ past the language barrier, the diction is all impressively straightforward for humans. Not having a lick of trouble translating it.”

Adwyn, beside him, rolled his head and lightly hit him with a wing.

“Anyway, what I’m tasting is these apes were hired to explore the cliffs, or something in that way. The armor and weapons they had could be foul intentions, but I reason it’s just for protection.

“I call this a peaceful expedition — they obviously know nothing about Gwymr/Frina or our cliffs. Riddle it, what sort of squalled fool dresses up for traveling by the Berwem? In chain and leather?”

Adwyn gave a hissing laugh, but Cynfe still stabbed at the high guard with her humorless look.

The faer was looking up, first at Rhyfel, then around the slab. “So, attacking these creatures was a mistake?” she asked.

Yes. I almost said it aloud.

“You could say that, yeah. I’d say it serves them right, ’croaching on our cliffs, attacking our dragons.”

The faer lifted her head, looking at the high guard. “I taste they will not take the killing of their explorers well, however.”

Rhyfel inclined his head and turned back to the bodies. Adwyn was on his mat already.

“My faer,” Hinte spoke, covering her right foot with her left, “I had little choice in the matter. The first ape we encountered was nearly dead from the heat and its fall. When I encountered its companions, they initiated hostilities.”

Hadn’t she said she leapt at the humans as soon as they shouted?

“They must have mistaken you for some manner of beast, I bet,” Cynfe said, looking up from her scroll. Yet her wing still scratched lines in the paper! “I know I would have!” she said with a clicking laugh.

Hinte hissed sharply, glaring at Cynfe.

Cynfe only laughed harder. “Oh, lighten up, little hatchling. You jump out the smoke dripping blood and gore from your claws and wearing those creepy goggles. I wouldn’t have greeted you with hugs or smiles either.”

Hinte relaxed a bit at this but snapped her tongue.

Maybe as a final slight, Cynfe added, “Oh, or maybe I would! I’m sure Gronte’s little hatchling jaunting around like some forest warrior is a cute sight~”

“Enough,” the faer said.

“Deepest apologies, my faer~” she said liltingly.

The faer sighed and instead turned to Hinte, saying, “I do not doubt that you made reasonable choices, Gronte​-​wyre, but they were choices, and no amount of reason will help us if this sparks conflict with these… Ulfame.” She pronounce the name slowly. Despite this, it didn’t sound quite like what Rhyfel said.

Rhyfel spoke up, voice sharp. “The old wiver’s got a point. The humans won’t like their comrades disappearing at all, at all. They’d send a legion, then an army, if they ever found out.” The humans had armies? He nudged Adwyn, and glanced the faer and Cynfe. “You all know what happened to Banti/Gorphon. It ain’t there anymore.”

I felt my brilles going pale.

“Well, do we have the numbers to handle conflict?” Cynfe was asking, voice leveling.

“At the moment,” Rhyfel started, “our ranks are pitiable. We can start a draft⁠ ⁠—⁠ it will take a trice to get them ready, but it can be done. But we’re little players here⁠ ⁠—⁠ I wouldn’t try to fight a human army the size of the Ulfame in the first place.”

I looked up at the ceiling, a simple gray brick pattern. My brilles clouded, and my frills folded against the drone of the meeting. I didn’t want to imagine humans slaughtering a dragon town, and I didn’t want to imagine dragons killing more humans. It just happened that way.

---

“Shall we reach out to the other strongholds?”

“Perhaps,” Adwyn said, licking an eye. “Though the forest​-​dwellers will want nothing to do with us, given Gronte’s betrayal. No, I would not be surprised if they went as far as to try and help the humans against us, should they find out.”

“Then what of the ridge​-​dwellers? Or the sea​-​dwellers?” Cynfe was still transcribing the talk, but she lapsed when talking.

“Indeed, we could reach out the either of them. Though I would not advise advertising this… precarious position.”

“It’s hardly precarious. The apes will take a while to react. They far from all​-​knowing. Or knowing, period.” Cynfe clicked her tongue. “Flightless mammals. It’d take them cycles to move anywhere, and that’s after they get it between their frills that a party’s even gone missing.”

“A slow death is hardly preferable.”

Cynfe rolled her head, and her tone lost its light edge. “We have good ties with the ridges, I would suggest we get our… assistance from them.”

“I’d hesitate to give more to the gray scales. It’s — sour, as it is.”

“What about Dyfnder/Geunant?” Adwyn’s brilles cleared as he watched the faer.

She gave Adwyn a look. I didn’t catch it, for it lasted just a second. But Adwyn looked away, puffing some air out of his nose. He looked to the opposite end of the room from where the faer sat.

His gaze drifted, and for a second it met mine. There was hint of piercing analysis in the furrow of his brow and the bloodless clarity of his brilles. Cynfe had given me similar looks, but where the secretary would look my way accident, Adwyn nursed a certain motivation that gave me pause. I didn’t like this look.

The red wiver placed their foreknees on the slab, steepling their feet as they looked around. The room was silent, reeling from the severed thread of conversation.

I looked around. Hinte looked up from her claws, staring at Rhyfel, indirect and furtive. Cynfe had stopped scratching on her page, glancing around, waiting for someone to speak again. Rhyfel shifted, as if he were about to say something, but it was Adwyn who broke the silence.

“Well, then do you think Pteron would condescend to help us, should we reach out?” He was smirking.

“Not without a pound of scales. Leave the damn Pteroni to their desert.”

“Um,” I started. My frills flattened. My minders would have snatched my tongue if I wasted breath on injections like that.

The room focused on me. My tail hung by my legs, but it twitched. I continued, “I⁠ ⁠—⁠ I think you may be missing an option.” I spoke as steadily as I could. “My faer,” I added, late.

“What is it?” Cynfe asked. Her eyes almost had a resting glare, intense and critical.

“Well, maybe going into this with pride and dominance is the wrong approach. I mean, Rhyfel said we are a bit​-​players. Can we appease the apes instead of trying to resist them?”

The faer hummed. “That is a valuable perspective, Specter​-​eti,” they said, meeting my eyes. Like always, they were clouded to the point I couldn’t even tell what color they were. I wanted to say white. “And it would be worth considering, in any other situation. I dislike violence”⁠ ⁠—⁠ Rhyfel snickered⁠ ⁠—⁠ “but there are few diplomatic options available to us while we bear four dead apes on our backs. These Ulfame will want Hinte’s head for this, and one dragon’s life is not worth even twenty dead apes.”

“Dearest apologies, my faer,” I said with pure sincerity, but Cynfe humphed and soon hissing laughter filled the room. Only Hinte and I didn’t, and even she smiled. “Sorry.” I mumbled.

“She raises a another point, however,” Adwyn said, glancing. “We are missing angle, here. Our cliffs are dangerous⁠ ⁠—⁠ would these silly apes not just see that these explorers perished from their own foolishness?” He turned his gaze from me, regarding the nails of his forefoot held.

“But they will send a search party — search for sign of these apes. What will they think when they find none?” Cynfe said, looking at Adwyn. As an afterthought, she scratched several, several lines of symbols onto the page as the orange drake considered.

“So we plant the bodies somewhere in the cliffs. If their search is any good⁠ ⁠—⁠ worth starting a war over⁠ ⁠—⁠ they will find them.”

“And the ripped throats? And the… leg Rhyfel pointed out?”

“Feed them to the wraiths or the cats. It is not an implausible demise for a human that near the Berwem.”

“It is a coward’s solution,” said Cynfe. “We are not weak, and if we cannot deal with these apes⁠ ⁠—” She stopped. “My point is that we cannot hide from the apes forever. We should deal with the matter with confidence, rather than resting on our bellies and breathing for ignorance to save us.”

“We can monitor the cliffs, then. If my plan works, it will save us quite the worrying⁠ ⁠—⁠ at worst, do you think it won’t delay the humans?” Adwyn hitched his wings. He regarded the secretary with what was more a smile than a smirk, and you heard a certain allowance in his tone, but only when talking to her. The secretary merely tossed her head.

“And another thing,” Rhyfel said, only now returning to his seat from examining the bodies. “We need to clean up the camp site where these apes were sleeping.”

“Why?” Hinte asked.

“Your kills sure don’t sound⁠ ⁠—⁠ or look⁠ ⁠—⁠ clean, and the apes couldn’t have been living off what they could carry on their backs⁠ ⁠—⁠ any search party is going to find that campsite and reason out the rest.”

There were a few beats of silence after this, before the faer spoke, looking up from her paperwork. “Is there anything else?” She looked around the slab. We all shook our heads in turn.

“Alright,” the red wiver said, then, addressing the room with a final cadence. “I do not think these approaches are exclusive.” They stood up. “Cynfe, please prepare missives for the mountain​-​dwellers. Mention them that we may face difficulties, and may require help, but be terse with the details. Dismissed.

“Rhyfel, enlarge our armed guard and begin patrolling the cliffs. That these creatures trespassed in our territory and were discovered by accident is unacceptable. This could have happened before, and may happen again. Dismissed.

“Adwyn. Prepare the inquirers to join you on a mission to the coasts. We shall try negotiation with these Ulfame, if the need arises. I shall discuss the details with you in private. Dismissed.”

There was a chorus of, “Yes, my faer,” as the three named stood and departed, and went their separate ways. Cynfe left first, quickly. Rhyfel glanced at Hinte as he left, and Adwyn glanced at me. As they left, the faer faced my companion.

“Begone, Gronte​-​wyre. You have done enough.”

Hinte lowered her head, standing and turning to the doors. I started after her, but the faer called to me, saying, “Remain, Specter​-​eti.”

I couldn’t but do as I was told. I waved at Hinte, and she didn’t return it, limping away. That stung. After all we’d gone through, and she didn’t even wave?

---

The faer had walked from around the slab, and stood a few strides from me. Without the host of dragons falling in line around her, the faer’s presence was merely intimidating, and not dominating.

Examining me, the faer spoke, a tone of suspicion in her voice. “Hinte’s story,” she started, “is it the whole truth?”

My frills worked as I thought. A few beats passed before I cleared my eyes, venturing, “I think so, my faer.”

“You may call me Mlaen​-​sofran if you wish.”

“Okay, my Mlaen​-​sofran,” I said, before looking down.

She clicked her tongue, and waved a wing. “And you were saying?”

“I was guarding the first corpse while Hinte tracked down the others. But it is not like her to lie. I believe her⁠ ⁠—⁠ completely.”

“Yes, Gronte reared a fine granddaughter. But even the most honest of dragons sometimes shape the truth in their image. Between my Cynfe’s teasing and Rhyfel’s flattery, I feel she had something to prove, and suspect perhaps this influenced her retelling of events.” She paused, rubbing an eye. “But you do not know, so let us be rid of the topic.”

Mlaen​-​sofran walked near the corpses, and gave them a peering look. “I still have a few questions for you, though,” she said, and I nodded. “Mind shutting the door over there? Thank you.”

When we were alone, closed up in that room, the faer asked me, “Did the human speak a dragon tongue?”

“I — what?”

“Y Draig, perhaps. Did it speak?”

“Uh, it did. It was all garbled and solecistic, though.”

The red wiver nodded. “I see. Did the humans have anything particularly… interesting on or near their bodies? A warm, heavy rock, perhaps?”

“Not that I — oh! I don’t know if this counts, but they had this alchemy orb… thingy that smashes open and blinds you for a bit. It’s very harshly bright.”

“I see, I see.” The faer snaked her head a little closer. “My final question: were there any other dragons in the lake?”

My legs tightened with a jump. “Well, um…”

“Thank you. What are their names?”

“They–they were just sifters, out late in the lake. They weren’t up to anything.”

“You’ll understand that I don’t trust that. What are their names, Specter​-​eti?”

I had to look up to meet her eyes. “I’d rather you didn’t call me that. I’m Kinri now, my family doesn’t want anything with me.”

“You’re rather obvious for a Specter, you know.” She gave a sharp breath that might have come with a smile, were this a smiling sort of thing. She asked, “Again, what are their names?”

“I don’t want them to get in trouble!”

“You aren’t helping their case, thinking they’ll get in trouble. My inquirers can question them within the night. If they’re as innocent as you’re convinced, what is there to worry over?”

“…Mawla and Wrang. Their names are Mawla and Wrang.”

“Mawla?” The red wiver frowned. “That is a familiar name, and there are precious few good reasons for my being familiar with a name,” she said. “Be wary, little dragon, if those’re the sort of friends you’re making.”

I looked down.

Mlaen​-​sofran was sighing. “And did I hear that last name aright? Wrang?” A nod. “Wrang of Llosgi Hoddi? What is a Llosgi drake doing sifting…” The faer shook her head. “That renders things⁠ ⁠—⁠ difficult.”

I turned away from the faer, toward the window.

“Wrang and Mawla. Thank you, Kinri. Trust in the law, and not whatever impressions they’ve given you.” I didn’t see whatever expression she had.

I saw the faer slinking toward the door, and waving me after her. “Walk with me,” she said; and we left the meeting room like that, room light still lit.

Walking back down that corridor wasn’t any easier or less nerve​-​wracking. There were hints of distant activity, though⁠ ⁠—⁠ a tinge of new scent, the dull thudding of vague movement⁠ ⁠—⁠ that only made the feeling of not belonging loom higher.

As we walked, Mlaen​-​sofran’s next words were measured and weighed, holding a faint whiff of accusation. “I know why Specter sent you here, Kinri, exile or no.”

That would make one of us, then — if you believed her. I smiled to even entertain such a familiar tactic.

She was continuing, “And I hope you don’t think what you’re doing somehow escapes their plans.”

I padded along after her. Mlaen​-​sofran didn’t lead; but she didn’t walk beside me, either. I asked her, “Why?”

She had looked away. She was looking up somewhere, gaze distant. “Gwymr/Frina was always supposed to be a place to escape the past. It would be a shame if you only remained shackled to your history.”

I asked her, “What does Specter want — in your estimation?”

“What does any foreigner want? It’s in the name⁠ ⁠—⁠ the land of glass and secrets. There’s so little else here.”

I rolled my head and said nothing. We’d rounded the corner back into Mlaen’s throne room. The red wiver murmured to me, “I suspect you’re working up the courage to ask me for some position in my administration, one of these days.”

She’d stop walking, and I turned to face her, standing high. “Well, yeah. I’d like a job better than sitting at a counter in a shop. And I used to be a scribe and secretary for my⁠ ⁠—⁠ mother.”

“And it gives you perfect avenue for influencing the faer, as per your family’s agenda.”

“I don’t work for my family, I came here because my brother asked me to.” He still had hope for me, and I still had hope for him. It was something I didn’t even share with my sister…

“I’m not going to tell you no. Just know that I won’t consider it until this business with the humans is over.”

I nodded, and glanced over at the corridor leading out of the throne room.

The red wiver caught my glance, and asked, “Do you sleep soon?” I nodded, and she added, “Alright. Regarding this human business, Adwyn​-​sofran will meet with you and Gronte​-​wyre sometime tomorrow, to arrange a plan with the corpses.”

Then with a bit more light in her voice, she added, “I hope you don’t mind another day in the lake. Until then, take care to not to start any more wars.”

I waved a wing at her and didn’t wait to slinked from the throne room, off the pumice​-​doored lobby.

Behind me, I heard, “May Balance keep you, little dragon.”

---

Toward the lobby, I waved my tongue, and sifted through the flowers and precious metals wafting around for that holly smell I’d tasted when we entered.

My head turned around until my tongue lighted on the gradient. I slinked up that corridor the secretary had first appeared from. As I walked that gradient, I found an office.

The walls of the office held paintings, of towering cliffs in a stark lighting; of Mlaen​-​sofran, smiling, not wearing her faer robes; and of Cynfe herself, form messy and unfamiliar, standing over a dead, hunted boar. Below them sat a desk, piled with colored scrolls, inkwells, and stacks upon stacks of fancy dillerskin parchment. Between the desk and the shelves by the window, the same three colors repeated again and again. Were the scrolls color​-​coded?

Cynfe lay at that desk, holding a flat​-​tipped pen, sliding that pen over the page at a slug’s pace. Her pen lifted. Blood flushed to Cynfe’s brilles, clouding them. Her mouth parted, drawing two breaths. Her mouth closed, her eyes cleared again, and her pen descended.

“Hi!”

There came a jerk and deep growl. Salt scented the air. When she looked up with her wings spreading, frills flared and her fangs prominent, we had disappeared from the town hall. We stood on some plain, and Cynfe had become a massive, lethal raptor, where I was a tiny skink entrapped in her gaze.

I squeaked.

“What,” her voice sang, high, mellifluous, saccharine, “do you want?” Her claws didn’t slide closer. Her fangs didn’t glint. I didn’t tremble. Even a little bit.

“I — um, I just — I’ll — I’m sorry.”

“Well~?” her voice shifted pitches, mid to high, and it didn’t sound artificial or do anything but magnify the mood of the room.

“I sorta, well, I kinda wanted to chat?” My voice stuttered and whined, and I didn’t feel in control of that anymore. I reached for the commanding clarity of my Specter voice. But I stopped. The guards had bowed to me, and my gut had squirmed as I watched.

I swallowed another breath. But no, that wasn’t what stopped me. Cynfe would just laugh off any intimidation attempt of mine. I was nothing underneath her.

I licked tart venom from my fangs.

“It–it just struck me, I guess. Your scales I mean. Are you, err, from sky? The forest? Something else?”

Her frills winkled back and her eyes clouded. “Do you think I could possibly be from sky? With scales like these?” Her brilles clouded. “You must have molty eyes or glass between your frills.”

“But… It’s just, well, you aren’t a cliff​-​dweller? Like me. I thought we might have that in common.”

“I have nothing in common with you. I hatched in these cliffs. I fledged in these cliffs. I am a cliff​-​dweller.” She looked back to her page. “Something you’ll never be.”

“I⁠ ⁠—”

“Go stick a blowpipe in your vent and crawl back onto whatever dung heap you awoke on. I have work to do.” She folded up the page on her desk and fed it to a wastebin.

I coiled my tail around my leg, lowering my head as I scrambled away from the doorway to Cynfe’s office. And like that, I was alone, again. My wings hugged tight to my body.

As I slinked away from Cynfe’s office, a cringing figure in prim black and gold ducked into a room just down the hall. I kept walking but glanced back⁠ ⁠—⁠ the other secretary was peeking back out, and they jerked their head back out of sight just as they caught me looking.

I rolled my head at their antics and walked to the pumice​-​doored lobby. Nothing but to go home now, I guess.

---

I would have called them a plain​-​dweller if they’d looked anything like one.

He had creamy​-​white scales, immaculately overdesigned robes (I could count more than twenty colors if I tried, all of them arranged in a chaos of patterns and shapes), with a fatness that reminded me of the proudest sky​-​dwellers, who could afford to be flown around instead of fly (even if he wasn’t all the way there), and his pink eyes crowned above a broad muzzle with lips smiling beatific.

These all conspired to limn him as some rich and foreign dragon. He had a youth to his features telling that wealth was inherited instead of earned, and though he looked rich and foreign, he wasn’t a mountain​-​dweller (there wasn’t a touch of gray on him), and he wasn’t an ash​-​dweller (his eyes weren’t black). And he definitely wasn’t a cloud​-​dweller.

If you ignored all the evidence against it and only looked at his broad muzzle, wide frame, and bulbous tail, you’d find it easy to call him a plain​-​dweller.

If you didn’t… then well, he was an enigma.

His heavy hurricane of a voice was speaking, saying, “The Specter, aren’t you? Of course, you are. I saw you and your pet alchemist stumble like a ring ago.” He gave an exaggerated tapping of his alula on his chin. “I’d pondered just what you might want, this close to the faer.”

I stopped gawking and tilted my head. “Something happened, it —”

“I know something had happened. But I do not believe in coincidences. If you’re here, it is because you desired to be here. You will tell me why.”

I worked my jaw. What could I say to satisfy this dragon? “Well, I was talking to Mlaen about a position in this administration, that’s all.”

“And interrupting Cynfe​-​gyfar’s delicate archival work.” The drake grinned at me, as if catching me in lie.

“Err, I —”

“So, you want to be a secretary, I take?” he said, flicking his tongue.

“Well, yes. I don’t have much skill for any —”

“Or, you have an ulterior.”

I bared my fangs at the drake. Stop interrupting me! But I licked my fangs and swallowed the thought.

The drake laughed. “Think about it. You flick once at Cynfe​-​gyfar and there’s all the motivation you’d ever need,” he said, throwing up a wing. “I have to call her Gyfari, for dewing out loud! Me!” He was tossing his head. “I heard some idiot looked at her the wrong way and lost an eye for it. On the cloudy faer’s own bloody orders!”

My brilles paled, and my tongue found its way to my eyes, as if I might lose them in a moment. I didn’t choke down my squeak.

“It isn’t hard to imagine some one scenting out that, and deciding they wouldn’t mind acquiring such treatment as well.” The creamy​-​white drake’s gaze snapped back to me, accusative brown eyes peering and coming to rest somewhere deep inside of me.

He clicked his tongue, and leaned in closer. “But that isn’t it, is it? You want the influence, having the faer listen to you.”

“It’s not —”

“You were in that meeting room. You saw how she acted. A secretary, a scribe⁠ ⁠—⁠ whom dragons listen to? Who can mock the faer and get a smile rather than a noose?”

He let the question hang.

I would have, too, but my brilles cleared and I asked, “I was in the meeting room. But you⁠ ⁠—”

“Know her history,” he said quick. “She is predictable.” Looking dead at me, “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

He let the question hang again, and I let it hang too this time. Then, like dropping a fluttering page, he added, “It is almost as though she isn’t just a secretary, no? I shall allow you to ponder that.” He leaned back away from me.

Salt gathered on my fangs. “What do you want? You’re holding me up.”

A hallow smile. “I like to keep a tongue on what happens in my administration.” He released a breath. “Truth be told, you couldn’t influence the faer whether you did ever become a secretary or not.” Looking at me again, his tone was light, “I just don’t want your kind in my administration. We’ve got enough gray scales, Dyfnderi, and whatever the flames Cynfe⁠ ⁠—⁠ gyfar is.”

He glanced up. “Would you believe I am the only native with any kind of power in this town? That cloudy faer dropped all the high houses from the administration, and somehow no one else with plain​-​dweller scales ever makes it this far in the administration. Ponder that.”

“But you don’t have plain​-​dweller scales.”

“That’s because I’m noble. I have the blood⁠ ⁠—⁠ the last remaining heir of the eternal faer, in fact. Bariaeth ac Dwylla. Remember that name.” He smiled beatific. “Though, you will not need to in a few gyras.”

“Um, that doesn’t really explain it. Or anything.” Taking a breath, I asked again, “Don’t all natives have brown scales? Or brownish scales?”

“Leucism. Dwylla and his children have native blood, but we’ve always stood above the rest, always were special.”

“So if you’re the first faer’s heir, and this is your administration, why aren’t you faer?”

“I,” — he cleared his throat — “We do not know. Care for a story?”

“Um, I asked.”

Another laugh. The laughs were the one thing honest about him. “The story goes that at the height of the his power, Dwylla’s wife became gravid.” His face was a scowl. “But instead of welcoming his coming heir, he ordered her to take her egg, as far away from the Berwem as your wings will take you. He said to take the heir and never think of him again.”

He stabbed a gaze back at the center corridor, where Mlaen​-​sofran had disappeared to. “So Dwylla made some spiritless, boneless cliff​-​dweller faer instead of his own scale and blood.”

Looking back at me, with triumph and the tone of practiced finality, “But, at generations’ last. We⁠ ⁠—⁠ I⁠ ⁠—⁠ have returned, the rightful ruler of Gwymr/Frina. Now, it’s a matter of waiting.” He gazed at me with a gleam in his clouded brilles, a triumphant smile that asked you to revel vicariously in his achievement.

Instead, I frowned. Something bout his behavior touched a note that echoed. I brushed a frill against my headband.

For all that it was going so awfully, I did have mission here in the cliffs. Here was a chance. Lowering my head in acknowledgment, folding my frills in submission, looking up in pleading, I said, “I don’t suppose you could make me someone important when you become faer?” My tone wavered just enough to notice without grating.

Bariaeth was nodding at me, his smile taking on a haughty quality, of a noble that might condescend to help me. I breathed out in small relief. I hadn’t done anything like this in a while.

He said, “I meant what I said when I told you I don’t want your kind in my administration. But you’ll be kept around.” His smile faded, having stayed its purpose. The husk of the smile didn’t leave his face, though. “After all, It’s not often you find someone in this game whom you can so easily read. Not like Adwyn or Ushra​-​sofran.”

In my mouth, cloying salt dewed my fangs, but nothing betrayed that on my face. I nodded in rhythm with the drake and watched him.

He turned around, saying, “I don’t trust dragons. Do you?”

Looking up slow at Bariaeth, I frowned. As I peered at the noble dragon in his immaculate robes, his creamy white scales, his eyes laced with intelligence, all that struck me was how alone he looked. Here was the rightful faer of Gwymr/Frina, sole heir of the eternal faer. And… was there any one for him to share it with?

“Um, don’t you have siblings?”

A beatific smile. “Of course not.”

“A partner? Close friends?”

“What would be the point? I have other things to focus upon.”

My frown deepened. He worked alone. And⁠ ⁠—⁠ he saw me come in with Hinte, and talking with Cynfe, with Mlaen⁠ ⁠—⁠ yet he only deciding to speak with me with I was alone, too.

How different would I look in his eyes — in anyone’s eyes? Clawing for a little wingful of power, scheming and making a mess of things. Here was the rightful heir of Specter, sole sky​-​dweller in all the land of glass and secrets. But… I had Hinte, I had Digrif, and Uvidet and Awld⁠ ⁠—⁠ and maybe Mawla too.

Do I trust dragons?

What else could I say? “I do.”

“And that is why I shall be throned, and you shan’t even draw close.” He turned away from me. “You cannot trust. Incentives are better than trust. And I know what you want, what incentives you’ll need, in time.” He glanced back just to smile, and said, “But for now, here,” tossing a coin back at me.

A pure electrum piece. One hundred forty and four aris. Five cycle’s pay at the Crwydro Llygaid. I looked up, and Bariaeth ac Dwylla was gone.

---

I pushed open the doors of the town hall. Opening the door, the heat of the night washed over me. I let out a sigh. Turning to leave, a weight lifted from my back. Though Cynfe’s invective still burned on my fangs, the anxieties of dealing with politics and agendas sat behind me. For now.

My tiredness rears its ugly head. My eyes blurred, and my legs ached, protesting the day’s events. I let out a long​-​building sigh, and began my trek home.

When I exited the hall a bright​-​white figure stood there, waiting on me. I waved my wing, she gave a lazy flick of her tail. Blood rushed to my frills. Hinte didn’t mean anything by it, but that gesture was so much more inappropriate, back in the sky. I tossed my head, clearing it.

By now, Hinte had turned and started off. Her pace was slow, inviting me to fall in step, and I did. We walked along awhile. At one point, she spread her wings as if to fly, but she closed them a heartbeat later.

“I’m sorry,” I said without thinking. “Really sorry.” I added — this wasn’t just unfortunate, it was also my fault. Hinte only flicked her wing, saying nothing. We walked under the amber streetlamps as a zephyr gusted at our sides and shadows twisted in the light of the moons.

Hinte bristled her wings beside me. The bandages caught the lamplight, looking amber. My feet clenched, scraping the road. Hinte couldn’t fly anymore because of those apes. They had hacked at her foreleg, betrayed us when we offered them escape for the cryst it stole.

“Why did this all have to be so complicated?”

Hinte tossed her head. “The faer will handle it.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean, why couldn’t we have found some dumb monster in the Berwem instead of those apes?” My brilles clouded. “I just can’t get those last moments out of my mind.”

Hinte tilted her head.

“I mean, like the way the last one looked so surprised, or how that one only wanted to bury his friend. It’s…”

“An insult. I cannot fly. I lost an entire day’s work in the Berwem. This was not something we decided. They brought this on themselves.”

I cowed down a little. “Yeah, I know. They don’t — I’m not saying they not monsters. It’s just kinda of sad, at least? It drags.”

“Do you expect me to feel something? What I feel is the three different sets of injuries, and the paingrounders keeping me from falling over right now. And my bags, empty and empty.”

“Right.” I hugged my wings to my body. “I lost my crabs, too.”

Hinte glanced at me, eyes clouded. “You already bled them.”

“But I was going to cook them or something. Now I can’t.”

Hinte’s gaze lingered on my for a moment, before she shook her head and looked away, tail lashing.

“We–we gave them what they deserved, I guess.”

Hinte still hadn’t looked back at me. “But you still wish we hadn’t?”

“I just… don’t feel better because of it?”

I’d rather just toil in the shop and stare up at the stars. Chwithach bothered me with enough frilly philosophy puzzles. I didn’t need any outside of the scrolls, ones where I might chose the wrong answer and do something wrong.

We had continued walking, and Hinte had stared at the ground awhile before she muttered, “You remind me of someone.”

My frills perked up. “Who?”

Hinte looked away. “It’s not important.” Hinte’s gaze found Ceiwad hanging in the west.

I looked away too. My wings flexed. Flying out into the cliffs, even sifting to a tiny, tiny extent, had felt fun⁠ ⁠—⁠ something new, something that I hadn’t done before. Hinte had been abrasive at first, but we grew a bit closer in the end. She’d smiled, shared stories.

My toes move to my left foot, feeling a ring of indented scutes on my left foreleg’s toe, where I had once worn a ring that had grown too tight. “You remind me of someone, too.”

My gaze lifted again, brilles clearing to stare at the stars. Hinte had brought her gaze back to me, but what she asked was, “Do you want revenge on whoever made you leave the sky?” When I looked back, I saw that she was looking at my headband.

“I — no. I made me leave, it was my decision.”

I reached to the top of head, feeling the cloth headband there. Underneath, hidden from sight⁠ ⁠—⁠ except Hinte had seen it once⁠ ⁠—⁠ House Perdition’s judicators had burned, seared, a mark of exile into my scales, so deep that no amount of molting would heal it. It still hurt, but it faded and I could bear the pain. If I pressed, I could feel the welts spelling matua⁠ ⁠—⁠ meaning grounded in Käärmkieli. My branded forehead ensured I could never be admitted into any skycity.

But would the brand of ‘Specter’ as my surname have been any easier to bear if I had stayed?

“Why would you leave your home?”

“It⁠ ⁠—⁠ I guess it didn’t feel like home?”

She hummed, and the conversation choked there.

I looked back in front of us. “So, do you want, uh, revenge on whoever made you leave the forest?”

“Ja,” she didn’t hesitate.

“Well, may the stars lead you.” It was my turn to look away, and I followed Hinte in looking at the pale green moon. When I stumbled, I dropped my gaze, and saw that I’d tripped over a bit of Hinte’s cloak⁠ ⁠—⁠ the one she’d lent me. I took it off and passed it back to her, and as I did I stared at her wings and her hindlegs.

“Are you okay, after everything that happened?”

“Why?”

“Because, well, because you’re one of my only friends down here. I mean, I know we’re probably not real friends or anything, I guess I just hate seeing someone I know and like hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

“Aside from not being able to fly?”

“I said I’m fine, stone frills. My wings will heal.” She paused. “You were hurt too.”

“Yeah, but nowhere near as badly as you. Mostly just in my legs, walking’s going to drag, but walking already drags.”

We came to the canal stretching across town and walked along it some ways. I watched the waters glimmer in the moonlight. I soaked in the sight, it was one I would miss when the gray season came.

When we reached a bridge, Hinte turned to me. “I do not regret bringing you with me, Kinri.”

I jerked my gaze from the waters to her.

“I will head into the cliffs next crestday to look for plants. Will you come?”

Would I? I had never expected Hinte to be doing something so dangerous in her free time. If I had known everything that would happen today, there was no way I would have agreed to come with her.

I had cowered behind a boulder when something moved in the vog. When I had dared to fly into the center of the lake, in spite of the danger, I nearly died. And while it was not the Berwem, Hinte said the cliffs would not be more forgiving, that they were just another set of dangers.

But. What about our teamwork against the humans? Or saving Hinte from the rockwraiths when I could have just ran away? And, underneath it all, this had not been so bad. It was exciting, a break from the endless grind of my daily life. Down on the surface, without my brother Ashaine, there was no one to break me out of my routine. I met Hinte’s gaze. Maybe I needed this, someone to make my life interesting.

“Y–yes, of course.”

Hinte lowered her head. She turned, ambling toward the bridges. “Will you keep what happened today a secret?”

“Um, what? Didn’t we just get done unsecreting everything that happened today?”

Hinte worked her jaw, mouthing ‘unsecreting.’ It had made sense. To me. “We didn’t tell the faer everything. Anything I’ve told you that I haven’t told them, can you keep it secret?”

“Why?”

“Do you trust me, Kinri​-​gyfar?”

I don’t trust dragons. Do you?

I looked to the waters. “I⁠ ⁠—⁠ yes. You saved my life. Multiple times. How could I not trust you?”

Hinte didn’t smile, but her frills extended, and her tail fell, hanging by her legs. She glanced at the waters of the river, and asked me, “Why did the fired accountant cross the river?”

“To get to the other bank.” I gave a fangy smile. “What? Maybe it doesn’t translate well.”

Hinte rolled her head, and took a step toward the bridge; but she turned and looked at me one last time.

“Will I see you in the morning?” she askeed.

“At–at your house?”

“Yes.”

“Yes!”

“I will see you then. Silent winds, my friend.” Her paces picked up, and she disappeared over the bridge, leaving me with the lingering scent of grapes.

My friend? I squeaked. A small, warm wave of heat rushed over my body. Despite the looming horror of war that I might have the blame for, I had my own victory to celebrate. After everything that had happened in the Berwem, me and Hinte had become friends! At long last.

Hinte’s frills twitched at my squeak, but with her back turned she couldn’t see the frilly grin on my face. For the best, really. I waved her off, waving my wing hard and fast enough to vex my sore, injured leg.

I turned and low​-​walked away, struggling to find a familiar street. I must have looped around a few times, but I came to a main road I could follow back home. Shuffling through the streets of Gwymr/Frina, I found walking alone again a little sad. Did Hinte make it home okay? I didn’t have a reason to think she wouldn’t. But I didn’t know anything with kind of day we just had.

And she would have to walk all the way back. I clenched my claws. I twitched my frills, but I could still hear Hinte’s shouts and screams. Those brutish apes had threatened, injured my friend. I growled in the lonely night, startling someone in the shadows that I had not seen. Cringing, I walked on with my head lowered.

I reached the familiar corners near the inn I stayed at, the Moyo​-​Makao. My motions felt automatic as I leapt in the air, then flew a lethargic flight to the elevated porch of the inn. I pulled at the handle. In my tiredness, I missed the handle and instead grabbed the bamboo floor of the porch. I grabbed hold on the second try, pulling the bottom of the door.

Stepping into the lamp​-​lit lobby, I gave an exhausted wave to the bartender, then I trudged up the steps. If that ground floor held anyone or anything of note as I walked in, I passed it by, too worn out to attend to my surroundings. I reached my door. Room 35. I stepped in, not bothering to lose my clothes or clean my forelegs as I collapsed on the my bed, sifting off into a sleepy mess, so glad this day had ended at last.

---

Somewhere above, as if guiding, the endless stars still shone.

“Silent winds, my friend,” said Hinte as she turned, waving her tail. While she appreciated Kinri’s help in the lake, she breathed relief at parting ways with her. The exile had no appreciation of the thoughtful silence, always annoying her with unhatched questions. But worse, she acted utterly apterous when she opted not to ask questions. As if her tongue were rubber and her frills were stone.

There were worse issues, however. Such as Hinte deciding to carry back all of those apes. When she should have known the inquirers would return regardless, when she should have known the weight would have her helpless to fly. Or that it would put her at the mercy of those rockwraiths Kinri had doubtless stirred up. Hinte wasn’t helpless.

The apes had escaped because of her tonguelessness. If she had tied them down better, if she had ensured they held no surprises, if she had thought to remove their weapons, if she had brought more emergency mixtures, that incident could have been avoided. She was better than this. These were hatchling mistakes, and she did not have the exile’s excuse of being a hatchly sifter. Her Dozent would be disappointed.

The dark​-​green wiver fell back on her hindlegs, crouched tensely, prepared to take off. Then, she remembered. Apterous rockwraiths.

Could she exact a proper revenge on them? In the academy, she learned of the alchemical plague that had eliminated the arboreal songwraiths from the forests. She wondered if her Opa or her Dozent knew anything about it. She swatted her dark frills at the thought. Nothing for it, right now.

More pressing would be defending herself better. Her Dozent’s knife wouldn’t suffice, even if she still had it. That left alchemical tricks, and Opa would know plenty. And she knew which she wanted; she’d dreamt of it since Academy.

As she crossed the canal and entered the clean and empty west side, Hinte took off her cloak. She bristled her freed wings, felt the punctures nimbly mending. The cloak was an embrace or shield, but she didn’t need it at night, on the west side of town. Elsewhere, however? Even long after the Inquiry, a grain of suspicion regarding alchemists ran through the town. Their work, of course, was accepted.

Most of the town ignored or forgot rumors of Ushra’s return, but the Gären name itself wore alchemical connotations, even outside the forests. And treasonous connotations because of grandmother. And so, she did not garner friends, or even friendliness. Even above the… unsavory reputation of forest​-​dwellers themselves.

Ushra had not helped that. Besides being the sole surviving alchemist from before the Inquiry, besides being older than Gwymr/Frina⁠ ⁠—⁠ older than Dwylla⁠ ⁠—⁠ yet still living, Ushra was a surgeon. You did not become surgeon without being well​-​acquainted with dragon anatomy and physiology, with corpses and cadavers.

It offended the frilly religion of the cliffs. While their offense fledged an ashy sort of sense, it did not fly. Nothingness awaited you after you alighted. Corpses were sacks of flesh that would only turn to rot and dust. The cliff​-​dwellers, however, insisted that your body acted as a vessel, that on death some distillate would evaporate out toward some life​-​after​-​life. If you believed that, then of course you would protect your corpses from science and medicine. And if, despite that effort, someone had gained enough familiarity to perform surgery?

Ushra had studied and invented die Wundervernarbung before the war, before there was a overabundance of listless, lifeless bodies. Even then, there had not been a shortage of cadavers; but there had not been a shortage of fledgling anatomists and surgeons, either. The academy had a system, and if a student needed extra cadavers for further research, there were forms to fill out, intervals to wait. Ushra’s mind worked faster than that.

Whether it was for practicing surgery, or perfecting a flesh regenerating formula, there was suspicion against anyone possessing a skill that required intimacy with dragon physiology. Why?

They robbed graves.

Those days had long landed for him, Ushra had said. Now that he once again acted as head alchemist of Gwymr/Frina, he did not want for cadavers. But, he had continued, it would be a shame for you to lack those skills should you ever need to travel abroad.

Traveling abroad. The world held a number of alluring sounds and smells. As a Gären, even unmoored from the forests, she did not want for money to spend or gyras to live. But would she ever follow that trail? Her Dozent, her grandparents, even Digrif and Kinri all lived in the cliffs. Was there any cause to leave? She flexed her wings, and tasted welcomed salt on her fangs.

Apterous rockwraiths.

The walk home was slow. She moved like a tortoise, unable to fly, only able to inch forward, step after step after step. The pace gave her time to macerate in the events of the day. Her jaw was mouthing the words that had set everything in motion.

“Have you found them?”

She’d lighted on her Dozent’s map and his calculations. She’d confronted him like this, and he’d answered, his eyes never leaving his bottle, saying, “Yes, I found⁠ ⁠—⁠ something. In the dustone cliffs. At long last, ha.” But why did his tone sound so hopeless?

“Let me go investigate, I will taste whatever is there.”

“It’s been a fruitless search for so long.” It hadn’t sounded like he was talking to her. “It would turn out no different.”

“Then I will bring someone. With two tongues, I will find them.”

“So assured. If you catch them, pry at the shadows, then this whole crooked tapestry unravels.” He licked his eyes, and his tongue hung in the air for a beat. “Let me sleep, hatchling. We have two days⁠ ⁠—⁠ and you wouldn’t let me rest till then, would you?”

Her Dozent had never told her the full extent of his mission, never even told her who ‘they’ were. She had her guesses⁠ ⁠—⁠ that Wrang character; and perhaps even the rod​-​twirler and the angry guard Ffrom. But Wrang stood more centrally; he catalyzed this somehow, she knew. He had smelled of sour metal and ozone, and she knew exactly what magic smelled like.

Whoever it was, her Dozent had been right. Someone was using the apes. Hinte’d solved that problem. She only wished Dozent’s solution didn’t leave her claws dripping. But there was no guilt in justice; and there was no loss in justice, either⁠ ⁠—⁠ only gain. Only gain.

And now, with the threat of war on the horizon, she found her gaze searching that star​-​splattered sky above. What had he meant with his words? The whole crooked tapestry unravels.

Staring up the sky, Hinte’s dark frills folded back. More than once Kinri had dragged her out in the southern cliffs, to ‘gaze at the stars.’ As if there were anything worth seeing in the mess of diminutive suns that hid from the luminous lovers, who far outshone any offering of the night.

The exile, whose night​-​blue face looked as messy with silver scales as the sky above, she could tell you everything and more about any of those stars. How they were indispensable for navigating high in the sky over days and days of anonymous ocean, or how they were moving and you could see it if you built a telescope the size of a house. Kinri had said the stars watched you no matter how far you went.

What vast tapestray had to come undone to leave that cluttered mess of little runt suns up there?

Hinte swatted her frills.

It never had. Hinte spread her frills and brought her gaze back to the earth. The stars were nothing. Blind and silent. She wouldn’t have time for such pointless musings if she could fly. Apterous.

---

Hinte did reach her home. As she stepped from the gravelly lapilli to the soft, loamy soil, she felt at home on two levels. If you clouded your eyes and held your tongue, you could pretend you never left, never had to leave the forests. Hinte could almost forget what happened, why she now lived with her grandparents.

She was very still. When the dark​-​green wiver cleared her eyes the illusion broke, as it should. The house stood before her, one story tall, not unlike a traditional Teif/Günstig house. Yet it lay on the ground, a departure. The neighborhood itself lay in a basin of sorts, a distance from any canyon walls, which had dragged any choice from them. Ahead, the looming shapes of trees and other plants writhed in the wind and shadows. It felt welcoming in a way the red and amber lamps of Gwymr/Frina never had.

The dark​-​green wiver strode toward the house in a high walk, ignoring the ache in her legs. The Gären estate had a wide and raised porch, fit for landing. At the moment, Hinte appreciated instead that she could climb onto the porch. Apterous.

Hinte eyed the walls of the house as she marched toward the door. The windows sat narrowed in the cute slit design of the forests. In those windows lay glass, another departure, something that was, in the forests, a luxury. But they lived in Gwymr/Frina now, where glass sold like brick. The walls, however, were built of wood, something that had traded places with glass as a luxury. It had slacked her tongue, seeing so many houses built of scoria or even stranger stones. The town had houses built of dustone or fire clay, too. But those were just sad.

She gave the windows another glance. Light was slinking out from breaks in the dark curtains; Hinte didn’t give herself time to groan. Before she stepped onto the porch she had stripped out of her sifting suit and scraped the largest chunks of glass from her legs. If you flicked, you could still taste she’d been sifting. Ushra would. But Hinte pulled out again her cloak, covered it all up. She would step into her room before anyone had time to wave their tongues.

The short, wide door lay before her. It opened inward and its handle perched on the right edge. She glanced at the keyhole just below.

Falling to her hindlegs, the darkly cloaked wiver pulled from her bag an opaque glass not larger than her claw and a vine of blue fruits that were not grapes. She bit off a single tiny fruit and uncorked the glass jar. The hard red substance sat like chalk inside. But after a beat, Hinte spat blue saliva onto it. The substance liquefied and grew translucent. A silvern key were floating to the top.

The darkly cloaked wiver took the key in her wing​-​digit, unlocking the door, and dropping the key back, where the substance was already reddening again. The key sunk back, and hid. It had once again hardened, but the forest​-​dweller gave it a second glance. She flicked her tongue, dipping her claw into the jar, and she scented. The jar’s contents smelled of overwhelming rot and fermentation, but also spice and cinnamon. It was dying, then. She would refresh the culture tomorrow.

Replacing it in her bag, she stepped through the door. The scents of the house washed over her. But she focused on one aroma above all others: Entwining itself in the alchemical and biological aromas of his workshop, wafting to her through the door, under that frilly painting Gronte kept around, mingling with the fresh blossoms of the desert flower blooms in the front room, overpowering the lingering rot and minty grapes, and like that finding its way to Hinte’s tongue, there came the scent of Ushra, not unlike dried apples or salted quinces, but so much older. The rest of the workshop scents climbed over each other to reach her. There came the usual aromas, but also that of rotten cultures and almost fermenting hogshind. What had Ushra been working on this evening?

But, coming from the opposite direction to meet the opposite reception, the smell of tanning leather and bitter, poisonous schizal roots reached her. Gronte was still up and working, then.

Hinte stepped through the house, legs bending and dropping her to a slinking low​-​walk. Walking through the hallway, she passed the door to the dining room first. Glancing in, there lay an old dark​-​jade wiver on one of the leather mats around the dinnerslab, nearest the doorway. Her back was turned, her tail was swishing, but Hinte did not doubt the old wiver could smell her entering.

On the slab, a bird perched, facing the dark​-​jade wiver and several dull rocks lay between them. He stood there, a parrot cloaked in blues and with purples and a ridge of feathers rolling down his head, his head cocked, and staring at the game board. But that little head jerked up at some traitorous footstep of Hinte’s. At that he forgot all about the game.

“Eeh! Nestling hath returned!” squawked the bird.

Hinte looked at the parrot, angling her frills in frustration. But that evaporated as she stared at the purply parrot, bouncing between its two talons and hooting at her appearance.

Hinte licked a drop of salty venom from her fangs. She said, “That’s fledgling to you, Versta.”

Versta upturned his head and crowed. “Ueh. Yer still in the nest, nestling.” Then a dark​-​jade alula poked the parrot. Versta gave a trill before turning his back to the dragons and hopping over to bowl at the center of the dinnerslab.

The bowl was wide as your foreleg’s length and tall enough that, with the contents half​-​gone, you couldn’t see from the doorway what was there. But she smelled spiced slipfrog, twisted carrot roots, and the blue fruit Hinte kept in her bag.

Versta, having snapped up a small carrot root in his beak, peered back at Hinte with one eye, but the alchemist had already turned to the old wiver.

Gronte, standing to face the darkly cloaked wiver, had shed her work clothes for an apron some time ago. Her electrum necklace, a flourish on the locket, hung over it. Her frills, worn with a few holes in them, seemed to smile at Hinte.

Her grandmother said, “Welcome home, Enkelin.”

“Hello, Gronte,” Hinte said, and looked away, gaze finding again the painting over the workshop door, all oily and bright. Gronte had commissioned it many gyras ago, dances after Hinte first fledged. All five of them had likenesses in the painting: Hinte, Gronte, Ushra, Versta and Staune. Versta sat on Gronte’s head, wings spread, while Staune perched on Ushra’s alula. The painter had caught Staune glaring at the purple parrot, and preserved the moment.

Hinte twitched her frills. The painter had taken pains to exaggerate her fading hatchly aspect. Her likeness’ eyes and frills were bigger, wings smaller. She did not remember smiling when she posed for this painting. Gronte and Ushra looked younger too, many gyras more than the few drops that had passed since would have allowed⁠. But that was a matter of course.

Her grandmother was talking. She’d said, “It is very late — so much later than typical and it seems odd. Did something happen?” Gronte had gripped her necklace, but slowly released it as she finished speaking.

A moment passed with a dark​-​green forefoot sliding over another as Hinte glanced down the hall, toward her room. “No.I am only tired. Can I sleep?” She pulled her cloak tighter around herself.

Gronte waved her tongue, contracting frills. She was smelling the scent of die Heylpflanze and die Wundervernarbung, scents she could recognize even among the sulfur and ash clinging to Hinte, and among the endless smells suffusing the house. Being the matriarch of a famous alchemical clan would do that.

The wrinkly smile faded and Gronte’s brilles cleared with it. “Come here, Enkelin.”

Hinte lingered at the doorway a beat more before submitting to the force underlying her grandmother’s voice. Into the room she stepped, but still stood paces apart from Gronte.

The old dark​-​jade wiver extended a wing, brushing it against Hinte’s cheek. Hinte didn’t flinch away. It wouldn’t have helped. She did look down, though.

Despite this Gronte watched Hinte, it was when the young wiver looked up again and met the elder’s green​-​eyed gaze that she asked, “What happened?” She looked much older than her likeness in the painting, but it was an echo of her true age. Being the matriarch of a famous alchemical clan would do that, too. Or would have done that. The gyras in the cliffs were already showing on her face. Hinte would not feel sorry for her.

“Some trespassers in the Berwem,” murmured Hinte.

Gronte’s head snaked forward, her tongue flicking. “So is that where you go every cycle?”

“Yes.” Hinte stepped toward the dinnerslab, and Gronte stepped out of her way.

Gronte’s brilles clouded, and it was a beat before she asked, “So, who are⁠ ⁠—⁠ or were these trespassers?”

Hinte reached one of the dark​-​gray mats around the slab, but did not lay down just yet. “Humans. I will tell the whole story over breakfast. I invited some friends. Two.”

Gronte’s voice came from behind her. “Who?”

Hinte raised her head to look into the bowl, but Versta leapt in her way, spreading his wings to hide the contents. With a claw Hinte poked the parrot, and he jumped. “Digrif and Kinri,” she was saying.

Gronte hummed as the young wiver perused the bowl. “That second name seems familiar, but I cannot place it.” Gronte brandished an alula, and the parrot fluttered to perch there.

Hinte glanced back at her as she lay down on a dillerskin mat. “Night​-​blue scales, bright white freckles, rather small. The exile.”

“Oh, the Specter. Yes, I remember her.” Gronte smiled. “And who was the other?”

“Digrif.”

Gronte gave some melodic hum at this, and was winking her right frill.

“No, it is nothing like that. It was Kinri’s idea ot invite him, not mine.”

“Sure,” she said, a little too fast. “But can you tell me anything of what happened? You look like you just fought in a war.”

Hinte flinched,scored the leather mat a little with her claws. She kept her frills still while she thought.

The door to Ushra’s workshop made no sound as it opened, but the outflow of those scents was just as telling. At the footsteps padding through the hall, Versta broke his silence and clucked, raising one wing. “Ceya, the student returneth!”

The old, light​-​green drake stepped in, flicking his tongue. “You weren’t even alive when I was still a student, you minnow of a bird.”

Versta ruffled his feathers and warbled. In a moment he’d snapped down to the floor, waving his tail. When he cocked his head off to the side, he might seem to be facing an unrelated point, but one eye stared at Ushra. A parrot’s one​-​eyed glare. The dark​-​jade wiver prodded Versta and she again brandished her alula. Versta took the hint, hopping onto her wing and breaking his stare. He went back to peering at Hinte with one eye.

Gronte stroked Versta. “I imagine he hatched the habit because of — Ziplin.”

The room seemed to pause at the name. Hinte glanced at her Opa, watching for a reaction. Gronte looked up. She did not seem to alter her expression, but she might have held her breath for a moment more. Versta droned a low warble, bristling his wings.

Nothingness awaited you after you alighted. You left no soul or spirit in your wake. Only a lacuna, a hole where a dragon should be.

Ushra brushed name off with a lash of his light​-​green tail. “I have dried my fangs. That lout should too. It was gyras ago.”

Gronte only sighed. “They were like brothers, tartness. Versta has calmed down since then, but it will still take time to solder.” Versta squawked over to Hinte, lighting on her withers and wriggling into her cloak.

Ushra’s tone didn’t waver a notch. “And I have lost brothers as well.”

“How many?” She knew already, of course, but the drake didn’t even flick his tongue.

“Eight,” he said, in a tone that had the as you know woven in.

Versta darted around on Hinte’s back, hidden under her cloak. Hinte tried to catch the parrot with a wing, and he brushed against a bandage.

“Yes, and Versta only ever had the one. Take it in perspective, dear.”

Versta wriggled back to Hinte’s withers, squawked⁠ ⁠—⁠ squawked. “Nesty fledgling fell,” he said.

Hinte was mouthing “nesty” while Ushra turned to look at Hinte. The smaller wiver tried to push the purple parrot from her withers. Versta snapped his tongue, and pecked at the green dragon’s neck. Hinte growled and bit the parrot’s side, her fangs folded back.

“Minnow!” called another warbly parrot voice, rushing in after the alchemist. Staune flew by the play​-​fight between Hinte and Versta, pushing the purple parrot with a talon. Her flight did not betray that, however, and only Hinte and the other parrot felt any of it. By appearance, she was flying in dutifully after Ushra. And Versta happened to fall to the ground about that time.

Staune landed on the slab, a parrot of reds and blues. She stood as high as any of the dragon’s legs, half again as tall as Versta. She cawed, “Ground yourself, ueh!”

Versta responded with a garbled trill, and Staune returned it, louder, and soon the room filled with snapping and clicking sounds.

“Ground yourselves, both of you,” Ushra cut through. His voice was not loud, hidden in the parrots’ cacophony. But Staune fell silent. Versta did not, and Hinte smacked the bird. She only hit hard enough to be felt, she knew, but Versta exaggerated the blow, tipping himself over and waving his wings about. He opened wide his beak, but did not make any more sound.

Ushra brandished his alula, but Staune sauntered over, and let him pick her up and place on his withers.

Gronte looked to Versta acting out on the floor. “What were you saying, Versta​-​gyfar?” She emphasized the honorific, and the implication was clear: This was no time for frilliness.

Versta hopped to his feet and lighted again onto the darkly cloaked wiver. An eye level with the dragons, he spoke.

“Fledgling here fell. Lookee the wrappings.” Versta clutched a part of the cloak and pulled, revealing. Hinte jerked away and the parrot fell down onto his back

Gronte’s alula brushed against her locket. “Enkelin. Are you hurt?”

Hinte gave glances to Gronte, then Ushra, then Staune, and finally a burnt glare to Versta. “Was hurt. I’ve treated the wounds and wrapped them.”

It was Ushra who snapped his tongue. Brow narrowed, tongue flaring, he said, “Show me.”

Hinte pulled her cloak, revealing her bandaged wings and her bandaged hindlegs. Ushra’s only reaction was a clearing of his brilles and a twitch of his frills. He licked both of his eyescales before leaning in closer. “Rockwraiths?”

Hinte nodded. Her grandfather stepped closer. At his prodding, Hinte extended her wings.

Ushra examined her membranes, then her legs. “Ah, at least two of them. But not all these wounds were given by bite or claw.” Ushra waved a tongue. “Tools.”

“Indeed. Humans, out in the lake, it was,” Gronte said.

“Apes in the Berwem,” Ushra muttered. He flicked his tongue, staring at Hinte. “What happened?”

“Digrif and Kinri. They are coming for breakfast. I will tell you all then.”

Ushra arched a frill. “You had said you would be out with Specter​-​eti this evening⁠ ⁠—”

Gronte rounded on Ushra. “Did you know where she would be?”

“She had asked for the glazeward and respira recipes, and her bag hums with crysts. The rest was free to puzzle out.”

“You knew, and thought nothing of it?”

“She is past fledgling. She can make her own decisions.” He waved a light​-​green wing.

“Have you forgotten about the Berwem Interdiction? She cannot sift on her own.”

“Well, my granddaughter can make her own decisions⁠ ⁠—”

“The Berwem Interdiction?” Hinte asked. Gronte turned, about to answer, but Ushra continued.

“— and regardless, it is important you inform us of what occurred in the lake. Those weapons could have been poisoned. And the rockwraith bite is venomous⁠ ⁠—⁠ ineffective against squamata, but their foul mouths promote infection.”

“I cleaned them.”

“And I shall clean them again.” As if commanded, Staune leapt from Ushra, then flew into Ushra’s workshop.

“Give the wiver some rest, tartness. Today has been exhausting, I should imagine.”

“It is pressing,” Ushra said. “Hinte, you had cleaned it — how?”

“I washed them with my canteen,” she said, her right foot falling over her left. “The tool wounds are treated with die Wunder, the bites with Heylpflanze.”

Ushra lowered his head down to Hinte’s ankle, his tongue flicking out. A beat after just the forks touched the wound, it slipped back in his mouth. His frills were wrinkling in thought.

“Hmm. These tools were poisoned⁠ ⁠—⁠ a simple, inorganic toxin causing burning irritation and spasms. Its effect is waning now.”

The drake had determined all that from smelling the wound. Ushra had been one of the greatest alchemists in the forest. His skill and scholarship alone would do that, but his sensitive tongue had been what turned him into a legend.

“Fortunately for you, die Wunder causes complications only with foreign biological materials⁠ ⁠—”

“I know.”

Staune returned, dropping a bag by Ushra’s feet, then lighting onto his withers again.

“Clearly you do not, or you would not be so careless. Die Wunder is a mixture for a sterile hospital setting, or dire, fatal wounds. Never an ordinary field situation. I did not give you that emergency vessel to use like some common poultice⁠ ⁠—”

“It was life​-​threatening⁠ ⁠—⁠ Kinri was stabbed in her neck. She would have⁠ ⁠—”

“Threatening your life, Hinte. Would you use Wunder if the next knife had come for your neck, and you had nothing left to save you?”

Hinte remained silent, looking away from her grandfather. When she finally spoke, her voice became a whisper.

“Alchemists save people.” Her voice was small in her throat. Ushra said nothing, but did not look away from Hinte. He finished dressing her wounds in that silence.

Meanwhile, Staune watched Versta watch Hinte. The red parrot half​-​spread her wings, and opened her beak, as if to mime a caw. The purple parrot mimicked her. After a beat, the red parrot’s motions become more excited, her head twisting and her beak gnashing. But her talons remain planted and unmoving, not stirring the alchemist from his work. Before long the mimicked motions became animated enough to elicit a involuntary squawk from Versta.

“Shattup, you minnow.” The last two words mimicked Ushra’s voice.

Gronte sighed. “Staune is going to remember that one.”

Versta ruffled his feathers. “You started it, you nesty fledgling.” For some reason, Versta decided to say it in Hinte’s voice.

The red parrot just upturned her beak and cocked her head away from the purple parrot. She then tapped Ushra with a talon, whispering, “Eat?”

“Go ahead.” The light​-​green drake had finished with Hinte’s leg.

Hinte looked between Gronte and Ushra, tongue measuring her words. “Opa, I⁠ ⁠—” hesitance caught up to Hinte as she met Ushra’s black​-​eyed gaze, and her words faltered on her tongue. So she altered her course, asking, “Has that stray cat messed up your gardens today?”

“No.” He paused his rifling through the bags. “You had something to do with that, I presume?”

Hinte hummed, but Versta pecked her on her cheek. Hinte nudged the parrot. “Quiet,” she said.

“Are Kinri and Digrif okay?” Gronte asked, cleaning up the game board, forgotten, with dull stones sitting lonely on the slab.

“Kinri took some bites too, but we both came through the gate fine. Digrif was not with us.”

“Was she with you the other times?”

Hinte paused a moment to consider. “No.”

“Enkelin,” — she saw her granddaughter’s frills wrinkle at the saccharine title⁠ ⁠—⁠ “you could have at least taken one of the parrots with you. It would be safer.”

She could not do that, she knew it. But just saying that would be revealing in itself. She could lie; but the parrots would never forget it if Hinte implied they could not have helped her. A moment passed before Hinte could think of a innocuous rationalization. “Versta is your parrot. Staune is Opa’s. Maybe if I still had one of my own, I would.”

Her fangs ached at using Sonnesche’s lacuna to cover herself up. She looked down, mouthing, I’m sorry.

Gronte looked at Ushra. He clicked his tongue. “What a coincidence,” was all he said.

Hinte tilted her head. But it was Versta who cawed an elaboration. “Monsun can’t fly! She’s fat.” Hinte flinched at the name.

“Minnow!”

“Quiet, the both of you.” Gronte turned to Hinte, giving her a sympathetic look. “We wanted to keep it a surprise. Monsun is gravid, though we don’t know when or by whom.”

“She’s awake? How–how long has it been?” Hinte hadn’t payed much attention to Monsun when she had been brought back from the forests. No one held it against her. It was a knot, on so many levels.

“She is awake regularly,” Ushra said. “Only often enough for us to coerce her to eat. Or force her to. But she’s been in torpor ever since she arrived.”

“And before that?”

“We don’t know,” started Gronte. “They all but thrust her into our wings when she arrived, told us nothing about how she’d been coping or why she was so melancholic, she was missing feathers, among other things, which told a story on its own, and she doesn’t speak of anything but⁠ ⁠—” Gronte stopped herself. She touched her locket and started to lift it, but let it fall after a beat.

“But now she’s gravid?”

“Yes. And well, she eats voluntarily, and has for the three cycles now. She’s asked for you come see her when you’re ready, Enkelin. It makes me think she might be getting better.” Her voice shook a little, and Versta trilled melodic.

“Is she still awake?”

“I last checked on her rings ago, I do not know.”

Versta trilled, high and discordant.

“Will you be quiet, Versta​-​gyfar?”

“Nuh.” Versta cocked his head, giving the young wiver a one​-​eyed stare from her back. She met it, frills narrowing.

“Do you want to go outside, then?”

“Suree!” Versta was excited, but he remained still on Hinte’s back.

---

On the porch, Ceiwad illuminated the night in palest green. Hinte had taken a lamp with her, and it cast a small muted circle on the porch. Versta took the opportunity to flex his wings, flying circles around Hinte’s lamp, miming a moth. Hinte watched, nursing a glare in her frills. The venom dewing her fangs grew poisonous. She wavered first.

“What do you want?”

Versta landed on the porch, opposite Hinte in the lamplight. He stood close to the lamp, so that he could stand above it and cast scary shadows on his face.

The parrot said, “You know.” He leaned forward with a wing to his breast in some formal gesture. “Our arrange​-​a​-​ment.”

“Yes, you did it.”

“I did well?”

“How did you do it?”

Versta hopped around on the porch, turning his back to Hinte, pausing before completing the circle and facing her again. “Dropped a rock a its head! Never saw it coming⁠ ⁠—⁠ like a black parrot, I was.”

“And the body?”

“Hid it under a fern. I can show you.”

“You didn’t do bad, Versta.”

“Enough to get your end of the arrange​-​a​-​ment?”

“Ja.” Hinte stepped to the door, but the parrot flew to her back, settling between her wings.

“But I want credit. Your credit wasn’t a part of the deal.”

“Fine. Ushra will not care. Do you want to tell Gronte what you did?” Hinte craned her neck to see the bird behind her.

“Nyih. I can tell Toastyfeathers though. I bet minnows can’t kill wildcats.”

“And minnows do not fly or talk, either. Your plan is not going to work.”

Versta walked to Hinte’s shoulder, warbling a cascade of notes that ended high. Hinte understood it as a question. Any forest​-​dweller would.

“Staune will not stop thinking of you as a minnow.”

“Will too!”

They stepped in the house like this. As they padded back toward the dining room, they caught sight of Ushra walking out, and Staune fluttering in the doorway. “She has a point, dear,” came a voice inside the room. “You need to eat. When was the last time you did that?”

Ushra patted some dust from his robes. “Three days ago. I can eat at breakfast in the morning.”

Gronte’s head pressed forward. “You need to eat everyday, Ushra.”

The light​-​green drake still didn’t turn. This time, at least, he waved a foreleg. “Hardly. As long as one isn’t flying or warming, he can go plenty of days without eating.”

“I’m not talking about your body, tartness, but your fangs.”

“My fangs are perfectly healthy.”

Gronte sighed. “I am the only one in this family who cares to use the dining slab.”

Versta trilled, “Nai.”

Gronte rubbed his head. “Oh, I haven’t forgotten about you. You’re my second family.”

Staune lighted down in front of Ushra. “Uah,” she trilled. “You broke this long, no? A few more minutes won’t change much, yes?”

Ushra had stepped aside to let in the white​-​clad wiver and the purple parrot when they appeared at the threshhold. When he turned, Staune landed on him again, giving a contented trill.

“I left the choicest pieces at the bottom,” Gronte said from the other end of the slab.

Ushra grunted in response, and Hinte laid herself back where she had lain before. In her absence, a plate had appeared in front of her mat, a mix of the bowl’s contents. She noticed some boring mushrooms, smelling mild enough she did not notice them earlier. Their surface was dotted with black and red dots, spices.

Hinte poked one of the blue grape​-​like berries. “Verbogentraube? We eat enough of these unlocking the door, Gronte.”

“And we have too many of them. We need to eat more before they rot. And these are pickled. You’ll like the taste.”

Hinte began eating her plate without further complaint. She was hungry, after sifting the Berwem, so she finished her plate before anyone else, even Gronte, who had started before her. She looked to her grandfather, her Opa. He sat, ignoring his food, holding an inked red feather, scratching symbols onto a small scrap of the fernpaper he kept on him in sheaves.

Hinte started, “Opa, I —” But she could not decide how to word her request; she altered her course: “—⁠ wonder, do we have any keimfrei dust around?”

Ushra twitched his frills, but his forefoot remained steady. “Are we alchemists? Of course we do.” He looked up from his notes, fixing Hinte with a wrinkle of his frills and a wave of his tongue. “How much do you need?”

“Not more than sixteen grams. It’s for — perfume.”

Hinte ignored the melodic hum Gronte gave at this.

“You taste the most disparate mixtures.” Ushra tossed his head. “Is it research? Should I be concerned?”

This was the least dubious of all of her recent ventures. It should be the easiest to justify. So why did an explanation elude her tongue?

“No,” she said. After pausing, she settled on her words. “Nothing to be concerned about.”

Ushra stared at Hinte, and she broke from his black gaze, watching the slab.

Gronte chewed her meal, smiling and watching Versta hop about the slab without much else to do. He tried poaching some of Ushra’s neglected food, but Staune screeched him off.

Hinte tried again, “Opa, I —” Ushra was already suspicious, and this would catalyze any remaining doubt in his mind that something was up “—⁠ want you to check my wings. They were injured multiple times, I couldn’t fly on my way back to Gwymr/Frina.” Again, Hinte had altered her course at the last moment, failed to voice her real request.

Ushra stepped over as Hinte spread her wings. It was beats before he said, “Hm. Numerous lacerations, punctures.” He looked closer at the hole where the arrow pierced her wing. “Wings heal quickly, but avoid flying for next… six days.” He flicked his tongue. “You applied die Heylpflanze, correct? Then I will apply another poultice in two days.”

Gronte’s frills worked as she watched, fingering her necklace. After Ushra returned to his seat, she spoke. “How were your wings injured?” While there some concern lay in her tone, here was also a sharpness, as if she wanted to scold but held herself back.

Hinte thought of the first fight with the humans, the archer, and the rockwraiths. “Fighting too many things at once, or sneaky things that misdirect or ambush.”

“If there’s that much of a pattern to it, do something about it,” Ushra said without looking up from his notes.

I am trying to, she wanted to say. Why couldn’t she just spit the words? Hinte looked down to her plate, but it was still empty. She glanced to Gronte. Would she say something else? Ask another probing question?

But Gronte swallowed her questions, and let her frills fall back to her neck. “You should check on Monsun before you go to bed, Enkelin.”

---

Though the Gären house stood one story high, it had an attic. Reached through a ladder at the very end of the hallway, Hinte had used it quite a bit in the past, for the roof could be reached through the attic. She had gone to the roof a lot when she learned to fly again.

How fitting that where she once faced the prospect of flying again, she now faced another specter from her past.

The floorboards of the Gären house did not creak as Hinte slinked to the hatch. The dim light from the fixtures did not waver. Her heart lay calm in her breast, and her breath flowed in regular draughts. The conversation back in the dining room was small and phatic behind her.

Hinte knocked on the hatch to the attic, but there was no response. Already standing on her hindlegs, she unlatched the hatch and pushed it up, the door flipping before sliding to a soft stop by some unseen mechanism. Hinte leapt into the attic, not even glancing at the ladder.

“Monsun?”

A weak, trilled, “Kouou,” was the response, just two notes repeated a few times. Hinte looked around. The attic was the blind darkness of night, so Hinte retrieved her milkmoth lantern from her bag. The light cast glairy white light.

A corner of the attic lay shielded by colorful drapes, embroidered with blooming trees. The drapes were taffy pink and baby blue. She could not have forgotten the shades. She had a whole drawer full of dresses colored just so.

Another halting, “Kouou,” from the parrot. Hinte licked away the sour venom on her fangs.

Behind the blooming drapes sat a tiny bed. On the left sat a shelf of wood and glass toys. On the right, a shelf of colorful scrolls. A parrot​-​sized jacket of knitted schizon hung above the bed.

All of these had a thin coating of dust. Except, Hinte noted, a single double scroll near the front. Unlike all the others, it had some length of the scroll rolled into its top roller.

Hinte breathed, and looked to the figure in the bed. She did not recognize the parrot. Monsun’s feathers, once a dazzle of whites and grays, were mottled, some broken or lost. Her beak was flaky, and she trembled in her bed, under the pink blanket.

“Haune?”

Hinte’s fangs soured. She did not lick them.

“Haune.” The parrot droned again, weak notes. “Is that you, Haune?”

“No–no. It’s Hinte.”

“Hinte, Hinte, Hinte.” Monsun croaked, and turned over in the bed. She pulled the covers down to see the wiver beyond the foot of her bed. Hinte stepped closer. “Ha”⁠ ⁠—⁠ Monsun croaked again⁠ ⁠—⁠ “Hi, Frau Hinte. Has Haune​-​sofran awoken yet?”

“Awoken?”

“Yes. Haune​-​sofran is brumating, sleeping out the winter. When the spring comes she will awaken, and Monsun will be there greet her and everything will be okay again.”

“Monsun…”

“Has the spring come, Hinte​-​ychy? Has Sofrani awoken?”

“No, Monsun. Haune still–still sleeps.”

Hinte now stood beside Monsun’s bed and climbed onto the raised mat there. It was cushioned like the mats downstairs, but rose as high as a stool.

“Then Monsun will wait for her. Spring will come and everything will be okay again.”

The voice of a lacuna was an aching silence. A lacuna was a hole that never filled. It could only be forgotten. Hinte did not want to forget.

“Do you remember her, Monsun?”

“Haune​-​sofran?”

“No.Yes. Haune and Sonnesche. Do you remember them?”

“Why would Monsun forget Haune​-​sofran or beautiful Sonnesche, why why why.” Monsun trilled, discordant and offended. “Sofrani is the limest green with frills like dark stormclouds and wings like a canopy. She always has a smile and one fang out, and can hit a moving target at ten throws, and when she yells it’s like,” the words gave way to into a blaring trill. The dark​-​green wiver hissed a halting laugh, but some of her venom dripped onto the floor below. The sour scent was overpowering now, and Monsun finally noticed.

“Do you miss Sofrani, Ychyr?” Hinte lowered her head. “Spring will come, won’t it? You came.” Hinte tried to smile, but could not shake the feeling that something was wrong with it.

“Where is Sonnesche, Hinte? She is always on your shoulder.”

Hinte jerked her head down, staring at the floor. The sourness on her fangs was a trickle now, and she could not wipe all of it with her tongue, so she used the sleeve of her leg. Hinte sobbed a halting half​-​growl, half​-​hiss, but drew her wings to her body before looking back to the gray parrot. “She sleeps with Haune.”

“Spring will —” Monsun croaked.

“Do you remember Sonnesche, Monsun?”

“Ahah, yes, why why why would I forget? She’s a little song​-​parrot, her singing makes the whole room stop to listen. She likes to poke her head around, gets you into trouble a lot.”

Hinte gave another sob.

“Everything will be okay, Hinte​-​ychy.” Hinte continued to sob, and Monsun closed her eyes after a few beats. When Hinte looked up again, Monsun had opened them, but they were half​-​lidded.

“Haune?”

“Monsun…”

The gray parrot’s voice had become a squeak. “Is that you, Haune?”

“Hinte.”

“Hinte, Hinte, Hinte.” Monsun brought a wing near her face. “Has the spring come yet, Hinte?”

“No, Monsun. Haune is… Haune still sleeps.”

“Monsun will wait. She’ll be there to greet her, to welcome her.”

Hinte wiped more venom from her fangs, and thankfully the flow seemed to have lessened.

“The winter is so cold, Sofrani.” Monsun’s voice was distant, and she did not seem to be looking at the forest​-​dweller. “So cold, cold, cold. Why won’t the spring come, Sofrani?” Monsun continued to tremble in her bed. She was shivering.

Hinte climbed into the small parrot bed, sliding under the covers with Monsun. She enveloped the parrot in her wings, and felt herself growing very warm with affection. The parrot’s shivering might have eased a fraction, but Hinte did not trust her judgment.

“Hinte?” the parrot asked.

“Yes.” Hinte’s voice had grown soft. As she looked at the gray parrot and heard her warm trill of response, she felt a kind of hope blossom in her breast and flow to her fangs. It flowed out as sweet venom that the parrot smelled, and she eased into Hinte’s embrace. Hinte remembered this feeling, the same feeling she felt when she stood on the edge of the house, when she flew for the first time since leaving the forests. She kissed the parrot’s forehead, and her voice was a wisp.

“I will be your spring, Monsun.”

---

Footsteps came from the hatch. Hinte stirred, not quite sleeping, but not fully aware. She did not know how long she held Monsun, but her lantern had dimmed, shining paltry light and almost dead. A wrinkled face appeared by her side, a purple parrot perched beside them.

“Enkelin,” Gronte said.

Hinte released the sleeping Monsun. “I should have come here sooner.”

“You needed time. We didn’t rush you to fly again, for the same reason. She didn’t like to be pushed, either.”

“I am not that much like my mother.”

“Yet you remind me of her so much. I don’t think she thought herself very much like me, either.”

“She would have been right.”

The lantern’s shadows hide Gronte’s reaction; she only stepped to the side, to let Hinte climb out the bed. When the young wiver was on her feet, Gronte wrapped a wing around her anyway. They walked to the hatch like this.

Hinte jumped through the hatch, lighting on the ground floor first, and Versta was fluttering after her.

“Why are we being so quiet?” he asked.

“It’s about respect, Versta,” Gronte said as she jumped down, closing the hatch behind her.

“Respect for whom?” Versta mimicked Gronte’s voice.

Hinte clicked a soft laugh at that. “For Monsun.”

“But she’s coocoo. She even know what respect is anymore?”

“She is hurt.” Hinte scratched her cheek while her tongue wriggled in her mouth, hunting for the right words. “Imagine if you lost Gronte, would you be in a good place?”

Versta trilled low.

“Remember Brennun/Gewolbe?”⁠ ⁠—⁠ Gronte folded her frills⁠ ⁠—⁠ “Remember how Gronte made enemies that day? Imagine then being left with ‘family’ who do not care about you or your lost.” Her voice came loud enough she paused a moment, and spoke again at half the volume. “And the only dragons who do care thought you were dead.” Hinte made a chopping motion with her wing. Salt scented the air.

Versta cawed, returning to Gronte’s withers. “He gets it, Enkelin. Calm down, please.”

“Fine. I need to talk to Ushra before I go to sleep.” To finally ask him.

As Hinte started off, she added, “No Verbogentraube when Kinri comes tomorrow, please?”

“Oh, Ushra will be cooking in the morning. My price for letting him away from the dining slab so soon. Ask him about it.”

Hinte walked away, toward Ushra’s workshop. Versta called, “Nighty night, nesty nestling.”

She tossed her head, saying, “See you in the morning, Gronte.”

Versta squawked at this, but Hinte only walked on. Gronte called out to her, but the dark​-​green wiver had already made the turn out of sight.

The workshop door stood sturdier than others in the house, the sort of hallow stone door common in homes of those who could afford them. Hinte pulled it, and stepped inside. Ushra stood in his black work robes as he measured the progress of some long​-​running reactions occurring in the large cauldrons arrayed on the left wall of the room.

Straight lines, rows upon rows and labels defined the room. Ushra would spend the first and last rings of most days organizing and reorganizing the workshop, making it bleed a sort of order that stuck with you, infected you.

In a word, the room was meticulous. Precisely how, Ushra would say, any respectable alchemist kept his workshop.

Hinte slowed to gaze at those projects of Ushra’s that were visible. Her eyes were drawn most to the tank with a bubbling hog corpse, the one she had smelled from the hall. The flesh of the hog looked to be devouring itself from the inside, while the outside roiled with bubbles and boils. If Hinte had to describe it, the word she’d reach for was polyps, and that was telling enough. Hinte shook her head, and walked further into the workshop.

Staune was trilling at Hinte’s appearance, and Ushra waved a wing without looking up. “Hello, Enkelin. If you need your good nights, I left a few written over by the door. Cross yours out.”

“No, it’s not about that, I —”

“Hinte! You dropped this in the dining room, I was trying to give it to you.”

It was the metal loop Kinri found in the Berwem. Hinte examined it again, holding it in two toes. “Thank you, Gronte,” she said, almost smiling.

Hinte stared at the loop. The exile had said it reminded her of Hinte. Was it the barbs? The way the metal twisted around itself? Was the meaningless, worth​-​nothing nature of the ring? She clenched it in her foot. No, Kinri was too nice for that. But would she mean it without realizing?

It was a joke, not a veiled insult. She was acting like Ushra. Kinri meant well.

Kinri, Hinte’s new friend. Kinri, with so many injuries, because her new friend hadn’t been good enough.

Hinte had to do this. Turning back to Ushra, she took a deep breath. She could not alter her course again. “Opa, I⁠ ⁠—” yes, Ushra was already suspicious, but, Hinte knew, and loathed to admit, that Ushra was keener than her, and her deflections were pathetic; he already knew something was up “—⁠ want dragonfire.”

“What?” It was Gronte who asked; Ushra understood immediately.

“I want dragonfire.”

The parrots stood still, Staune on her perch, and Versta on Gronte’s withers, both looking around at the dragons, watching at their reactions. Hinte couldn’t see Gronte’s face, but she heard the concern in her voice. Ushra, with both frills arched, just looked bemused and suspicious.

But the light​-​green drake did not turn around. “Dragonfire,” he muttered, finding something awfully frilly and disgusting about the word. “Unhatched dragonfire. I wish the academies would stop filling students’ heads with such fledgling, tongueless nonsense.”

“Nonsense?” Hinte said. “Wars have been fought and won with dragonfire —”

“It would be better if they had been fought and won without it. It is redundant, dangerous, and you don’t need it. Yes, warriors might have won a battle or two with alchemical venom⁠ ⁠—⁠ but what of the damage to their fangs? What of the damage to their glands? What of the feeble​-​tongued aspiring soldier who opts for a dragonfire operation, and the feebler​-​tongued alchemist who cripples their glands permanently or gives them a defective mixture?”

“But that is irrelevant,” replied Hinte. “You perfected die Wundervernarbung⁠ ⁠—⁠ dragonfire is beneath you.”

“Flattery should be subtler than that. To work, that is. You cannot outright lie. I’ve hardly perfected die Wunder.”

“What he means is,” it was Gronte starting, “he was an adventurer too, once⁠ ⁠—⁠ with Dwylla (may he fly forever) and Rhyfel the elder, and none of them needed dragonfire.” Versta trilled, punctuating Gronte’s words. “Shush,” she murmured.

“And we did more than slither around the Berwem. Yes, this business with the humans and the wraithen is unpleasant, but hardly enough to justify dragonfire. Unless you have some ulterior purpose, dearest Enkelin?”

“I am in danger, I need the protection.” From the contraction of drake’s frills, Hinte knew it was the wrong thing to say. Hinte stepped back a fraction. “There⁠ ⁠—”

“Why do you need this protection, Hinte​-​ann?” Gronte said. “You can stay away from the lake, isn’t that protection enough?”

“Rhyfel offered me a position on the Frinan guard.”

“Are you planning to stop barfights and catch diller thieves with dragonflame?” He snapped his tongue. “Why even leave the shop? You have no battle experience outside the academy drills, and that was gyras ago. You are an alchemist, not a warrior.”

“The faer thinks this might cause war with the humans.”

“So you want to be the heroic fire​-​spitting dragon who saves the day? Wars do not work that way.”

“If I could defend myself, I could be a medic there, I could make a difference. Instead of whiling away time on research no one will use or maybe seeing to whatever patient you deign to help.”

“I still have correspondents in the forest. My research is being used.”

The dark​-​green wiver glanced down, then glanced back. “Would you have discovered die Wundervernarbung cooped up in a shop like this?”

Gronte cut in before Ushra could respond. “Why are you so adamant about this?”

She thought of her Dozent’s words.

The crooked tapestry unravels.

She thought of Monsun, and how much the bird needed⁠ ⁠—⁠ something.

I will be your spring.

She thought of Kinri, the squalled.

“I am not a warrior, but an alchemist. How else shall I fight, but with my fangs?”

It felt frilly in her throat and sounded frillier off her tongue. But her trip into the Berwem had stirred something within her. Something that wasn’t satisfied with dry, sterile lectures and experiments, be them from her Opa or her Dozentin.

No, she wanted to heal. To taste the sweetness of staring off decay, of giving life its chance. But to do that, she had to make her own peace, to put things in order her way. To finish what had started in the firey lake, and the fires of the forest all those gyras ago. To light her silence with the roar of flames.

And if she ended like Jammra herself, grounded by her compassion, to heal her final foe instead of blazing forth with anger and vengeance?

It wouldn’t be a bad way to go.

---

Ushra had shooed the wivers from his workshop. Versta followed Gronte without question, and Staune trailed behind them. She revealed her ulterior when she flew to the almost​-​empty bowl on the dining slab. While Staune finished off the leftover food, Gronte collected dinner plates.

Versta perched high on a light fixture and waved his wings wildly in front of it. The moving shadows provoked a flinch from Staune, and the red and blue parrot leapt and swiped at the purple parrot and an, “Ueheh, minnow.” Swiped, the purple parrot now had some of the feathers of his ridge crooked.

When Gronte had cleared the slab, she stood by Hinte, watching her, frills working in thought. An alula ran up and down the chain of her necklace before settling on the locket. Hinte watched Versta play in the light, but kept Gronte at the edge of her vision.

“Versta,” Gronte suddenly said. “I left a boning knife in my work room. I’ll need to clean it before the night’s close. Can you be a dear and get it for me?”

Versta trilled and waved his wings in the lamp a few more times before he hopped into the air and flew out of the dining room.

“Hinte​-​ann, Enkelin, did Monsun tell you she wanted you to look after her hatch?”

Hinte turned to grandmother with a flare of her frills, eyes clearing in an instant. After a few beats, she lifted her head, humming a ‘no.’

“Would you? I’ll understand if you don’t want another parrot after…”

After Sonnesche. The day stood clear in Hinte’s mindeye. The spicy wood floor of the compound, the wavering kakaros light, the colorful walls of the basement where she hid. The certainty that this was the last day she’d experience any of this. The last, saccharine​-​sweet song Sonnesche had chirped for her, before she had given Hinte the slimmest chance of escape. The mad flight away, away, away. The half​-​frilled, unsmiling merchant with a hat that had thrust her toward her grandmother, out in the canyons.

She had flown, so high and hard, the fluttering, humming flight only a small fledgling could manage. Afterward, it had felt like her wings were broken. The world became silent.

Sometimes she still brandished her alula, waiting for a perch. Sometimes she still twitched her frills, waiting for some mellifluous trill.

But because of Sonnesche, Hinte now lived. Because of Sonnesche, Hinte did not end up like Monsun.

“I…” How could she get over that? How could any other parrot compare to lovely Sonnesche? “I have to think about it.”

Gronte wrapped a wing around her granddaughter, and for a moment they sat like this. Then Versta squawked his way back into the room, clanking a bloody boning knife down on the slab. He lighted down in front of the two dark​-​green dragons.

“Hye. Why it smell so sour in here?”

Hinte looked at the parrot. “Because you look ridiculous with those crooked feathers.” Hinte patted the parrot down its head, righting the feathers, while he protested with dissonant warbles.

“You dragons are weird. You don’t make any sense.”

Gronte drew her wing back to her side, and smiled. “You’ve had a long day, Enkelin. Rest for the night.”

Hinte did not smile, but her frills waved. “Silent night to you, Gronte.”

Versta flew at Hinte’s face, pecking a frill.

“What was that for?”

“Because you look ridiculous with those frills sticking out.” Versta mimicked Hinte’s voice. “I can’t do anything about them, but now you know.”

---

The floorboards of the Gären house thudded as Hinte slinked to her room. The dim light from the fixtures faded as Gronte put them out. Hinte’s heart fluttered in her breast, and her breath came in staccato pulls. The conversation in the dining room came sparse and dwindling behind her.

She sat the loop Kinri had give her on her nightstand, where she would see it in the morning. After putting out the few light fixtures in her room, Hinte climbed in her bad, and curled under a thin blanket. She brandished her alulae at the lacuna, and she fanned her frills, listening to its voice.

Hinte did not sigh. But her breaths came a little deeper as her mind macerated in the day’s events. With sleep crawling to her head from her aching limbs and protesting wounds, it gave her no time to ruminate. But she had time for one clear thought.

Hinte was so glad this day was finally over.

Her next thoughts fumbled as sleep claimed her, waving and floating away into a sleepy mess.

She dreamed of the winds.

Oleuni’s lonely light slipped into my room and glowed the curtains. I roused awake… and then it faded, just as when the first dawn ring stormed in some time earlier; after that, it’d only taken the moments to find the pillow aflung somewhere and bury my head under it before I floated back to sleep. I murmured promises about getting up soon and that’s all I remember.

I only had to fly out to the Llygaid Crwydro and plop myself down behind a counter after the second long ring of the day, and that gave me enough time to convince myself awake somewhile later.

A note of something like a forgotten worry rung somewhere in my mind.

Some time after, an insistent short ring prodded at me. When it sounded I was laying somewhere in the valley of half​-​sleep, and stayed there awhile. It wasn’t until the light in my room exploded into full day⁠ ⁠—⁠ Enyswm rising, the second dawn ring chiming⁠ ⁠—⁠ that I started to have any trouble with my half​-​sleep.

My eyes, even clouded, couldn’t hide from the loversuns’ combined light. The day pressed over my brilles, even as my frills covered them. Stretching and curling under the blanket, I settled into another comfortable pose. I’d almost drifted back⁠ ⁠—⁠ not to sleep, but to something⁠ ⁠—⁠ before thoughts of my responsibilities flared suddenly across the surface of my bleary morning mind. I had to get up.

My frills freed my eyes; but I only managed that. Drifting again. I just stared at my pillow. More flares, more calls to action. Get up! To help with that⁠ ⁠—⁠ really⁠ ⁠—⁠ I played around with my sheets. Doing something should keep me awake, at least. I had to get up.

I flexed a foot wrapped in a sheet. Nights in the cliffs tried and failed to be cooler than the days, so you didn’t need blankets to keep warm. As I played, the thin sheets split under my claws. I gave a confused murmur before poking my snout. Oh, my claws had gotten sharp. I needed to file them. Maybe I’d do it today or tomorrow.

A frills brushed my face, and I felt the slight singing from last night, still there. How I wish I’d had a mask.

The sheets had met a better fate than my pillow. Where my pillow lay somewhere on the floor (who did that?), my sheets had at least stayed on the bed, though they’d curled and wrapped all around me. Had I just not moved that much last night?

Well, my forelegs still felt the prickly, crackly feeling of the salve and lake’s glass spittle on my forelegs, and an odd smell lighted on my tongue as I lay there: evil sulfur lingering from my dreams, the smell of dying glass and ash, haunting me.

I flapped my tongue and kept it still in my mouth, but it had already set my mind in motion. My wings wriggled as I was flying back through yesterday’s events: sifting, exploring, more sifting, tracking, hunting, the wraiths, walking, and then the meeting.

So after all of that, of course I’d fallen over onto the inn’s bed, dove into the covers, immersed myself in sleep. The memories pulled at the stitches of my dreams, and they gave me one last shudder before they drained from my mind:

Tripping, falling into the glowing maw of the lake, even my trout slipping away from me as I melted.

A perfumed olm leaping from the gilded plates of a dining slab, eating my tongue.

A creepy human lumbering in the sulfuric clouds of Berwem, somehow dewing without fangs, and begging for me to just bury it.

A shadow slinking through the vog, through the molten glass, through the water in my canteen, stealing the obsidian knife and bleeding away.

Wraiths with mocking dragon voices that destroyed everything I tried to build.

A mud​-​dweller with writhing frills, waving a shining bronze sword, saying, “Listen, I’ll take those fangs off you, Specter​-​eti.”

Digrif finally remembering my name, except he pronounced it just like mother.

Cynfe towering above me, ripping my wings off as her scales reddened to a bright scarlet.

Hinte walking away, again and again.

One note of those dreams struck and stayed, filling my frills. Hinte. Hinte, the friend I didn’t deserve, who I’d nearly left to⁠ ⁠—⁠ a fate with the humans.

The words we had exchanged last night echoed in my mind, “Will I see you in the morning?” “Yes!”

Oh, I didn’t have time! Hinte expected me at her house⁠ ⁠—⁠ and I didn’t know when!

I yanked my head from under the pillow, and it rubbed along a wet, drool​-​y patch. Eww! I wiped at my jaw; but I didn’t feel the cool smoothness of my scales. Instead, I felt a rough, shattered surface of glass moving as my foreleg, and my unclouding eyes met⁠ ⁠—⁠ the murky glass of Berwem.

I let out a low, growling groan, and at last woke up. Sliding from the bed, past the shining window restrained by white curtains, I sighed and scratched my headband, right around my ‘matua’ brand; a part of me never remembered I’d left the sky until I stood up.

Think of happy things, Kinri, like how Hinte became your friend or the awesome, terrifying story you now have to share with Chwithach.

Falling to a stand, the rocky floor gave its warm, black​-​speckled kiss to my glassy feet as I clinked over to my wardrobe, a chest crouching with a slant opening.

The chest’s doors gaped, the left only half​-​shut and the right still opened wide. I smiled. Yesterday, I had rushed out of the inn’s window to work, with the frilly half​-​hatched thought that (somehow) if I started my day earlier, it would make my evening with Hinte come that much faster. Silly, silly Kinri. It had been one day Sinig couldn’t joke about me being late, though.

I dug through the drawers and grabbed a short​-​sleeved, plain dark shirt. You knew it could only be a work shirt. It was boring seriousness you could wear.

Already it was falling onto my back before I felt my breast and the dusty white fabric that still clung to it. After ripping the new shirt off and throwing it onto my bed, I fell onto my flanks, tore off my hindleg’s sleeves and yanked at the shirt… but that couldn’t get the trunk past my forelegs and head.

After I stopped to breathe, the suit’s trunk slipped off and flew its way to a clothesbasket. I’d need to wash it at some point, but not soon, not now.

Hissing at my glass​-​covered limbs, bandages were unwrapped. Slow as you might, the wounds still hurt. I scraped and peeled the glass, starting at the cracks before prying bigger pieces off.

“Ugh,” I groaned. I couldn’t scrape too fast, because that might rip at my scales or flare up one of my wounds. So I went along at a tortoise’s pace, probing and backtracking as my fangs dewed with salt and my careful tugs grew more and more forceful, if not at all at all less careful. When I scraped one big piece off, revealed was the black salve still clinging to my legs, hardened to sticky shell.

Was it a sigh or a growl?

When the second chiming short ring mocked me, I paused to give what was a growl and to slam my foot against inn’s wardrobe, and punctuate the unfairness of it all.

Shards of glass sprayed out. Flicking my tongue, I did it again; and again, the glass sprayed.

I didn’t smile, because I was too rushed to smile — but the edges of my pout eased a bit.

The sunlight shifted a bit as I was slamming my legs against the wardrobe, catching glass shards and sparkling them.

I had work to do… but did I have the time to do it?

---

There came a loud knocking at the door.

It ruined my rewrapping the bandages, and I just jerked them unraveled, and they were swirled the back around in a few seconds. It was a mess and didn’t even cover all the cuts. Probably looked worse than no bandages.

Another knock.

I leapt to the wardrobe, throwing the suit over the hidden side of the bed, and searching for something I could cover myself up with. You didn’t need it, in the cliffs⁠ ⁠—⁠ dragons here didn’t wear more than a ventcloth unless they had a reason to.

But I fledged in the sky, in a noble House. I’d never went out without at least a halfrobe. Unless I had a point to make. And then, something had to have really worked me up for that. I hadn’t gotten that angry, let myself get that angry, in a long time.

More knocks.

I wasn’t in a high mood, but no one in Gwmyr/Frina⁠ ⁠—⁠ no one at the door⁠ ⁠— could make that worse unless I let them. So I breathed calm, and cleared my eyes.

Knock.

Sitting in a ball at the bottom of the chest sat in the only cloak I had so far, my Specter cloak. Käärmkieli glyphs swirled across its silvery, cloud​-​gray surface. For buttons and decorations the cloak had precious gemstones. In the breast my name had been calligraphed in such a commanding style that it looked down on me even as I held it in my feet.

It would have to do.

Still more knocks came, louder, quicker. I leapt to the door.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said as the door opened, my tail coiling under my cloak. I pulled the door from the wrong side, so I needed to step around it, blocking my view of my guest.

“Oh, you are up. Privetik, madame Kinri,” she said. I should have known, but I didn’t want to.

Stepping around the door, I saw my guest: Uvidet. The innworker’s scales looked the bright, unblemished white of the ash​-​dwellers of the land of frost and flame. They gleamed. It reminded me of some the noble ladies in the higher houses of sky, who shined their scales. It looked beautiful. Tedious, but beautiful. Her eyes and sclerae were a shade dark enough you mistook for black.

I smiled and folded my frills down. The innworker smiled too, opening her mouth, revealing her teeth, also a shiny white, something that stood out to me even as I had grown used to it.

“Hi Uvidet,” I said, and my tail uncoiled. “I’m up. Do you need something else?”

“You know I am not satisfied until I see you step out of door.” She was shaking her head, but smiling. “But yes, they sent me up to see what the noise is⁠ ⁠— have you heard it?”

“Oh — I think that was me…” I bat away my unfastened sleeves, showing the cracked glass and chipped scales on my foreleg.

The innworker scowled. “Eesh, that is messy. What the fires happened?”

“Uh, I was in the lake. Sifting.”

There was a thoughtful hum at that. “Hrm. Well, try to keep it down or take it elsewhere⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was far too loud.” She tone had been cadencing, but she added, dropping to a sudden low voice, “And tell whoever gives you your salve that it is terrible quality. Sand should not cake on your limbs.”

“I — will, I guess.” I looked up for a beat, and tried the words, “And uh, you don’t have to knock at the second long ring. I’m leaving now.”

“Oh? What for?”

“A friend wanted me to have breakfast with her.”

I hadn’t finished before the ash​-​dweller was beaming, and when I did, a wing reached out and her alula brushed my cheek. “A wonder that you are at finally getting out of your room. It is not good to be so lonely and⁠ ⁠—”

“Uvidet, please⁠ ⁠—⁠ I um, don’t know if she was expected me before now or what, so I need to get there as soon as I can.”

“Enjoy yourself, Kinri. You deserve it.”

---

Uvidet had disappeared down the stairwall, waving me bye with her tail. She twirled her tail in a circle instead of the side​-​to​-​side I saw so often.

I’d waved my wing, even though she couldn’t see me, and like that she was off again to whatever job she handled in the mornings.

The door was closed. I stepped back into my room, pouting. How was I supposed to clean my forelegs without smashing them against something? The sound must have disturbed someone, so I’d just have to manage. My legs were wrapped again, and I didn’t bother with any more scraping, but slid off some looser pieces. Like that I sighed and stood up.

My forelegs were hideous!

I clamped down on my disgust, licking my fangs and tossing the cloak on the bed. I sifted through my scattered shirts, garments that covered my neck, breast, and base of my wings. Shirts down here didn’t tend to have sleeves, and the ones that did didn’t reach to my knees. It was all very revealing, more than anything I could have gotten away with as a fledgling. But, with the heat and winds that blew as zephyrs instead of near​-​constant gales, you couldn’t really be surprised.

Except I could not fly out with my forelegs looking like this! Having yet to live through a gray season, I had no ashcloaks, or any kind of cloak besides my Specter cloak. I had a raincloak, but it might look frilly in the clear weather.

With a huff, I snatched up the Specter cloak. My name still glared at me from its breast. The gemstones still glinted up from the buttons and joints. I felt them, their cuts sharp and satisfying. I could list the species and their meanings without missing a beat. All Specters could.

Yellow citrines, for our wealth and power. Set inside the hood, above either eye, they were stars, light for when the clouds breathed on the suns or when one walked in the night.

Violet​-​blue iolites, for our shifting duality. The pleochroic stones looked different from different angles. As if twofacing were something to brag about.

Ghastly black jades with golden rutiles like fangs, for our protection and introspection. A priest once told me the stones were gifts from the Cloud Constructor himself, one of the only four gemstones you’d find aloft, the only aloft magical stone besides star​-​blessèd Stellaine.

No matter how pretty or keen the gems looked or felt, each weighed, a reminder of what I’d ran away from. I felt the empty receptacle where the cloak’s plackets met just below the neck.

House Specter had hatched its name from the Specter cloaks. In the last war of the heavens⁠ ⁠—⁠ the one which had, in the end, drawn the Constellation and the Severance⁠ ⁠—⁠ Specter distinguished itself with magical cloaks of woven medusa fiber. These cloaks could reflect, refract, and distort light, creating illusions, camouflage, and other things. They wove light.

Legend has it that the tenebrous cloak of AshaineI could wield light ten strides away. He had used it to great effect, my tutors said, when he brought dozens of rogue or Empyrean skylands under the Concordat of Stars. And when lasting peace lighted on the sky, the great dusk, House Specter turned from war to politics, and the Specter cloaks turned from implements of battle and espionage to implements of ritual and spectacle.

All children of high Specters had one. They costed a fortune to make, fortunes that elders expended again and again to maintain an image. I had brought it with me to Gwymr/Frina. Because it was mine, not because it was anything more than a piece of trash to me.

I could sell it. But that empty receptacle stopped me. The silken cloth, the gemstones, the overall beauty of it, could net me plenty. But the empty receptacle once held a shard of star​-​blessed Stellaine, the stone that fueled the magic of the cloaks. If I could repair that, find some Stellaine down here or another fuel source, it would be an implement again. I could live my whole life from selling of it.

Which was a pretty long way of saying I didn’t know if wearing my most valuable possession was a very good idea. But Digrif would come to Hinte’s house for breakfast, wouldn’t he? No way he could see my legs like this.

I danced the cloak in front of me, watching the way the fabric shimmered, how the gems seemed to go out of their way to catch the light. It looked striking, regal. Maybe it would overwhelm, but better to try too hard than not hard enough, right?

---

The cloak was over my torso once more. My wings had found their coverings; it ran down the forearm to the alula, and trailed ribbons for each finger of my wing. It dragged⁠ ⁠—⁠ of course it dragged⁠ ⁠—⁠ but it looked elegant. I’d ripped the ribbons, and they snapped with a click of clasps undoing.

The buttons of the cloak found their holes, and I could at last forget about it. I slipped my feet into sandals, but the hindpair was still covered in dust. Bleh.

I looked over the room a last time, but there was nothing I could remember forgetting. As if to push me on, the third short ring chimed its smarmy little song, and I found myself on the other side of my room’s door closing.

In the hallway only the doors to other rooms stood. On the left there were four doors stretching down to a window overlooking the streets below, and I padded over to window just to have a look, even though I’d lived here for dances. The world was dimly limned in the late half​-​morning light of a single sun⁠ ⁠—⁠ Oleuni had risen, up and about sooner than anyone I knew, while Enyswm still crouched behind the cliffs and buildings just above the horizon.

Back in the hall, another dragon stepped out from a door, some plain​-​dweller with a dark tongue I’d seen once or twice before, maybe a new resident or so. I never fledged conversation with them. They’d leave in few days and our paths would never cross again. And if they did, would we even remember?

The floor looked a cozy red, of some stone found deep in the pits. Craggy but not too craggy. It looked uneven, natural ground; but I’d feel comfortable resting a drink on the floor. Another bit of local weirdness.

The light flying in through the windows lit the common room. The lamps from last night now sat opaque and glum; at this time of morning, most lay in bed or do whatever their job is, and so the room sat nearly empty. But some dragons lay at the slabs, eating.

The large, hexagon​-​shaped room had long, hallow slabs on either side in two long rows. Each broke a few times from one end of the room to the other, the breaks wide enough to step through. Those slabs could lay about four dragons on either side; and while most had eight mats, some as few as four or five and a couple as many as twelve. One had twenty mats crowding over each other around it!

Looking closer, some stray playing cards scattered on the floor under between the crowded slab and one mat. And a few coins!

I slinked over to that slab and slid between the mats. Picking one of those coins⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was only glass, not metal. A game piece. Oh well. It fell in the pocket of my foreleg anyway, along with the few cards scattered on the floor.

The floor only had three glass pieces. One red, another an amber, and the last one blue​-​green. The cards were low: the liar, head lowered, frills folded, ingratiating; the soldier, wings flared, claws raised, attacking; and the alchemist, tongue flicked, head tilted, questioning.

As I stood up to leave, the familiar face of the waitress passed by. Today she was working at the counter. And unlike the scheming Adwyn, unlike the tired Mlaen​-​sofran, and unlike the anonymous, scowling strangers, Ffein had the second friendly face I’d seen in this town, a pale red smile ringed by jingling bronze piercings on her frills. I couldn’t see her uniform from here, but I would bet on the same amber and black all the Moyo​-​Makao workers wore.

“Morning, Kinri,” she said.

I waved a polite hello or goodbye to her as I walked on. She still remembered my name after all this time, even I always had trouble with hers. Her voice and presence fell diminutive in a odd way. She was smaller than me even, and her voice sounded whispery even when she spoke up; her wings seemed to forever hug her body, and she didn’t say much when she did speak.

On the streets of Gwymr/Frina, the twin lights of the sun now lit up the world in combined volley of light. As the cycle pushed on, Enyswm danced closer to Oleuni, the twin shadows of objects merging as one, and the chilly crestday approached.

This part of town was something of a center of entertainment. Nearby was a theater (Dychwelfa ac Theater or something) and a scrollshop (owned by someone with a really long name) and a gallery (that was really big despite being mostly empty). I’d never found the time for theater, but the bookshop had a selection like leftovers and prices like quicksand. And the gallery⁠ ⁠—⁠ well, they didn’t want me there, so I can’t really judge it.

After a few paces and a few beats of my wings, I was rising over the town. Before long, I flew above most buildings. Hinte lived across the canal, on the west side of town. Would I be late?

---

A lot of Gwymr/Frina rose high into the air, buildings that stood four or five stories. The tallest buildings leant against cliffs, among them the inviting curves of the Moyo​-​Makao, now far behind me.

The buildings all had an alien squatness about them, broad and thick. The mounds of ash piling on the roofs or yards and various ruptures or faults all around betrayed the motivation: these buildings have to weather the ashstorms for gyras to come, and the quakes.

On the hills and buttes among the buildings, streams of dragons walked or milled about. Here and there I could spy a red sash, sometimes made easier to see from being mounted on a mighty tortoise.

I flew past the bridge over the canal cutting through town. With nothing else to think on, except the gnawing worry of being late, I stared down at the panes of metal and glass, and remembered the bland histories studied in the Sgrôli ac Neidr:

The Dyfnderi had fledged a gift of this canal back when Dwylla had still lain in the town hall. Connecting to a bunch of channels far north, and running water from some Dyfnderi diversion dam they’d built gyras and gyras ago, it was water. Gwymr/Frina could drink and farm because of it, and sometimes you saw little boats going up or down it.

I guessed it emptied in a distant river or something, but I could only stomach so much of the trivialities. What mattered was that relationship of Gwymr/Frina (or was it Cyfrin ac Dwylla back then?) with Dyfnder/Geunant hadn’t soured yet, and Chwithach​-​sofran said the canal was some kind of symbol of goodwill between the two. Dwylla never let the relationship grow beyond that, though, and between his eternal stubbornness and their ever​-​deepening insistence it did sour.

When the eternal faer alighted and faer Mlaen took his place, it gave the Dyfnderi another chance to establish with us something more than just peace. If what I had seen in the hall last night showed anything, though, the faer was flying on her predecessor’s winds.

“What,” I had asked Chwithach, “do the canyon​-​dwellers even want with this town?”

“It’s a point of pride for them,” the librarian drake had said as he adjusted his sash. “Dyfnder/Geunant is old, and in fact more of a small country than a city. They hold the deepest gemstone mines, and they maintain an mighty military with a flawless record of defense. It’s the carrot they dangle in front of any newcoming settlement: We can protect you, make you rich.”

“Then why didn’t Dwylla take that offer? It sounds pretty nice.”

“From the beginning, Cyfrin ac Dwylla had been his⁠ ⁠—⁠ it’s right there in the name. If you lived here then, you lived ac Dwylla. So his refusal had been plain jealousy, not wanting to relinquish control of his town to would​-​be sovereigns.”

At that I had found myself imagining Dwylla with deep blue scales, silvery eyes, and that all​-​too​-​familiar sneering hauteur. My next words might have come out a little harsh, a little high. “Why? That sounds so frilly, refusing an alliance​-​jassa sekkyytt⁠ ⁠—⁠ err, I mean refusing out of… err, egoism?”

“Some think that, yes. I do. But in the end it seems to have worked out for us and thus has remained a sore point for the Dyfnderi. We grew rich on our own, and, nestled up against the blazing Berwem, we had faced down all enemies alone. Even our faer had seemed immune to death, back then.”

The librarian had then did that thing where his clouded eyes caught the light in a glint, and he added with a light tone, “I do think the canyons may have gotten the last laugh, here; for when they at last grudged to recognize us as a stronghold, we were named Gwymr/Frina, the glass of secrecy. Ostensibly, they meant it in the old sense, secrecy being merely set apart, as our faer was so bent on having it⁠ ⁠—⁠ but the subtext is there to be read. We had to be hiding something, to dare abstain from joining their protectorate, hehe.” His voice had faded to a murmur. “I’ve begun to wonder if they were right.”

I glided up the canal, angled for the sloped and rising part of town. I’d decided I had to know the details of local politics, if I were to lay myself in the faer’s administration. And if that didn’t fly, I still had my debt with Adwyn to worry about⁠ ⁠—⁠ some grounding with the relationship between the land of glass and secrets and the land of chasm and wisdom would help, there.

On either side of the canal sat thick panes of tempered glass, split by rods of aluminum. When the ashstorms came, they’d push those panes over the canal, and ash couldn’t touch the water. The fat bridge crossing it, sturdy even compared to the town, was arching high enough not to block boats.

Sometimes, you saw laborers lugging carts of stuff over the bridge, and you didn’t wonder at its extreme stockiness after that. Except for poor dragons crippled or clipped, flying always trounced walking. Faster, cleaner, easier —⁠ flight was draconic par excellence. But you can’t fly around carts, and no simple beast could do that either. So stuff was carted over the ground.

I flew lower, snatching a better look. The bridge was framed in bronze, but its deck was cobbled tephra. The deck tended a wingbeat thick, but it fledged sense; caterpillar cows could get huge.

A few guards lay on the bridge. They looked up at me as a passed, and peered.

As the rolling slopes flattened, the houses and streets and the entire atmosphere grew more sophisticated, more wealth on display. Any occasional panhandlers or starless walking about didn’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ couldn’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ come here. The roads looked better, not clear of waste; but I could almost feel comfortable walking on it. Almost. The yards stretched open, spacious and covered in mosses or hardy fungi. It tended something of a familiar rolling green look.

Something felt missing, though. While some yards had really big ferns or bamboo sprouting out, you didn’t see much of it. Maybe two yards had those decorations.

One yard has no flora at all. Just bricks. Across the whole yard.

Around the yards’ perimeters lay various kinds of walls, some of scoria brick, or black bamboo or just piles of dustone⁠ ⁠—⁠ and above them, more nets. Some looked frayed or had holes, but most looked intact enough.

Yet on the whole the nets seemed less intact than the nets I had seen on the outskirts of town, over the farms. I flicked on my tongue. Maybe it wasn’t so strange. In town, the nets were images, there to look secure. But in the cliffs, you needed the nets. They protected you every day, keeping pests and predators out.

I sighed. Some things hadn’t changed.

---

Just moments of flight after that, I was gliding down to the road that led to the Gären estate, Hinte’s house. It stood low and sprawling⁠ ⁠—⁠ and only one story high! A concave roof sloped, way steeper than any other you saw. That seemed dangerous, because ashstorms. But maybe they were braced. They should be braced.

Once you looked away from the small house — was that wood? — there yawned an estate like it had eaten four other yards. You could tell, from just their decoration, that they missed the forests. More flora grew in just their yard than the entire neighborhood. It held had the first trees I had ever seen in the cliffs. Hardy ash willows, a bleached white. I had liked them since I’d first seen them, even when their droopy melancholic look.

Trees looked, smelt, and tasted nice! Ferns, massive though they were, just clouded in contast.

Only gyras ago the trees had been planted, and now they were thin, just tens of heads taller than me, and their limbs already tended to droop. Poor things.

On the porch little flowers grew out of little pots that lined every surface on the porch, crowding over the mats and the slab. Did they just really like flowers? Or maybe they were just alchemical.

I was gliding down beside their net, a thing as well maintained as any other net in the neighborhood. Beneath the net, there crouched a scoria brick wall on the surrounding gravel, and there was a gate.

The feeling of the dirt under the soles of my shoes was not the feeling of the gravelly lapilli in the rest of the town. This dirt grew real grass, instead of the textureless mossy imitators in the rest of town. While it looked pretty and natural and different, stepping on it flipped my mind. It was familiar, and not in a good way.

For just a moment as I walked into the yard, I stepped instead into Specter Manor. If I clouded my eyes and held my tongue, it was like I never left, never wanted to leave, the sky. I could almost forget what happened, why I was so alone.

I was shivering. When I clear my eyes the illusion broke, as I’d hope. The house stood before me, and it looked like Specter estate the way a chunk of wood looked like a shard of star​-​blessèd Stellaine.

Some of the flowerpot’s buds had appeared in the alchemy scrolls I studied: whistlecones, khren roots, and a poisonous flower I knew as kuolo​-​suukko but the locals only called ‘the sweetness.’ Vines grew across the house itself, leaves plump and broad. In some places, they blocked out the windows. The walls were white wood, and where I could see shutters, they looked a very black brown.

I knocked on a door made of another wood I didn’t know. After a few beats, it swung open. A light​-​green dragon stood in the doorway, wearing a black halfrobe that only covered them past the wings⁠ ⁠—⁠ Ushra. I’d seen him once, in the distance, and Hinte talked about him enough.

Ushra seemed a small, thin figure; but also gave a sense that this impression missed something. He smelt of cloying alchemical fumes, burnt ink and mighty grapes not as strong Hinte’s grapey smell. His piercing dark eyes gave me the impression that he saw right into me, and saw things even I didn’t.

He’s a good fellow, Rhyfel had said.

“Hi!” My frills expanded a little as my gaze rose to meet his, and I smiled.

He didn’t react. I look him up and down for some shift or anything. But—

A bright red and blue bird perched on his alula! It was craning its head around, and one of it’s strange purple eyes was always pointing my way. I fanned my frills at the cute bird, but when the it squawked high and loud, it turned to a flinch.

Ushra took that moment to say something: “Who are you?”

“Kinri. Hinte invited me?”

He narrowed his brows. “Where were the two of you last night?”

I flicked my tongue and replied, “The Berwem?”

“Which mixture was used to treat your wounds, Keimfrei dust, or die Wundervernarbung?”

“Die Wunde — the second one.”

“Who else is coming to breakfast today?”

“Digrif?” I said. “Unless Hinte invited someone else without telling me, I guess.”

“What color are Hinte’s eyes?”

“Yellow?” I said. A beat. Then, “Wait no, was it orange⁠ ⁠—⁠ err, red?” I looked to Ushra’s eyes, but they had clouded and I couldn’t make out their color, other than it being very dark.

“Who was Hinte’s mother?”

“I⁠ ⁠—⁠ what? How do you expect me to know that?”

“I didn’t. When —”

A voice sounded out from inside the house, saying, “Let her alone, tartness.”

Ushra said, “Come in,” and turned around.

But as he did, the bird lighted from his wing and fluttered down in front of the door. “Last question.” Ushra’s voice came from the bird’s beak.

I jumped back, wings spread. “Ah!”

“What angle does the morrowstar make with the horizon at the ninth crestday of a sea​-​dweller’s left year?” The bird hopped forward, wings half​-​spread, punctuating its question.

I tilted my head. “Would that be… a third of a radian? I guess it depends on the time of day. But you’d be measuring something else if it were actually day or night. So I say somewhere between a third and fourth of a degree radian. You said a left year?”

The bird looked off the side, only one eye facing me. A beat passed before it said, “Come in,” in an exact copy of Ushra’s earlier words.

I waited for the bird to flutter back to Ushra before stepping inside.

The door opened into a short corridor, and Ushra’s voice came from further along it, asking “Are you a navigator?” He glanced back at me. “Or just a stargazer?”

“A stargazer, mostly,” I said, but Ushra had already disappeared into a doorway.

---

Through the first doorway of the corridor, in a room with a knee​-​high slab orbited by mats, sat another forest​-​dweller, with jade scales darker than Hinte’s, on the mat just below a window. Through the other doorway, lay a room with some tall, barrel​-​shaped plant by the window and very comfortable​-​looking fluffy mats arranged in a triangle. One mat was big enough to hold two dragons, the other two only one.

In that room, high on the wall, there hung a painting. A small Hinte bounced in the middle, while Ushra and that dark​-​jade dragon stood on either side. The painted Ushra wore dark fullrobes dotted with the spiraling, cursive script of the forests, and a dark​-​jade dragon wore a uniform looking almost militaristic. Hinte wore blue and pink clothes.

The little hatchling in the painting looked cute; but I could never tell her older self that. Well, maybe unless I wanted to dare her to find some way to administer poison with a glare

Before turning away, I took a cheating glance at the eyes in the painting⁠ ⁠— the younger Hinte looked out from a gaze cloudy and rust​-​orange, while Ushra peered forth from a deeper orange, completely clear. The jade dragon regarded you with plain green eyes.

I lingered on the jade dragon for a moment, and glanced back at the forest​-​dweller sitting in the other room. It was them. Looking closer, I could see an age difference between the likeness and its source. Other than that, the military garb was gone, and they now wore a gleaming locket I couldn’t find in the painting.

Below the painting rose a dark brown door, ajar. More alchemical smells wafted from inside. Almost soon as I glanced at it, it opened and from it stepped a dark​-​green wiver, door hanging open behind her. My breath caught in my throat.

The last thing she’d said to me last night had grounded all of my fears that we weren’t really friends⁠ ⁠—⁠ or maybe it’d been an admission that our night in the lake had changed things. My next words would feel like a response, and I didn’t know what to say.

The dark​-​green wiver was sill peering at me. I hadn’t said anything.

“Hi Hinte.” I may have squeaked.

A shadow of a smile touched her lips. “Hello, Kinri​-​gyfar.”

I looked up. How was this supposed to go? In the Constellation, in House Specter, we had formal patterns of interaction, words to greet every flavor of interlocutor from highest friend to unspoken enemy. Systems of analyzing every deviation, from untasted or ignorant slip​-​ups to deliberate, significant variations.

I’d tossed all of that aside. And it wouldn’t have helped me here; The formalities didn’t translate. And… if they did, it didn’t matter because I wanted to be authentic, be Kinri instead of the once​-​heir of House Specter.

But what was the authentic thing to say here? What did I want to say?

The door snapped to a shut on its own, and I jostled. “So, um. I’m not late, am I?” I licked an eye, watching Hinte through the other.

Hinte laughed, a small hiss. “If Gronte were cooking, you would be. Gronte had Opa cook breakfast today. Opa always tends to his workshop before anything else.”

I sighed, easing a hitch in my breath cycle I wouldn’t admit was there. Another hitch didn’t ease, though; that still hadn’t been what I wanted to say.

I tried, “About last night,” — at that her brilles cleared, and I faltered. I found another prickling anxiety instead. “Something I didn’t mention. Someone talked to me in the town hall. Bariaeth⁠ ⁠—⁠ ac Dwylla. The treasurer. They were… weird. Do you know anything about them?”

“Other than his having half the town thinking he should be faer instead of Mlaen?” Hinte tossed her head. “Ushra is a little uneasy when he comes by the house, and he tends to send me out of the room when they talk. And Gronte, she gives him⁠ ⁠—⁠ strange looks.”

“Strange how?”

“As she were seeing a lacuna⁠ ⁠—⁠ a ghost from her past.”

Looking up, I said, “Thanks.” Bariaeth had some mysteries to him. I — didn’t know if I’d be taking his offer.

But I swallowed, and admitted, “That um, that’s not what I really wanted to ask. Last night…” Hinte flicked her tongue “…it⁠ ⁠—⁠ I had nightmares about it, when I went to sleep.”

Hinte’s smile melted into a blank expression that betrayed nothing. “About what?”

“About all the times I almost died — I almost died seven times!” I looked down, cringing at the pathetic fraying in my voice. “And about other things, too.”

“Such as?”

“Um. I dreamed of the humans dewing. And Cynfe ripping off my wings. And–and about losing you.”

A alula brushed across my cheek. I looked up. Hinte didn’t smile, but the intensity in her eyes wasn’t analyzing or judging. A flame that would cauterize, not scorch.

“Kinri. We won.” With that, Hinte stepped away, into the opposite room.

Before I moved, I asked, “Will you walk away again?”

Hinte lifted her head, but her back was turned. “No.”

---

The dining room didn’t impose, press in, or really stand out⁠ ⁠—⁠ nothing like the meeting room from last night. But it felt drab and serious as it did none of those things. The tiles on the floor alternated black and brown, the dining slab looked deep and black and shiny, and scratched with white. Obsidian? How much had that cost?

I peered closer at the slab. It rose low enough that you could eat from it standing high or low, or sitting on the thick mats around it⁠ ⁠—⁠ those mats rose to above my knee height, but that was just me.

At the other end of the slab, the dark​-​jade dragon lay with Oleuni shining bright behind them, drinking from a teacup and smiling at me. A closer look at their current garb showed a white halfrobe covering her haunches, inlaid with black schizon seams. The black whiff of the schizon stabbed my tongue, and it almost hid the cloying aroma that clung to her⁠ ⁠—⁠ not unlike Ushra’s, but also not like it. A sash sat over her breast, reading ‘Gären vor Gronte’ in Drachenzunge⁠ ⁠—Gronte, Hinte’s grandmother.

Smiling back at her, I granted a small bow. I looked up to meet her eyes, and pretended that was just her sitting on an elevated mat.

Were they the one to called out for Ushra to let me in?

I started, “Thank you for⁠ ⁠—⁠ ah! There’s another one!” I whipped my wing at the purple bird, standing on the slab beside the dark​-​green dragon. It had been doing something with its wings spread, but I had interrupted.

“Another what?” Gronte said. Hinte was still watching me as she lay down on a mat, expression something complex.

“The talking bird things… that one talks too, doesn’t it?”

Before the dragon could respond, the purple bird squawked and spoke in a strange voice. “Gah! There’s another one!” It brought its wings up beside its head, then said in a saccharine voice that almost sounded like Gronte, “Another what?” It paused, looking around, then spoke, again in that unfamiliar, stuttering, whining voice, “Those talking lizard things.”

Wait, that was my voice! I bared my fangs at the bird.

Gronte snapped her tongue at the bird, but smiled at me, saying, “It’s fine, Kinri. He’s a parrot, they can mimic voices.”

“…And make frilly jokes.” I huffed and turned away from the parrot.

She held out her wing, and the purple bird hopped onto her alula. When she looked back to me, the wiver said, “We haven’t made introductions. You know Hinte. They,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ she pointed to the doorway on the other side of the room⁠ ⁠— “are Ushra and Staune. This,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ she bounced her alula⁠ ⁠—⁠ “is Versta, and I am Gronte.”

“Oh, I’m Kinri,” I said, “and, um, that’s it.”

Gronte hissed a short laugh before flicking her tongue and looking down to my breast. “That is a beautiful cloak you wear. Is it silk?” Hinte narrowed her brow at Gronte.

I smiled. “Kinda. Medusa fibers. It’s, uh, like silk. Smoother, and more durable, and other things.” Hinte snapped her tongue⁠ ⁠—⁠ so soft only I heard it⁠ ⁠—⁠ and looked away from both of us, staring out the window.

Gronte waved her tongue. “Who made it?”

“Um. It’s from the sky.” I scratched my cheek. “You’ll never meet or hear of them…” …And I had forgotten.

“Oh well.” Her frills folded, and she asked, “I imagine you won’t part with it, then?”

“Not until I add a missing piece. And it’ll be very, very expensive.”

“That’s just fine. Pray light by me when you get that missing piece, if you would.”

I nodded, looked around the room. Another door stood opposite the first, where Ushra must have gone. Another spiky, spherical plant sat by this room’s window, and a cute flower pot sat in the center of the slab, orbited by the plates and cups. On closer inspection, the flowers looked shiny and off​-​color. Metal? I’d never seen anything like that.

Gaze still drifting, I counted the mats. Six. Should I sit? Gronte​-​sofran never gave me permission.

The parrot’s squawk interrupted my thoughts. “Pray light by me if you pluck any manners!”

Turning back to the bird with writhing frills, I said, unthinking, “I’ll pluck your manners!” I took a step forward.

Gronte shook her wing, and the purple parrot turned to her. Scratching its neck, she whispered, “She didn’t mean anything by it, dear. She’s never seen a dragon​-​tongued parrot before.”

“Sorry,” I murmured. I glanced over at Hinte. She stared out the window, eyes roaming and seeming to hunt for something, brilles never more than half​-​clear, as if she were shrouded in thought.

“It is accepted.” Gronte took a sip from her teacup. “You are taking this a lot better than most of the townsfolk. To them, an ‘animal’ talking is a perversion, they take religious objection to it.”

“I mean, it is kinda weird. Are they, um, like dragons? Can they think?”

“I’m right here, you minnow!” The parrot’s voice warbled. It sounded discordant and it drove stakes into my frills. The parrot lunged from Gronte’ wing, and flew at me! But Gronte stopped it with her other wing.

“Minnow? What is that supposed to mean?” My frills were already writhing, so I bared my fangs instead.

“I’m saying you’re a wee little minnow, you minnow,” the parrot said from behind Gronte’s wing.

“Versta, go check on Monsun.” Her voice had a forced levelness that bled the excitement from the parrot.

“Don’t wanna,” he said; but when Gronte lowered her wing and shook his perch, the bird fluttered to the ground instead of flying at me. The purple parrot walked out of the room, scratching its way to the hall.

“He is…” Gronte paused a bit to find the words. “…excitable. He is not as offended as he looks.”

I nodded. “I’d just call it hatchly, but I guess excitable works too.”

She tossed her head. “To answer you question, yes. Parrots think and feel as much as dragon’s do. They have trouble picking up our language fully, and their emotional lives are a bit more… lopsided⁠ ⁠—⁠ you may say ‘hatchly’⁠ ⁠—⁠ but its a matter of parrots being very different from dragons, and so they don’t take the same things seriously that we do, and don’t understand every aspect of our culture.”

“It could still be polite, at least.”

Hinte folded a frill. “He, not it.”

“I’m Sorry?” I scratched a foreleg with another, looking around the room.

Suddenly Gronte said, “Kinri!” with a start of her wings. “Sit down, sit down. Anywhere you like. You don’t need permission.”

---

“Kinri​-​ychy,” came Ushra’s voice from beyond the other door; he emerged, and continued, “show me your forelegs. My Enkelin asked me to take a look at them.”

Still perched on his wing, his parrot, Staune, fluttered down onto the mat beside Gronte, where the older wiver scratched the bird. I slinked over to Ushra, and extended my forelegs.

He looked over them for but a moment before turning them over. He furrowed at the gash, and prodded it, and kept up the pressure until I hissed in pain.

“I see you have been using my glazeward recipe,” he said, but not to me.

“Yes,” said Hinte, staring at the slab.

Ushra hummed, and didn’t reply. He finished looking at my forefeet after a few more beats.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“For now, of course. My granddaughter did a serviceable enough job. None of it is urgent.”

“Do you need to look at my side?”

Ushra said, “My granddaughter asked me to look at your legs.”

“But —”

“Keep your modesty.” Ushra was already turning toward the kitchen, and a burnt orange eyes was almost glaring at him.

“Okay then. But about the uh, glazeward salve…”

“What?”

“Well um… Should the glass stick to my forelegs like this?” I waved a foreleg.

“It varies with the formula. The mixture I employ is somewhat… primitive, I would suppose, compared to what the sifting companies utilize currently. I am a pharmacist, not an engineer, and so I have little time to investigate the trivialities of vitrification… And so my salve may indeed have such practical deficiencies.”

“Well… how do I get the stuff off? It’s a painful to scrape this all off by foot!”

The dark​-​jade wiver cleared her throat. “Well, there are scrapers in the east market trained for just this⁠ ⁠—⁠ they do a better job.”

“Nonsense. Some of my patients come to me after having fallen in the lake — I have unguents for exactly this.”

“I imagine Kinri​-​ychy would prefer to keep her scales,” Gronte said.

“Hmm.”

“Yeah… I do like my scales.”

Ushra looked at me. “They are blue,” he said. Slow and deliberate, as if it may cause offense.

“I like blue?”

“Hmmm.”

I waved my tongue, confused; but Ushra turned and disappeared into the kitchen again. So I tossed my head and lay beside Hinte, an empty mat away from her grandmother. On the other side of the old wiver, Staune was preening her feathers.

After a few beats, Ushra returned, carrying a plate of hot food in his wings. He moved around the slab, letting everyone get food, and poured tea from a kettle.

The main course was a peep of tidbit chickens, a dozen of them, each about the size of your foot. Beside them are various plant​-​ and fungi​-​based dishes I didn’t know on sight. One of them looked some kind of root, and others faded into the gallimaufry of greens and browns.

I looked around the slab. I didn’t like eating with others. It was rude and vulgar, and base, animal action. But it would read more rude to refuse, wouldn’t it? A Specter–a nice dragon compromises. I took a little bit of each dish and two tidbit chickens.

Staune was grabbing pieces with beak and talon, taking a whole plateful. I flicked my tongue at that. Was the bird planning to eat all of it?

Gronte spoke before I could ask anything, saying, “Hinte has refused to any details of whatever happened last night until you were here. Now that you are, there are⁠ ⁠—⁠ aspects of it that concern us.” Her alula touched the locket at her breast, and it lingered there for a beat.

“You mean the, uh, incident in the cliffs?” I asked.

She nodded while Hinte looked up from getting her breakfast, spooning bits of the mixed fruits and nuts into her mouth. She’d taken none of the leafy green stuff; but it didn’t taste that bad!

I chewed more of the soft and stringy greens. They had a hint of salt or some spice that gave them a nice flavor. No accounting for taste.

Hinte spoke up between bites of chicken, “I knew the topic would come up. I won’t repeat myself. Digrif will be here soon.”

I tried the root; it tasted spicy sweet, a flavor I never expected from a root.

“How do you know what happened?” I asked. Ushra had looped around the slab, and now gave Gronte her meal. I tried taking another root. Ushra snipped at me, taking it back. My frills deflated, and I settled for starting on the tidbit chicken.

Beside Gronte, Ushra muttered something to Staune. The bird flew up onto the slab and stood there. Ushra sat where she’d been, leaving two empty spots. One was on the other side of Hinte⁠ ⁠—⁠ for Digrif, maybe⁠ ⁠—⁠ and another right beside me that would sadly stay probably unfilled. As Ushra pulled out a leaf of fernpaper from his robes and started scratching ink on it with a feather, the red and blue parrot hopped over in front of my plate, upturning its head so that one eye watched me.

I drifted my gaze from the bird to the master alchemist, watching the furrowed look morph as he wrote. Then my eyes flashed clear, and I licked them, but I hadn’t mistaken.

Ushra’s eyes were black. What had they been in the painting? I don’t think it was black.

Gronte had spoken. She’d said, “We know because the papers reported it in some detail.”

I’d almost forgotten what I’d asked, and spend a moment to taste her meaning. I glanced between the light​-​green drake to the dark​-​jade wiver.

“Oh?” I said, and felt some hope tingle in my glands. Would I get recognition? Fame? “What do they say?”

Gronte held up a leafy page on the slab. It looked greenish, made from some fern. Various headlines and articles sprawled across its surface, titles clawed in the large pictographic glyphs of y Draig, while the articles in its smaller, flowing script.

The newspaper was only a few folded pages, more sprawled and haphazard than the newspapers of Tädet/Pimeys, which were like small booklets. I scanned the page she held up, looking for the article she meant.

The old wiver slid the page across the slab to me. The red parrot then grabbed it in one talon and offered it with a trill.

“Thanks.”

The parrot peered intensely at me as I began to read the article.

I couldn’t help a giggly click at the title: ‘Fierce hatchling slays monster in the fires,’ it read.

My breakfast sat there untended as I read. My eyes moved across the page in slow and backtracking sweeps. In the sky my clawed y Draig had gone unused, even apart from the weird dialect of the backward Gwymri. It was getting better every day I had to work as Mawrion​-​sofran’s scribe, but I couldn’t help reading judgment or maybe scorn into the glances at me.

My frills deflated as I read, and by the time fourth short ring trilled, I had finished.

The article mentioned me by name no more than once. If it hadn’t spoken of two dragons in the Berwem near the beginning, wouldn’t have even known I existed! At least the story didn’t seen very accurate otherwise. It read as though Hinte had fought four apes at once and won, unscathed.

“This is… not what happened.”

“It appeared so,” said Ushra. “But what truly happened?” He peered at me with those mysterious black eyes.

“Wait for Digrif, he will be here,” Hinte said.

At Hinte’s hindrance the conversation lulled. I focused on my food, but Ushra’s red parrot flapped and interrupted me.

I looked up at it. “What do you want?”

“Nut, yes?”

I glanced down at my plate. I had taken four of the large nuts but hadn’t touched them. I picked up two and passed them to the bird, who took one in a talons and one in its beak.

“Ceya,” it trilled as it fluttered back to Ushra, cracking and smashing one of its new nuts. I smiled. It was almost cute. Where Versta just passed my knees, Staune came almost up to my withers. Maybe Staune was older.

I had half​-​finished my first tidbit chicken when came the expected knock. Ushra left to answer it, and after a moment you heard talk from the front room, but couldn’t make out the words, save hearing that same interrogation tone Ushra’d inflicted on me. Soon the alchemist returned.

And from the door, in the companionable light of the loversuns, an familiar drake walked⁠ ⁠—⁠ but not Digrif. He stepped further into the room, and a bright glow lit his orange scales.

I pulled the handle at the door’s base, and was onto the Gären’s porch. By now the suns had emerged from behind the buttes, shining right into my face. My frills folded over my eyes blocking the light. Though I couldn’t see, an aroma of the nuts and feathers lighted on my tongue and wings were flapping.

Versta had gone past some hatch to see that Monsun, and, having sneaked away once, Gronte would have ensured it couldn’t happen again. Would she?

“Staune?” I called.

The fluttering left. When I cleared my eyes again, there was no red and blue bird.

“You sort of disappeared from the room and you weren’t with Ushra. Is something wrong?”

No response. As I rolled my head, I waved my tongue. “I’m a dragon, Staune. I can smell you.” My head turned and my tongue waved until I lighted on a gradient of nuts and feathers. I lifted myself into a high​-​walk as I tracked the parrot.

When I stepped from the porch, I crept along the trail. At the base of the tree the trail rose into the leaves of the willow.

The tree had grown thicker around its trunk than I had. I climbed onto the tree, testing my weight. Then I gripped the bark harder.

Out of habit, I glanced back at the ground. But it sat solid and complete in every direction. I loved climbing trees as a fledgling, but I had fallen from Tädet/Pimeys twice. First the guards had caught me, and the second time the netting below had caught me. Because of it, I’d hatched a healthy amount of caution.

I took beats to climb to the near​-​top of the tree, where a red and blue bird lay prone in a nest. The nest sat on a branch above me, blocking the body of the bird, but her head peeked over the top.

“Hi, Staune.”

“Go away, Stargazer.”

“What’s wrong?” I climbed onto a branch and sat there, steadying myself with my forelegs. When a wind blew, the branches swayed and my weight fell behind me. I yelped and threw my weight to and fro until I settled again.

I looked back to the bird and smiled, but my expanded frills and half​-​spread wings gave me a wuthered look.

“Not a thing.”

“Okay,” I said. She didn’t want to share her dewings. I had dealt with this before, I’ll just have to be indirect. “What are you doing up here, then?”

Staune spread her wings. “Sparrow couple once lived up here, yes, and they had this nest.”

I tilted my head. “Once?”

“A nasty wildcat ate them.” Staune made a vicious snarling sound.

“Oh no.” I let my frills droop. “That drags.”

“Minnow grounded it. Wouldn’t shut about it. Demanded I call him Catkiller.”

“Minnow?”

Staune paused before saying, “Wrinklyfrills calls him Versta. You do too.”

A giggle escaped my lips. I looked up. If I wanted Staune to open up, what else could I ask? “So, what do you think of that Adwyn character?

“He is annoying, yes. Slicktongue spent a longer time thinking than Citrusface yet he didn’t even lick Slicktongue’s words. So annoying.”

I mouthed ‘Citrusface.’ Citrus, what was a kind of fruit, right? Like lemons or orange. Oh. I strangled a giggle while I asked, “Why do you have so many names for everybody?”

“It is faster to say, yes.”

“Faster?”

“I don’t have to gather of all the little titles you dragons have and say them right. Sofrani, Gyfari, Ychyr, brak brak brak. Faster to say Citrusface or Minnow.”

I looked up, the shadows of leaves dancing about my face. “Well, I don’t see how Stargazer is any easier to remember than Kinri​-​sofran.”

“Tricky, ueh. My only Sofrani are Slicktongue and Wrinklyfrills,” she said, then added in Gronte’s voice, “Kinri​-​ychy.”

“Fine, fine. I still don’t see how it’s easier to say than just plain Kinri.”

“You look like someone scratched up your face with stars and also you look up at the sky whenever you don’t know what to say, yes.”

I looked back at the bird. “How did you even notice that?”

“I notice a whole flock of things. Like how Nestling covers up one foot when she’s hiding something. Or how Slicktongue uses big words when he’s upset. Or how Wrinklyfrills touches her locket when she’s worried about Nestling.”

Some part of me whispered,She could be useful when dealing with the Frinan administration. I scratched my headband, and looked away, not up. “So um, what’s it like to know what everyone’s thinking?”

“It’s annoying. Citrusface is up to something, yes, and no one hears it, no.”

“Well, I don’t like Citri⁠ ⁠—⁠ Adwyn either. He wants something from me, and I owe him. It feels like…”

Staune cocked her head. “A stormy​-​cloud on the way?”

“Like a stomcloud, that’s it.”

Staune hopped out of the abandoned nest, and climbed on the trunk of the tree. A short trill escaped her beak, warbling up in pitch. She repeated it before waving her wings at me. “What do you owe Citrusface?” she said in a sharp, clipped voice.

I looked away. “The administration controls who gets to enter the town and how. Sky​-​dwellers”⁠ ⁠—⁠ I glanced at the bird and its head⁠ ⁠—⁠ “erm, dragons with blue scales, are kinda suspicious because we live in the sky and you only see a sky​-​dweller on the surface if they’ve been exiled.”

“They are blue,” the parrot said in Ushra’s voice, followed by his laugh.

“That was a little weird.”

“It was a joke, yes.”

“It didn’t sound like a joke.”

“That makes it better,” Staune said in a high voice, followed by a smart cluck. “Slicktongue makes the best jokes.”

“Was the interrogation a joke?”

Staune cocked her head. “No no, Slicktongue had to ensure you were you.”

“What about your question? The one about angles and horizons.”

“I had to be sure you were you, too. Nestling said you were obsessed with stars.”

“What?” My frills burst wide. “Astronomy is a perfectly acceptable hobby for a young wiver!”

Staune’s wings burst wide. “Perfectly acceptable hobby!”

I poked Staune with my alula. Staune squawked and loosened her hold on the truck and fell to the branch I sat on. I huffed and drew my wings back, looking away again.

“As I was saying, sky​-​dwellers are suspicious because you had to do something to get exiled from the sky, maybe something illegal.”

“Did you do something illegal?” she asked, head cocked.

“No!”

“Perfectly acceptable!”

“What?” I rolled my head. “Anyway, I requested an audience to discuss my admission into Gwymr/Frina. I… hadn’t made a very good impression. But then Adwyn stepped up for me! He convinced the faer to admit me.”

“Nmm,” the bird hummed. Her head cocked further.

“So now I owe him for letting me into town, and my six cycle examination is coming up. I might end up owing him even more.”

Staune stepped toward me. “You could screech.”

“Screech?”

“Yes. Whenever someone is bothering me, I screech until they go away. It sounds like,” the parrot cut into an intense clicking, warbling sound that shredded my frills! I yelled, and my wings and forelegs flew up to cover my frills.

Without my legs steadying me, I fell over and dropped through the trees, slamming against three branches. They snapped and punctuated the hitches in my yelling.

My legs flailed with my wings. They caught on two branches. My fall slowed enough for me to pull myself up. I wrapped my legs around a thick branch and lay on top of it.

My breath caught up with me. I sat there, breathing until a blue and red bird lighted down in front of my snout.

She touched her break to my muzzle, a light peck. “You fell.”

“You were so loud! Please don’t do that again.”

“I will if Citrusface comes back.”

“Okay.” I looked up at the sky. A few pterosaurs and birds soared under clouds and skylands. Below that, a few dragons flew about on their business. Staune looked about too, and like a suggestion, the came a certain trill on the winds. The fourth short ring. “Oh!” I said. “I need to go fly to work.” I looked back to the bird. She faced me, but turned again when I spoke. “Bye Staune. You’re pretty starly. Better than Versta.”

Staune clucked and mimed, “You’re pretty starly.” Then she switched to her normal voice, “Better than that”⁠ ⁠—⁠ she shook, seeming to vibrate⁠ ⁠—⁠ “ ‘Wow! Totally Adventurers’ drake.”

I drew in my wings. “Digrif is alright.”

“I need to fly to work,” Staune echoed.

“Oh yeah! Thanks.”

Staune trilled and shifted onto one talon, holding out her other talon to me.

I flicked my tongue. But my eyes cleared after a beat, and I extended my pointer toe. She wrapped her talon around it and shook it.

Then a flutter of purple and screeches interrupted us. It came up beside my face, talons scratching and scoring my face. I yelped. When I lost my balance, no branches broke my fall. I landed hard on my back, sprawling on the soft dirt. An up​-​jutting rock punched into my back, forcing a final yell from my throat.

Above me, I heard a tossering trill, following by the voice of Versta, “Was this wretched que​-​re​-​me minnow ruffling you, O Toastyfeathers?”

“You’re the ruffling minnow, ueh! Starsnout was just leaving, you tongueless quah!” The larger parrot lunged, swiping the smaller with a talon.

Versta warbled. “Well, I helped her to the ground. She should show thanks.”

I stood up, saying, “Thank you, Versta. Let me replay the favor.” I grabbed the rock I fell on and yank it out of the ground. It flew from my foot at the purple parrot. He dropped from the branch just in time. Oh well.

“Ground yourself, ueh!” Staune’s voice said.

I flicked my tongue, looking at the descending parrot, trilling, then back up to the red and blue parrot. Her break was closed, and she lifted her head when I met her eye.

“Don’t do that!” I jabbed with my foreleg.

“What?” the smaller parrot asked.

“Mimic each other’s voices. It’s confusing!”

Versta clucked at me.

“You stinky little bird!” I leapt at Versta.

“Kinri!” a familiar growling voice called out. Hinte was slinking out of the house, faltering on her injured hindlegs.

I stopped short of Versta, waiting for her to reach me by the tree.

She waved a faded blue bag, tied closed. “Have this. It is keimfrei dust. Sometimes used in perfumes.”

“Thank you,” I said. But I waved my tongue. “That’s not all it’s used for, is it?”

Hinte smiled. “Of course. Nothing has one use. It is also a coagulant for the descrying mixture, the very sensitive kind. The forest had stargazers too, you know.”

“It’s a nice gift. Thank you, Hinte.”

“You already said that.” But Hinte smiled very slightly, before turning and limping back to her house.

In the doorway of the Gären manor, Ushra stood and watched Hinte approach. I turned to leave again, but caught the ancient alchemist’s gaze as I did. His impassive, disdainful look hadn’t changed. Yet there was a twinkle of something in his eyes, just this once. He licked his eyes and it was gone.

In silence I slinked away from the Gären estate and toward my sinkhole of morning shift. Around me the west end was sleeping. The birds didn’t chirp too loudly, there weren’t very many dragons out walking, and even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

That left it easy to hear the soft, stealthy padding that came up behind me.

I said, “Hello again, Adwyn​-​sofran.” Your tongue caught the scent of eyepaint.

“Greetings, Kinri of Specter.”

A twitching blue frill brushed my headband, and metallic​-​red eyes caught that. I walked on, forcefully, and left the orange drake trailing behind me. Why here, why now? I’d had enough of this smirking, scheming wraith at breakfast.

“What do you want?” I asked him. “I need to get to work.”

“Just a little chat,” he said. “About⁠ ⁠—⁠ events. They merit reflection, do they not?” The adviser preformed a short, low leap that put him right beside me. He was stretching his wings, rolling his neck, and relaxing into a low​-​walk. Then he continued, “Their attitude, let’s call it. There’s the same inventive paranoia about both of them, by turns charming and vexsome. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“Okay,” I said, and lifted myself into a high​-​walk.

He sighed as if denied something. “Simper as ever, I see,” said Adwyn, and he tossed his head. “You heard the alchemist⁠ ⁠—⁠ a plot of another stronghold against us! As if we did not dig up half the bronze in their weapons. As if we did not have the protection of Dyfnder/Geunant in all but paper.” His tone had an kind of negotiated sound to it⁠ ⁠—⁠ like it might have been ironic if it didn’t sound sincere. He gave me a knowing smirk as he strode up to me again.

“It’s not that far​-​fetched,” I said. “Maybe Ushra made it sound more sinister, but the apes are really creepy. Maybe there is someone behind them, pulling puppet strings.”

Adwyn leapt high.

I jerked to a stop, looking up. Did he expect me fly after him? …I wanted a reply, and he had to know that. Transparent.

I sighed. Mornings made me fly to work anyway. My hindlegs vaulted me into the air and passed off to my wings. When I’d caught up to the orange drake, he must have heard me, because now he was speaking. His voice was a growl or shout, pitched to carry.

“Forgive the tangent; I’d forgotten to tell you,” he said. “The faer wanted you to hear that your Mawla has turned up innocent. At least until Wrang⁠ ⁠— looking to be the true actor in this matter⁠ ⁠—⁠ can be investigated. Something that is hampered by his family’s influence.”

The military adviser was threshing wings lifting him above me; he saw my smile.

Mawla was innocent. Of course she was; I knew it. The stars would keep her away from this mess, wouldn’t they?

Then my smile faded to a frown — why had the adviser changed gears so suddenly? It wasn’t just forgetting, he was too calculated for that. I fanned my frills, listened.

His next words had the rhythm of a consequent. “Tell me, do you know of the Sgrôli ac Neidr? The, ahem, library of snakes?”

“Of course I do. I go there every⁠ ⁠—⁠ most⁠ ⁠—⁠ some days.”

“You know Chwithach?” He saw me nod. “Tell me, how trustworthy is he?”

“I trust him. He’s kept my, uh, interest in alchemy between us.”

“Sightly.” Adwyn nodded. “I know Rhyfel​-​ann has bright things to say about him —⁠ and I would ask the head guard myself, but I feel as though I ask too much of the drake.”

He glided closer to me, and spoke lower: “When you go to the library again, inquire as to whether anyone has recently checked out scrolls about humans, or the Gorphonic mines. Tell him I asked. I’d like the information⁠ ⁠—⁠ all of it —⁠ on paper. Parchment.”

While I nodded, my frills were working. I asked, putting twist in my voice, “Are you admitting Ushra might’ve been reasonable? That someone is behind the humans?”

Adwyn flapped, and floated a bit higher, and then fell back down. “I will admit, there is, perhaps, some grain of obscured reason in it. Perhaps. We don’t know what was going on out in the lake last night, and I will not speculate on it.” He paused. Then, “With that said, there are groups inside Gwymr/Frina who could see benefit from a conflict with the humans. Groups connected to some other stronghold, who would have us ally with their benefactors.”

“Like you and Dyfnder/Geunant,” I said, and banked closer to catch his reaction.

The drake didn’t even flinch. “Yes,” he said. “Can I have no loyalty? The Dyfnderi are peaceable⁠ ⁠—⁠ we keep to ourselves, we have been friends to the cliffs from the beginning.” As if quoting something, he said, “It was stubborn Dwylla who refused our appeals and Mlaen who continues to trace his foolish footsteps. We can see what’s best for Gwymr/Frina. We always have.”

I sat silent, and watched the buildings below slowly drift past⁠ ⁠—⁠ just like I would on any other morning, flying alone, dragging my flight to work.

But as I quietly flew on, the drake seemed to be waiting for something. I asked him, “What do you want from me?”

“The Empyrean⁠ ⁠—⁠ excuse me, the Constellation of Houses⁠ ⁠—⁠ hates Dyfnder Geunant, and House Specter most of all.” He spoke slowly.

I tilted my head. Did we? I had only heard of the Dyfnderi from my tutors. They were the defensive, reclusive orange dragons who lived in the deepest canyons, in Dyfnder/Geunant, the stronghold that was a country in itself. They were infamous, I guess, but only in history books, not in life. Why worry about the mudscales when there were rogue skylands and the odd nadir revolt or tantrum?

Adwyn was still talking. “When you arrived at our gates, I had wondered if this was their vengeance come at last, if Specter had sent an agent disguised as a feckless exile. I’d argued you in to keep an eye on you.

“And it seems that your incompetence wasn’t feigned, that you left the sky, an expatriate, not an exile. And you hide your mark of exile⁠ ⁠—⁠ as if it were some embarrassment. What, are you trying to escape your family here? You’re running away?”

“I–I was encouraged to leave, but the decision was mine…”

We continued to fly. I saw the squat black Llygaid Crwydro building pass below us, but I stayed quiet. I was going there. But would it be an insult to point it out? I needed to stay on his good side, at least till I had full citizenship.

When he spoke again, his voice was just loud enough to be heard. “Specter​-​eti,” —⁠ the canyon​-​dweller’s voice, sharp and distant, seemed to caress each syllable in a way that might be violating if I had felt any connection to that family name⁠ ⁠—⁠ “you care about technology, about knowledge, correct? Most sky​-​dwellers do. Or do they still let you have scrolls in the sky?”

“Well, we have books⁠ ⁠—⁠ like little scrolls you flip through.”

A nod. “You may not have learnt⁠ ⁠—⁠ sky loves to forget any history not involving itself⁠ ⁠—⁠ but the inked press is a Dyfnderi device. One we devised to preserve and spread our scripture and ideals, one that’s had something of a life of travel. The sky has its letterpresses, the ridges have gravure presses, and the forests had something of the sort. Or has if any are left in the ashes.”

“So?” I said. “Do you have any point at all, or did you made me late to work to fan your pride?”

“I sought to clear the airs. Give you a more reliable perspective. History distorts, and I wouldn’t trust your⁠ ⁠—⁠ trust sky’s impression of my canyons. And you agree that knowledge is valuable, no? I’d expect you to wonder where presses came from at least once or twice.”

“Inventing stuff doesn’t really make you starly, though. Pteryx invented bronze and telescopes and all of those magical things with scary names. Look at them.”

He grunted. And then he spoke again, and it finally felt as if he’d deigned to make his point. “I’ll be clear. My loyalty is currently to the faer, first and foremost. But middle and last remain for Dyfnder/Geunant and the beautiful caverns and rivers that grow and flow there. I will see this town united under the violet eye of Dyfns. That has been my goal since before I sent to Gwymr/Frina.”

Stars, I hope not, I muttered under my breath. I’d seen that ugly eye of Dyfns⁠ ⁠—⁠ that oversaturated​-​purple slit eye with a rainbow of even more oversaturated rays squirting out, just like the eyepaint Adwyn always wore.

It was appreciation for their false god, I knew. Dyfns, bearing all sorts of frilly meaningless titles like “the depth beyond depth” or “he of deepest gaze.”

Their obsession with eyes in general was probably more plain weird than it was heretical, but I doubted it was starly, with how far the canyons were from the winds of the Cloud Constructor.

(It had been a sad thing, the priests would always say, to plunge the surface into spiritual darkness, but the Severance had left us no choice. Maybe one day it would be lifted, and I could step into a temple of the stars again.)

Adwyn spoke again, and I’d only just leapt out of my thoughts to hear it. His words fell dramatic and faultless, the coda of a practiced speech. “In time, the faer will see the safety of our gaze and the ridge’s influence here will stop in its tracks.”

I didn’t say anything, and we flew along coiled silence awhile. Then, I suppose he stopped waiting and dropped his last line.

“I would want to see you join me in this, Kinri of Nothing.”

I held my breath for a beat.

Kinri of Nothing. It — it fit. But I almost preferred being Kinri of Specter, the sourcerous, wretched sky​-​dweller exile. Kinri of “it’s her.”

“Join me, Nothing​-​eti, and you can escape your past once and forever. You can at last get the recognition you desire.” He gave me one last knowing smirk, the echoes of his words ringing in my ears. Adwyn left in the light of the twin suns.

---

At some point the title stopped echoing in my head, and the silence it left wrung.

I glided down, angled north, at the Llygaid Crwydro. It translated to something like ‘the wandering gaze’ or ‘the roaming eye.’ Such a Geunantic phrase.

With a mutter, I came down through thick ashy clouds that spread out like a floor beneath me. The gray season had only just begun, and it was still cycles before the volcanoes would start puffing out ash. I had flown through ash clouds before, when Tädet/Pimeys had drifted by a ring of volcanoes in the high east. It was worse than flying through snow; ash was so heavy it would drag you out of the sky if you were unprepared⁠ ⁠—⁠ and ‘prepared’ meant not being in the sky in the first place.

The world beneath the clouds still gleamed brightly under the big scattered clouds. It dragged out a frown⁠ ⁠—⁠ I was about to lose four long rings to the shop, and it was sunny out.

As I lighted down in front of the Llygaid Crwydro, I was scowling at it. It looked a squat, unassuming building. The sign had stylized glyphs with those creepy Geunantic slit eyes inside the circles, two of them, and they glared down at me like some night wyvern.

Instead of pitch black scales, this creature had pitch black bricks. And its wide, white doors were the gleaming teeth of an open maw. Rawr, it said, as it readied to swallow me and my energy and happiness. On either side of the door were colorful mounds of ash. Natural piles once, but now they had fragments of stained glass pressed in, colluding into a sort of rainbow mosaic. Claff’s work.

Down in front of the shop lay a drake on a bench, smoking a roll of smoldering fernpaper. Scales a ruddy, almost brownish red, he wore glasses and had a thin, stretched look to his frame; he had muscles, but they seemed to be fighting the long, lanky look his skeleton wanted for him.

Like me, his hornscales were flat, disbudded stubs. He’d been the first I met down on the surface with them. Even Uvidet, in all her feminine beauty, still had hornscales, but they are smaller, entwining into thin coils. Which, I had to admit, looked cool on its own. But not very wiver​-​like.

As I slinked up, he was glancing at me, and looking more somber than smirking. Hitching his wings in a curt greeting, he said, “Kinri.”

“Sinig,” I replied I smiled at the brownish​-​red drake who smelt of fernpaper, tart venom and a metallic whiff that might not be blood.

A nod. “Fancy cloak today.”

“I didn’t have anything else.”

He tossed his head. “Fair. You’ll have to sit at the counter today.”

“Oh. Claff is sick again?”

“Yep. It’s worse this time. Papills. He didn’t wake up day before yesterday.” He took another pull of his burning roll. “Was asking about you yesterday. You should go visit him sometimes, show ’em you care.”

“I⁠ ⁠—⁠ uh…”

Claff was… well, he was nice. When we talked, he made me laugh sometimes and I guessed I missed him when he was gone. But… gah.

I should go visit him. He must really feel awful, because he worked so hard when he was here. “I guess I’ll go see him this sometime. Later this evening, maybe. I⁠ ⁠—⁠ thanks for telling me, S.”

“Yea.” He adjusted his glasses and looked up at the passing clouds and skycities above.

Time for work. Sighingly, I started forward. “And here I expected a nice, relaxing day of inventory,” I said as I walked past him.

“You can still do inventory,” he said, not taking his eyes from the clouds. “After the fourth ring. You’ll need to, at any rate. New shipment coming in.”

I glanced back. “What? No help?”

Sinig brought his gaze down to me. “I could say I did my good deed for today by not pointing that you’re late, again. Or speculating on what that smell is.” I looked back and he was smirking now. I glared back. He only rolled his head, continuing, “…Mehbe. Depends on what the crowds look like later. Wait for it.”

“Crowds? Today?”

“You never know.”

I tossed my head. What more could I ask? So I turned and walked into the maw or door of the Llygaid Crwydro.

Like many buildings in Gwymr/Frina, the Llygaid Crwydro had stone doors. They were a light, almost white stone, and did nothing to ease the impression of vicious teeth.

I swallowed and pulled at the handle. The hallow door swung open and smacked me in the face.

Like many buildings in Gwymr/Frina, the Llygaid Crwydro had stone doors that tended lighter than they looked; and I still hadn’t gotten used to it. Behind me there was a clicking, but when I turned. Sinig regarded me solemnly, inclining his head. I snapped my tongue, and left it at that.

As I stepped into the shop, good​-​humored Sinig lay behind me and lonely counter lay in front. That was as good a statement of the day ahead of me as any.

---

The innards of the shop greeted me, as they always did, lifeless and still, and smelling of some sweet fruity scent floating over dust and strange old plants. The line from the door split the shop proper down the middle; two counters were on either side stretching only a few strides long. Beyond that, the shop was shelves and tables, and some support beams.

Four rings, Kinri. It was only four rings.

I walked further in. My sandals gritted on a floor like sandstone, and my gaze avoided the strangely high ceiling. Unlike a lot of the north end, this shop rose up only a single story, without an attic; the owner’s quarters squatted down in the basement.

This time of morning he would be minding the hatchlings, and his mate busy in the guard. From all I’d heard, the family he’d brought to the cliffs all worked cushy administration jobs and left him alone to take care of the new hatches. (If you listened, you could sometimes hear the squeaks and laughing or crying, and so many thumps.)

You could kinda see why I’d been hired, despite being, well, me. With the hatchlings taking up most of his attention, I filled in some of the less important duties: taking inventory, tracking and balancing finances, or even more boring things, like sorting and organizing the shelves.

I glanced over to those sanded pumice shelves and tables. They stretched or spread along walls wide enough you could leap from one to the other. On them crowded the piles of clothes and tools and books, and I told myself they wouldn’t need organizing for a few more days.

Murmuring, I told Kinri that there really wouldn’t be that many customers because the east market was crowding, that the inventory Sinig alluded to would only be a couple of boxes, and mostly, that all the moil was small today.

At the very least, a certain plain​-​dweller was sitting behind one of the two counters. Arall, a long, tall wiver with a generous wingspan almost as wide as mine, short by only a few clawspans. She was wiping down some dusty plate inlaid with bright metal, and regarding me with a mask of mere civility, not waving or really acknowledging me until she asked, “Sinig told you to take the other counter today?” She spoke fast enough a beat passed before I untangled the words.

I nodded, meeting her eyes just once for politeness then letting them eye the shelves again.

“Good,” said she, and went going back to wiping the plate.

At that, I slipped behind the other counter. The wiver always needled me with how brusque and abrasive she acted⁠ ⁠—⁠ like Hinte, but not in a good way. And yet, she seemed more approachable than me, with so many more customers buying from her. It suited me, but still vaguely stung.

As I slipped behind the counter and its little wooden flap entrance slid to a close behind me, my gaze wandered, avoiding Arall and falling on where Sinig lay outside the shop, then on my bag, then on the board games Claff had left under this counter, with a dozen again pieces and rules only he tasted.

With the plain​-​dweller drake coming down with all kinds of awful diseases, I was working the counter more and more. It was rings of mind​-​numbing waiting and hallux​-​twiddling, punctuated by bargaining and bartering and brokering.

And it all twisted my tongue and stuttered my words in that same way anything reeking of the same maneuvering and manipulation from back home would. That still was an act, but a comfortable act, an authentic act.

I looked up, adjusting my headband. The molten heat had left my face with a stripe of unsinged scales where my headband had been last night. I could never set the headband in the exact same position, so it brushed against the singed scales and smarted a little every now and again.

Sighing only once, I lay on the raised stone rest behind the counter. It spread like it was designed for bigger dragons, and it only underscored how little I was. I hugged my wings closer body, and it made me smaller.

Without getting up, I reached out for the soapy water and rag hid underneath the counter. Setting both on the counter, I unlidded the water with my wings, the rag dusted off with my forelegs⁠ ⁠—⁠ all done for want of something to do with myself, really.

I took the rag, wetted it soapily and wiped the counter. In here it would dust overnight, because the air stayed dry and sooty. I wiped with slow slowness. If I finished too soon, I would need to find something else to do. Wipe down, wipe up. I could try starting one of the stories in Gronte’s book, labor through the translating. Wipe left, wipe right. But I did need to clean this counter, so I’ll finish this first.

Sometimes, cleaning this counter, it wouldn’t be enough to sate me, and I’d look over to the other counter, where now Arall had moved from her dust plate to the countertop itself, like me. I’d see this, and I would try to fledge it into a competition of who could clean their counter the cleanest first.

I would say, “Arall, bet you can’t finish your counter before me.”

And Arall would roll her head, and stop cleaning her counter. I’d droop my frills, and wouldn’t lift my gaze from my counter.

Left and right, left and right, I cleaned. Then up and down, then up and down. Then left and down, then right and up. Then a circle! Then a spiral! A smiling face. The glyph for ‘Kinri.’ Under it, the glyph for ‘Digrif.’ Around them, a curling tail. Wait. Blood rushed to my frills, and I rushed to rub that out.

Right and left. Down and up. Ugh. My tail patted my bag, feeling the book Gronte gave me. Down and ugh. Left and pat. With a long​-​building sigh, I doubled my pace, and finishing the counter in a single jerk of a movement, some rag​-​dulled swipe of my claws. I ripped the book from my bag with a huff.

The book of nothing, she’d called it. It greeted me with pages of old laid paper that smell of sweet wax. Inside, the colorful letters danced across pages with a vibrance that spoke of a claw​-​inked scrolls. I flipped all throughout the book until I came across something that looked like The Confusion of Underbrush in Drachenzunge.

I peered at the slender symbols, fangs dewing salty as my familiarity dribbled back to me.

“My syllabus demands…” I murmured, translating.

The Confusion of Underbrush

The shop’s door opened and a little bell jingled, jostling me from my glazed​-​eye reading, and I was almost smiling for it. The door opened to a brown, rugged dragon stepping in, naked save the cloth band wrapped around the base of his tail and a sack on his back. His name escaped me; but maybe I’d never heard it.

Anyway, he was a hunter and tanner who dropped by with hides every other cycle. Today’s would be the last haul he would bring in before the gray season arrived in full and all of the game in the cliffs would wane scarce. Even the skinhounds would grow lethargic and sedentary.

The drake wasted no time going directly to Arall. I licked my fangs. It wasn’t anything about me, maybe she was just more familiar, having worked here longer than I had. My frills were drooping anyway, and I returned to the story dryer than the shop. The meaning tucked away in those slender symbols seemed to come a little easier now.

A bell jingled, jostling again me from my reading. I placed a marker rod in the book, frills crinkling as I looked to the door. It was Sinig, looking the slightest bit disheveled. He waved a wing, and low​-​walked back to where Mawrion clawed at paperwork and watched his hatchlings.

Why did he have to watch his hatchlings? Ashaine and I could do whatever we wanted as hatches, and we lived in the sky. What was there to worry about on the surface?

I waved back at Sinig, giving the book of nothing another look, frills relaxing as I looked back to the book.

I laughed, but it choked after thinking a step father. It was such a depressing piece of history⁠ ⁠—⁠ and it was phrased like a joke’s punchline.

Gronte had wanted me to read this, but why?

---

My head lay on the counter. Two long ring each chimed at some point. I may have stumbled close to sleep once or twice, but never near enough to really rest.

A bell jingled when I was closest, jostling me from my nap. A dark figure entered. They were short but long⁠ ⁠—⁠ still taller than me, but only just so. They wore a black cloak, embellished with pale gold and gray threads. Various glyphs decorated — most prominent among them the old symbol for Cyfrin ac Dwylla, a purple flame melting a rock struck through by a pickax. In the left corner, a stylized glyph for faer Dwylla spread, but a diagonal slash struck through it.

They advanced to the counter and I lurched my head up. I cleared my brilles, only to find a mask covering their face, and reveal only peering, brilliant gold eyes that dart to my headband, right where the matua brand lay, and settled on me. Did they know?

“Omoù ptèromai, Specter​-​eti.” Their voice was a private murmur.

I snapped my tongue. Would I ever be rid of that stinking title? But I licked my fangs and said, “Greetings and welcome to Llygaid Crwydro~” I righted myself out of my slump. “What can we do for you?”

“I would like to sell this,” they said in a strange accent with long, low sibilants. Reaching into their cloak, they pulled out a foot​-​sized object in a black schizon pouch. Its strings were pulled at and its contents dumped onto the counter.

My frills were wrinkling before I saw it. When the glowing red stone slid onto the counter, a familiar, unwelcome hum vexed my frills.

A cryst.

The thing itself gleamed a deep, sparkling red. Gleamed. It looked more than an actual gem than the stinking stones we’d dug up. Cut into many faces, each side was a little triangle. The vibration of the cryst rumbled even deeper, more intense than any of the crysts from yesterday.

The gem​-​like crysts hummed with more clarity and focus than any I’d dug up. Where the others resonated with a cacophonous chorus of interleaved, staggered vibrations, this cryst sang in a single voice and melding overtones. It was an undulating note in tremolo. And it sounded almost like music⁠ ⁠—⁠ almost sounded good.

Then I recovered, remembered that I supposed to be bartering. I hummed a thoughtful hum, and didn’t mean for it be in tune.

“It’s pretty, I guess. And sounds nice,” I said. Is there anything else to it?”

Their frills wrinkled under their hood and their eyes grew sharper, giving the impression of being evaluated, interpreted. But where someone like Ushra or Adwyn had eyes that pierced, these eyes seemed only to prod. Only needed to prod.

They said, “It is of particular value to those with… certain talents.”

“Oh. It’s magical, then?” I asked. I popped my tongue in a very no​-​nonsense gesture, halfway between a snap and a click.

Their eyes shifted a bit at my response, intense and almost glaring. Their frills shifted too, tending less prominent under their hood. “It is not magic.”

I rolled my head. “Anti​-​magical then, is that —” I cut myself off. The words had just left my mouth when I cringed.

They hissed, and said, “Better,” before adding in a lower, even more private tone, “You are a practitioner, then?”

“No,” — I tried to measure my words before saying them — “I have a… friend. She knows more about this than I do.” It was all I could do to keep another reaction from my face. I was just digging myself, and Hinte, deeper, wasn’t I?

I tried forcing more seriousness in my tone, without reaching for my ariose Specter voice. “But it doesn’t matter. There aren’t a lot of practitioners around here, and the ones there are hide it for–for a reason. Saying this is magical makes it less likely to sell, not more.”

They snapped their tongue when I said ‘magical’ again. What was their problem?

They said, “I am not selling it as a instrument of magic, only… pointing out that the market exists.”

“I shall not buy this on the hope that there is a practitioner in this town besides yourself.” Too much. I pulled back the seriousness. “It’s a cool bauble, I guess? But… curiosities only really go for so much. I’ll, um, give you maybe ten aris for this.”

“I usually sell these for five times that, at least. In the east market, that is.” I could read a smile in the folds of their mask.

“You do that, then. Have a nice day~”

They stared for a moment and closed their eyes in thought.

“Thirty.”

“Ten.” My frills wrinkled. “If their prices are so much better, why not take this to the market?”

“There is quite a crowd of dragons at the market today. This shop doesn’t seem to have that problem.”

I clicked my tongue. “Good one. Your jokes might net you more than these rocks.” I poked the red cryst, and it wobbled but didn’t fall over.

The mage’s eyes cleared. “It’s one of a kind. Does that not improve the price?”

I flicked my tongue, giving the stone another look. While the cut looked complex, it also looked regular. As I turned over the crysts, listening to how the hum shifted, my frills unfolded, miming my exploits in the Berwem, and I caught something.

“No, it isn’t,” I said. “You have another somewhere under your cloak.”

Frills flattened and hissing laughter came from under the hood. “Very good,” they said as a foreleg produced the implicated cryst. Their mask shifted again, and they said, “I can part with both of these for that price.” When they set the cryst on the counter, my breath cycle hitched for a beat.

That sonorous rumble and pale green body? “Sterk,” I mouthed. I looked back at the mage, giving them a closer look. The question perched on the tip of my tongue. But I flicked and said, “Only if you have some schizon to wrap it in. One hum is enough. Two will drag on my nerves, drag on everyone’s nerves.”

A tongue flicked. “Are you sure? Three halves is quite the harmonious interval. The only one I’ve seen called perfect, in fact.”

I whisked a wing. “That won’t stop it from waxing tiresome.”

The mage waited a beat. Then, “Fair. Consider this,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ they brought their forefoot to the counter and now it held a short bronze rod, tipped with a white stone⁠ ⁠—⁠ “I call it a synkén rrávdos. It dulls the vibration of nearby crysts. More importantly, it is cheaper than schizon cloth.”

“Ten and three,” I said.

“An understandable offer. I suppose I shall take it.” They place both crysts on the counter with the ‘synkén rrávdos.’

After reaching under the counter for our coinsack, I payed out the amount in gray​-​yellow coins, counting from ‘one’ to ‘ten and three’ in a conversational tone. I finished, and they didn’t take the aris. I just gave them a bland smile, saying, “Is there anything else you need~?”

Their brilles clouded, then cleared. Their mask shifted, but still hid whatever shift of expression caused it. “Do you sell gliders?”

My brow furrowed for a beat, before I said, “We have two.”

“I shall take the better one.”

I slinked around the counter, weaving past three support pillars, to where stone wheels, ash​-​sled blades and diller leashes lined the wall. Sitting on the slab just below it, among a few other things, lay two rods smelling of tanned and painted dillerskin. One looked the grayish black of firm but snappable gray bamboo, while the other looked sturdy, brown wood.

The wings of the first folded down, which halved the width but still let the glider take up half the slab. The other had wings folded to its sides, loosed by latch at the top that kept the wings spread in flight. That one only took up a rod’s width sliver of the slab.

Back at the counter, the mage bought the wooden glider, leaving me with the aris I just payed and then some.

My scroll unrolled and lay in front of me, but I watched them leave, tongue waving, I took a sip of my water, washing a metallic lightning taste from my mouth.

“Who was that?” I murmured, staring at Sterk.

---

Just then, a bell jingled, jostling me from my rest; and in stepped a brown wiver with her left frill ringed with piercings, a wide laughing mouth and dark​-​blue eyes that lit up as they lighted on me. She smelt oddly electric.

“Kynra! They said I might catch you here.”

“Hi!” I said. My tongue searched around. “Mawla, right?”

“Got it in one.” She slinked to the counter and leant over, smiling not far from my face. “So. I licked the papers. Tastes like you went to the faer anyway, last night. How did it go?”

“Well…” I cast my gaze to the ceiling. “The faer was… perceptive. The secretary is just as scary as they say. Everyone else was weird or creepy. But everything turned out okay.”

“Obviously,” she said, scowling. I tilted my head, but she must have been talking about something else because she continued with, “you wouldn’t get a mat in the faer’s administration if you were a decent, normal dragon.”

I frowned at the wiver. Did that mean I wasn’t decent, or I wouldn’t get that position?

“Think about it,” she was continuing, “have you seen a single plain​-​dweller in her skein? She has a whole flock of gray scales, even Dyfnderi⁠ ⁠—⁠ screaming Dyfnderi⁠ ⁠—⁠ but not a single plain​-​dweller. Except Bariaeth, and Bariaeth doesn’t count at all.”

Under the force of her words, I drew my wings toward myself and rested my head on the mat. Did I upset her?

“Sorry.” I glanced away, eyes clouded. “My frown wasn’t at you. I was just thinking about how I was trying to get a position in the administration, maybe as a secretary or something.”

“Oh–oh, you’re fine, Kynra, obviously. I —”

“Um, it’s Kinri.” I was still looking away.

“Whoops. You’re fine, Kinri.” She spoke my name slowly, trying to get it right. “Guess I spend too much time idling at y Dadafodd. Didn’t mean to turn this into something serious.”

I glanced back. “I think,” I said, “things turned serious for me the day I asked Hinte to take me into the lake.” I looked away again, licking my eyes. Why I made the topic about me like that? It was rude.

I cleared my brilles and jerked my gaze back to Mawla. “The lake! Why aren’t you in the lake? I thought you were a sifter.”

Mawla grinned and gave me one of her throaty laughs; with it, the electric smell grew, gaining a metallic hint. She said, “That’s actually why I tracked you down.” She paused, snaking her head toward me until I could count the scales on her snout. “No⁠ ⁠—⁠ blinking⁠ ⁠—⁠ sifting. At all! You must have worked some magic in the town hall, because the boss gave us all flight⁠ ⁠—⁠ paid flight.”

Mawla had gotten a little closer with every exclamation. Her grin had grown until her teeth were revealed, including her fangs. She gave the impression she might bite my nose off if it wouldn’t hurt.

“That’s good?”

“It’s delicious! Of course, I love”⁠ ⁠—⁠ her clouded brilles caught a glint of light⁠ ⁠—⁠ “the lake as much as everyone else. But a day of freedom? That’s a whole notch on its own.”

I smiled at the wiver, even as I slid back some. I could stay calm and professional here if I wanted to. It wouldn’t even be hard.

Hide your fangs.

I didn’t want to.

Mawla was looking around, first back at the door, then gawking at Arall, who turned away⁠ ⁠—⁠ staring⁠ ⁠—⁠ somewhere over there, and the sifter gave her an unreturned, excited wave; then she was gawking at the dusty, webbed rafters above, and she gave them a scowl; and then she was gawking at me, and she gave me a faltering grin. “So, that’s the news.” She looked away and back again, and this time looking very much at me. “I like the way you’re handling this.”

“What?” My head had tilted after I asked the question, I was so confused.

Mawla rubbed her frill piercings with an alula. “We’re strangers, and you could have kept it at that. But instead you were nice last night and you’re nice now, smiling and letting me gust. It’s sweet.”

“You’ve been nice enough so far.”

Mawla tossed her head. “Yeah, I have, obviously. But it’s been a dance, you’re just as much to blame.”

My eyes went extra cloudy. “How am I to blame for you being nice?”

Her head tossed, and her tone was amused hissing. “It’d be a lot easier not to if you weren’t all cute and friendly. Flick at your molty, green friend if you want an apprenticeship in how not to do any of that.”

“Hinte’s friendly too… in her own way,” I said.

“Obviously not. She said I had a drake’s name.” Mawla drew her wings together.

“Maybe it was a joke?”

“Sure, sure. But what about taking the credit in the papers? She’s stealing all your glory.”

“I — I —” I could be calm and professional. “You think so?” But that wasn’t what drew Mawla here, was it?

It wasn’t wearing a mask, it was just deliberately not wearing a mask.

No, no, cringing, simpering Kinri was the mask.

“Obviously.” She yawned, as if me or the question had bored her. “If my whole squad doesn’t praise your name for this flight by the end of the day, I’ve done something wrong.”

“But I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Would it have happened if you weren’t there?”

I twisted my head. Would Hinte have made it back without my help? “I don’t think so.”

“See it? It’s obvious.”

A bell jingled, jostling me from my conversation.

I saw Arall had only just turned around, so I waved a wing at the mud​-​dweller stepping in.

“Welcome to the Llygaid Crwydro~” I said. “Let me know how I can help you.”

Mawla seemed to find that funny, hissing just under her breath. “Sweet lilt. Do my name.”

I glared at her, and she fluttered her frills at me. With a tonguesnap, I said, “You smell, Mawla~”

She hissed harder.

“I hope you’re entertained, because I have to do my job now. I might have to handle that customer.”

Mawla lowered her head with some sagely gleam in her blue eyes. “Yeah, jobs drag.” She glanced around again, touching her piercings again. “Anyways, the real, real reason I came here: I’m⁠ ⁠—⁠ Well, I don’t really have anyone. So even though I have some freedom today, I have nobody to while it with.”

Licking my eyes, I said, “You want me to spend the evening with you?” Mawla only mouthed the syllables, this time.

I blew my tongue at her. “My schedule is mostly tied up today. I can’t say I can.”

“I can wait. Do you know the red cliffs down south?”

“I spend most of my nights down there!”

“That’s where I’ll be. It’d be my day if you’d drop by.”

---

A bell jingles, jostling me awake again. A cloying, poisonous smell told me who was there before I lifted my head.

Stiffly, Gären vor Gronte strode right by my counter, and with her eyes roaming the shelves and signs, she missed me.

I watched her quick steps take her to three spots among the shelves. She searched intently enough I didn’t think she came here often⁠ ⁠—⁠ or even at all —⁠ but she was a quick enough search to find whatever after just a few moments.

And the dark​-​green wiver turned for a counter and then she saw me.

“Kinri?”

Standing in front of my counter, she smiled and laughed. “Ja, it is you. Hello.”

“Good afternoon~ Did you find what you were looking for today?”

“I did, thank you.”

I nodded, and spoke normal, saying, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“With the market open?”

“That’s a part of it.”

“Well, I wanted to keep away from the crowd for this,” the dark​-​jade wiver said. “The market’s so busy today, at full Ceiwad.”

“Why is everyone saying that?” I asked. “You’re not even the first to come here on that reason.”

“Of course. If someone’s here instead of the market, it’s for a reason.” Gronte grabbed her basket. “Regardless, let’s finish this deal before we talk.”

Gronte bought two pots, a big stirring spoon, a bagful of bones, and a jug of vinegar.

“Alchemy stuff?”

Gronte nodded, silent.

I told her the starting price for her selection — ‘Twenty and five aris’ — and she bought them all without haggling.

“So,” Gronte said, her basket still on the table. “Have you read any thing from the book?”

“I have! I read The Confusion of Underbush, like you asked.”

“Good! Can you guess why I recommended it?”

“Well, I guess there’s some similarities with the situation with the humans, I guess.”

A wrinkly smile. “You’re a clever one. It’s exactly that. I thought it was somewhat appropriate.”

“Are the humans the city, or the spiny​-​frills? I never puzzled that one out.”

Gronte scrunched a frill. “I had thought it clear that the humans were the city. I never considered the alternative.”

“Does that mean you don’t think the humans might be, well, innocent? That we shouldn’t have killed them?”

The older wiver looked away and remained silent for a few beats. “Do you think the spiny​-​frills were right to do what they did? That they had no other choice?” Gronte shook her head. “No, I take it back. The situations aren’t quite comparable. It’s just… she’s all I have left. They didn’t kill her⁠ ⁠— thank Hazer⁠ ⁠—⁠ but they hurt her and…”

Gronte took a step back. “No, I’m sorry to inflict this all on you. Let me answer your question: I don’t know. I had thought that whatever we did to the humans was justified but…” Gronte shook her head.

“Vengeance is what I want, but it’s the easy path. It would be harder to move forward without more loss of life⁠ ⁠—⁠ any life, yet I don’t think anyone is pushing for that amongst Mlaen’s administration. I’d like to⁠ ⁠—⁠ share that perspective. I can talk to my tartness about it, he has more influence than I do. And, perhaps you do as well. Think on it, please?”

I clouded my eyes, and thought. The image that stained my dreams crawled up in an instant: a dewing human clutching its comrade and pleading. I could say I already made my decision, and it wouldn’t be a lie.

“I will.”

---

In the window a massive beast lumbered, long and lean, with a load pathetic compared to its bulk. Fourteen slim legs supported its weight, each as fat around as a dragon’s. The length of the creature was repetitive, as if it had once been a natural thing, but had that midsection resculpted and appended to the end again and again and again like clay. Mossy chitin glinted in the light, textureless green alternating with foggy pools of collected water on its back and sides. Even from the door, I could scent the chemicals smelling like burnt garlic which kept flies and parasites away, and coupled with it the rank scent of the fungi and moss all over.

In a word, it was a caterpillar cow. One of the strange creatures the surface had offered, a creature that really couldn’t decide if it was to be an oversized insect or an oversized beast. Whenever I saw it, I was torn between laughing and shivering.

Despite the name, they weren’t cows or caterpillars or even close to either. Like cows, they were grazing, simple​-​minded herd animals, and like caterpillars, they loved leaves, tasted nasty unless cooked just right and knit themselves a cocoon to brume out the summers, emerging each gyra with new chitin and fresh scent.

The creature had its many​-​tongued, tapering head stuffed in a feed bag around its neck. For that I was grateful. Their mouths split down their head and writhed with tongues and flexing muscles. Their eight eyes glinted, black and alien.

I flicked my tongue, and I was subjected to the stench of the caterpillar cow. It brought the forest​-​y odor of its flora, and yes, I could even smell the sweetness of its feed and the chemical scent of the buggrounders, but the unwashed mass of its body and the awful odor of its manure washed out any pleasantness. Its rear stood out of view, so I can only hope whoever owns this cow had a bag to catch its droppings.

On its back a number of boxes lay strapped. A stocky plain​-​dweller sat astride, spurring the creature on.

A ruddy​-​red and a dark​-​orange drake landed by the head end of the creature. The Mawrion payed the rider as Sinig took two boxes from the back of the caterpillar cow. Mawrion, too, took a box after he finished.

When they entered, Mawrion called for Arall, telling her to help unload the boxes. But not me. It fledged a little sense, at least. I wasn’t really built for carrying things. Mawrion might not have even considered me for the job.

My wings hugged my body. “Oh well,” I murmured.

They brought in our cyclic shipment of new goods. It meant I would do some more inventory today. I prayed the stars: please let it be with Sinig, and not with Arall. After five boxes, they finished. Arall went back to her counter, while Mawrion gestured for Sinig and me to go back and organize the new stuff. Yay, but also ugh.

We walked back, me falling into step beside him.

I folded my frills. “Hi, S.”

“Hey, K.” He glanced at me once for politeness and continued to looking forward.

“So, I guess we have inventory now.” I followed his example, but still glanced at him in the corner of my eye.

“Yea.” He made some dismissive gesture with his wings, but gave up partway through, and it became a sort of floundering motion.

I looked up. Then brought my gaze down. I wasn’t that predictable, Staune! “So um, what are you going to do today⁠ ⁠—⁠ later, I mean?”

“Have a few fights down at the ring, fly with some friends, maybe eat something,” he said. “Yourself?”

“Uh, going to the library, then the east market. I already ate something.”

“Our eternal rivals,” he said, tone dry. “I am hurt that you would betray the shop like this.”

“Someone asked me to come with them, it wasn’t my idea!”

“Ah,” he said. “Want to go flying in some downdrafts tomorrow, then?”

“Sure!” As long as you weren’t too close to the ground, it was a nice mix of tricky and thrilling and overall high fun.

We’d reached the room where the boxes went. Holding open the door, Sinig said, “That was a joke.” He looked at me now, head tilted and tongue waving.

“Oh. But I used to that a lot when I was fledgling, with my…” I looked away.

“You mean your family never hit you with that ‘if all your friends flew into a downdraft, would you?’ argument when you wanted to copy someone?” he asked. I’d looked back, letting out a breath when he didn’t ask about my trailing off.

“No?” I flicked my tongue at him. “I’m not from around here, and we don’t even speak y Draig where I’m from. Our saying are all different.”

“Really?” Sinig low​-​walked over to a crate still speaking, “Weird. You sound almost like a native tongue⁠ ⁠—⁠ Minus the accent.”

I preened at the compliment. When I had first come to Gwymr/Frina, my y Draig dragged and would slip Käärmkieli words all the time. I’d improved, high thanks to Chwithach.

I said, “I’ve known it since I was small.”

“That doesn’t really narrow it down much,” he said in that annoying, scentless tone. He was joking, maybe, but about what? At my blank stare, he added, “You never exactly stopped being small.”

I snapped my tongue. “Gah! Since I was smaller, then.” I let out a big breath, baring my frills. Changing the subject, I said “I learnt all the major dragon tongues. Was made to learn, anyway.”

“Impressive,” he said, again scentless. Was that sincere or some advanced joke?

I tossed my head and ambled over to a box and uncovered it. Having gotten one of the ledgers on a slab by the wall, I began tallying up and sorting the contents of the box. Inventory. At least it gave me to time think.

---

The ruddy​-​red drake glanced at me. “You want more smalltalk?”

I lowered my head into the box, hiding my smile. “Sure? I mean, it’d be nice.”

“Ha. Well, I don’t know what you want out of it. I could share some observations from my ride this morning, but they aren’t very light,” he said. Then, “Or we could talk about the weather.”

I lifted my head from the box. “Well, that might not be the worst topic. I’ve never been in Gwymr/Frina for a gray season, but I just got out of the Berwem —⁠ it is like that? All ash and vog?”

“And acid rain. But… no, not all the time. Ash and acid come, but we get normal weather too. But it gets wicked hot. Vog’s only a problem when the winds get drafty. And then you can just grab a gasmask or some cloth in a pinch,” he said. “Or be rich and afford to just brumate the gray season.”

“Oh, okay.” I looked up. “Thanks.”

“Berwem is where it all comes from, makes sense that it would be worst there.”

“Yeah.” We kept sorting after that. I finished the first box, followed by Sinig with his box. “So, what were those heavier observations?”

“Saw lots of guards and their turts milling around like riled ash​-​ants on my way to work and when getting these boxes. Something’s up. Even saw an inquirer poking their muzzle around. That won’t end good.”

I found another glider in my box, but it was a cheap bamboo one. Balancing it on my head, I said, “What do inquirers even do?”

Sinig continued sorting. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, in that tone.

The glider fell onto the pile with the wheel and sleigh blades. “What kind of answer is that! What do they do?”

He clicked. “If you need to know that, I don’t want to be near you.”

“Are–are you messing with me?”

“Only a little. I don’t know what specifically they do, I just hear the stories. My brother says his father says they aren’t as scary as they were when Dwylla was around… But they still make my frills stand on end, and I’m not the only one.”

“Oh. My friend mentioned Rhyfel’s inquirers once — something about them sniffing evidences.”

“Rhyfel,” he said, flicking his tongue. “Be careful around that drake — I’ve had friends get on the wrong side of the guard. Wydrllos’s cells aren’t fragrant.”

“I’m not doing anything drafty, S.”

“What were you doing in the Berwem? You don’t look like a sifter, and you already have a job.”

“I didn’t know it was illegal! I was following a friend!”

“Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of dragons go down like that. Just be careful, K. You aren’t a bad sort and I’d hate to have to get to know your replacement.”

I popped my tongue. “If that wasn’t a backwing’d compliment —”

“Backwingèd.”

“What?”

“It’s three syllables, not two. Stress on the second.”

“Gah! Did you grow a tongue just to mess with me? You’re worse than Chwithach.”

“No, my sister was a poet. You pick these things up.”

“A poet?”

“Yeah,” he said. “There was a song she wrote for me a few years ago — do you care?”

I found some spherical object that might have been a compass. I rolled it around. “Sure. We aren’t really busy, go ahead.”

Sinig lowered his head, but stayed silent for a few beats. His lips moved, as if remembering the lines, then he spoke, his voice a iambic pulse.

I had stopped sorting to listen. When he finished, I folded my frills. “That’s…”

“Old. From when she had just left for university and was only then discovering her love of poetry. She got a bit better. Well, before her new job ate up all her time.”

“No, it’s pretty! Very pretty. It’s just… how do I put this? I know nothing about poetry.”

“Same as me, then. My sister sucked up all the smarts in the family. She sings verse and leads. I punch things and smoke.”

“No, I mean I never heard anything like it. I’ve never even read poetry. It’s–it’s not proper. Artistry is for drakes, wivers take up science. Or war. Or trade. But not song.”

“That is the most unhatched rule I’ve never tasted. Where is this?”

“Huh? We’re in y Llygaid Crwydro.” I gave him a silly smile.

“No, who shovels this drafty ‘artistry is for drakes’ manure?”

“Tädet/Pimeys. It’s one of the larger skycyties. And it’s not a rule. It’s just⁠ ⁠—⁠ how it is.”

“Glad I’ll never be able to go to the sky, then. Sounds worse than Pteron.”

“Hey, the sky is…”

Great. Wonderful. Exactly where I’d want to be if I had hatched with any other name.

“…pretty okay.”

“Why leave, then? You know you can never go back⁠ ⁠—⁠ and you really don’t smell like the type to get exiled for something bad.”

“Don’t–don’t worry about it.”

“Okay, not pushing. It’s personal, right?”

“Yeah.” We continue sorting awhile in silence. “Kinda odd to end it on a question like that, though. It feels… maybe a little unfinished?”

Sinig looked over. “Oh no, that isn’t the end. There were two more lines that got smudged and lost in the letter where she’d it sent to me.” Sinig took his glasses and wiped them. “I’ll never know the answer to her question, but I like it that way.”

I hummed before saying, “I don’t think I could live with the uncertainty.”

Tossing his head, he just said, “It keeps life interesting.”

---

My box half​-​emptied with that thought on my mind. My life had certainly become a bit interesting lately. I’d lost count of how many times I almost died in the Berwem, and then there was Ushra’s conspiracy theory, whatever the guards and that inquirer were up to, and Adwyn. My thoughts danced like that, and settled on my question from earlier.

“What do you think of Adwyn?” I said suddenly.

“What?” Sinig glanced back at me. “The military adviser? He’s a killer, a Dyfnderi noble who got booted out of his country.”

“The faer seems to trust him, though.”

“The faer does all sorts of silly things. She thinks she knows better than everyone,” Sinig muttered. He adjusted his glasses, and added with effort, “And she does, but you never taste it until after it’s all said and done. I wouldn’t trust him as far as his dress falls, but the faer must see something in him.”

“Should I trust him? He wants me to help him fledge an alliance with Dyfnder/Geunant or something.”

“The thing to know about Adwyn — and the rest of the canyon​-​dwellers in town hall⁠ ⁠—⁠ is that you don’t care whether they succeed or fail. The only thing to want out of an alliance with Gwymr/Frina is burried in the Berwem. If some contract with the canyons materializes, the only result will be who gets claws on the metal and gems the sifters dig up. Nothing ever changes here.”

“Sure, but he said he could get me — recognition. Give me a name besides my family title.”

“I don’t see it being worth anything unless he gets you a slice of the trade cake. And no offense, K, but I don’t think he’ll think you’re worth it.”

I jerked my head from my box to the ruddy​-​red drake. “What! What do you mean I’m not worth it?”

Sinig slipped off his glasses for a beat. “I mean, you’re like me. We’re not big dragons, we’re just flying one beat at time. We don’t have big plans for the world, and I don’t want to see you wuthered up in someone’s grand vision. It’d be a waste.”

I glanced away⁠ ⁠—⁠ back to the box of new stuff. From somewhere in my memory, I heard my brother’s voice. I’m going to change things, sister, he said. We’re going to change things. A House Specter without masks, without tradition breathing down our necks.

Your House Specter.

It waited for me, up there. Gwmyr/Frina was a part of the plan, his plan, and soon the outrage at me would blow away, my exile would blow away, and I could return. It wasn’t a hope or dream, it was the plan, stars willing. And if they weren’t? If I were stuck here, then Adwyn had a plan, too. I couldn’t live without wind under my wings, even if that meant being wuthered up in someone’s vision.

Inventory went on, and soon I come across a glazed vase, painted with constellations and asterisms. I smiled at the stars, tracing them with my toe. How much would this cost? “Hey, S, what constellation did you hatch under?”

Sinig snapped his tongue, giving me a skeptical look. “You believe in that fortune​-​tasting ash?”

“Why not? The stars are mysterious and powerful — why can’t they affect dragons’s lives?”

“Because the motion of the stars is completely determined? Ask any stargazer.”

“I am a stargazer. Being determined doesn’t mean anything. The seasons are determined⁠ ⁠—⁠ they come every year. But will you tell an ashstorm it cannot affect anything?”

“I can lick an ashstorm.” He whisked a wing. “Starcharts have never given anyone anything but a pretty sight.”

I smirked. “Stars aren’t used for navigation?”

“Still just a sight.”

“Fine, but what about the tides? They match exactly with the phases of Ceiwad —⁠ and the perturbations can be attributed to the meddling of Laswaith or one of the loversuns.”

“Moons don’t meddle.”

“What do you call all the volcanoes that start erupting with Laswaith’s perigee?” I said while sliding over a spiked metal glove thing for him to identify.

“Para–what?”

“Perigee. When the moon is closest to the world?” I waved with my wing while I dug the last things out of this box.

“Look, I’m just saying it’s wasteful thinking. I have a friend like you — wastes all her money on that charlatan⁠ ⁠—⁠ excuse me⁠ ⁠—⁠ ‘fortune​-​taster’ in the slums.”

I jerked my head up from the box. “There’s a fortune​-​taster in Gwymr/Frina?”

Sinig covered his face with a wing. “Great, I just gave her more business.”

“Maybe I should go there myself, see if I can prove there’s something to it.”

“Do it, don’t do it. I don’t care⁠ ⁠—⁠ I’m just saying, the sooner you stop blaming your trouble on drafty stars and fickle gods, you’ll⁠ ⁠—⁠ oh, not you, sorry.” Sinig wiped his glasses, looking back to the utensils he had pulled out, then arranging them. “I have this conversation too much.”

I smiled. “It’s cool.”

We stayed all silent after that, and finished in that silence.

“Hi? Who are you?” I asked the immaculately​-​dressed plain​-​dweller.

He clicked his tongue once before replying, giving me a disarming smile, “Oh, me? I’m nobody. I might have dropped by the Llygaid Crwydro twice or so, but I am in Gwymr oh so scarcely. No, you wouldn’t remember me. And I don’t remember you. How odd.”

This plain​-​dweller had stood listlessly in front of the library, looking all around, and checking a pocket ringglass. Over their breast and forelegs a silky red robes with twisting green filaments flowed. On the breast of the robes lay some embroidered pickaxes and a pile of ash. Even for a library patron, they looked well​-​dressed.

Really, they looked out of place. Their green eyes met mine, and their frills spread out like an invitation.

I was saying, “It–it is hardly odd. I’m a stranger and not very interesting —⁠ I would forget me too.”

“Oh, maybe for you, but not for me, scarcely for me. Why, look around you. Do you see any other with scales as blue or cloaks as regal as yours? Even a traveler such as I has scarcely seen the skylands, or a royal sky​-​dweller. And what a pity, when everything he’s heard makes the wonder of heaven itself flush warm with envy.”

I rolled my head. “Are you some kind of poet?”

“No, no — while I fancy myself some erudition, I could hardly scent the rarefied airs of poetry. No, I am just a traveler, and a lover of scrolls.”

Trying a smile, I said, “I like scrolls.”

“So I have heard. The librarian⁠ ⁠—⁠ Koo​-​ith​-​ick, was it?⁠ ⁠—⁠ He speaks highly of you.” The smile wasn’t an effort, this time. He saw me lift my head, mouth opening. Almost in response, his voice took on the textured growl of the librarian, or at least an imitation, “Never seen one so quick with figures, or clawing so neat.”

My head fell, and my open smile turned to a frown. That was it? Calculations and neat clawings? Maybe there was nothing else worth mentioning about me. My frills drooped, then the traveler noticed and interrupted himself.

“— Oh, is my impression so bad?”

“No–no, it is nothing.” I whisked my wing, and was looking away, cringing. We stood out a street from the library, some dragons passing by. Some benches rose up from the side of the road, cracked and crumbling.

“Nothing. Keep your spirit any sharper and you might cut yourself.” He shook his head. “Whatever. I did have a purpose of sorts here. Of course this smalltalk has been enjoyable enough so far.”

“Okay.”

“Come, lay with me.” He wave a wing at the benches beside the road. Clasping his forefeet, he started, “So. You are from the skylands, no?”

I flicked my tongue. “I flew down here a few dances ago.”

“Where from?”

“Where?”

“Yes, it was a question,” he said, slow.

I glanced up. There weren’t any skylands in the sky, aside form a vague form near the horizon that could be a lot of things. “There isn’t really a ‘where’ in the sky… Our cities blow on the trade winds, so a skycity that is over the northern sea might be over the ridges next moon.”

“Fine, fine. So pedantic! Which skyland, then — Is that the proper question for you, your sharpness?”

“Um, I lived in Tädet/Pimeys. It is a big city. We have four libraries.”

“Truly an enlightened metric.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said. Conversationally, he continued, “So, how do you even move around up there, betwixt skylands? Do you just fly around all day?”

I looked up again, this time catching the flows of flying dragons overhead. “You’d wait for the skyland you’re going to come close enough for you to fly over to it. If you had the money, you could pay the navigators to alter the city’s flightpath. But it can get expensive. You make bids, and you have to pay even if you are out​-​bidded.”

“Ha, and dragons still pay?”

“They pay a lot. Too much, my⁠ ⁠—⁠ some would say. But it’s good for the city.”

He was nodding. “And what about your architecture? The legends say the cities above the clouds are alien, scarcely like anything on the earth.”

“Well, that’s mostly because of the Severance. We, err, they don’t have access to surface stone quarries, and the stone that makes up the island is limited and very important. So we build our houses out of grown materials. We don’t have windows either, since you can’t grow sand. And there is no endless expanse of land like there is down here. We build up. Since gravity is no problem, we can do things surface​-​dwellers can’t.”

“Oh yeah, you said the sky is mostly empty. And I suppose it is —” he cut off to look up, craning his head to scan the sky despite the buildings. “—⁠ since I can only see one skycity,” he finished, whisking a wing toward that moon​-​sized form drifting near a cloud a few sixth​-​radians above the horizon. “So, how did you get here?”

“I, uh, I flew.”

“Flew! Where was this Tahdet​-​Pimohsh? When you did that?”

“Over the ocean. I mostly glided. It only took a few days.”

“A few days of just flying?”

“It’s pretty normal for traveling — hey, you’re a traveler, this should be normal for you too!”

He took a beat to respond, “Oh, longest I have ever flown was two, three rings in my youth. Riding is much more comfortable.”

Surface​-​dwellers! What kind of dragon couldn’t fly for a few days? This conversation was really starting to grate on me. I felt like some overworked academy instructor, endlessly explaining the most basic facts.

“Can you not just look any of this up in a scroll? Even this little library will have some scrolls about the sky.”

“Yes, yes, of course. But there is something about speaking to a real person about matter. Dead scrolls are scarcely the same.”

“What? Scrolls are way better than asking a person. Scrolls don’t stutter and you can reread them.”

“Oh, but there is no life in it! You cannot smile and laugh and joke with a scroll. There is no entre⁠ ⁠—⁠ err, interak⁠ ⁠—⁠ err, interactivity, yes that’s it.” I laughed. “What? Do not laugh at me. I had to find the right word. The difference between the right word and the almost right word is —”

“I know the quote.”

“As I would expect from a scholar such as yourself.”

I flicked my tongue. A scholar?

“But we are getting distracted, shame on you.”

I lowered my head, frills folding. “Sorry.”

“Sure,” he say before I even finish. He glanced up. “Say, do you miss the sky? the other Specters?”

A frill ran over my headband. The scar underneath had almost stopped hurting. “I⁠ ⁠—” My voice caught. “I left for a reason. Next question.”

The traveler bit his lip and, looking up, seemed to interrogate the clouds for another question. Then his brilles cleared and he said, “What is the biggest difference since coming to the surface?”

“Well… do you see how I have my horns disbudded here?” The light​-​brown drake made some inscrutable wave of his foreleg. “Well, in the sky all wivers have that⁠ ⁠—⁠ but down here, everyone looks like a drake and it is so confusing.”

“Oh?” He smiled. “So — How would you react if I told you I was a wiver?”

I tossed my head. “I am not even surprised at this point⁠ ⁠—”

“Oh, I’m not⁠ ⁠—⁠ Just messing with you.” He kicked a loose piece of lapilli on the ground. “So, what do you do? Found any use for your unique talents?”

“Err… not really. I, uh, just work at a general shop. The Llygaid Crwydro.”

“ ‘The Wandering Eye?’ Very interesting name. Very oh… Geunantic?”

“Owner is Dynfderi.”

“Heh, Dyfnder and their eyes.”

I tittered. Finally, someone who got it like I did!

“I see.” The joke pulled a guffawing hiss from him and it bled back onto me. A passerby in a cloak peered at us with a confused look, then smiled and tossed their head. I glanced back to the traveler, and smiled at him.

---

A long ring cut through the laughter. The sixth ring. I glanced back the library, but the traveler had already starting talking again, “Say, have you ever met a forest​-​dweller called Hinte? Acts like she’s shedding every day of the cycle?”

My head jerked back to him, my frills flaring in an instant. “Hinte? She isn’t that bad…”

“Yeah, because you are both alchemy​-​tongued wivers. Have some sympathy for one lacking such advantages.”

Smirking, I said, “Did you mean to say ‘scarcing such advantages?’ ”

“I see.”

I laughed again. He used my joke!

We settled, and I wondered aloud, “How did you know I was an alchemist? I didn’t tell you.”

He gave me a wide​-​frilled look. But it turned into a grin, and he said, “You smell like it.”

Was that a compliment? I’d take it as one. “Thanks.” Maybe I could become an alchemist.

“But you know her — Hinte — then?” I lowered my head. “Would you know what this business with the lake is? Something about monsters, I heard?”

“There were these spooky ape things with skin like mud and armor and weapons.” He flinched when I said ‘skin like mud.’

Recovering, he said, “Oh, you were there, then?” My frills faltered.

“I was. Not like the papers can taste it.” I looked away. “We did it together.” I muttered.

“Oh, don’t be like that, the papers aren’t just about what happens, they’re also about how it sounds. Which story do you think Gwymr/Frina would rather hear? Gären vor Hinte, hatch of the Ushra, slaying a quartet of monsters in the fires? Or the same with that sky​-​dweller who hasn’t been here six dances fighting humans with friendship and teamwork?”

I didn’t turn. “The second.”

“Uh huh. And did you buy a paper?”

I grunted something unintelligible.

“So. You must know what really happened, no? Where those humans really just hanging around in the lake?”

“No, I think they were exploring or something. We found them after they had been attacked by wraiths, bleeding out.” I shuddered.

They had looked away and watched the passersby as they asked, “Did you get all of them? Did none escape?”

“Um. Some of them tried to escape. But Hinte is the one who caught them in the first place, you would have to ask her.”

“Oh? You had nothing to do with it?”

I bared my fangs. I didn’t growl. “But I did. I guarded the first human corpses while Hinte fought the rest. I scared off the wraiths! I didn’t fight the humans, but I helped a lot otherwise!”

“Oh, is she some kind of fighter? Why leave it all the her?”

“I⁠ ⁠—⁠ I…” I was scared. “Someone had to guard the body.”

“And nothing interesting happened while you guarded?”

“There–there was a shadow.” And Mawla. His tongue flicked, head pressing forward. “But I⁠ ⁠—⁠ I could not aban–abandon the body⁠ ⁠—⁠ So I did not.”

“How very practical.”

“I⁠ ⁠—⁠ practical, yeah.” Another cloaked passerby walked by the bench. Were they the same one? The cloak made it hard to tell.

“Why were you two in the lake in the first place?”

Looking down, I said, “Sifting.”

“Just sifting?” His head pressed forward, tilting as if in disbelief. “For nothing in particular?”

Should I tell them? Hinte had made it so secretive. She told me in confidence, as a friend. Could I just tell him? He were nice, fun. Cute. For a plain​-​dweller. But Hinte was a friend, and I fought for her secrets. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, spill it without comparable effort on their part.

And yet. He was nice. And too silly to really do much harm.

“Have you heard of crysts?” I could tell them the innocuous part.

“Hum… No, never heard anything like that.”

“You should be glad. They sound awful,” I said, in my best imitation of Sinig’s scentless tone.

“Ha, ha. I am sure that would be funny if I knew what you were talking about. Is it some esoteric alchemy regent?”

What? Did they mean ‘reagent?’

“It⁠ ⁠—” Mages were feared, even more than alchemists. “—⁠ is, yeah.”

“Ah. Have I mentioned how I hate alchemy? Because I hate alchemy.” He tossed his head, grimacing with enough exaggeration that it might just be a complaint and nothing deeper.

“I like alchemy. Sometimes. Mostly when I am not doing it.”

He clicked. Reaching into his robes, he took out a ringglass with its sand split between the two bulbs. “Oh, seems like I have to go. I like you, what was your name?”

“Kinri. Miss Kinri.” My frills might have fluttered.

“Oh, glad to meet you. Am mister Dieithr.”

“Am glad to meet you, too.” My tail coiled. “Is this goodbye?”

“It is. I have places to fly⁠ ⁠—⁠ drop by the Dychwelfa ac Theatr sometimes, if you want any more of me. It’s the one just past the Moyo​-​Makao. Not that other theater. Fair… Scrolling, I suppose? Taste you later.”

Taste me. Oh. My tail, already coiled around my leg, strangled my hindleg. That must have been a slip of his tongue. He acted silly and slipped up a few other times in the conversation, too. It was nothing.

I said, “Fly well, mister Dieithr.” My frills out​-​stretched like a pair of wings around my face. My fangs were bedewed. I looked away.

Dieithr said, “Oh, and I meant it about coming to Dychwelfa. It’d be a shame to lose track of someone like you.”

Um, I got the point. Why are you pressing this? It was a thought, what I said was, “Will there be other people there?”

“Oh, not quite. This’ll be a privitive meeting, you and me.”

No. “I’ll think about it,” I said slowly. “I have plans today.”

“Let me guess — you’re heading for the market?”

“How did you⁠ ⁠—⁠ yes.”

“Might I suggest not going this time of day? Or today at all? It’s all quite crowded. And there are been a rash of violence lately. Some say there’s a new drug on the loose⁠ ⁠—⁠ and all the miasma coming with that. Best to stay safe, I say.”

“As I said, I have plans.” I said, tone cooling.

Then I peered closer at the plain​-​dweller. “Wait… I know you! You’re the rod​-​twirler guy from last night⁠ ⁠—⁠ who told me not to go to faer!”

He smiled intensely. “I see I am distinctive.”

I rolled my head. “Whatever happened to that Bauume creature? The angry musician drake.”

“Him? Oh, still angry. Quite angry, esp–especially at your wiver friend. The one who kicked him. He’s a grudgeful one, as will be no surprise.”

I nodded. Tone still cool, I said, “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

He inclined his head, and leapt after murmuring some farewell. I spat.

I glanced at the suns trailing fiery lines in the sky. Oleuni was leading Enyswm behind a cloud gray and dreary, floating a few sixth​-​radians away; and ultimately, leading him to a grave at the west horizon. A short ring chimed as I turned to the library. Oleuni’s alighting wouldn’t be long from now, then; there were only four more long rings in the day. Had I really lost so much time to that conversation?

I started toward the library, hoping Chwithach wouldn’t be too disappointed by my lateness.

---

Gwymr/Frina had only one library, the Sgrôli ac Neidr⁠ ⁠—⁠ something, Chwithach assured me, reflected the smallness of the town instead than any lack of culture. Even then, the one thing that stood out to me about the library was its location

Up in Tädet/Pimeys, you would find libraries only in the highest districts, among the House palaces and the Cloud Constructor temples, or near the stone pubs and high entertainment centers. Meanwhile, the Sgrôli ac Neidr lay on the east side, the poor and dirty bruise of Gwymr/Frina. Each of our four libraries belonged to a noble House, whether Specter, Locrian, Obelos, or Cynosure; and each was a familial library that’d opened to the public as a charity, before taking some life of its own. Meanwhile the Sgrôli belonged to Chwithach only, and he’d opened it as a charity too, but in this case, the charity went both ways.

plain​-​dwellers lined the streets here, most naked or near​-​naked; a lot of them looked dirty or haggard, some of them missed legs, one missed a wing. More than a few had those sifters faces, the ones that had been singed and burnt so often it became a part of their color.

Whenever one caught sight of me, you could flip a coin whether they’d glare or scowl, or just not react.

Still, I’d grown used to it all, coming here almost daily for cycles now. It’d started soon after meeting Hinte; her love for alchemy shone through even then, the one topic she talked about with any fluidity. She had been cool and mysterious, and I wanted her to know I could be a cool alchemist too. Maybe I still could.

Unlike the rest of the roads on this side of town, filth had been raked from this road. And if you looked over at the near​-​spotless walls of the library, you could imagine the it had been lifted from across the canal.

I stood in front of the library. By the standards of the rest of the street it looked big, sprawling across about three times as big space as the houses or storefronts around it. Yet by my standards, it looked so tiny. And still, the library survived, tried to flourish, just off the donations of its patrons. So even this size inspired, spoke some testament to Chwithach’s patience and passion.

The doors stunk of cheap gray bamboo, and looked well​-​cared​-​for. Someone somewhere made money polishing and smoothing the wood, keeping it from tending worn or sooty with ash. I pulled at the handle and stepped in.

The floor was bamboo too, and smelt it. The interior sprawled, even while cut up into four areas. Nearest to the door was a cozy reading area with a bunch of cushy pycnofiber mats sat in a semi​-​circle and facing out of the window. Three dragons sat apart on mats, poking scrolls.

One was a sharp brown drake with bright, alert eyes, had a hefty pile of scrolls on either side of him, and he scanned the page rolled out in front of him at a quick pace. The second closest to me, a big red wiver with a flower held by her frill, lay in front of a thick double​-​scroll, tracing its lines. She had a smile I recognized. The last one, a dark mud​-​dweller with long straight horns, lay on his back, wings spread, looking relaxed and lazy. His foreclaws held the scroll close to his snout, almost resting there, and his brilles had clouded and didn’t seem to clear.

All of them looked familiar, and they were here often enough I could almost put names to their faces, names that seemed to danced up to the tip of my tongue. Only one did come to me: Awld, the wiver. We’d been friendly when I’d volunteered, she’d even gifted me some scent, once or twice. But she worked in the evenings, and once I got my morning job at the Llygaid Crwydro, we’d drifted apart. Why was she here now? I’d ask later, after I’d checked in with Chwithach.

Behind the reading area stood rows upon rows of scrollshelves. They stretched to the ceiling, high enough that footholds extended up them all.

In between these shelves flitted the librarian, organizing shelves, replacing scrolls. I slinked over, gaze roaming the rest of the bottom floor. At the back wall, a bunch of alcoves for private reading ate into the wall in two rows, one above the other.

The last section of the library I looked at — but the first thing you’d probably see⁠ ⁠—⁠ was a low counter just in front of the doors. A few scrolls sat open, recording checkouts and other record​-​keeping. Chwithach or one of his volunteer assistants would sometimes be found behind it. The plan was ‘always,’ but there was none right now.

I frowned. He only had a few assistants, and they were paid a pittance — I used to work here, when I’d just arrived in town. I couldn’t put together the time now, but I sometimes promised myself to start again, and I always would after a sight like this. Yes, Chwithach was only a short flight away, and yes, there was even a little bell to get his attention; but it stood as a reminder of how thinly he was stretched. The only library of Gwymr/Frina deserved more.

I leapt over to the shelves. I was careful to only glide. Never flap in a library. Chwithach had disappeared behind one of these shelves. Where was he? I had just seen him.

---

“Hello, Kinri,” came a voice from behind, a thick, rich hiss that always had a friendly growl underneath.

“Gah!” I jumped and spun around. “Oh, hi there, Chwithach​-​sofran.” I coiled my tail around a hindleg. I looked at the burly red cliff​-​dweller, the Gwymri librarian. Calculations and neat clawings. Maybe there was nothing else worth mentioning about me.

I smiled at the librarian, but for just a few breaths, I wasn’t sure if I would.

He smiled back, and flicked his tongue. The librarian wore few clothes, a halfrobe hiding his rear and hindlegs, and sandals on his feet. The robes looked plain and ragged; lifeless beige and patched over many times, a few of the larger patches had designs covering the stitching. Chwithach always wore halfrobes like this. He had a few others, but I’d seen them all.

Turning around, scraping his hindclaws, he said, “Caught up in the flow of life, I see. I do hope it was a nice thing that delayed you.”

I stepped after him. “Well… I met a stranger out in front of the library. They talked too much and asked too many questions. They were so smarmy.”

In front of me, the red drake tilted his head. “What were they doing in front of the library?”

“Walking around, I guess. They didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. But they left in a rush, saying they something to do.”

He tilted his head further, but tossed it and only said, “Well, no telling what his story was.” We walked over toward the counter, and Chwithach asked, “Is there anything you’d like for today?”

“Hmm, yeah. Do you — do we have any scrolls on crysts? Or humans?”

“Crysts, crysts,” he said, tapping his chin. “From the Berwem?”

“Yes.”

He seemed to peer at me. After a few beats, he spoke with deliberation. “Well, they aren’t very common, or valuable, and there has scarcely been⁠ ⁠—” I popped my tongue “—⁠ What?”

“Nothing, nothing, go on.”

“There hasn’t been much research on them, a few papers I’d licked here and there, not all I am sure I can find again. Prepare for disappointment, I’d reason.”

“Okay.”

“And humans, hmm. The mountain​-​dwellers and sea​-​dwellers have much more contact with those creatures than the cliff. Do you speak either language?”

“Well, my mountain always stank, but it still is — was —​-​ better than my y Draig. And I don’t think I actually ever learnt to read the sea’s script.”

“You should. Their orthography is quite fun, and most expressive.”

I fluttered my tongue. “I don’t think it compares to Käärmkieli⁠ ⁠—”

“Oh, but it does! You will recall sea was the last dragon nation to sign the Severance of Earth and Sky. The sea always had good ties with the sky. Some even considered sea a part of sky, at intervals.”

The red drake shook his head. “But I digress,” he said.

By now we’d reached the alcoves, but Chwithach turned to finish explaining. “The sea​-​dwellers were masters of trade, and their languages reflects that — a creole, an amalgam of many tongues. And the clawing system has been developed, standardized by some of the best minds. Learn it, please⁠ ⁠—⁠ I am sure you will appreciate it.”

He waved a wing and meant something by it. “Now, I take your sudden interest in these creatures has to do with that messy business in the lake?” I nodded. “Unfortunate, that. Was it your friend who grounded them?” I lowered my head again. “Ah. Well, I disagree with her actions on principle. Humans are creatures just as us, some I even count as friends.”

“But–but they shouldn’t have been in our cliffs. They were creepy and threatening.”

“Our cliffs? They are but formations of rock. We have no special right to them. Why, Gwymr/Frina has existed for fewer than twelve generations.” I wrinkled my frills. “My point is, our names are inscribed nowhere upon the cliff faces. Do you think the Ulfame would allow travelers if they had known dragons lived here?”

“You know their name?”

“Yes, Rhyfel the younger came by this morning, to share his findings and thoughts.”

“Did he show you their creepy bodies?”

“Creepy? They may be strange, but they find us just as uncanny.”

“Then they are blind.” I scoffed, frills bending.

He gave a twist of his head. “Have some empathy, Kinri. Do you think tortoises think they look strange?”

“Probably. Turts look funny at anything they have never seen before — apes definitely count.”

“The tortoises, I mean. Do they think of themselves as strange​-​looking?”

“Tortoises are cute!”

He gave another, bigger roll of his head. “Then how about wraiths, then? Do they find themselves as ugly as we do?”

“The beastly things probably like it.”

“Ough. Kinri, my point is their creepiness is subjective! They do not think of themselves as creepy.”

“So? They are creepy.”

He covered his face with a wing. “Moving on, how long do you have to study today?”

“I can’t stay as long as usual today.” I licked my eyes. “Actually, do you, um, have any newspapers? Since I don’t have time for studies I could lick what the papers are saying about the incident.”

“Of course, I read every paper.” He patted a bag by his side, reaching in. When I looked back, his head had snaked forward a bit. “Why can’t you stay as long, if I may ask?”

“I have to head out the market later, at the… seventh ring? I think.”

“Ah, shopping?”

“No, just helping Adwyn with — err, I probably shouldn’t have said that, it’s kinda high secret stuff.”

The intent contraction of his light red frills and the steady flicking of his tongue marked him curious. But he waved a wing. “Oh, I tasted nothing, forgot you even said anything.”

I smiled and clicked my tongue — then paused, in my mind a certain orange drake looming. “Oh! I forgot something… It’s kinda secret too, but Adwyn wanted to know who here has checked out scrolls about humans, or human​-​related stuff like the Gorphonic mines. He wants the information on some parchment.”

Chwithach had his gaze lowered. “I don’t have parchment. Only fernpaper.”

“Maybe he won’t mind?”

The red drake only had a frown for that. “Blame me if he does. I’ll have it ready before you leave.”

He turned round and almost started off⁠ ⁠—⁠ but then he flared his frills and he reached into his robes and pulled out a jingling pouch. He dug through it and piled its contents⁠ ⁠—⁠ all strange devices that might’ve a purpose⁠ ⁠—⁠ and after several found a sort of mechanical ring​-​glass.

“Here,” he said, winding up a wheel on the side until the sand reached some marker, “this will go off just before the fourth ring, should be enough to get you in time to the⁠ ⁠—⁠ market.” He left the ring​-​glass on the table as he swept the other things back into the pouch; and as if forgetting he left an aluminum thing that looked like a metalworker’s impression of a seashell.

“Thanks, Chwith —” A bell was dinging by the front. Interrupted, I looked over to the source, where a portly cliff​-​dweller hung by the counter, wearing a half​-​robe and haphazardly clutching several messily rolled scrolls in wing and looking around with waxing impatience.

“Ooh. I need to handle that.” The librarian stood up. Before I could remind him of the metal shell, he pulled his foot from his bag, revealing a clawful of rolled newspapers. “Here you are. I hope they are of help.”

Chwithach darted off, leaping and gliding to the front counter, landing on his mat without a hitch. I couldn’t see it, but I could imagine his lazy smile and frill​-​flutter, looking as if he hadn’t just performed those acrobatics for their sake, as if he had been sitting there all along. So silly.

But, he gave me what I wanted. I rolled his scrolls to me and glanced them over. They were clawed in y Draig, with notes scrawled in the margin. “Oh, perfect,” I murmured. I smiled now, because it wouldn’t last.

---

I had dipped my attention into two of the papers, but couldn’t immerse myself with the trip into the lake later today still looming over me. I kept peeking at the little ring​-​glass Chwithach​-​sofran had sat down near me to remind me of the ‘shopping trip’ later today.

And these dry newspapers, or maybe the book of nothing, were all that offered any distraction⁠ ⁠—⁠ I had glanced over, and the red wiver, Awld, had disappeared at some point while I found and talked to Chwithach.

It was then I heard a voice. “Hello, Kinri.”

“Ah!” I turned around, all around, but the librarian hadn’t sneaked up on me again, yet it had sounded like his voice. “Where are you?”

“In my office,” he replied in an opaque tone. “Are you intrigued? This is an old Aludu Dymestl heirloom I bought for cheap. They called it magic. I don’t quite understand how it works, but it carries sound from the distance. I thought you might appreciate it.”

Listening close, from the aluminum shell you heard his voice buzzing faintly, and the opaque tone was a very dull roaring or humming that infected the timbre of his voice, like a wind’s wuthering. I picked up the shell and poked it. There was a very warm glow creeping from within it, and I put it down.

“It is an utterly fascinating implement, but alack, I am no mage. That said, there is someone whom I’ll have look at it, and perhaps there’ll be a chance of making another, and, spirits willing, one with less evidence of wear and malfunction. If so… the possibilities boggle.” The nastiness infecting the sound was waxing worse, garbling his words, and even eclipsing some. Even then, I still heard that cute curiosity​-​tinged smile of his in the tone.

I said, “Chwithach, I can’t really hear you. Your voice is getting kinda messy.”

“Is it? Ough, that tends to happen after a short while. Here, let me come to you.”

The red drake was lighting down behind me not two breaths after. He had a twin of the aluminum shell in his wings, and slipped it into a pocket as he slinked forward. Smiling, the librarian grabbed the shell beside me and started to ask about how I liked the scrolls he’d left, but I interrupted him.

“Oh!” I said, “have you ever heard of a, um… synkén rrávdos? A strange kind of rod thing?”

“No,” he flicked his tongue. His frills worked for a beat before he said, “Are you sure of that pronunciation?”

“That’s how it sounded.”

The librarian’s frills flared, and he fixed me with an intent look without losing his usual warmness. “Odd. The word sounds archaic and⁠ ⁠—” his head dipped a bit “—⁠ from some language I can’t place. Where did you hear it?”

“From this weird customer at the shop today. They had a black cloak with Dwylla slashed out and yellow eyes and this accent I’d never heard before.”

His frills worked, and I could see their brilles clearing when he said, “Did they greet you with anything strange like, ‘Omoù Ptèromai?’ ”

“They did!”

Chwithach lowered his head, licking his eyes. “The miser. Yes, they light by the library often enough.”

“Do they have a name? I can’t imagine a mother naming their child ‘the miser.’ ” Maybe my mother, if she could rename me.

Chwithach looked away. After a beat they said, “While he does, he’s in hiding. If he hasn’t identified himself to you, I’m afraid I cannot.”

I peered at the red drake. “You’re the last person I expected to have secrets, Chwithach​-​sofran.”

Somehow, he nodded. “I don’t have secrets, but I keep secrets,” he said. “Consider your interest in alchemy. Just as I wouldn’t tell anyone of that without your willing, I wouldn’t reveal the miser’s secrets.”

“Well, where could I find him if I want to ask him?”

“I’d rather not say.” His head turned, still not facing me, but I could see a sliver of his pupil. A beat. He turned to me in full, “I can, however, arrange for him to be here at a good time one day. Or try.”

“That would be fine.” I glanced back at the papers I had only opened, and the librarian seemed to take the hint and started stepping away⁠ ⁠—⁠ before he stopped, and peered back at me.

“Before I go, could I ask something of you?”

I nodded, and Chwithach paused for a moment, as if to give his words time to bloom before he released them.

He said, “You know, Kinri, I love this library.” His gaze moved to somewhere beyond the window by the entrance, and he continued, “It’s like an ickle hatchling. And running it is my giving something back to the town. But it feels… passive. We have readings here on occasion, and I’ve gotten to know the patrons and⁠ ⁠—⁠ well, my point, I think, is that it seems I could do more for Gwymr/Frina than just run a library.”

It didn’t sound like he was done, but I said, “I think you’re doing just fine, Sofrani.” I tried to give him a smile, and at least he wasn’t looking at me just then.

“Of course, the library is good,” he said with a tossed head. “But there are other possibilities. As I said, I could do more. But… not alone. I know a few things about languages, about literature. You are a stargazer. Your friend, Hinte, is an alchemist. The miser is… a mage.”

Chwithach paused, and there was significance. “It’s enough to start an odd little school. We could have it in the library, and teach⁠ ⁠—⁠ it would be the first proper school in Gwymr/Frina. Free for everyone. I think the town needs it.”

I was silence for a bit, and I frowned, but it was only a frown because a smile wasn’t coming.

The librarian shook his head. “Ah, don’t answer me just yet. This isn’t small, so sleep on it. I’d just wanted to bring it up before you left.” He gave me a smile and a nod, and then turned around.

For once, the librarian walked instead of flying. He walked away slowly, thoughtfully.

I tried reading the papers again after that, and I stopped when there was only a scratch or so of sand left in the ring​-​glass. I rolled the cheap paper up onto their cheap scrolls, unrolling and trying again and again to convince them to roll up just right, then slipped them all into my bag. They fell into the pocket where the crysts’ glass flakes had settled, instead of the one where I still hadn’t cleaned the dried crab blood. It might take a vigorous scrubbing to get rid of, now.

And it smelt. Had everyone been smelling that? Oops.

I low​-​walked over to the counter. Chwithach looked from his page, where his wing​-​digit scratched spicy ink with what looked the tooth of some creature. It was bigger than what a rockwraith would have, and the wrong shape to be from a skinhound.

He finished a word with a flourish and met my gaze with a small smile. “Ah, farewell, Kinri​-​ychy. Say, before you leave let me give you this little flyer I designed for the school. I’d like an opinion of it before I hand it to someone with a press.”

He held out a scroll. I took it with a polite smile⁠ ⁠—⁠ and felt a bump of folded fernpaper underneath. Adwyn’s report. It slipped discreetly in my pocket before the scroll was unrolled.

Of the advertisement, the first you saw was a charcoal rendering that resembled the librarian with bigger horns and tighter scales⁠ ⁠—⁠ yet somewhere off. I licked my eyes and peered a little closer⁠ ⁠—⁠ and saw he’d drawn his reflection.

Opposite the rendering was wiggly text naming the library and some hours and some directions. The glyphs were outlines that alternated being shaded and not.

I was frowning when I glanced back up. “Um.”

“You don’t needed to answer now. Sleep on it. I’ll see you soon.” He slid out some drawer into which went his inked paper. He glanced back slowly, eyes clouded. “I don’t suppose you have anything to donate today?”

“Oh, of course I do, Sofrani. Here.” I searched my bag with my wing, searched a coinpurse, and gave a few electrum pieces. “Take this. I appreciate for all the help.” He took the coin, dropping it behind his counter.

Giving me a salute and a crinkling smile, he said another farewell, just in case: “And always, it is my pleasure. Fragrant readings to you, and see you soon.”

I smiled and returned the salute. “You too.”

---

Brightest Oleuni reigned high above, and was pursued by Enyswm. I climbed high above the hot air of the sifting town and again wandered the line to Hinte’s house. I didn’t rush, and relished the wind under my wings. Flight was luxuriating, and⁠ ⁠—⁠ while it was completely cloying to say⁠ ⁠—⁠ it lifted me after a morning in the Llygaid Crwydro.

From the sound of it, you wouldn’t think I was moving quick, but I still made it to the house before the fourth short ring chimed. Coming down on the white wooden estate, you saw two little dots walking away, one cloaked black and another near​-​gleaming warm gray. I touched down lightly behind them and slinked forth with small steps and short strides.

“Greetings, Kinri,” came the wiver’s voice. Hinte didn’t even turn.

Digrif, at least, had the decency to be surprised: he turned left, right, then up and down before he finally caught me behind him. He startled like that, wings flaring out and near​-​gasping, “Gah! Kinri!” as some kind of greeting.

Clicking my tongue, and sidling up beside the drake on the other side of the humorless wiver, I jabbed him with a alula. “Hi Digrif, and hi Hinte,” I said, and smiled at Digrif. When I glanced at Hinte, though, it faltered. Which story do you think Gwymr/Frina would rather hear?

Hinte stood there in her dark cloak threaded with blue and pink, while Digrif wore plain white clothes. His clothes were in that mountain style, split into an upper shirt and lower ‘pants.’

I was still my Specter cloak, and naturally I looked better than either of them.

“I trust your winds were fair?” Hinte asked, and she started forward as she does, spurring us on behind her.

I looked up, feeling the wind on my face, and said, “Well, I did get some strange customers today.”

Digrif said, “Oh?” at the same time in front the wiver said, “Strange how?”

I flicked my tongue and caught a rotten stench. I grimaced and started, “There was this odd dragon in a cloak and an accent I’ve never heard before. They knew about crysts and had a weird device for muting them.” I glanced at Digrif. “And they’re apparently a mage too.”

The words were the kindling to light a reaction⁠ ⁠—⁠ Hinte’s was freezing midstride, but her face was hidden; Digrif’s was jumping slightly, and his face was drawn in fear and curiosity.

I smiled at Digrif, and I added, “But he seemed okay, if a little weird. The librarian knows him.” My gaze craned higher, away the rotten stench, and I was thinking with my tongue, “I wonder what color their scales are? All I saw were golden eyes, and they’re obviously not local…” Could they be another exiled sky​-​dweller, like me? The Constellation was big and I couldn’t have heard every aloft accent.

When I looked, Hinte had slowed and looked down, glancing at the big giant ferns dotting the roadside. Following her gaze, she was peering at some claw​-​sized ash​-​ants devouring a poor skink. Five of its legs were already bone. So that was the stench.

Digrif asked, “Why do interesting things always happen around you two? And I’m never there for any of it.” His tone had the air of a private grievance.

“You should be sweet that you weren’t there. Today is the worst day to work at any shop that isn’t the east market. A whole day of almost nothing!”

“Oh.” Digrif’s frills fall a bit. “But didn’t you say you had more than one weird customer?”

“Well um, not quite. The miser” — Hinte glanced back — “was the only really weird customer I had, but there was that sifter from last night, Mawla and she tried to thank me for Adwyn meddling with the sifting teams.” Hinte tossed her head, muttering something that probably didn’t matter.

Digrif lowered his head and turned to look in front of us again. We’d reached the canal by now, where two robed cliff​-​dwellers marched a stinky caterpillar cow toward the bridge. After Digrif pointed it out, we hurried across the bridge, me complaining of sore legs and Hinte saying, “Apterous rockwraiths,” under her cowl, but with enough force I could hear her.

“Oh! But I did meet one other interesting character,” I said, looking up and around⁠ ⁠—⁠ everywhere except to the road beneath us “There was this one mud​-​dweller who⁠ ⁠—”

Hinte coughed, mumbling, “plain​-​dweller.”

I tilted my head, and say “Huh?”

“They prefer to be called plain​-​dwellers, not mud​-​dwellers.”

“I thought all Gwymri were cliff​-​dwellers,” Digrif said, in an accent that mangled the town name. He said ‘gwee​-​mer​-​ee.’

“Gwymr/Frina,” Hinte said, enunciating the proper ‘gwuhmr vree​-​na.’ (How was her pronunciation so much better than mine?), “is a mix of plain​-​dwellers, cliff​-​dwellers and canyon​-​dwellers. It is why the natives here are a mix of browns, reds and oranges.”

Digrif’s head tilted. “But, we’re in the cliffs, dwelling in the cliffs. Wouldn’t that make us all cliff​-​dwellers?”

“No.”

My voice was a whine, that affected whine. “I was just being descriptive…”

“You can continue with your story,” Hinte said, giving the rotting skink one last look.

“Okay, well. So there was this odd mu — plain​-​dweller dressed in silky robes. He has this odd accent. It reminded me a bit of some of the older houses in Tädet/Pimeys.”

“Is it odd hearing something so refined down in the mud?” Hinte muttered.

“Yes. I mean, no! It is just… not something I expected.”

The black​-​cloaked wiver turned away and Digrif winced, lifting his wings.

I groaned and just tried to continue, “Well, they were just sort of there, waiting for me. They asked a few questions, and left.”

Hinte turned back to me, a glare forming. She tilted her head and asked, “What questions?”

“Just who I was, where I lived and hmm…” I said, and trailed off. “They also asked about you, your sifting and the crysts we were looking for.”

“And you just told them?” Hinte asked, voice rising.

“Sorry, I guess? But what was I supposed to do! He seemed nice enough. I didn’t see the harm in it.”

“Kinri.” The dark​-​green wiver glanced back at her house. “Did you not hear a word of my grandfather’s concerns? There is a group in this town conspiring with the apes. You may as well have gift​-​wrapped that information for the enemy. Tongueless idiot!”

“Assuming such a conspiracy exists! Rhyfel and Citrus — Adwyn don’t seem very convinced.”

Hinte started to say something, but Digrif tilted his head at me, breaking her view for a moment. He said, “Citrus​-​Adwyn?”

My frills folded. “Uh​-​ha, that. It’s what Staune called him, Citrusface. It’s fitting.”

Digrif hissed a laugh. “And now I’m going to be thinking of oranges the next time I see the highest Dyfnderi adviser.”

Hinte cleared her throat. “Do you think this dragon just tracked you down and waited for you out of pure sweet​-​fanged curiosity?”

“Why not? You saw the papers this morning. Both of our names were in them.”

Digrif scratched his neck. “Were you in it, Kinri? I don’t remember seeing your name.”

I couldn’t help the cringe that rippled across my features at that, so I looked up. “I was in the Gwymri Times. The Cyfrin Report just called me an acquaintance of Gronte​-​wyre Gären.” Hinte gave a low hiss at that.

“Ooh, okay. So in others words you think they just wanted to meet the names of the day?”

“Names?” I emphasized the plural.

“Yes.” Hinte growled, “that conspirator met us not too long after you left. I was back in the workshop with Opa, so Digrif and Gronte met with them first. As it seemed he wouldn’t leave, was when I came out to run them off.”

I looked up. Above me, pterosaurs and dragons flew about. The sight made my wings twitch; but I glanced back at Hinte’s wings⁠ ⁠—⁠ covered by her cloak, but beneath that, they were bandaged. That was my fault, my useless cowardice. I slipped farther behind Hinte as we walked.

---

A short ring later, we crossed the canal, climbed a cliff​-​face and crept toward the lake. It gave us some privacy and something close to a sense of moving fast enough⁠ ⁠—⁠ if only to me.

We also chatted along the way, Hinte most of all, and it helped distract from the tortoise’s pace that we kept. But it soured for me the more the conversation leant toward my conversation with Dieithr, and, just once, Hinte’d brought up me running off on my own in the lake when the conversation strayed back to last night. I’d growled and stomped in front of them, putting the dark​-​green wiver all out of my sight, and I’d still walked a little in front since then.

Below us, along the ravine that rode into the Berwem, the bulging stalls and tents of the east market crawled into sight from behind the cliffs, and, standing at the very edge of the market, a stone gate towered.

The Berwem gate, framed with the abundant bronze and aluminum sifted from the volcanic lake itself or dug up in the pits, sat wedged mid the ravine that wound directly into that lake. Several guards, garbed in Gwymri red and yellow, stood before that gate. From up here, they looked like little geckos.

The stalls and tents filled the clearing from last night, and edged away all of the desolation the night had hinted at. Instead, with the wafting scents of food and the low rumble of hundreds of conversations, it seemed cheerful, or at least calmly collected.

I glanced above, along the jagged clifftops that leant toward the lake, and there were the tortoise​-​mounted guards doing guard stuff all along the clifftops. Adwyn’s words, the restrictions on entering the Berwem, seemed to echo then, and I made to leap down into the market, my wings already flexing.

Someone — Hinte — yanked my tail. I was halted in the air, and floundered for one tense breath before scrambling for my feet and some balance against the cliffwall. My fangs were cloying and I sputtered awhile before spitting out a coherent objection:

“Eww, eww! What the heck, Hinte?”

She only tilted her head.

“You just touched⁠ ⁠—⁠ yanked my tail! You do not just do that!”

I climbed to my old spot on the cliff, and glared hard at Hinte all the while. She just gave me a nonplussed look, eyes cleared and tongue flickering.

“What? Is this more sky​-​dweller residua?” she said after a short moment. “It is just another limb. I do not taste what the problem is.”

“Gah!” was all I said and stomped away again.

You heard Hinte’s footsteps approach and smelt her scent getting closer.

“What,” I started before she said anything, “did you want, Hinte?”

“You cannot just fly down into the market.” She had a dark​-​green alula pointed at the market below us. “They have a net above it. It’s cheap cotton, but still a net. We have to go through one of the main entrances.”

“Why?”

“The guards keep an eye on everyone that goes in and out of public spaces like this. Especially here, given how many valuables are on display.”

I snapped my tongue. “So we have to trudge through the market to get to the lake?”

The black​-​cloaked wiver didn’t answer, instead starting down the cliff​-​face herself. I followed her with another snap of my tongue and a making an exaggerated expression, fangs unfolded and frills writhing, that drew a laugh from Digrif. Together, he and I stepped off the cliff.

I walked down the cliff wall head​-​first while Hinte climbed down backward, her body pointing up but her head looking down, the goggles around her neck bouncing. Digrif, on the other foot, jumped down toward the ground, at least to start, beginning at the most solid, most easily gripped outcroppings of rock and leaping to another and another. Then he missed and skidded down the face and hit smack the bottom.

I waited until I had asked, “Are you alright?” before I laughed. Hinte just tossed her head and kept working her way down, cloak billowing around her. I was halfway, and she was only a third down.

Lines of dragons waited in front of the market — three of them. They weren’t slow lines, it turned out; it was the sheer volume of dragons entering and exiting that created the line. It was enough that you heard that murmur of crowds rising like smoke.

Almost a dozen guards stood up front, watching everyone that entered. I peered, brilles clear and tongue waving. There were three guard groups here, one for each line, and every once in a while they would stop someone⁠ ⁠—⁠ maybe they had a visible weapon, or a suspicious face, or sometimes nothing obvious to me⁠ ⁠— and while they didn’t, dragons slinked inside in almost fourfold bursts. As I watched, the guards rotated out, one at a time. This interrupted the rhythm, but it was tight, considering everything.

A long ring chimed and shook the crowd below us. We only sped up our climbing just a hitch. After we all got to the ground⁠ ⁠—⁠ me having helped Digrif up and then together waiting together for Hinte inching down⁠ ⁠—⁠ and as we slinked toward a line, some tall black​-​clad dragon strode up to us.

They wore a wary half​-​smile and unmistakable eye​-​paint. This was Adwyn, for all that the black schizon helmet he wore hid it.

He had ditched his red dress from earlier for this utilitarian, almost military garb similar to Rhyfel’s armor from last night, with black bamboo plates sown in and black cloth covering the whole of his stocky legs, tail, and neck. There were no glyphs inscribed on the plates, though, and it didn’t look custom​-​made like Rhyfel’s, but it did look good.

“You are late,” he said, in an almost unnoticeable lilt. Now some seriousness like a mist was arising in his tone, now.

“Late!” I said. “You said to meet you at seventh ring.” I never lost count of rings, but I didn’t even need frills to know the seventh rung just breaths ago.

Adwyn’s smile faltered, and I almost believed it. “Oh? Are you that reluctant to join me?”

My fangs vitrified. Was this a ploy? Unbalance me with his proposal, give me a day to stew and demand a response when I couldn’t avoid it?

“We had to walk all the way here, Sofrani,” Digrif said, the only one who had thought to bow to the highest Dyfnderi adviser. Or was the only one forgot not to bother. “It was slow.” I glanced at Hinte, and the wiver mercifully didn’t react. Unless those scores in the gravel by her feet hadn’t been there before.

“Ah, but one never knows what will go wrong; earliness is humility. And you fledge no eagerness to get started, do you? But it isn’t every day that you get to stop a war with a Dyfnderi veteran⁠ ⁠—⁠ or if it is, you lead much more interesting lives than I know of. I expected you all to jump at the opportunity.”

There was something about the way his tone danced and wavered. He was acting —⁠ that much was obvious⁠ ⁠—⁠ but what was underneath it? Why harp on this point and not just get the job done?

I shot in the dark. “A veteran.” I let wonder light my tone. “What are you a veteran of?”

Adwyn smiled again. “Plenty. Dyfnder/Geunant is protectorate, and our name isn’t just a title, unlike some countries. There is no end of threats to some orbiting stronghold, or militant insurrection menacing our freedom. More impressively, I served in the skirmishes against the spiders in the caves far up north of the canyons, and grounded the Ragan Mountain back when the Constellation was still making trouble.” He flared his frills and licked the wistfulness from his tone. “Of course, what I do anymore isn’t the same kind of interesting.”

The affected wonder dropped with a snap. “Are you talking about the Raga rebellion? That mountain was rogue! They defected from the Concordat of Stars! We⁠ ⁠—⁠ the Constellation has been peaceful for hundreds of gyras!”

“Hmm. Is it not funny, then, how consistently the sky gets these so​-​called rogues? Or how sky never deals with these defectors on their own?”

“We — they are stretched thin! The Constellation is five times larger and twelve times sparser than any land nation. By the time they knew of Raganari’s betrayal, her mountain had already been grounded. There was nothing we could do.”

It was true. The Severance of Earth and Sky promised that no sky​-​dweller would land on surface​-​dweller land, and no surface​-​dweller could enter the skycities.

Exiled sky​-​dwellers — like me — were exempt from the Severance, forced to tromp around in the mud. We were never allowed to return to the sky. Ever. This many great dances after the Severance was signed, exile had waned to something of an archaic, cruel punishment. Some cities still used it, even overused it, but Tädet/Pimeys wasn’t one of them. I was exiled on request.

When Hinte’s voice reached us, she had already begun stalking toward the gate, and the market. “It does not matter.”

“Ah yes, Gronte​-​wyre sees the idea. Let us set off,” Adwyn said.

This time, Hinte turned back to say, “Do not call me Gronte​-​wyre. I am Hinte.”

Adwyn gave a small bow, motioning his alulae out. Some Dyfnderi curtsy? When he rose, he was smirking at me. Why? I had nothing to do with that.

“If I may take the lead, Hinte?”

She only grunted, and Adwyn high​-​walked to the front of us. I nudged him when he passed, Chwithach’s fernpaper note fell to his grasp. The adviser gave a motion of his head that could be read as a nod, and was smiling.

We were led to where he’d appeared from. There, we found a yellowish pumice cart covered by a bland tarp. The pumice looked sanded down, but the stone’s surface still swarmed with holes, like someone in the last stages of a blood lice infection. I shivered. I’d had little brother, once, and we hadn’t even realized until his scales were pockmarked with holes and crawling with wriggling, blood​-​fattened insects.

A few guards stood around it, vaguely enough that it didn’t become clear they were watching until Adwyn motioned them away.

Under the tarp, the ape corpses looked only bumps in the bland beige. Adwyn took the reins of the cart himself, rolling it behind him.

He said, “We aren’t in any kind of a hurry. Ushra was right, at least, about how time is more of suggestion for this mission.” He looked back. “Do any of you regularly go to the east market?”

I lowered my head, and said, “I’ve never been.” Crowds made my scales peel — I got too many stares whenever I went out.

“Yes,” said Hinte.

“No,” said Digrif.

Adwyn smiled at that, and I had to work to see the draftiness hidden underneath. “Ah, let us shop, then. We can prepare for the journey into the cliffs. I love this market⁠ ⁠—⁠ it is where I bought this armor, see.” He wiggled a bit, showing off.

Hinte stepped toward him, examining the material, eyes clear but lips frowning.

“It is schizon?” she asked. “I don’t know many weavemasters who work with this outside of the forests.”

“Indeed. But we have Saumsanra here, some a traveler who once took up residence in Cyfrin ac Dwylla in the early days. He’s in Anterth anymore, gray season and all, but still trades with us quite a bit.”

Hinte’s head jerked up in the way she would when I spotted a cryst in the lake, or that one time I found a rainbow slug in a flowerpot. “The Saumsanra? My Oma speaks of him as if he were dead.”

“Of course, who else? He has enough students at this point, and we have no shortage of competent weavemasters, only lacking the forests’ abundance of schizal roots. So schizon cloth is a luxury⁠ ⁠—⁠ for now.” Adwyn gave Hinte a look. It might have been the look he had when he gave me his speech to me, but my angle wasn’t very good.

Instead of waiting in line Adwyn walked right up to where the guards watched the crowds. The schizon​-​clad adviser withdrew a silver​-​green coin from a pouch. He showed it to the guard. Their frills expanded, and the guards that weren’t occupied with the crowds lowered their heads in curt bows.

The lead guard said, “Sofrani Adwyn,” and stepped aside, allowing him to pass. Before he did, the orange drake waved his wing over the three of us. We followed, me smiling at the guards whose expressions of indifference had turned to courteous regard⁠ ⁠—⁠ except for one familiar muddy red face that didn’t look anywhere near us.

There was a short pink​-​scaled guard that broke away and scurried up to us. They had a big grin that didn’t sizzle at the heat of Adwyn’s vexed scowled.

“Hi? Who are you?” I asked the pink​-​scaled guard in sown​-​together rags.

“The bodies need to be guarded,” the pink​-​scaled guard was saying to Adwyn, “don’t they? You’re plenty big and strong sure, but I can watch your back.”

Didn’t they hear me? “Who are you?” I asked again, a bit higher. I stood somewhere behind Adwyn, beside Digrif, but I knew they could hear me.

The short, mouse​-​like dragon at last glanced over, frowned, and tossed me a, “Ceian,” before turning back to the schizon​-​clad adviser.

Hinte stood beside the orange drake. “Do we need a little fledgling slowing us down?”

The guard glanced at her, and his frills popped open and there may have been a gasp or mutter. “You’re the alchemist’s spawn!” they said, and stepped back.

The wiver declined her head so that the shade ate her face, and at her neck the amber goggles were regent eyes. “My name is Hinte.”

You saw a pink head tilt. “Why do you have a name like that?” They had the look and stance of some traveler guarding against a strange wraith that wanted tea and dancing.

The fledgling alchemist said, “Because my mother — why do you care?”

By now I was stomping up beside Hinte, saying, “Will no one tell me who this weird little guard is?”

The guard turned a narrowed​-​brow gaze to me a breath before they laughed, and Adwyn only sighed.

“Some orphan drake Mlaen’s fond to, whom Rhyfel also has taken a shine for. Quite the graspingly ambitious sort, which looks impressive from a distance as much as it does nothing to endear him to me.”

Ceian scoffed with his tail flicking and a forefoot smacking the gravel. “And you’re the sort who thinks he can bundle up a dragon in a few breaths, Sofrani.”

The adviser only smirked.

“Chance you could deign to inflict the same on this⁠ ⁠—⁠ colorful cast here? Never seen these jokes.”

The orange drake looked back at my night​-​blue face, at the warm​-​gray drake behind me, and at the dark​-​green wiver beside me. He sighed and plainly he spoke:

“Back there is Digrif, an orphan without your luck. He works harder than he acts. Beside me is Hinte. Ushra’s daughter. A wiver raised by money and the absence of limitations. And the other one is Kinri. She’s a sky​-​dweller if you omit everything that make sky​-​dwellers noteworthy.” He paused. “Which is a compliment.”

Hinte looked at the orange drake, but shade still had her face; meanwhile, Digrif, with sweet​-​tinged fangs, was back there softly kicking bits of gravel. I didn’t react: if I didn’t act like a sky​-​dweller, it was all a part of the act.

Over there Ceian was nodding vaguely at Digrif, but he settled on Hinte and said, “She doesn’t look bloated, or dress bloated. I’d even hazard she doesn’t act that bloated neither. Too jagged.” His tone wavered between unease and nothing in particular.

“She lives in Gwymr/Frina,” said the adviser with a laugh. “That sees something of a damper on that sort of thing.”

Ceian flicked his tongue, brows narrow, but I saw him stop it and pull it into his mouth.

Brightly he said, “So Sofrani! We decided you needed someone to guard the cart with you, right? And as you can see:”⁠ ⁠—⁠ the pink drake waved at the guards letting the crowd into the east market, like a strainer; where Ceian had stood among them someone had ran to fill his place, and now glared at the drake, who was continuing⁠ ⁠—⁠ “my spot has been filled.”

Adwyn tossed his head and said, blankly, “You have raised a gray point.” A forefoot had been lifted and tapped his horned chin. He nodded once.

“No,” Hinte said. “We will be slow enough as it is. We do not need another drag.”

“He’s nice, though.” Digrif slipped up beside me, looking at the wiver. “He’d make sharp company.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” I shook my head at the warm​-​gray dragon. “This is a serious mission, Digrif. You can’t just bring someone along because they seem nice.”

Hinte gave me a look.

“What?”

Adwyn said to Ceian, “It’s a gray point, but I am entertaining my own solutions.” He turned, regarding us and our little brewing argument. “And alas, you’ve stirred a certain discord we could do without. It’s nothing against you, you must see. It’s only Hinte is awful when she doesn’t get her way.”

With a starfallen pink drake behind us, with Hinte scowling and Digrif frowning, with Adwyn lugging the weight of the holey pumice cart on, and with waxing unease curling onto my fangs, we marched forth wordlessly. I could look at the silly side of things, find something to cheer someone up.

I glanced at Hinte, and shook my head. I was walking behind everyone now, Digrif between me and Hinte or Adwyn.

We entered the market proper like that.

---

The first thing you saw in the market was food, our food.

This was the start of the gray season, and now almost all of the foods on sale had grown here, been prepared here, without owing more than their names to something outside the cliffs. After all, no merchant would trudge through the Berwem, through dust clouds and eruptions, just to sell in the land of glass and secrets. To Anterth/Gwirion? Maybe. To Dyfnder/Geunant? Of course. But to Gwymr/Frina? The only dragons who would care to were the mountain​-​dwellers, and they had better things to sell than crops or livestock.

In a word, Gwymr/Frina was obscure — and because of that, I’d decided to settle here instead of the skip mountains or the hovering shores. Most exiled sky​-​dwellers ended up in either of those, and I knew why. I loved the Constellation’s open skies, its immense heights, and everything. I just couldn’t live where I would be reminded of them everyday. Nothing could compare to the sky, so I decided it would be better to forget about it, if it came to that.

So I had fallen to the cliffs. Yes, my brother had suggested it, but I decided it.

Rubbing the singed scales around my headband, I glanced at the stalls around me; they were simple things, easy to build and tear down, and, being made of rough paper drapped over bamboo rods, they sat somewhere between flimsy and not. They weren’t ugly; but I didn’t look at them, either.

Each stall around us wafted some delicious aroma. Gwymr/Frina’s clifftop outskirts were dotted with small farms; and there they raised cliff goats, gigantic land snails, fourteen​-​legged caterpillar cows, Hägre hogs and tidbit chickens. And dillers and turts, too, but you shouldn’t eat those. Here, meat from those animals scented the air with a lure restrained only by their price tag.

And one stall, it sold fish! I waved my tongue, yet before I could slink after it, Hinte’d broken away herself and slinked over to that stall selling Hägre hog pork. Before I’d even unclouded my eyes she’d bought a whole roast. Being from a smaller kind of hog, about knee​-​high and half as long as a dragon, it sat clumsy and tottering in Hinte’s cloaked wings. She tried to place it in her bag, but it wouldn’t fit.

She kept trying, so I giggled, stepped over, and said, “Just put it on the cart, Hinte⁠ ⁠—⁠ is too big,” I said, waving over to where Adwyn carried the cart.

Rust​-​orange eyes peered at me from under her hood. She flicked her tongue once, but took my advice. She placed the roasted hog on the cart, away from the tarp​-​covered bodies.

Hinte broke off two of the hog’s six legs and offered one to me. I took it with a murmured thanks, even as I turned away to bite into it. It was polite, but Hinte didn’t really have a sense of those things. I took another bite and tasted again the crisp, almost​-​sweet flavor of roasted Hägre hog.

“Hey!” Digrif said. “What about me?”

Hinte hissed. I prodded her with a wing (or rather, tried to prod her, failed, tried again, failed again, then finally turned around to aim true). With Hinte’s attention I nodded at her. She snapped her tongue at me, but relented. Returning to the cart, she broke a third leg off and passed it to Digrif. I looked at Adwyn, tilting my head and raising the hog leg in my foot.

He shook his head. “I am not hungry,” he said.

“And I would not have given one to you if you were,” Hinte said between bites.

I gaped at her, but Adwyn laughed. Shaking my head, I settled into step behind everyone else again.

We walked on for a bit, roaming the stalls and crowds. I’d seen larger crowds before, at House parties or Constellation assemblies, but none in Gwymr/Frina. It didn’t take twenty steps to remind me why I avoided them; scattered gazes all around lingered or stared, some almost glaring. I kept my head down, and tried not to scratch at my scales⁠ ⁠—⁠ they felt like they were molting.

At one point, Adwyn stopped suddenly, saying, “Allow me to find somewhere to hide this cart. I won’t be lugging it around.”

The orange dragon turned and strode toward one of the cliff walls. Digrif and I trailed after him, but he brandished a wing at us. “Go. I am not your minder, and this diversion is as much for your own benefit as mine.”

I flattened my wings and stepped away at once.

Foots sounded, and I glanced at the warm gray dragon coming up at my side. “Hi, Digrif,” I said.

“Huh? Hey Kinri.”

Looking away again, fangs damp, I found Hinte a ways behind us. When did she get there? Then I moved my gaze to her wings — she’d doubled back to wrench her roast from Adwyn’s cart. Roast in wing, she was low​-​walking away. With another prodding glance to Digrif I shot up and half​-​glided, half​-​flew to Hinte. I planted down beside her first — no question of that — but Digrif wasn’t more than a few breath cycles behind me.

Together again, I walked between the two friends. I brushed my wings against them as we waked, but that only pulled brief, puzzled glances from each of them, so I sighed and looked around at the crowd, then back at Hinte, then around again.

Surrounded by the gazes of strangers, I curled tighter in on myself. No one noticed.

---

The crowd writhed and spilt over itself. Like pillars in the chaotic mass, wherever we looked there were guards in high​-​stands or high​-​walks, each one looking purposeful even if I only saw them stop and question a plain​-​dweller twice. The crowd flowed around them; for some⁠ ⁠—⁠ often cliff​-​dwellers, often clad in halfrobes⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was because they stopped and inclined their heads in respect, and for others⁠ ⁠—⁠ often plain​-​dwellers, often clad in ashcloaks⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was because they stopped and slinked around the guard, disappearing into the crowd.

Rising even more pillar​-​like, even more purposeful, some guards prowled around on crunching red tortoises, their shells painted in blaring golds. Where the crowd flowed around the guards, it parted around the turt​-​mounted guards.

One of those guards walked by us just now, and the parting of the crowd let me glance at the stalls around us. Here, weaponry and armor lined the counters and crates. There was even a stall with two suits like the one Adwyn wore⁠ ⁠—⁠ each with its own unique touch, of course. I glanced at the signs below and⁠ ⁠— woah, that was expensive.

I asked Hinte, “How much would a suit like that cost back in the forests?” She had been staring at me⁠ ⁠—⁠ waiting for me to stop looking and start moving again? I took a step forward.

Most of Hinte’s face was shadowed in her hood, but you knew Hinte wrinkled her snout at me. “Anywhere from a only quarter to only half of that. The forests are big. Not everyone is sitting on a field of schizal roots, Kinri​-​gyfar.”

“Hey,” Digrif butted in, “are those schizal roots anything like the dinder roots they build their houses with back in the mountains?” He was smiling at Hinte.

“You cannot build houses out of schizon, Digrif,” Hinte said, slow, and Digrif cringed a bit.

“How do you even build a house out of roots?”

Digrif twisted his head, and the cringe turned to a smile. “Dinder trees get big! Real big⁠ ⁠—⁠ and they have to regrow themselves⁠ ⁠—⁠ the blastwinds in hurricane season usually sever their crowns⁠ ⁠—⁠ sometimes even their trunks!”

“Huh,” I said. I lifted the tip of my wing to my chin. “You know a lot about their trees…”

“Yep! I’ve harvested the roots with my dad — I even built some houses with him before we came back to Gwymr/Frina.” His frills fluttered, and honey pride scented the air.

The crowd beside us cleared again for a heartbeat, and I glanced among the stalls they’d blocked. One, with a fernpaper covering painted colorful and jaunty, was a jeweler’s stall⁠ ⁠—⁠ the sign above it read, ‘Glyster’s Gyms.’

Hinte had already walked away from us, standing in front of that stall, tearing off pieces of her roast for the stallowner and chatting with smiles and fluttering frills. Her hood was down just a bit, but a wing by her snout hid her scales and gave her conversation a secretive edge.

Digrif and I were padding closer.

“—⁠ Glyster. How have you been? Are you ready for the ash?”

“Of course, I’m ready, darling.” Glyster’s voice was a saccharine hiss, and seemed to click her tongue once with each pause for breath, giving her words a giggly undertone. “You know mining always picks up when the lake grows so savage. And more mining means more gems. I’m excited!”

Glyster paused to brush a jingling frill with her gleaming scaled foreleg. The frill looked weighed down with the number of piercings it had, and half of them had gemstones embedded. “And you? I can’t imagine you’ll have all that much to do with the lake in the throes of the gray season.”

“I am worried about things other than ash and sifting, right now.” Hinte twisted her frills. “And you forgot one of my questions. How are you?”

“Oh, a notch disappointed.” Glyster lowered her head, holding it in her forelegs. “Aurisiuf usually brings me fresh crysts this day of the cycle. Have you seen him at all, at all?”

Hinte glanced back at me, then at Digrif, and said, “No, I have not.”

“Oh well.” Glyster lifted her head again, mending her smile. “Now say, do you…”

I glanced away from Hinte’s conversation and spun my gaze over the crowd. It felt like every second face I saw was staring at me. Not always long, but gazes lingered in a way that made me so very aware of how out of place I was on the surface.

I needed a break from this. I turned away from Hinte and her conversation with Glyster and started away. I glanced back for Digrif, and saw Glyster beckoning him over. I sighed, and walked off.

I’d step away, get things in order. No one would notice, anyway.

---

A short ring passed. I finished a small errand I wanted to run, acquired a scroll I’d was searching for, an astronomical table. I flipped through it⁠ ⁠— in an alleyway. Nothing else of note happened. I made to return to Hinte and Digrif.

---

The suns condescended from high above like distant certainties. Lonely clouds floated about beneath them, and sometimes a suggestion of a skyland far away. The murmur of the crowd in the east market was a thick, and I waded through it.

My gaze might have gouged the ground as I walked, staring down; it felt that heavy. Looking down like this, I didn’t see anyone glance my way. When I heard jingling and clicking I was back to where Hinte was talking with Glyster.

Hidden in the crowd I approached and felt the clicking of Glyster’s sweet voice countering the jagged growl of Hinte’s.

Then someone said my name, and I padded closer, still hiding in the throng of dragons. Listening, closely, I still couldn’t hear every word.

“— —’s been asking about her, wanting to know if she’ll —. And I care, too, but about the — side of it.”

Hinte spoke slow, her tone from somewhere distant, even while she stood nearer to me than Glyster. She said, “She is a friend. I owe her my life. But she’s scared and flimsy. We cannot trust her for this.”

“Maybe. But he thinks —”

“I can smell her coming,” Hinte shot in.

And that, I guessed, was my cue. I stepped out of the shifting crowd. Hinte turned to meet me, her lips curling in a way I might have once taken for the shadow of a smile, but now I wondered if it had some other meaning.

“Kinri​-​gyfar,” she started with an incline of her head, “this is Glyster. You ran off before I could introduce you.”

“Nothing happened,” I blurted. “I just wanted some time to myself.” And I didn’t get it. I’d had a⁠ ⁠—⁠ conversation. But it was over now. Everything would turn out as planned. Had to. I rubbed my raw, sore neck, and forgot.

Hinte was tossing her head. “I mentioned her to you last night. She’s agreed to look at that gem, that… immortal raisin you found.” Any other day, I might have considered the sour expression she wore a victory, but I had other things to worry about now.

I had it in me to murmur the correction, “It’s the raisin of immortality,” but not loud enough to be heard. Glancing at Glyster, she had a smile that told me she knew the name was a joke.

“Okay,” came my voice, now louder.

I met Glyster’s gaze. She stood a tall cliff​-​dweller wiver, and off her body draped a revealing silk dress with breaks like the ribs of a snake. Her scales were blood​-​red, and her wings draped over her like a second dress. Between the immaculate clothes, the electrum piercings with rubies, jades or garnets that ringed her frills, and those hornscales like nothing so much as blades of grass, the only word to describe her was cliff​-​dweller.

She regarded me with a smile, even if she had eyes for Hinte most of all. “Hullo, Kinri. A fragrance to finally meet you. Here,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ she took something from her stand⁠ ⁠—⁠ “do you want a candy?”

The candy was a clear yellow and smelt of pure sourness. After a single glance and flick from me it slipped into my pocket⁠ ⁠—⁠ the same pocket that held the cards from earlier, where they rubbed together and collected dust and lint. I ran an alula over the cards with their worn, pealing edges, and then dragged the finger over the candy with a private grimace —sour.

But I smiled at Glyster and said, “Thank you.”

“But of course — and don’t chew it, sweetness. It sticks.” Her frills — the one that wasn’t weighed down with piercings⁠ ⁠—⁠ fluttered at me.

As my wing dug into my bag for the raisin​-​gem, I asked Hinte, “Where’s Digrif?”

“Over there, annoying some poor stallowner.”

Where she pointed, Digrif sat, all four feet on a big slate crate, waving his wing as he chatted with another cliff​-​dweller stallowner. They stood behind a stall of hammers, nails and other tools I couldn’t name. While Digrif shifted as he talked, the stallowner didn’t. I didn’t get the feeling they were really annoyed though, since they could always just tell Digrif to go away.

I held the gemstone, and then Glyster held the gemstone. She scrutinized it for a breath, and when the second short ring chimed and interrupted that, she set it down somewhere unseen behind her counter. “I’ll look closer later.” Smiling, she continued, “I think I’ve held you three up enough. Do you have other places to be?”

“No.”

“Well, I have, um, things I need to do.” Saying that had both Hinte and Glyster peering at me. I brushed their gazes off. They weren’t what whittled at me. Rubbing my hurt neck, I turned and started toward Digrif, while finding myself, in my mind, a ring in the future, meeting instead Adwyn’s sifting gaze. Would he see right through me?

No, he wouldn’t, couldn’t. While no one watched, I knit my feelings into a knot, buried them. My face relaxed in a way it hadn’t in gyras⁠ ⁠—⁠ into a mask that hid. Adwyn would think everything was the same, that nothing changed with me. Had to.

---

It was a weapons stall, and it displayed a few aluminum and bronze swords.

Here, the stalls sat sparser, with more room to themselves. It gave each stall room to breath, an identity, something to catch the eye if just for a heartbeat. This stall, though, stood a little taller, and it was made of stone instead of thick paper laid over bamboo reeds. The difference caught the eye and left it trapped, ensnared awhile.

Digrif caught my stare, followed it, and his frills flared in excitement. He leapt over to the stall and spoke, voice bubbling over, fangs sweetening, “Hello, O stallowner.”

“Oi hatchlin’ — what ya lookin’ ova?” The speaker was a mud — plain​-​dweller. They had a gnarled, rough look. Their horns grew out of control, and some of their scales parted from their face. They watched Digrif with what might be good​-​natured smile. Or an ingratiating one.

“These swords — they are uh…for sale?”

The stallowner laughed. “Course they are, course they are⁠ ⁠—⁠ I ought to be broke if I bought a stall just to let you look at it!” They put wing on the counter, leaning over it, head snaking forward.

“Heha, yeah.” Digrif glanced back at me; I smiled — what was I supposed to do?

The stallowner had a rag and a sword. Wiping the blade, they said, “So — I suppose you are lookin for one of these weapons?”

Digrif glanced back — at Hinte this time. “Well… yeah.”

The stallowner lowered their head. Their lips curled into a frown with dreams of being a smile. “You have any trainin with one?”

Digrif looked down, poking the ground with a claw. “…No.”

The frown tightened as its dreams were crushed. The stallowner said, “Pity. You can’t just pick up a sword and swing it about however you please — you need trainin. Lots of trainin.”

Digrif gave a vigorous poke to the ground and met the stallowner’s gaze again. “Well, my dad’s buddy fought the spiders a few years back. Maybe I can get him teach me!”

“Sure, hatchling. As long as the money is the money. Just I’m an honest drake, couldn’t sell you a sword knowin you can’t use it.”

Pride dewed again on Digrif’s fangs, this time with a hint of cloying embarrassment. “Thanks? But uh… how much are they?”

The stallowner smiled. “Oh, about forty, fifty aris, average. Cheapest one I will give ya is thirty and five.” I winced at the price⁠ ⁠—⁠ that was ten cycles’ stay in the inn. Maybe twice or thrice my cyclic salary. Ouch.

Digrif, though frowning, grabbed a coinpouch from the pocket of his ‘pants’ and counted out the amount. I watched, slack​-​tongued, and Hinte didn’t, her gaze wandering as she ripped the last bites from the hog leg.

“I shall take that one, then.” Digrif was saying as he finished counting. The stallowner took the plain aluminum sword from the bottom of the rack, setting it down as he slid the coins to himself.

The warm gray dragon lifted the sheathed sword, testing its weight. I could smell the dillerskin leather of its sheath from here, but it wasn’t a bad smell. After a few beats he set the sword on his back between his wings and nestled it, smiling. He laughed a little and stepped back over to where we waited, watching.

Hinte gave a tonguesnap when he returned. “Just what are you expecting to do with a sword?” The wiver glared at Digrif.

“Uh, fight? You and Kinri already got into a scuffle with humans — what if more come looking for vengeance?”

I couldn’t help but click at that. “Digrif,” I said, between tongueclicks, “that isn’t going to happen.” I couldn’t help my heartbeat hitching, though. How could we defend ourselves if we ended up in another situation like the one in the lake?

My tail slipped into my bag, and wrapped loosely around Hinte’s oily knife, and I breathed a touch easier. Then I glanced back and ran my tail along the knife’s length again. How was that glazed olm blood still oily?

Digrif was replying, “You would have said the same about Hinte getting attacked by a horde of apes!”

I tilted my head. “Horde?”

“Four humans, Digrif,” a soft voice said from behind us. I would have jumped, but I didn’t. Digrif, though, did, and Hinte turned, eyes not even clearing as they met the orange dragon’s gaze. Adwyn continued, eyeing Hinte “One lay dying, and two had just woke up, according to her report.”

Hinte turned around, a foot dusting off her cloak’s sleeve before coming to rest on the other. I watched Hinte, so I wouldn’t slip and glance back at him.

Digrif was saying, “So? My point flies!” With both Hinte and I silent, we were wedged in the middle of the argument.

On one side Adwyn said, “No, it does not. The humans are unaware anything has happened, and will remain unaware for some cycles.”

On the other Digrif deflated his frills, glancing back to me. I granted a small smile and a careless toss of my head. Hinte was walking away, and Adwyn strode behind her. He might have glanced at me, I wasn’t looking and I didn’t care. As I started after them, eyes to the ground, Digrif followed after me.

As he caught up, Digrif cocked his head. “You smell like blood.”

“I tripped.”

“Ouch, that doesn’t sound fun. Did you get it wrapped up?”

Rubbing my neck, I said, “Um, I cleaned it all up.”

“Okay then.”

We walked along for a bit. I glanced back at Digrif, and waved my tongue. “So. Where did you get the money for that sword? It seems a little out of nowhere.”

Digrif strode a bit closer to me. “My dad was a bit worried after I told him what happened to you two. Wanted me to get some kind of protection, so I wouldn’t… you know.”

I looked up. “I guess.” Glancing back at Digrif, and I bit my lip and said, “Sorry if I made you feel a little silly back there. I… um.”

Digrif was shaking his head. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.”

---

The weapon and armor stalls faded behind us, giving way to a new theme. Looking around, there were outfits resembling the sifting suits I’d worn with Hinte yesterday, and some that didn’t looked nearly as good.

My tongue flapped and I looked around at all of the sifting goods. For either the glazeward salve or the respira fumes, only a single stall sold them, each tended by a hat​-​wearing, brightly red cliff​-​dwellers with silky purple fullrobes. The mixtures were marked as high as twenty aris for a bottle. The advantages of having an alchemist friend, I guess.

Hinte’d told me those ugly bright white suits warded off heat. I didn’t believe her⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was still panting hot⁠ ⁠—⁠ but all that surfaced in my mind now was the worry that today I’d been finding out just whether she was right.

Among the blinding white suits, there were sifting rods, shovel​-​like sieves that looked just like the metal rod the apes had, and dark​-​lensed goggles that didn’t have the iridescence of Hinte’s, some arm​-​guards that were supposed to prevent sand from caking onto your limbs, and aluminum claws I didn’t grasp the use of.

I winged the sieve from my bag, giving it another look. I looked back at the sieves on display. The design was similar, very similar, down to the handle. Maybe the humans had the same ideas? I put the sieve back in my bag, and kept looking around.

We passed some poor scrapers offering to clean your forelegs of glass and dust for a few coins. I was about to leap over to them just then, but Hinte stopped me with a wing over my breast.

…I kept looking around.

One thing you didn’t hear so much here was buskers. It felt odd to miss the unasked​-​for music that polluted public spaces and the ragged musicians who brought it; but when my frills felt the sharp hum of strings, it was a break from the growls and hissings which weren’t for my frills. As I padded a bit closer, there was a curious nostalgic undercurrent in that pulled me in.

Over near the edge of the sifting goods section, a drake in a dull purple cloak strummed a stringed thing, glinting metallic and brighter than anything else about him.

They crooned in an accent I could lull into, and slowly the singing went from wordless pitches to some accusative song:

It stirred something in me, and I glanced at the busker again. The dull cloak, the metal strings⁠ ⁠—⁠ the memory came fast. He was the angry drake from last night. It stopped my padding forth quick and standing still I simply peered at him awhile, wondering about the love he’d lost and what other depths lay in his past.

But I wouldn’t talk to him again, and I wouldn’t patronize someone that unpleasant. The plain​-​dwellers stepping past who did let me cloud my eyes and continue wandering the stalls and all the strange sifting instruments arrayed. The busker kept strumming away, and his secrets kept resounding in the music.

The one thing that caught my eye above all else was the gas​-​masks. I waved my tongue and broke my stride with the others, looking closer. The design of the masks varied: some of them⁠ ⁠—⁠ the cheaper ones, I noticed⁠ ⁠—⁠ looked like woven sacks with glass holes for eyes and a bulky respirators near the mouth; some were simple dust masks you wrapped around your snout. The most advanced I saw was unique⁠ ⁠—⁠ there wasn’t another like it: woven schizon in a sleek, form​-​fitting design; near​-​black lenses stared out, contemptuous; and its black, disk​-​like respirator was smaller, sophisticated. Where the other masks had simple holes, this one had a tongue​-​flap.

I let out a quiet squeal on sight. How cool I would look in a mask like that? …I glanced, with effort, at the price: ninety aris.

Frills deflating, I looked at the other options. I didn’t consider for a heartbeat the sack​-​looking masks. But there were sets a few notches more advanced that didn’t look hideous, and didn’t cost ninety aris.

I spotted some with promise. Blaring a patriotic red with golden streaks, and glassy wing patterns over the frill guards, these masks looked like they could make Staune seem a cliff​-​dweller. As I stared at the masks, the owner of the stall turned around to peer at me. They were a deep orange⁠ ⁠—⁠ a canyon​-​dweller. Their face was specked with dark​-​gray freckles. They regarded me, cool and impassive.

“Greetings. Have you come to buy a mask?”

“Um… sure?” Behind me, where the stallowner couldn’t see, my tail was doing all manner of embarrassed acrobatics.

Their eyes shifted at my questioning, un​-​sure tone, but it didn’t ever reach their voice. “You want one of these red ones, it looks like.” I nodded my head a little. “Alright. I shall sell you them for⁠ ⁠—⁠ let us say⁠ ⁠—⁠ thirty aris.” My wings hitched at that — what! They continued, “How many are you going to buy?” Their eyes glanced behind me, where my friends and Adwyn stood — I thought. I glanced back to be sure.

“Hmm…” I hummed. Me, Hinte, Digrif… Adwyn. “Four. But a hundred​-​twenty is far too much! I cannot buy that⁠ ⁠—”

“What are you doing, Kinri?” a voice⁠ ⁠—⁠ Hinte’s⁠ ⁠—⁠ said, coming to my side.

“Oh uh, I wanted to buy some gas masks — for the trip back into the lake,” I said, frills folding.

“What?” she said, taking in the stall and the masks filling the shelves and clouding her eyes. “What is the point? We have respira.” She turned and walked away.

“What the blind?” the stallowner said. “How could you not afford my midrange gas​-​masks, and then turn around and chug respira without worry?”

Hinte’s response was, “It is no concern.” With her back turned and her form hidden in her cloak, it was all you got.

The stallowner frowned, then smirked. “She’s an alchemist, isn’t she?”

They were peering right at me, so they saw my brilles clear, my frills twitch. The smirk stayed long enough to let me know I’d been bested, and fell back to a frown, as the stallowner hissed and shook her head. “Of course, she’s just another stuck​-​up alchemist who thinks they can live in the depths of their vials. I almost pity you and her.”

Hinte gave a dismissive hiss, which felt a bit less dismissive when I could hear it from over here.

“I don’t not need a mask, Kinri,” was what she said as she lifted to a high​-​walk and strode futher off.

“Well. I think I’ll only need three, now. Is seventy or eighty possible?” I asked, tone pleading.

“Eh,” they said. “Look, I could sell you all four for a hundred. Your friend needs it⁠ ⁠—⁠ she’s clearly not getting enough air to her head as it is.” I jerked back, claws scoring the gravel, brow narrowing. But I grounded the impulse, tied it up with the dewings I’d removed to build my mask. This was a good deal, I thought. It was what I wanted.

“Um. I can’t bring you down to ninety?”

“No, I am being generous.”

“Then I guess that’ll work.” I reached into my bag for my coinpurse. I wrenched the amount and dropped the purse back into my bad. I could already feel the lightness in my purse.

The stall owner slid them adroitly across the counter coin by coin, checking my counting themself. I took the four masks and started to turn, but the stall owner stopped me.

“Hey, stop. A gas​-​mask is not as simple as just strapping it to your face and wandering into the vog. Here,” they said, then produced a bag, quickly filling it with some thick green and black discs. They picked one up and extended it to me, explaining, “these are cartridges.” They grabbed one of the masks⁠ ⁠—⁠ the same kind I just bought, and then, “You insert them like this and they absorb the sulfur in the air. They cannot last forever, so you shall want to switch cartridges sooner or later.”

Across my face fell a look like I almost slipped from a cliff. “Oh, thanks.”

“Don’t thank me⁠ ⁠—⁠ it’s my job. If you want to thank, pray your gods for you to not ‘die’ or ‘suffer serious injury’ out in the lake. I am liable so long as you wear our masks. Faer’s new system.”

I flicked a tongue. “Insurance?” They nodded. “Don’t I have to sign somewhere for that?”

“What are you talking about?” they said, “I have your names — I read the papers⁠ ⁠—⁠ you are Kinri of Specter, that must be Hinte of Gären, of course I recognize highness Adwyn. And that other hatchling has scales that nearly pin them down. Who are they? Donio? Digrif?”

“Digrif.” The warm gray dragon jerked at his mention but at my head shake went back to listening to Adwyn explain something with wide wing gestures.

“Yes, see? I have things handled.”

“But how will they know to blame you when something happens?”

“All controlled purchases in the east market are documented. I could not get out of here tonight without registering this transaction.”

“But — what stops you from just… not registering? Or putting down bogus information?”

“That is fraud, madam. Are you implying something?”

“Oh… no! I⁠ ⁠—⁠ I will go.”

“Do.”

---

“Thank you, Kinri. This was quite thoughtful of you.”

“Wow. We’ll look like proper sifters yet. Sharp thanks, Kinri.”

“You wasted your money. Gas​-​masks are inferior to respira fumes.”

I sighed past the salt on my fangs, and put Hinte’s mask in my bag. What could I do?

Adwyn was saying, “Do not oversell your alchemy, Hinte. Gwymr/Frina was built on top of sifting. If alchemy were the only way, some clever sap would have known it and made rich because of it. Respira is not perfect⁠ ⁠—⁠ it has its disadvantages.”

“Such as?” Hinte shifted, staring at Adwyn.

Adwyn held out a forefoot. He extended one toe. “It heals your lungs, but without perfect quality and refinement, the repair is incomplete.” I stared at Hinte. Holding out another toe, the adviser continued, “And the damage to one’s lungs accumulates over time.” He extended a third toe. “It is rather expensive —⁠ not very trivial to brew.” He extended a fourth, “And⁠ ⁠—”

“Ha,” Hinte laughed in a wavering tone. She yawned, and then her expression and voice seemed to settle. “It is not my fault you cliff​-​dwellers are in dire need of competent alchemists. Respira is trivial⁠ ⁠—⁠ in Teif/Günstig academies, we would brew it as busy work or punishment. Do you think I would botch something so trivial?”

Adwyn brought his forefoot back to the ground, and shook his head. “Be that as it may, we have the masks. There is no good reason not to use them. If a sifter wants a mask like these, they’ll be paying out of their own pocket.” Adwyn popped his tongue. “Basic caution implores us to use them, Hinte.” Adwyn’s tone had become bronze, as if he would take to ordering Hinte around. It was easy to forget⁠ ⁠—⁠ with his irreverent, observant demeanor⁠ ⁠—⁠ that this schizon​-​clad canyon​-​dweller was a military veteran, a former commander.

Adwyn glanced my way, and I was looking away, hard.

Hinte was turning away. “I cannot wear the gas​-​mask over my goggles, regardless,” she said, fingering the goggles hanging around her neck with an alula. She saw Adwyn tilt his head. “What?”

“Tell me about your goggles.” He smiled. I narrowed my brows.

Hinte whisked a wing. “Gronte made them for me. She did the weaving herself, but she had help for the glass. It’s for the ash and rain. Polarized, and filters light based on the angle of incidence to keep out reflections.” She glanced to the ground, muttering as if it were an embarrassment to admit, “Something only the Gwymri know how to make.”

“Heha, Gwymr/Frina is the land of glass and secrets. Secret glass.” Digrif had tried putting on his gas​-​mask already; but he had it on backward, eye holes at the back of his head, and was looking in the wrong direction as he spoke. I walked over to fix his mask.

Adwyn slipped on his mask as well; between it and his schizon armor, you could miss the few orange scales that were still exposed. Adwyn had lowered his head, saying, “Has your grandmother taught you anything of her craft?”

Hinte’s face I couldn’t see, but her tone sounded level, the kind of levelness that came from not being calm, if by some small yet significant amount. “She has tried.”

“Would it be beyond you to modify your mask to fit over your goggles? It’s a gift, and I would hate to so it go to waste.”

When I turned, I saw Adwyn was talking to empty space; Hinte had already stalked off.

A properly masked Digrif, Adwyn and I low​-​walked after Hinte. Her tail lashed and her frills writhed, but seemed to fade as she distanced herself.

I watched Hinte, wondering if I should say anything; but salt still dewed on my fangs (scared, flimsy, can’t trust her), and in that moment of hesitation, Digrif slinked right beside Hinte.

“Hey Hinte,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

Hinte regarded Digrif with a glare less intense than the one she’d been giving the ground a heartbeat earlier. “I know when I am being manipulated.”

Adwyn curtsied. “See my apologies, then, Hinte. I meant you no harm.”

Hinte snapped her tongue. She said, “It does not matter,” in a low growl. She scratched one forefoot with the other and waited for Adwyn and me to close the distance between us. She started off⁠ ⁠—⁠ if she were following Adwyn, you couldn’t tell for the first few steps.

As we walked, Adwyn started speaking, saying, “I looked over the bodies again, before leaving them in the charge a few guards. I found some interesting objects among the bodies⁠ ⁠—⁠ they aren’t any kind of evidence, so I plan to sell them.”

Adwyn didn’t seem to be done, but in between his sentences Hinte stabbed a question. “Will a human search party not notice if the possessions of the humans are gone?”

“I doubt a search party will care, as long as some valuables are still there. I shall only sell some. And irregardless, glazed olms are known to scavenge for metals. That could cover us, but we can’t count on the humans knowing that, so I held back.” He looked over to Hinte, then me, starting to lick his eyes only to find them covered by the mask’s goggles. “Since you two are responsible for bringing the humans to us, I thought you would want a share of the spoils.”

“No,” Hinte said.

“I would,” I said. Peering at Hinte, I asked her, “Why not?”

“It does not matter.”

---

We didn’t go far from the sifting section before Adwyn stopped us and pointed at the ground beneath us. “Stay here.”

Behind and to his left stood a stall stacked with plates, folded cloth and rows of vases, all decorated with curling tails, angular weapons and excessive glyphs —⁠ the plates and vases were all colored glass, and the cloth was of some smooth material I didn’t recognize. Other things scattered over the table, but they didn’t come in pairs, let alone stacks or rows. Was that a rope of golden thread? An obsidian spear? A cryst?

At our angle, we could see both our canyon​-​dweller, standing front of the stall, gas​-​mask off, and the cliff​-​dweller behind the stall and glancing up with a bored look. Adwyn smiled at the stallowner, and they smiled back, tongue scenting.

Adwyn waved his alula around and made an impressed noise. “This is quite the assortment of goods you have here. A little bit of everything, isn’t it?”

“Indubitably, it is. Something of a bazaar, I have here — a bricolage of wares, if you would.”

Adwyn lowered his wing, smile becoming a contemplative curl of his lips. “Exquisite taste, if I would say as much.”

The stallowner narrowed their brow, but before they could respond, Adwyn was peering at the counter, lifting and examining this or that object.

He had the cryst in his grasp when he spoke, only a few breath cycles later. “I have to see, this is the most interesting thing sitting here. I haven’t seen anything quite like it. Tell me about it.”

“Oh, that is a little curio some stupid sifter left me. They said it was worthless. Ha! Mud​-​dwellers wouldn’t know value if it spat on them, you must know.”

I gasped a bit and glanced at Hinte, whose frills hadn’t moved a notch. They were still. I prodded her. “I don’t sound like that, do I?” I whispered.

“Sometimes you do,” she said. “You’ve gotten better.”

I squeaked.

But Adwyn was laughing with the stallowner. “That they don’t. Entirely unlike yourself⁠ ⁠—⁠ you have quite the tongue for value, if your collection is anything to judge by. How much would you say this is worth?”

“Oh, thirty and six aris, say?”

“That sounds reasonable.” Adwyn tapped his chin with an alula. “But, how do you see tempering that price with a trade? I have this knife, and I want your opinion of it.” Adwyn grabbed a knife from his bags and placed it on the counter.

“It is bronze and slight rusty.”

“Indeed. However, this is not just a knife⁠ ⁠—⁠ if it were, I would sell it to one of those brute weapons dealers. No, this knife is special.”

The stallowner watched Adwyn for a moment, tongueflicks becoming more pronounced until they finally asked, “What makes it special?”

Adwyn looked away, distant. “Have you heard about that second act in the lake?”

“The mess with the monsters?”

“Quite. You see, this knife was the blade the monsters fought Gronte​-​wyre with. I risked quite a bit for this. I see it as having a certain symbolic value, no? It’s not just a knife, it’s a monster’s knife.”

“Oh–oh. How much is it worth?”

“Ah, I don’t know, I trust your judgment.”

“Well, thirty and six seems also fair, does it not?”

“It does. Though maybe this is worth a bit more than the rock? After all, this isn’t some stupid sifter giving this to you.”

“Oh, you’re right. How does forty and two seem?”

“Forty. I couldn’t ask for more than that.”

“Is it a deal?”

“Almost. As I said, I risked quite a bit to find this for you. As lovely as the stone is, it won’t help me find more monster trinkets. If you give me the full forty, I’ll see it back to you with the next trinket I find.”

“That sounds…” The stallowner was lifting a wing to their face.

“I know you can smell a good deal when it meets you.”

The stallowner nibbled a bit on their alula, then jerked it away when they seemed to notice. “Thirty and eight.”

“I — yes, I understand. Thank you for being reasonable,” he said. And that was that.

Adwyn returned to us, smirking, in a flurry of questions.

“I didn’t know canyon​-​dwellers could dance⁠ ⁠—⁠ where did you learn that?”

“What the void was that ‘mud​-​dweller’ residua about?”

“Why didn’t you sell your knife when we were in the place with all the swords?”

The smirk cracked under the strain. Adwyn sighed.

He looked to me. “The Constellation’s courts are hardly unique. I am thirtieth in skein for the Geunantic throne⁠ ⁠—⁠ I needed as much skill in⁠ ⁠—⁠ dancing, as you say⁠ ⁠—⁠ to survive.”

He looked to Hinte. “Scowl as you will, but validating a dragon’s strongest dewings is a quick way to build rapport. It has little to do with my true dewings toward plain​-​dwellers. They are dragons like any other.”

He looked to Digrif. “Why, if I went to a proper weapons seller, he might know how much the knife is truly worth.”

As we walked off, behind us came a cry of outrage. The stallowner stared at the Dyfnderi adviser, a storm limned in scales gathering on their face.

Adwyn’s smirk returned, and stayed with us as the stall faded behind us.

---

We were slinking through the crowds, me on the opposite side of Hinte⁠ ⁠—⁠ as far as I could get without it being obvious.

As if summoned, the smile and electric smell I was becoming familiar with spawned from the faceless mass of dragons. Her frills, both pierced and not, bounced as she sidled right up to me.

“Kynra?”

“Kinri. I told you.” I was baring my fangs at her, but I couldn’t hide my smile.

“Kinri. I’m going to get it, obviously. Kinri. See?”

I tossed my head and went back to watching the stalls we passed, Mawla padded beside me. Adwyn, gas​-​mask back on, still scanned for another stall to sell more human trinkets to, but he broke that hunt to run an shamelessly measuring look up and down the sifter beside me.

Mawla had glanced that way — but aimed at Hinte, not at Adwyn, whom she didn’t seem to notice. She nudged me. “I see you’re starting to slough that green wraith.”

“What?” my voice frayed. I tried, “What makes you think that?”

“Last night, you were slithering after her like a little snek, and now you’re all the way over here and looking everywhere else you can. It’s obvious.”

I wasn’t going to discuss this with her. “Why’re you here in the market?”

Mawla glanced behind her. “Just, y’know, buying things. Most entertainment happens in the evening⁠ ⁠—⁠ or at night. So I’m wandering around to ground time, looking at things and maybe buying them if I want them enough. Maybe I could show you how, some time.”

“You mean like bartering?”

She giggled. “Sure.”

Her giggling died down a bit, but faltered as it did, and that revealed something I’d never noticed about her voice. It was always extreme, deep, throaty growls or high​-​pitched enthusiasm… always strained. But why?

Hinte broke from a muttered conversation with Adwyn. Looking down her snout at Mawla, she said, “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing questioning me? Go back to licking orange vents.”

I spoke above Mawla. “There’s no sifting today, Hinte. Adwyn told us this. She’s a — friend, I was talking with her.”

Hinte whisked a wing. “We are busy. This mission is important.”

The sifter grinned. “If it were important, I don’t see why —”

“Mawla, please.”

“Fine. I’m leaping so long as this — as long as she’s here. Are you going to be able to make it this evening?” Her dark​-​blue eyes half​-​clouded, glinting in the sunslight.

“I’ll — try.”

---

I flicked my tongue, scenting ink and fernpaper. Not just any ink though⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was spicy and familiar. I’d been smelling it every day for cycles. Was this where he bought it?

I let a smile touch my lips, but continued walking with my friends behind Adwyn. Then I heard that familiar textured growl of a voice, and I frowned; but it was Hinte who found him. I caught her glancing at a ashcloaked cliff​-​dweller laughing and banging a foot against a stall. Out of his ragged halfrobes and librarian sash, my eyes had moved right over him.

Hinte continued walking, so I slinked up behind him. Standing there, I grinned. At last, I would be the one sneaking⁠ ⁠—

“Hello, Kinri.” Chwithach turned and smiled at me.

“Gah! At least once. Can I sneak up on someone at least once?”

“Evidently not. Though I’ll say you had a crack of success when you first arrived.” he said, then added, “But you stopped to bask in it,” in that prodding, teacherly tone.

I blew my tongue at the librarian. “What are you doing here, Sofrani? Who’s handling the Sgrôli ac Neidr?”

“I left Ehnym in charge of things; I’m only gone a ring.”

Ehnym. I’d heard the name before. He had to be some library regular, some volunteer.

“Why’d you come out, anyways?”

“Ran out of ink. I’m clawing a good multitude of letters, getting operations in an order. And I needed a breath cycle of fresh air, anyway.”

Claws scraped gravel. “My Opa always said to have more ink with you than you would ever use.”

Chwithach’s words were soft. “That may well work for the faer’s head alchemist. But I can scarcely afford a surplus of anything, even ink.

Hinte waved her tongue, her brow furrowed in thought.

Under Chwithach’s cloak another tongue flicked.

My frills snapped spread. “Is that —” I started, but my words gave way to a squeak as a slender, white head poked out of the librarian’s cloak, eyes a pale gray, pink pits along its snout.

Snake. I’d fantasized about a having a snake since I was a little hatchling. They were sleek, cuddly, dangerous, and way better than skinks or turtles or monitors. My face wore every parcel of my reaction, and I didn’t bother adjusting my mask.

Chwithach chuckled, rubbing the snake’s head with a alula. “Yes, this is my pet. Ceiwad, say hi.”

The snake gave a long hiss, tongue dancing out of the mouth. Slithering further up the owner’s neck, you could see the brilles clear and track all of us, wary tension written into every scale. Chwithach gently gripped the snake and lifted him from his cloak a little. The snake was just thick enough around that his feet couldn’t curl around all the girth.

I stepped closer, extending an alula for Ceiwad to scent. “Are they a boy snake or a girl snake?” “Boy.” “Are they a biter or a choker?”

Ceiwad touched my alula with a tongue​-​fork, then retracted it. After a beat, he yawned at me, fangs unfolded. When his jaw closed, he let me pat him on the head.

“Well, ‘chokers’ will bite you too.”

I scratched under Ceiwad’s head. He jerked away. “I know. But it’s not the bite that grounds you.”

“Fair enough. I still prefer to call them venomous and constricting snakes. It’s the system the forests use, and they are masters of natural history.” Chwithach hummed. “For instance, would you believe wraiths are anatomically closer to true snakes than dragons? It’s —”

“Trust you to make even snakes boring.” I looked up from Ceiwad to his owner. “Did you mention the forests? Is that where you got Ceiwad?”

“Ah, yes. He’s a leucistic swamp python, the most expensive thing I’ve ever had —⁠ he cost more than the library.”

“How did you ever pay for him?”

“I had an, how do you say, fascinating youth. I had a small fortune at times, but it had always been rather… mercurial.” Chwithach looked away. “But the truth is, Ceiwad here was a gift⁠ ⁠—⁠ from the miser, in fact. Though my association with him is a part of that youth⁠ ⁠—⁠ anyway, even though it was a gift, it was horribly expensive, and I insisted on paying him back, even though he only ever took half of it.”

I booped Ceiwad’s snout, and left him alone after that. “Huh. Ceiwad looks a bit old. You and the miser must have some history.” Obliquely, I watched the librarian, sifting for some tell, another scrap of information about the mysterious hooded dragon.

The librarian smiled, and gave it to me. “Quite. It was he who convinced me to have the library built and stay in Gwymr/Frina. Fledgling Chwithach had been planning to leave for Dyfnder in order to fight in the war against the spiders. Can you believe that?” He sighed, but it was one of nostalgia.

Fledgling Kinri was going to be Specter Zenith and change things. Can you believe that?

Brother told me it was still possible. That this mission would erase all of my mistakes. Had to.

---

When we left Chwithach, It had been Adwyn, and not Hinte, who’d pulled me away. Hinte had walked up to us, yet when she saw who I chatted with, she gave him a curt nod — and the librarian returned it, with a pensive line in place of a smile. She left us after that.

Now, we — or rather, Digrif and Hinte; I stood back — sat and watched as Adwyn did his thing again, this time haggling over one of the human’s necklaces at a stall smelling of all the nice metals: electrum, pyrite, zircoril, cobalt, irid.

Or we had, until a voice like arrows shot in. “Aha, I thought I saw you two in the sifting aisle.”

All of us turned around — Hinte like a flame snapping, Digrif like a poked turtle, and I like an impassive, observant snake.

Toward us stepped the first sifter from last night, the one whom I gave a cryst. He’d exchanged his sifting suit for… nothing. I could imagine he had a vent​-​cloth wrapped around his unseen tail and he did have a necklace, humming with a hidden cryst.

I kept my eyes on his face, not his thick legs or exposed muscle. At all. He spoke with a rough, coughing voice, saying, “I realize you have a new drake with you, and we haven’t had introductions. Sound like a good trade to you?”

I smiled to some extent. “Sure! This is Digrif, that is — Wrang, right?”

“Wrang, yes. Wrang of Llosgi Hoddi.”

Llosgi Hoddi. It was a name that’d come up a few times in my study of Gwymr/Frina. But the cliffs were nothing like the sky; even the oldest houses here went back fewer than a dozen generations, and even the most powerful were nothing next to the sifting and mining companies.

I’m not sure what look filtered to my face as I recalled these things. Whatever it was, it brought a smile to Wrang’s face and he gave a small bow.

“Heh. It’s been a while since someone reacted to our name with respect stead of ignorance.” He smiled or grinned. “From a sky​-​dweller no less!”

“Um.”

“It’s no insult, don’t worry. You seem far more like a goodly plain​-​dweller than some condescending sky​-​dweller⁠ ⁠—⁠ even if you don’t look it.”

A whisk of Hinte’s wing prompted Wrang to silence. “You can stop flattering her. It worked. She’s ready to do whatever apterous thing you want to ask of her, now.”

Wrang turned a cloudy​-​eyed gaze to Hinte. “You assume too much, Gronte​-​wyre. I have nothing to ask Kinri for.”

Hinte growled and stalked off to stand by Adwyn.

“I don’t want to tear a rift between you two, so I’ll be leaving now; but I leastly wanted to ask about the paid flight for the sifting teams. The timing is awfully right, and Lilian says Mawla is convinced you are to thank for it. And well, is it so?”

“Not really. It’s all been Adwyn pulling strings.”

Wrang’s tongue slipped back in his mouth, and a thoughtful hum slipped out. “That makes a bit more sense, at least. But I do appreciate the gift you gave me last night. So I thought I’d ask if you cared to join me at the Dychwelfa ac Theatr tonight. I know one of the actors.”

“I don’t think that’s possible. My schedule tonight is really full.”

Wrang paused for a beat at that; then, “That’s fine. Tomorrow?”

“Maybe. My plans have had a habit of expanding lately.”

“If you have the opportunity, I imagine you’ll have a good time.”

“Thanks? I’ll think on it.” I looked up. I’d seen so many familiar faces at the market today. Was it always like this? “So um, why are you in the market?”

“Ah, just following some friends. They had some plans for the day and brought me along.” He gave a prideful smile. “It’s a good thing, too. I got to do my good deed for the day because of it.”

I tilted my head.

“Saw a thief steal some dillers just a bit ago, gave the guards a tip.” His tone gained a sly edge, “Saw Mawla about then, too. She was nosing after you; but I sent her away. She’s not the type you want to keep around.”

I didn’t say anything, looking away.

“I have to say, today has been horribly exciting in that way. That wasn’t even the only time I saw the guard chasing after someone. Some ship that Mlaen’s running, isn’t it?”

“Uh, the faer’s doing their best, isn’t she?

“I wouldn’t know just from living here.” Wrang glanced at the sky and said, “I should be heading home about now, check on my hatches. Dwylla guide you.”

I watched Wrang take off and glide way. Once he was gone, I slinked to Digrif and Hinte and joined them in watching what was once a haggling broil over into a shouting argument.

“What do you mean? This is a Frinan necklace? How could a human —”

“What I mean is you have some gall trying to sell me of my cousin’s necklaces. Its even got her signature on it! ‘G’ for Glyster!”

“That doesn’t⁠ ⁠—”

“And then you try to cloud my brilles with some nonsense about monsters, you’re just a crook who thinks they can peddle lies and leech off Hinte Gären’s heroism. Spit out of my sight. Now.”

Adwyn took a breath, but before he could say anything more, they continued, “Now!”

He strode away from the stall with a complex look on his face. He waved his wing and we fell into step beside him.

“Sounds like that didn’t go overly well.”

“I made several mistakes. Things rarey bode well once you fall on the defensive.”

“What were you defending?” Digrif asked.

Hinte muttered, “Against the truth.”

“We started off on the wrong draft,” Adwyn said, rubbing a temple with an alula. “I mispronounced his name, and mistook him, at first, for a wiver⁠ ⁠—⁠ the frill piercings are common among them. At this point I had, perhaps, ruined any chance of a good deal, but we are short on time, so I decided I should sell here and start for the lake.

“My rush must have shone through in my behavior.” Looking to the side, Adwyn continued offwing, “For good reason is one of the first rules of haggling never reveal you have any unusual need of the deal. This weakness had encouraged the drake to demand unreasonable prices.”

Adwyn shifted to a high​-​stand. “Then I tried selling it as a monster trinket, as I had at the other stall. The drake pointed out that the necklace was locally made, then mistook my shock for guilt and, things plumeted from there.”

Hinte said, “Are we done wasting time here, then?” She was glaring at the Dyfnderi adviser.

“We are done spending time here,” Adwyn echoed. “This development demands the faer’s tongue. But first we must check on the bodies.” Adwyn began high​-​walking.

“Why?”

“Just follow me.”

---

The spot Adwyn had chosen for the cart was an alley between a flat​-​topped brewery and a sagging house, both leaning against the market’s eastern cliff wall. The crowds thinned here, and the sparseness seemed to make the red and gold of the Gwymri guard that much more numerous. Maybe they were; we were at the very edge of the net stretching over the market, and someones had to guard it.

As we approached that alley Adwyn looked around with a waxing scowl in his eyes. Everytime we passed a guard, he’d call out, “Of that light?” and with each absent response, the depth of frustration in his eyes doubled.

But as we reached the mouth of the alley, the orange drake stopped, staring in, tongue flicking before he strode into the alley. Without following him, I cleared my eyes and let my gaze flow down the alley. I shivered at the sight of the holey pumice cart, but I kept looking for what had the military adviser on edge.

The alley went back a dozen strides or less, and was empty save some half​-​hardened puddles of muddy ash and bits of trash. The window’s curtains were shut, and six​-​legged skink startled off further up the house’s wall.

My brow furrowed and I looked back to the cart. The tarp was still in place, and there were still bulges underneath.

I gave up figuring it out, and glanced back to the orange drake now standing just before the pumice cart. He was pressing a foot against a tarp​-​covered bulge.

He said, “Blind take them. It’s just as I glimpsed.”

Adwyn looked back at us. “The bodies are gone.”

“The bodies are gone?” I said with a snap of my tongue. “Where did they go?”

Adwyn was still prodding the tarp in front of us, and still speaking, thinking aloud, “These are sandbags, decoys.”

The orange drake, face hidden behind a dust mask, turned from the cart. When he did, every careless scale had been shed. This Adwyn, I could imagine, was the last thing Raganari had seen before her end. “We have been robbed,” he said.

I looked around, to Digrif and to Hinte, frowning confusion. A moment passed, and my brilles flashed clear. We’d been robbed! I looked up, the confusion cracking and hatching a quintet of questions. How? When? Who? Where? Why?

Hinte only growled wordlessly; while, with excitement befitting any other situation Digrif said, “Brigands!”

I glanced at the warm​-​gray drake, and then at the dark​-​green wiver trying to maim him with just the curl of her lips. I started to opened my mouth, but a deep growl beat me speaking.

Adwyn, brushing off Digrif’s excitement, spoke in a voice like stones rolling down a mountain. “This is enemy action. From now until this is resolved, you three will follow all my orders when I give them. This is serious.”

I tilted my head. “What? Why do you think it has to be enemies? Why not just normal thieves?”

Adwyn pointed at the cart. “I’d say ordinary thieves are less likely to bother with such a boring, out​-​of​-​the​-​way cart, in a market like this. And then, upon discovering this cart held human corpses⁠ ⁠—⁠ rather than anything valuable⁠ ⁠—⁠ they make to steal them anyway. And finally, after it is all done, they carefully replace the bodies with sandbags before fleeing the scene. Rhyfel and I deal with enough reports from the prefects to know no thief in Gwmr/Frina operates like this.”

After that, he reeled on me. All of the calculating warmth from earlier was gone, replaced with unadorned suspicion. Once his eyes had interrogated my face, the military adviser spoke, voice venomous.

“It was you.” His tone was half​-​assertion, half​-​question.

“I⁠ ⁠—⁠ What! No, I had nothing at all to do with this! At all!” My frills flared and my wings unfurled before I folded them back up.

“Of the six dragons privy to the details of our plans, only the three of you are aware that we brought the bodies here to the market: I trust you the least, and you are the only one here with time unaccounted for.”

I opened my mouth, and closed it. I didn’t do it. Why couldn’t he see that?

I broke from Adwyn’s gaze to look at my friends. Hinte’s features were conflicted, fighting between disbelief and betrayal… betrayal won out, leaving a glare more intense than any I had seen her with before. Digrif was beside her, open​-​mouth in shock, but he looked to me with measured hope.

Looking back at Adwyn, I spoke slow, saying, “Time unaccounted for?”

“Digrif tells me while I hid the cart, you slipped away from the two of them and returned a ring later. What did you do during this time?”

I bared my fangs, spicy indignance burning on them. “I went to buy some scrolls while Hinte was busy chatting with that weird gemstone wiver,” I said, pointing at my glaring friend. While she was talking with that wiver about crysts or whatever, I’d wandered off to find a book stall, that’s all. All I wanted was up​-​to​-​date astronomical tables. Hinte would have been busy awhile.

My tail slipped into my bag and found that slim scroll⁠ ⁠—⁠ and the letter. I pushed the second deeper in my bag, I wouldn’t think of it right now. I had just been relaxing in the shadow of some alleyway, my mind caressing the figures in the book⁠ ⁠—⁠ and then they’d come. I didn’t want to think of about how the plan might be changing. Everything was already wuthering out of control.

“Which stall?” Adwyn moved his head forward.

I told Adwyn the name of the stall I bought my book at, something bland and boring they have such an unlucky name?”

Adwyn kept peering at the dark​-​green wiver, but he flicked his tongue at Digrif’s words. “Aurisiuf, hm.” The adviser pronounced the name in slow, deliberate syllables. As if it were a name read and not spoken.

“Nobody.” Hinte was looking at the clouds drifting high above us.

The orange drake shook his head. “Which stall, Hinte​-​ychy?” Adwyn hadn’t looked away from Hinte. His voice had grown another kind of urgency.

“…In the northeastern sixth, fifteen flaps from the Berwem gate. It is Glyster’s Gyms, with a silly ‘y’ where the ‘e’ should be.”

“Glyster’s gums? Glyster’s geems?” I wondered aloud. It wouldn’t work. It could only work if you ignored every rule about pronouncing y Draig, rules I’d labored to learn. It was just… silly. Was that the point?

Hinte didn’t smile, or really change her expression, but she glanced at me, nodding just a bit. “I do not know what she was thinking either. I call it Glyster’s Gems and she’s never corrected me.”

Adwyn gave one last evaluating look to Hinte, then turned to Digrif. “Did you tell anyone about our mission?”

“My parents, no one else at all, at all. And even then, not too much, I promise.”

“I ensured as much,” Hinte added.

I smirked at Adwyn. “What about in town hall? Whatever documentation you produced for this might betray us if someone in the administration is behind this.” Citrusface is up to something. Thanks, Staune.

When Adwyn glanced back at me I let smirk fade⁠ ⁠—⁠ he’d seen it, though. “Oh, not quite. This task is officially nothing more than a favor for the faer. There is no documentation of it.”

“What?” I asked. “Why not?”

“Mlaen likes to steer the ship. Especially when it comes to everything that matters. Between the high guard and the treasurer, the faer would be playing puppet three times removed if she went through official channels.”

“Alright.” I glanced up. “Could someone have been following us then?” I asked, fangs remembering the trickle of shame from Adwyn following me this morning.

The Dyfnderi adviser scratched his chin, and the moment before he spoke, he seemed to shuffle his words. “Not without an elaborate⁠ ⁠—⁠ and conspicuous⁠ ⁠—⁠ system of rotating spies. I watched our backs all along.”

I looked up. Then, brilles clearing, I said, “Well, what if they just had a bunch of stationary spies all over? They wouldn’t have to follow us, just report to someone, and it’d be like we were followed.”

“There still must have been a way for them to discover our plans. Mlaen’s private meeting room is a possibility⁠ ⁠—⁠ but we discussed the matter indirectly. The Gären house is more likely, but there’s still the matter of their knowing when to spy. Which all again raises the possibility of someone betraying us.” Adwyn’s gaze roamed over us, me most of all, seeming even more analyzing than ever.

“I couldn’t have had anything to do with this, though. I collapsed on my bed last night out of sheer tiredness. And then I roused and went to Hinte’s house first thing. And then I went to work until it was time to meet you. There was no room for these schemes. I certainly couldn’t’ve planned this out now while being in your sight⁠ ⁠—⁠ almost⁠ ⁠—⁠ the entire time!”

I caught Hinte looking at me from the side. Her glare had faded to a shadow of anger, but it still darkened her face. Waving her tongue, she turned to Adwyn and said, “Forget about spies for a moment. What abyss swallowed your tongue to make you do something as apterous as leave the bodies here? Without any sort of guard?”

Adwyn’s growl from earlier had reappeared. “Gronte​-​wyre, remember whom you’re speaking to. I would not make such a careless mistake. I left guards. Whoever is under this had them desert their post, or forced them from it.”

“Why is deserting the first thing you think of?” I asked, tongue flicking.

Adwyn waved behind him. “You must subdue three guards in straight daylight with none seeing or noticing their absence. How do you do it?”

I glanced at Hinte. “Poison? Then take their bodies like they took the humans.’”

Adwyn nodded. “One last question. Why are we still standing?”

“What?”

“If they were to poison the guards, and have enough forethought to plant sandbags⁠ ⁠—⁠ not for the guards, whom they poisoned, but us⁠ ⁠—⁠ why would they not just poison us instead?”

Adwyn waited while I dropped my gaze to the ground and stayed silent. “Thus,” he finished, “Whoever is behind this most probably had them desert their post.”

Digrif hummed. “So, that means we do need to figure out who betrayed us. They had to be at the Gären’s house. It wasn’t Kinri or me, at all.”⁠ ⁠—⁠ I grinned, and Hinte glared⁠ ⁠—⁠ “Maybe it was that Ushra guy. He seems plenty creepy.”

Hinte covered her face with a wing.

I ventured, “Isn’t Ushra the faer’s personal alchemist? And hasn’t he been involved with this town forever? I don’t think he should be our first suspect.”

“If he’s the faer’s alchemist, doesn’t that give him enough sway to do this?”

“Uh no, I don’t think it does. If an alchemist asked you to do something, would you do it?”

Digrif scratched his chin. “Well, Is that alchemist Hinte?” I shook my head. “Well, I don’t think I would.”

“Exactly. Ushra couldn’t do this, Gronte is nice and I trust her, and I trust you two too.”

“If you three are done retreading everything I’ve reasoned in the last few moments, perhaps we could look in a useful direction.” Then, in a voice low enough I half​-​missed, Adwyn continued “Yet somehow I don’t imagine you are going to have anything useful to say.”

“So we’re thinking they spied on us?” Digrif said, scratching a frill. “But if they did that at Hinte’s house, wouldn’t they have to already know something was up?”

“No, Hinte was in the paper, remember? Our ‘hero of the town?’ ” I gave a laugh I’d grown and stored some place where it rotted and fell to pieces.

Digrif nodded. “Yeah, yeah you’re right. Maybe they could have been spying as soon as the papers were out. It doesn’t give them a lot of time, but it’s enough, right?”

Adwyn was muttering to no one, “Blind take them and rip their eyes from their skulls.” Then, speaking up, “Of course.”

I glanced at him. “Did you figure something out?”

“Yes. A guess. It won’t help us here. I shall pursue it on my own, when this mess has been painted over.”

Head tilted, I opened my mouth, but Hinte cut in, “What will we do next?”

I glanced at Adwyn. “You said the faer had a reason for not being open about this. Do they suspect anyone in the administration who would do this?”

“If she does, I know not. Mlaen never shares her suspicions with me.”

Digrif’s voice hopped into the conversation much like he hopped up when he spoke. “We could ask a guard if they saw anything!” He waved at the crowds behind us.

That was all Hinte needed to start walking away from us. We walked after her, Digrif sidling right up to her, while I fell into step beside Adwyn. Then I fell into step behind Adwyn. My tail felt Hinte’s oily knife. I gripped it. I released it.

Humming loudly for his notice, I spoke up. “Still,” I started, trying not to speak too fast, too nervously, “I have to wonder what their plan even is. What could they do with the bodies?”

Adwyn looked thoughtful despite his dust mask, brilles acloud, claws tapping his muzzle. “You must see these may be dragons who know of the apes’ presence in the cliffs to begin with. Then, they would want the humans to discover us, for their own reasons. Perhaps they think our plan to frame their death as a accident of the environment will truly blow the search party from the truth, and hence seek to stop that.”

“Assuming this conspiracy exists, and it’s connected to both incidents,” I murmured. But I heard echoes of Ushra’s reasoning from breakfast. Had he really been on to something?

---

“Hey! Hey guardsdragon! Over here!” Digrif called.

In the sparseness of the market outskirts the guard sash shone out: A few paces from the mouth of the alleyway high​-​walked a cliff​-​dweller in a red and gold halfrobe, who made to halt and leap over to us. The cliff​-​dweller peered down through red eyes and a tongue black with some kind of tobacco. He had horns like a drake.

With a simple incline of his head, he said, “Greetings, citizen,” before continuing, “What you need?”

“We need to know,” Hinte snapped in, as if not trusting Digrif to explain, “if you had seen anyone carrying around some… cargo. About this size⁠ ⁠—” she held out wings to the length, then width of a human⁠ ⁠—⁠ “and there were four of them.”

The guard grunted, and his face grew distant for a few beats, eyes darting behind clouded brilles. After a few moments, he looked back to us.

“Aye, I have seen a handful of dragons carting around loads like that,” the cliff​-​dweller said, brilles flashing clear, “and one of them was you. Were you robbed?”

“We were,” Hinte said.

At the same time, I said, “What about just the carts near here?”

“Hmm,” the guard said, scratching his breast. “I saw two. Well, three, depending on how exactly far ‘near here’ stretches. They were going a bit suspiciously fast, I’d reason.”

“And let me guess,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ my frills fell back⁠ ⁠—⁠ “they were heading in opposite directions?”

“Aye.”

I covered my face with a wing. “Of course.”

Adwyn peered at me, Hinte growled, and Digrif frowned.

It was the guard who spoke, black tongue flicking. “You get a look at the dragon who robbed you?”

“We did not.”

“Makes our job harder. You have any idea who’d steal from you? What in exact was it they took?”

“We have none, Sofrani,” Adwyn cut in, “And that is not quite any of your business, at present.”

“Ouch, Adwyn, he’s just trying to help!” Digrif said.

“Wait, Adwyn? The military adviser Adwyn? Rhyfel​-​sofran’s second in command?” The guard scraped into a bow.

Adwyn took off his dust mask with a sigh. “Rise, Gwynt. Fly up and find your prefect. Have him bring me Ffrom, Geth and Bydbyd, no matter where they are or what they are doing. If you have chains, put them in chains. Tell every guard you see to keep a watch on everyone, especially carts, and let no one leave the market.” Adwyn paused, eyeing the guard. He nodded, still bowing.

Adwyn took a breath. “Do that as fast as you can, then send a flyer to Rhyfel the younger. Tell him we have another incident here. Report back here immediately. Dismissed.”

The guard didn’t even rise from their bow; they just turned it to a crouch, and leapt to air, threshing, their tail waving a salute as they left.

“How long will he take?” Hinte ground out the words.

Adwyn smirked. “That’s Gwynt of Graig Mras. He has a adequate pair of wings and twice the sense of the louts I left in charge of this cart. He won’t delay.” Adwyn clouded his brilles. “Or he won’t be the only one out of the skein today.”

And with that, we were waiting for the guard to return. Adwyn checked under the cart, Digrif waved at dragons passing by the alleyway, and Hinte stared at Digrif. I looked up, and considered the birds.

At length Hinte spoke, somewhat slow, almost as an aside, “Do you find it suspicious that Digrif thought to buy a sword before all this happened?”

Digrif’s waving wing fell and his frills folded. “What?” His voice was scorched with hurt. “Hinte, how could you? I told you, it is just in case we end up in another situation like yours in the cliffs. It is nothing sinister, I promise!”

Hinte peered at Digrif, waving her tongue, searching his face. She said, at last, “Someone has to be at fault. There are only the three of us. And I did not do it.”

I lowered my head. “Wait, that isn’t right…” I said, “there are four of us, not three!”

“Yeah!” Digrif said, frills rising again. “And Adwyn is the only one who knew exactly where the bodies were.”

Now it was my turn to reel on the adviser. “It was you,” I said in his tone. If only I were a parrot and could mimic his voice too… Continuing, in my voice, I said, “How can we be sure you aren’t the one colluding with the thieves?”

Adwyn looked up from the cart, didn’t clear his brilles. “Such a frivolous accusation. I already have full command of these bodies. What use is there is stealing from myself?”

I flattened my frills. “Oh.”

---

When Gwynt returned, he really needed to. Adwyn stood at the mouth of alleyway, and I didn’t like the curled​-​lip, clouded​-​eye glances he sent back at me. Hinte watched Digrif and me with burning scrutiny, eyes only ever half​-​clouded; but at least Digrif and I were able to talk about pleasant nothings with smiles and only a few cringes for Adwyn and Hinte’s suspicion.

But the guard had returned, and it was a wave of fresh air rolling past us. Adwyn grew stony, focusing on Gwynt, and Hinte gained a new target for her glare.

Two guards were trailing after Gwynt, one a glaring plain​-​dweller, big enough to punch a tortoise and with a kind of confidence in his step that said they knew they were right and didn’t even need to explain themselves; the other was a bewildered cliff​-​dweller who reminded me of Digrif, if instead of carefree he simply had no idea what was going on. Each had chains running between their legs, and a rope around their muzzles.

As Gwynt eased to a stop and the chained dragons stumbled into him, three more guards lighted onto the gravel with staggered crashes. One was a fullrobed cliff​-​dweller with the kind of resting sneer that said they were important and well aware of it⁠ ⁠—⁠ they had to be the prefect, going by the bamboo plates on their robes⁠ ⁠—⁠ and behind them landed the other two, halfrobed dragons with unidentifiable dark scales.

Every one of the guards except the sneering prefect and glaring prisoner scraped into a bow or something at Adwyn. Even the prefect inclined their head.

Adwyn didn’t wait for them; he was saying, “Gwynt, I told you to find three guards. Explain this.”

Gwynt rose with a sharpness that made me wince and rub my neck. “Sofrani! I had⁠ ⁠—”

“Cut with the formalities and tell me what matters.”

“I found only these two, Geth and Bydbyd. Ffrom wasn’t on patrol anywhere.”

Hinte jerked her head around. “Did you say Ffrom?”

“Yes.”

Hinte turned to me. She didn’t look smug.

I only tilted my head. “Am I supposed to recognize that name?”

“He was the guard at the Berwem gate last night. The one who clearly wanted to take the bodies for themselves. Do you think it is a coincidence they are here now?”

I swallowed and looked away.

Adwyn was saying, “Cut their muffles,” and then Gwynt was ripping the ropes off with his claws. “Of that light?” he asked the prisoners.

“Nothing remains,” they said in offsynch unison.

Adwyn nodded. “Where is Ffrom?”

The glaring one responded, “Chasing a diller thief. Do you think he would abandon his post for no reason? It was important, and he left us to watch the bodies till he could alert the other guards or catch the thief.”

Adwyn stayed stone, and he continued with, “And what is your excuse? The cart I had you guard has been robbed. Explain yourself.”

The glare strengthened, now shining with something else⁠ ⁠—⁠ triumph? “We were chasing some ashcloaked wivers who were talking about Aurisiuf making a move. You’ve heard the stories, Sofrani. Would you have us ignore something like that?”

“Yes. More directly, I’d have you avoid falling for obvious bait. Do you think it’s a coincidence that both of these things happened right in front of you while guarding something important?” Adwyn waved a wing toward the prefect. “Take them to the town hall. We’ll decide if they belong in Wydrllos later.” I saw both guards wince.

The prefect spoke up. “Sofrani! Surely I’m needed here?”

“Are you here because you’re a prefect, or because you saw one of the carts with the stolen bodies?”

The prefect hesitated. “The former, Sofrani.”

“Then you aren’t. Take them to the town hall, and tell your guards to find Ffrom.”

The prefect, for his earlier hesitation, left at once with the chained guards.

Adwyn turned to the remaining guards. “Gwynt, I trust that you and these two will lead us to the thieves’ carts?”

“Aye. These three saw carts fitting your description. There are others, but I thought it unwise to deprive the rest of the market of guards.”

“No worry of that. Rhyfel is flying here with more guards as we speak. Our first priority is catching the thieves.”

A bow. “My apologies, Adwyn​-​sofran.”

Adwyn twitched, but turned to the sky. “Now, we wait for Rhyfel.”

I followed Adwyn’s gaze, along with the rest of us, and in heartbeats you saw black forms rising near the obelisk and winging toward us. Rhyfel and twelve guards flew toward the market in a v​-​shaped skein. They dipped below our sight for a few beats as they reached the edge of the market, then they reappeared, threshing back up to a height under the net, flying toward us. Some guards at the edge must’ve let them in.

They didn’t reach us before we got tired of holding our heads up, but they made it. Rhyfel and his twelve guards hadn’t even landed before Adwyn was speaking, his voice carrying.

“The bodies have been stolen. The thieves are likely still in the market; we have closed all the exits. We suspect they have accomplices among the guard. One accomplice, Ffrom, is still at large. The thieves have multiple carts, all of them going in different directions. We don’t know which one has the bodies, but these guards”⁠ ⁠—⁠ Adwyn waved at Gwynt and the other two⁠ ⁠—⁠ “can point them out to us.” Adwyn relayed this to Rhyfel the younger, his head almost in a bow. In his eyes there was a certain deep respect that hadn’t even dripped for Mlaen or Ushra. His tail looped around a leg.

Rhyfel nodded, face contemplative, frowning. He muttered, “This a just how I need to start my cycle: unraveling damn conspiracies.”

One guard, who’d flown right beside Rhyfel, prodded the high guard and muttered, “Every breath spit complaining is a breath gone, Sofrani.” Their scales weren’t cliff​-​dweller, but pink. Ceian?

“Of course.” And at that Rhyfel’s frown disappeared, a determined line taking its place. His gaze rolled over the dragons here and he said, “We need to get hunting! Guards, spread out. We’ll split up, stop the carts most likely to be our target. Hinte, Ceian, you come with me to find Ffrom. Adwyn, you and Gwynt will take Kinri and Digrif, hunt down one of the carts. As for…” I stopped listening at my name, tuning out Rhyfel telling dragons I’ve never met to do things that don’t really affect me.

I turned to Gwynt, still in his half​-​bow; Adwyn, looking as serious as ever; and Digrif, who smiled.

As we flew off, following Gwynt to the cart, I sighed. It was going to be another long day, wasn’t it?

---

Adwyn was still suspicious of me, I realized. He flew behind me, and when I looked, he was watching. I hadn’t even done anything wrong yet.

I shook my head, and I cast my thoughts to what we were up against. Thieves! Stealing the human corpses! What could their goal possibly be? In my head echoed Ushra’s theories from breakfast. Now, they didn’t seem so ridiculous.

“Could⁠ ⁠—” I spoke, voice stuttering yet loud in the open air, “Could these thieves be working with the humans somehow? Like Ushra said?”

Gwynt began descending at an angle, letting us all follow.

Adwyn cleared his throat. “It is a⁠ ⁠—⁠ distinct possibility. Not only would it patch over an as​-​of​-​yet unaccounted​-​for hole where their motivation should be, it also gives a justification for the presence of the humans in the lake in the first place.”

“Yeah!” Digrif added, “And think about how quickly they hatched this plan! They must have seen something like this coming⁠ ⁠—⁠ they’re totally in league with the apes.”

My frills deflated. There really was little doubting it. Had some dragon betrayed Gwymr/Frina? Or was this another stronghold’s scheme like Ushra said?

We were coming down just above the food stalls, near where we entered the market. In the crowd below, there were almost twice as many guards moving about. Just as Adwyn ordered, the guards were restricting movement out of the market, turning the crowd into a writhing mass of impatience.

Gwynt circled in on the entrance to the market. As I flew after him, I scanned the ranks of dragons straining to leave the market place. But Gwynt narrowed on a certain cracked pumice cart, carrying fat, fading green sacks. They were inscribed with some simple, rounded glyph you had to descend before making out⁠ ⁠—⁠ ‘seed.’

When the guard landed in front of the cart, its drivers (who held the cart by its reins) didn’t react. One played with the reins or scratched dirt from their foot. The another glanced up as we landed and away just as quick. The cart wasn’t moving, so the drivers and the two ashcloaked dragons, who walked beside it wore bored, impatient looks that might have blended in with the rest of the crowd a moment ago.

Now, though, swathes of crowd turned and gawked at us. They ignored Digrif, and, after a beat, Gwynt too. It was Adwyn and I who held their gaze. There was nothing new in the looks they gave me, but Adwyn garnered a mixture of respect, disdain and⁠ ⁠—⁠ most often, a simple lack of recognition, with a sense that this was someone obscurely important.

I landed by Gwynt and peered at the cart and its contents. I’d seen, in the distance, bags of seed on sale exactly like this, and the drivers of the cart seemed ordinary enough. Were these just dragons who happened to need a cart on the wrong day?

We’d only asked for dragons the guards had seen with carts that might be able to hold a human corpse. Some innocent regular dragons would fit that description, too, right? It might be why Adwyn had chosen this way of carrying the bodies⁠ ⁠—⁠ and might be why the thieves copied the idea.

Why couldn’t these just be normal thieves?

The guard stood right in front of the cart, and they said, “Citizen! We have orders from Rhyfel​-​sofran himself⁠ ⁠—⁠ we shall search your cart for stolen goods!”

One of the cart’s drivers stomped a foot, and growled. Garbed in a cheap ashcloak, they looked young, plain​-​dweller, with their features almost cute; but they had to spend long rings tending a farm, and it shone on their features, a worn, rugged look clawing its way onto their face. Their horns were hidden beneath a cowl, but their eyes pierced outward from under it.

When they spoke, it was in the rushed, anxious lit I heard from so many plain​-​dwellers. “You can’t do this! We’ve done nothing! Nothing!”

Another plain​-​dweller, older, more distinctively feminine, spoke in a more placating tone. “We’s just out to buy some seeds for youse farm, guard​-​sofran⁠ ⁠—⁠ we’s done nothing wrong.” Their wings hugged to their body, and their tone and look had an air of resignation to it.

“That remains to be seen⁠ ⁠—⁠ we hope you understand we cannot just make exceptions on whim. Orders,” the cliff​-​dweller guard said, sagely.

Gwynt moved forward, along with Adwyn, to search the cart. Adwyn said low, waving at us. “You two, keep watch.”

I raised my left wing in salute, and Digrif copied me.

I looked around the cart, taking in the dragons. There was the upset fledgling and the placating maybe​-​mother, while at a distant stood the ashcloaked dragons, cowled and watching. Through it all, there were two tiny little hatchlings running about. They had their heads low, and hugged their wings to themselves, and tripped over their tails. They seemed scared.

As I watched, they slinked around, probably trying to hide⁠ ⁠—⁠ but the smaller one stopped and poked her bigger sibling. She has an idea, I narrated to myself. She convinced her sibling to move in front of the placating mother. As they stood, the smaller hatchling climbed on the other. Facing Adwyn, she expanded her wings⁠ ⁠—⁠ her tiny little wings⁠ ⁠—⁠ to their full extent. Her fangs were unfolding, and the saliva dewing on them caught the light.

She growled at Adwyn, flapping and swishing her tail. The display lost some of its effect, though, because of the light brown hatchling’s tiny size and the high pitch squeak the growl emerged as.

Then a few things happened at once.

The fledgling was saying, “Ugh, Rhyfel, Gyddah, get down you dolts!” and reaching for the growling hatchling.

The hatchling unfolded their fangs in full, and the air filled with the scent of salty, acrid venom. The next instant, they spat, twin streams of venom flying from the apertures in her fangs.

Adwyn ducked, and not a drop of the venom landed on him.

And the mother shrieked, stepping back.

In a moment the fledgling was picking up the growler with a wing. Adwyn watched with a smirk tugging at his lips, peering at the larger hatchling⁠ ⁠—⁠ the one named after Rhyfel?

The fledgling was holding the growler up to their face, hissing, until she stopped wriggling and hung still, then she was sat with her accomplice on the fledgling’s back, out of sight.

No one was saying anything, everyone was glancing around, and silence settled on us like dustone vitrifying.

The mother spoke up like glass spurting through a crack, “Ah am so sorry! Your honor! Your majesty! Sofrani!”

Adwyn turned to the mother, looking grave. Gwynt had stopped rifling through the cart. He stood, lines of their face tight, alula on the hilt of their club. He looked around, eyes roaming, hard. When he meet Adwyn’s, however, he paused for a beat.

And then they burst into laughter. As the dustone silence crumbled, I started to giggle and Digrif chuffed on the opposite side of the cart.

The plain​-​dwellers, though, didn’t join us in laughing. The cowled dragons The mother just seemed there, wearing a sad, relieved sort of almost​-​smile. The fledgling, on the other foot, was glowering, twice as intense as before. If one could brew and administer alchemical poisons with only looks, I imagined we would each drop dead before we could swallow.

---

The guard and Adwyn each returned to their searching. The guard was ripping through and examining the bags of what⁠ ⁠—⁠ to all appearances⁠ ⁠—⁠ really was just seeds and other farming supplies. At that, I followed their example and returned to my own job⁠ ⁠—⁠ minor though it was.

Aside from the two speakers and the two hatches, there were still two others near the back end of the cart. One was the other driver, the other had stuck to the sides, and both had slipped to the back of the cart as time crawled on. Now, they just hung around the fringes. Afraid of the guards? They stood somewhere on the other side of the cart, opposite Adwyn and Gwynt⁠ ⁠—⁠ though Digrif was there, chatting. He stopped and stepped away when he saw me looking.

One of the cloaked stood low behind the cart, still as a rock, gaze upturned to the sky⁠ ⁠—⁠ or the net below it. Both of them wore hooded cloaks, too. That wasn’t odd⁠ ⁠—⁠ cloaks were common fashion among the poorer plain​-​dwellers I’d seen (they were cheap and simple to repair). But the cowls of these two looked bigger, enveloping their faces in shadows, and the torsos were baggier, obscuring their forms.

One of the cloaked moved, the one standing behind the cart. This one was shorter than the other, maybe. It was hard to tell with the cloaks hiding their body shapes.

The shorter one crouched down by the cart.

“You there,” Adwyn called out, “what are you doing?”

The other cloaked had slinked over to near the first and crouched beside them before Adwyn had even finished.

The cart flipped over! It dumped the unsuspecting guard on the ground, along with tumbling sacks of seeds and other debris.

Adwyn lunged! The mother screamed! I started into motion, falling into a crouch like the cloaked dragons. Maybe it was a guess, maybe it was seeing the cloaked figure looking up at the net, but I leapt into the air, threshing my wings. My timing was just breaths from perfect⁠ ⁠—⁠ both of the cloaked launched into the air, dodging Adwyn’s lunge. So I was flying after them, a few beats before anyone else reacted, even Digrif was down on the ground, helping Gwynt up.

I beat my wings, and anxiety flooded me to my wingtips. The thieves⁠ ⁠—⁠ these had to be the thieves⁠ ⁠—⁠ flew out, over the watching crowd. At first, the thieves sagged, as if pulled by an unseen weight. I dove after them. Then taut cloth wings blasted out from under their cloaks. Gliders. The glider, plus their wings, saw them rising, hurtling for the cliff walls.

Their rise left my dive overshooting, and I pulled out of it low enough to touch dragons in the crowd.

Shouts came from behind me, and then so did Adwyn.

We raced after the thieves like this. For once, I was in the lead, and doing something heroic. For once, I dealt with a familiar, comfortable exertion. You had to fly well in the sky. And it helped that flying was the best.

I grounded my thoughts with a growl and mammoth threshing of my wings. There was no time for the joy of flight, only determination. I had to do my best⁠ ⁠—⁠ this was important.

We flew along, Adwyn and I gaining on the thieves⁠ ⁠—⁠ but at different paces. Our chase, with the guards already on edge, gave us a flock of red and gold sashes trailing behind us with only the slightest idea what was going on.

I was close enough to count the toes on the slowest thief’s foot⁠ ⁠—⁠ they were missing a toe, it seemed. But despite my speed, the thieves reached the net before I reached them. Glider wings folding behind them, each thief clutched the net in their feet, but one left a foot free. That thief pulled something from their bag, passed it to the other, and pulled out an identical second. They made slashing motions after that⁠ ⁠—⁠ knives?

My wingbeats slowed a notch⁠ ⁠—⁠ did I want to confront them and get stabbed?

Their blades tore the net⁠ ⁠—⁠ they had to, with how they swung and swung. Hinte had said the net was just cotton, hadn’t she? Once the thieves tore holes enough to push through the net, they pulled themselves through⁠ ⁠—⁠ and I was there, almost there.

But they were already through, and the one with the knives was yanking a glass from their bag. Contents glistening in the sunslight, they uncorked it and with a fluid motion, threw the glass. The glass vomited out gray goop as it flew.

The goop turned to thick white smoke! It hid the small rips in the netting. Even as I watched, close enough to smell the dead plant smell of the smoke, the cloud heaved, expanding and expanding until it filled my vision.

The wind wuthered the net and clouds, confusing my memory of where the holes were. And if that wasn’t enough, I glanced to the edges of the cloud, where a strange mold crept over the cotton of the net.

I flew away from the cloud, not daring to find out if it were safe or what that mold meant. I glided to the net, clinging with three feet. I stared out as the thieves flew away in a slow bounding flight.

I smiled.

I still had the knife. The knife that Hinte had given me back in the Berwem to bleed the glasscrabs. With the courage and excitement, I tailed the knife fourth from my bag. I could do this! Maybe I would be a hero like Hinte!

The black blood​-​slick knife was in one foot and the cotton of the net was in the others. I was sawing at the fibers. They split and frayed and split and frayed under the knife. I laughed and wiggled in excitement.

Then the knife caught on a tighter part of the net. My grip faltered⁠ ⁠—⁠ the knife dropped! And it tumbled and spun, dropping to the ground…

I looked over, behind the ropes of the net, and watched the thieves escape in the distance.

The thieves were gone.

As the knife plummeted, my hope fell with it. I hung there on the net for a few beats and then Adwyn arrived.

He didn’t glance at me; he unsheathed a short blade. In a half​-​dozen quick, precise swipes, he slashed at the netting. But instead of trying to cut all the way through like me, he resheathed the sword, gripped netting and pulled.

It came right apart, and Adwyn had flown through before my eyes unclouded. I flapped after him, frills folded, tail coiled.

Glancing behind me, the flock of guards had reached the nets. But they didn’t all try to squeeze through Adwyn’s hole, they just followed his example, without swords, ripping the net with their claws.

I turned away, looking for the thieves and finding them, after moments of scanning, both flying low over the town. Nothing much had changed, aside from my falling behind Adwyn — about five or six wingbeats — and thieves now having a crushing lead on us: they were more than thirty wings in front of Adwyn.

Our flight lead us over the cliffs, then back toward the town. The valleys between the cliffs grew wider, the streets filthier, the dragons walking and winging below browner. It all looked familiar enough, even coming from this direction; I flew around this part of town enough times going to the Sgrôli ac Neidr every evening.

I gained on Adwyn, and we both gained on the thieves — even with the gliders, they couldn’t outfly us.

It was long moments of threshing — I even heard the third short ring echo below us. The thieves were flagging, flying lower and lower. Then they dropped out of the sky all together, landing somewhere among the dustone and bamboo buildings.

Laughing, I let a fanged grin play across my face. They were done. Dragons flew so much faster in the air than we can hobble across the ground. They couldn’t escape us now.

Adwyn dove down before me, and I followed him, and togetherffff we glided the thieves’ sudden drop and found them low​-​walking to a basalt house with flaky windows and dented bamboo door. I knew this house — the librarian lived here. My eyes flicked back to the thieves.

They weren’t even high​-​walking! What were they doing!

By the time we lighted down behind them, the thieves had reached the house. I stared, wondering what they wanted with the librarian’s house. When they reached the stairwall to the high porch, they leapt its height.

Atop the porch, one thief pounded heavy, cracking knocks against the black bamboo while another called out into the house, but we were just far enough away to not make out what. They glanced back, saw our approach, and their knocking became more panicked. Adwyn was leaping to the porch. Had we at last cornered them?

And then they seemed to give up on the knocking and calling. Instead, the taller thief yanked off their cloak and glider, throwing it to the floor. Underneath was tight armor. Schizon. Aluminum plates. What? Weren’t these poor farmers? They wore the sort of tight fullrobes that wouldn’t look out of place on a prefect.

My eye caught the familiar way they had the human corpse tied to their backs, just like Hinte. As I watched, and as Adwyn pulled himself onto the porch, the shorter thief clawed at the rope harness. When they shook themselves, the corpse thunked off onto the bamboo porch.

Both thieves ran to either edge of the porch! Each took off in a separate direction and flew low away.

Adwyn had reached the porch with a curse, and I was only a few moments behind him. After checking the body, he turned to me. “Kinri! Take this corpse back to Digrif and Gwynt. Order the guards trailing behind us to split up here. Then follow Gwynt back to where Rhyfel ordered us to return.” He didn’t even look for my reaction before blasting off into the sky, chasing after the shorter, craftier thief. Who, I remember, still had a cloak on.

I climbed onto the porch. I didn’t linger, anxious energy still thrumming through my veins and Adwyn’s order ringing in my frills. The glider was ripped from the cloak. The human was tied to my back. The trailing guards were right there. Adwyn’s words were given. I was in the air, flying away.

Winging the line from the abandoned building back to the market, I wasn’t sure what to think.

This just got twistier and twistier.

---

When I dropped out of the sky in front of the cart, the only difference I noticed was the mother and fledgling had been chained, and there were six more guards orbiting the pile of seeds and seedbags — the cracked cart was gone.

Digrif waved to me and Gwynt smiled just a bit.

“You made it back!”

“Where is Adwyn​-​sofran?”

I said, “The thieves split up. One of them dropped their stolen corpse, and Adwyn chased after the other.”

Gwynt nodded, even as his eyes paled at the mention of a corpse. “…Alright. Rhyfel said to regroup by the edge of the market as soon as we find something. Did you fly back with the ape?”

“Uh, I have this glider. It takes the strain off my wings.”

Gwynt nodded and strode off, other guards falling in step behind him. When he leapt, they leapt, and Digrif and I were a few beats late. The guards settled into a skein, a ‘v’ shape with Gwynt at the head. I took a spot the very end of the left fork of the skein, leaving Digrif with a spot right behind me.

Down on the ground, the remaining guards lead the mother and the fledgling away.

I glanced back at Digrif — he was peering at me.

He cleared his throat. “Hey, how did you know the cloaked dragons were going to fly off?”

“I guessed? I saw one of them looking at the sky, and I just — jumped.”

Digrif shook his head. “How did you two get to be such natural adventurers?”

“I’m not. At all! I’m about as far from an adventurer as you can get.”

“So am I, I think. But I can’t do any of the things you and Hinte keep doing.”

“So? I don’t like almost dying. It’s scary! And I don’t like having the weight of doing something important pressing down on me. I always mess something up.”

Digrif stayed silent after that. I turned my gaze up to the sky. Dark clouds were piling up, so dark I wondered if it would ash today. It wasn’t ashing down now, not yet, so we kept flying. Ahead, Gwynt shifted out of the head of the skein, and another guard took the lead. The rest of us shifted back. I looked, and Digrif had flown over to the other fork.

I flew on in silence. The skein​-​head rotated a few more times, more clouds came near the suns, but at last we came the alleyway again, and I glided down with the rest of them, letting the glider do the work for my tired wings. The guards had cleared the area around the alley, and about eight had stuck around, now just milling about down there. Among the guards were prim figures in the black and gold halfrobes that told me they had to belong somewhere in Frinan administration. Where had I seen them before? On Cynfe?

And then there was a lone figure in a very black cloak with dark, dark red accents. From the way no one ventured within spiting distance of them, they must be an inquirer.

We lighted down, and waited.

---

The fourth little ring rung out, and you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d worked on a schedule. Almost on time — but not really on time — the last of the guards lighted down in this little blocked off area. What started as a slow pulse of guards coming in, or (some) leaving — too slow to call it a flow or even a trickle — had accelerated until here came dragons that, if not familiar, had become recognizable after the big gathering earlier.

The pink guard arrived with a cowering plain​-​dweller, looking smug and wearing their best imitation of Rhyfel’s savage grin. The pink guard was passing the plain​-​dweller to another, older guard. I watched that guard, and saw them take the plain​-​dweller to a closed off area with several other dragons, a mix of brown and one or two red. Ffrom was among them, and so were the fledgling, hatchlings, and the mother from the cart.

Jerking my gaze back to the pink guard, I found, standing near them, Rhyfel the younger and Hinte. Hinte’s wings — the first thing I looked at — were still covered under her cloak. On her back sat strapped a glider. It wasn’t the kind the thieves used: it was brown wood and woven wings of triumphant pale gold and gray.

Covering Rhyfel and Hinte, a fine layer of ash and soot sat and blew in the wind.

The other guards looked stony​-​faced, not seeming to have found anything at all. Very few — three, it seemed like — carried anything at all.

One didn’t even have a human corpse as their finding. Instead, they had a Hägre hog. Maybe it was an easy mistake to make if you had never seen a human. But didn’t they at least have a sketchmaster drawing an impression or something? They should at least know what they were looking for.

I stared at Digrif, until I had his notice, and directed my gaze back at Hinte. Whatever was going on with him earlier, he got my meaning. Obliquely, Digrif and I moved about, trying to get to where Hinte waited.

Rhyfel, clad in black and golden reds, waved for the attention of Hinte, the grinning pink guard and a few others that had the same dusty look about them. Closer, I could make out, right on the high guard’s neck, a bloody bandage. If the stains told the whole story, the wound must be a forefoot or two in length.

When Rhyfel had their attention, those guards and Hinte started following him over to one of the prim figures.

Hinte, in contrast, had one of her cloak’s sleeves hiked up, and bandages covered it too. It was the very same leg that had been slashed by the apes in her fight last night. What starless luck.

As we crept toward the center of the small crowd of guards, I felt powerful yet faint flapping in the distance. I turned, claws dragging tracks in the gravel. Was it the thieves returning? That messenger returning?

It was only Adwyn coming down with the skein of guards behind him. One figure was out of place: one of the thieves… the one who’d already lost their cloak and their human. Without further command, the guards following him split off, collecting around one of the prim figures — scribes, they must be. Adwyn strode over to us, blood on his armor and his claws. He stunk of dead plants. We were only a few steps away from Hinte. With her back turned, she couldn’t see us. This, of course, was when Adwyn spoke up.

“Kinri. Digrif. Follow me.”

The orange dragon waited, and lead us off to our scribe. (By coincidence, this had us standing just paces from the alley where this mess started.) Our scribe was a portly cliff​-​dweller wiver with finely manicured horn scales and eyes a cloudy gray. The scribe was crouched, forefeet gripping a long sheet of papyrus, right alula holding an inkwell that their left wing​-​digit dipped into it every dozen breaths, even as they weren’t clawing.

Adwyn was speaking, “Gwynt, Digrif, Kinri, we are going to debrief now. Tell the scribe everything that happened today. Do not worry about repeating things or getting them out of order.” Adwyn cracked his neck, and glanced at the one other guard among us. “Gwynt, do you want to start us off?”

The guard hitched his wings, not breaking eye with Adwyn. “Sure things.”

“Excellent. So, this is for the records: what is your name and family name?”

“Gwynt of Graig Mras, you know.”

Adwyn gave one of those half​-​smiles I’d seen him give Gronte or Cynfe. “Graig Mras, hmm? You all have been here for a while, no? Do you still live with your family?”

“Yeah, we live in the old house by those big red​-​tipped ferns. There with my sibs, parents, gramps, cousins, you know how it is.”

Adwyn nodded, gaze clouding for a beat before he looked back at the guard. “So, how are you, Gwynt?”

The guard scratched the gravel. “What do you mean?”

“The excitement of the day is over. It’s been tense and tiresome, but things have run their course. How do you feel?”

Gwynt glanced away. “Can I be honest?” Adwyn nodded. “I’m spitting confused. Baffled, even. I don’t have the simplest idea what’s going on, and I’m hoping this debrief might make something of any of this.”

Adwyn nodded, still with his serene smile. “Would you rather one of the others go first?”

“I’m fine. Where do you want me to start?”

“Your first observations of the cart, then our finding you after the theft, and everything that happened from there.”

“There isn’t much to say. For all they turned out to be, they didn’t seem all that drafty at first. I saw the accomplices slink into the market a few rings before the seventh, and the thieves weren’t with them then. I don’t know when they came into the picture, maybe if you ask around you can reason it out.”

I was staring at Gwynt. He seemed okay, but Adwyn, Ushra and even Hinte all seemed convinced someone had to have betrayed us. Could it have been him? I peered, trying to find some tell. He kept scratching the gravel, twisting his frills, and glancing around. But they didn’t really line up with his speech the way a real tell would. He just looked nervous.

“Um,” I said, stepping into Gwynt’s slight pause. “Am I allowed to speak during this?”

Adwyn turned his serene smile to me, and I didn’t miss how it became a smirk. At least that was real. “If you think it will help. This is collaborative, to an extent.”

“Well, Gwynt, you kept track of the thieves’ cart this whole time? How? Why?” It shouldn’t sound like an accusation, but I didn’t think Adwyn would miss that aspect anyway.

Gwynt tossed his head. “It’s my job to keep a tongue on things. I didn’t just keep track of that cart, there were others, and that’s just carts.”

I glanced aside. “Okay.” My brilles clouded while I thought, and I decided there wasn’t nothing to lose. “You just seemed a little nervous. I wondered if you were hiding something.”

Gwynt jerked his head back at me. Then he gave a silly smile and a short chuckle. “I’m that transparent, aren’t I? Yes, I am hiding something. It’s… I just thought it wasn’t that important, it–it didn’t have all too much to do with this.”

Adwyn frowned. “Tell us.”

“Well, you know those guards talking about Aurisiuf? Well uh. You know, those cloaked wivers had approached me — approached us. We were on break, and they were going to do a small prank. It’s all the Aurisiuf stuff was, a prank. It’s not like — it’s not like he’s real, right? So I agreed, and when those guards were chasing the wivers, I helped point them in the wrong direction.”

There was a sigh, and then, “Thank you for telling us this. You have no responsibility for the brainless abandonment of those three guards, even if you exacerbated it. You did, however, lie to a guard.” Looking to the ground, he continued, “Yet I find myself unconvinced of the severity of this, given their circumstance. I’ll allow Rhyfel to judge this matter later.”

The shamefaced cringing disappeared in an instant, becoming a mad grin. “Rhyfel? Thanks, Adwyn.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Adwyn said, and added, “but you’re welcome.”

---

“Digrif, Kinri?”

My brilles had clouded over while I stared at a tentaclesnail crawling over the gravel. Adwyn smiled serenely again.

Digrif spoke up first, “I think I can go next.”

“Excellent. For the record, what is your name?”

“Uh, Digrif of — I never really learnt my family.”

“How are you, Digrif?”

“I’m glad no one was hurt, and that we got one of the apes back. And I’m curious what cool things you and Kinri did without me. And, I’m a little anxious to get this talking done so we can get back to our adventure and go to the Berwem.”

“Scratch that last sentence out.” Then, “Digrif, start at the alley.”

“Okay. So, we got to the alley after shopping for a bit, and then all the ape bodies were gone! Well, I’ve never seen them, but Adwyn said there were only sandbags now. After that, we walked out of the alleyway, and we were arguing about who did it. Adwyn tried to accuse Kinri of doing it, but she never had a chance to do it, except for this one gap a third of a ring before it happened when no one knows where she was or what she was doing.”

Digrif looked over to Gwynt and smiled. “Then we found mister guardsdragon over there, and he went to go arrest some of the betrayers and bring back reinforcements. But while he was gone we kept arguing about who did it, and Hinte said I did it! I just bought this sword to defend myself, honest.”

Scratching the gravel, he continued slow, “Then… then Rhyfel and his skein arrived, and sent us after the thieves’ cart. When we got there, the dragons were really spooked, so I tried to talk to them and explain that things weren’t so bad. One of the thieves is pretty big into Dim​-​Fflamio games, but she seems convinced one of the teams that’ve been losing all season are going to win any day now.” Digrif shook his head and clicked his tongue.

I narrowed my brow. “So you were talking to the thieves?”

“Well yeah, and the mother and her son. Those two didn’t have anything to do with what the daughters did, really. They said both of them haven’t really been the same since they joined this Dychwelfa something organization, and they don’t really get them anymore. So, the mother and son are definitely alright.”

“But what about the thieves? You said you talked to them. What did they say to you?”

“I told you! We talked about Dim​-​Fflamio. She also wanted to meet up later at this weird pub on the south side, but that seemed kind of drafty.”

The orange drake asked, “Which pub and when?”

“The uh, Dadafodd. She said wait outside at the last ring, and she’d find me.”

Adwyn nodded to the scribe. “Make note of that.” Looking back to Digrif, he said, “Continue.”

“Well, then the thieves did their cart flipping thing and Kinri and Adwyn chased after them. Kinri seemed to know they would fly off. And, not much happened after that. More guards came and arrested the other dragons at the cart, and then Kinri returned and now we’re all here.”

“Is that all, Digrif?”

“I think so.”

“Kinri?”

I looked up at Adwyn. “I don’t have that much to add. My story would just be the boring part of everyone else’s story.”

Adwyn shook his head. “You have at least two parts of your own: what happened when you disappeared, and what happened as the thieves were about to fly away.”

“Um… I told you about what happened then. Hinte was talking with Glyster, and I decided to slip away and buy something for me.” I slipped my tail into my bag, wrapping it around the astronomy book. Passing it to my wings, I said, “Flick, I can even show you! Here.”

Adwyn didn’t take the book, frowning at me. “And the other part?”

“That’s simple. I was keeping watch like you told me, saw one of the thieves looking up at the net and guessed the rest.” I stopped there, but Adwyn motioned me to continue. “But that’s it. I flew after the thieves, until they got to the net and–and just waited for you, and then flew after him with you until we caught the thieves and they escaped again.”

Adwyn’s frown deepened just a bit. He said, “Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Then I shall begin my story. Let the record show that I am Adwyn of Dyfns.” Adwyn paused for the scribe, then continued, “The incident began much as has been described by others. I left the cart in the charge of Ffrom, Geth, Bydbyd, and once we had returned to it…”

I went back to staring at the tentaclesnail. He’d had crawled forward a good bit, and found some ashants he was snapping into his mouth. I picked up a bit of gravel and tossed it smack by him. He startled and sucked all his tentacles into his shell.

I looked at Digrif. Someone had to have betrayed us, right? Could it have been cute, handsome Digrif? Who smelt so deliciously? Hinte said it was suspicious that he decided to buy a sword when he did. And he’s the only one we can’t definitely trust. I’m me, Hinte was there to kill the apes in the first place, Adwyn wouldn’t need all of this scheming, and maybe Gwynt was still hiding something, but he only came into the picture after the betrayal had already happened.

But why would Digrif do something like that? It doesn’t make sense. And the sword doesn’t mean all that much, when he doesn’t know how to use it and his reasoning for buying it, well, it fledged sense. For him.

And who else did that leave? Ushra? He suggested a conspiracy exists. Gronte? Versta? Staune? It was even sparser. Staune seemed trustworthy enough, and Versta probably didn’t have a scheming bone in his little bird body. Gronte didn’t want a war between humans and dragons.

This wasn’t going anywhere. I looked up, peering at the scribe. As we delivered our stories, the scribe scratched out the words in a jerky, esoteric shorthand. Y Draig was a very different language than my native Käärmkieli, and despite my extensive experiences with shorthand back in the sky, these austere lines and dots were just about meaningless.

Almost, because I was making an effort to learn it, with great difficulty; it helped that I could do scribe work for Mawrion. With enough focus and time, I could decipher the symbols. But that defeated the purpose of shorthand. It lacked the intuitiveness of my first. Even when I cut my losses and wrote out in y Draig’s longhand, my wings would always want to switch back to my native script at some of the most inopportune times. Could I never master it?

Maybe I never would.

I shook my head. I was distracting myself. There was something I should be listening to, someone I should be looking at. I just… really didn’t want to. Didn’t want to think of it.

---

Adwyn was still talking. “…I ordered Kinri to return the corpse to Gwynt and Digrif, and I pursued the thief who still wore his cloak. At this point, a skein of guards was en route, with orders to split and pursue either thief.

“Chasing this thief took us out of the north end. At one point during the flight, about twenty dragons with identical cloaks flew to and around him and tried to let him escape in the confusion. It worked,” — Adwyn smirked — “for a few moments. But the true thief was the only one flying away with support; the distractions all flew alone.

“The chase ended in the west end. The thief and his support landed in the a… brick yard. It was an ambush — of course it was an ambush — but I called off the guards too late, and we fought. The thieves produced another vial of the smoke mixture that allowed them escape from the market.

“The obvious effect of this was greatly increasing the danger of the ambush. We could not see, and the smoke grew thicker every moment. But this smoke carried along a sort of mold that clogs the throat and restricted movement. Water kills it, and this was the only thing that saved us.

“Many of the guards were injured in this, and it was for that reason I called a retreat, and allowed the thieves to escape.

“That is all.”

The scribe scratched the last line with a flourish. “Hum. That’s everyone?” A nod. “Shall I return to the hall, then?”

“Do.” Adwyn waved the scribe off. He turned to us and said, “Thank you for your time, everyone. Gwynt, you may take the remainder of the day off. Digrif, you may back off from the operation now, conditional on your telling no one of it.”

Digrif said, “And miss the real adventure? This just got interesting!” Digrif froze, and quickly added, “If that’s alright you, Sofrani.”

Gwynt said, “If Donio’s fledge thinks he can handle this, what would I look like backing well enough off?”

“Very well. Go find Rhyfel​-​sofran and Hinte​-​ychy. They should be finished by now. Kinri, stay. We have something to discuss.”

Digrif waved at me as he stepped away. I swallowed, and tried to wave back.

I turned to face Adwyn, and he wasn’t even smirking. “Kinri. I’ll look straight to the point. The purpose of a debriefing is to get a record of what happened, as it happened — even if that record is embarrassing. I saw what happened at the net: you reached the net first, but dropped your knife. I see that it is a small omission, but if we cannot trust you to speak honestly about the little things, how can we ever trust you with the bigger ones?”

I looked down, scratched the gravel, clouded my brilles, huffed. Even as it stung, I could taste that he was right. There were things I had good reasons for hiding, but this wasn’t one of them. It’s just… I wanted to be instead of a disgrace some kind of hero, and heroes don’t drop their weapons, right? The Kinri who saved Hinte from rockwraiths, who stood against the humans, she wouldn’t drop her weapon.

“I know why you did it, Kinri. You’re transparent.” I flinched, and he added, “And that’s not a bad thing; it’s a virtue. My point is, I know you want glory, and I want to tell you it doesn’t matter. There are more things worthy of your time than the admiration of strangers. Do you have goals, Kinri? Ambitions?”

“I… had wanted to settle down, maybe find a cute drake and maybe lay a few eggs. Just live a simple life.” A frill brushed my headband. “And, if I’m being really dreamy, maybe one reunite with my brother again, in the sky.”

Adwyn nodded. “And none of that quite entails becoming some kind of hero, does it? Regardless of what you want, you can get more done in the shadows than in the light.”

“Says Adwyn, the military adviser Adwyn, Rhyfel​-​sofran’s second in command,” I echoed Gwynt’s words. I could make a good parrot.

“Yes. Note well: the military adviser Adwyn. Dragons recognize me for my position, but I am hardly famous in myself. The Rhyfel? Of course. The Ushra? Sure. The Aurisiuf? Unfortunately. But the Adwyn? You’ll never hear it uttered. I’m middling significant here, and that’s all I need for my ends.”

“What are your ends, Sof — Gyf — Adwyn?”

“I love Dyfnder/Geunant, and I have grown to love Gwymr/Frina. I long to see them united.”

I looked up at the clouds drifting by.

Adwyn cleared his throat, and I met his eyes. He said, “With that out of sight, there is a more important matter to address. What truly happened when you left Hinte and Digrif? I know you didn’t just buy the book.”

I could have broken eye with him. I could have hugged my wings to me. I could have scratched my headband. Instead, I stole my face into a mask, swallowed hard, clouded my brilles, and thought. Then, abruptly, “Do you know of the capabilities of a Specter cloak?”

Adwyn furrowed his brow. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

“Mine doesn’t work.” I glanced away. How would I explain this?

I pointed a wing at the alleyway where the pumice cart still sat. “Can we have some privacy?”

The military adviser nodded.

Standing in the alley, in sight of no one but him, I began, “After I bought the scroll, I was sitting out of sight, flipping through it, I was alone, I — I had wanted to get away from the crowd. Well, as I was alone, the shadows near me swirled and gulfed…

---

It was a very clear day, and a cloud had just passed in front of the sun.

I was in the middle of the east market bustling with dragons, and I couldn’t see anyone else.

I was all alone, and she said, “Hello Kinri, the Specter with no cloak.” Behind me, her voice was a wind from the shadows. On the nape of my neck, her perfumed breath was a shiver.

On the front of my neck, her cool edge was fear.

Any other day, I might have yelped and pressed myself — fatally — onto the knife. Maybe it was the stars, maybe it was the pitch perfect pronunciation of my name, and maybe it was the unmistakable way the shadows swirled and gulfed around me.

But regardless, I knew the time had come.

Underneath every mask, I’d seen this confrontation coming, and so I composed myself. The second it took for me to do that, however, was enough for my instincts to squeak and flinch and draw a biting red line on my neck.

Breathe.

A wet tongue flicked, and then came the report of a murmuring voice so motionless, so glassblown, so familiar in its inflection, that the confirmation quickened my heart further, flushed the blood from my brilles, and scared me. I shifted my face out of phase of my mind. It turned to a door, behind which things are heard but not seen.

It all felt very dramatic. What they said was, “Is that blood? Such a delectable scent.” What made it so vitrifying, though, was how it was said.

She spoke in Käärmkieli.

I was in control — of myself — as she turned my head, and lifted her knife, and licked her tongue at the red line. I didn’t shiver or squirm, I didn’t squeak, and I held eye with a blue​-​scaled face half​-​hidden under a wearable, shifting mosaic that could have been a cloak.

I was in control, but behind my door I shrieked, bile rose in my throat and I threw off the Specter and flew so far away. None of these things happened, but I could imagine them.

My door was shut, and the voice that left my throat was very level as it said, “Please release me. We both serve Highness Ashaine.”

“I serve the Highness, yet thou appearest to have more loyalty to these mudly dragons than to the Constellation — than to thine only family. Such a disgrace.”

Just above, above the — silver edge, I stared intently at the mess of colors that was her cloak’s sleeve, letting it take up my field of view completely. I spoke again, drawling, “Is this an illusionmaster chiding me about appearances?”

The silver returned to my neck, quick. “It is a manner of speaking, my pedant. Thou dancest with my words; for thine actions speak against thee. Or rather, they remain silent; for thou hast done nothing to further our ends. Thou disappointest even thy brother. As is to be expected from such a disgrace.”

“What would you have me do? The faer does not trust me.” I heard her sniff. “Yet,” I added.

“Spoken like no Specter at all. We can scent a bevy of options from even our distant position. Thou hast made no advances with Bariaeth, whom thou knowest holds much power and no loyalty to the faer. Thou hast made no effort to capitalize upon thy relation with the high alchemist’s heir — which would be effortless on thy part. Thou art entertaining that vexsome canyon​-​dweller who stands in way of our plans. Thou seest the faer’s brother everyday, and thou hast not even noticed.”

“So I haven’t rushed my results. I was not aware we had a timetable.”

“Indeed thou art not.” The Specter dragged their blade along my throat, scraping just shallow enough no blood squirmed forth. It was a continuous thing, their blade dragging steadily and tracing patterns. “Highness Ashaine grows impatient, Kinri. He entrusted thee with thine inheritance, and after all the dancing it took for him to allow thee to keep it, thou hast wasted it.”

“Have you come to chastise me only?” I affected my tone, the best I could do to sound bored. I looked around, as if not caring about the deadly blade by my throat, or the trained assassin in killing distance of me. My eyes darted to her cloak, and I contemplated intently the colors. My brow furrowed as I noticed how they seemed… less vivid, almost distorted, compared to the other cloaks I’d seen, in the sky.

She was saying, “No. I have also come to decide whether I should kill thee where thou standest. Or not”

“You–you couldn’t. You wouldn’t.”

The knife under my neck turned, caught a sunbeam and reflected it right at my eye. It shouldn’t have worked at all in the shade beneath my muzzle, but that didn’t matter so much this close to a lucent Specter cloak. “Oh, thou art correct. I wouldn’t make it so quick and boring.”

“If–if my brother truly ordered me dead — and he would never — even you wouldn’t have made such a game of it.”

I felt the blade press deeper. “It is disgusting to listen to such a disgrace pretend to know me. Thou shalt quiet thyself, and I will fulfill my mission.”

I said nothing. If I did die here, would I lose so much? Hinte barely considered me a friend, and even Digrif or Uvidet and I aren’t close at all. They’d get over me, forget me. Maybe — even the endless stars realized how useless I am.

“Is that defeat in thine eyes? It suits thee.” The knife’s pressure eased by the smallest. She continued, “We have an immediate task for thee and an immediate reward, something even the Specter with no cloak will find within her minuscule capability.” She reached in her robes, grabbing a familiar white crystal. “This is a shard of star​-​blessèd Stellaine. The very same which was confiscated from thee after thou had vandalized —”

“I told you all it was like that when I found it! For all the things I did that you all couldn’t appreciate, I really didn’t do this one.”

Even as the knife licked me further, I glanced back at her. “I wish I did, though. It was an ugly statue. I just didn’t have enough paint. Or any slugs. Or a lightning rod! And therefore I couldn’t have — and didn’t — do it.”

More blood had oozed out from my neck. Instead of the responding, the Specter licked it.

I sniffed. “Could you not? It isn’t very conducive to civil conversation.” I paused for a second while my frills worked. I gambled with, “I know you’re better than this.”

“And thy hatchly caterwauling is even less conducive. I tend not to converse with hatchlings hatchlings — they say I’m a poor influence.”

There was a time when it would have been natural to counter her words with a false barb like, ‘I can’t imagine why.’ The Specter had made it so easy to fall back into that habit of familiarity. So easy — as if it were a trap.

It had only been cycles; I was still a Specter.

The sky​-​dweller pulled their head back, a drop of my blood still on their lip. “So why shouldn’t I entertain myself? Particularly when you’re doing such a disgraceful job of it.”

Sniffing, I said, “Why did you come here, Uane? If it’s not the chastise me, then tell me why. You’ve told me the reward, but what’s the mission?”

Behind me, Uane grinned; and I could tell so easily, from the pinch of her knife pressing closer, from that twitch in her shadow, from that same pop of her frills flexing, and from that single drop of sweet joy that lighted on her fangs.

It had been gyras. Even knowing what had come before and what came after, it had been gyras. I let her near forgotten scent draw out a smile on my face.

Even knowing what had come before and what came after, I had missed my little sister.

---

Adwyn’s frown was waxing deeper, and he cut my story off with a wing. His voice was soft, dangerous. “There is another Specter in Gwymr/Frina?”

I tossed my head without looking at Adwyn. “I don’t know! She might be gone by now.

“Yet they were here.” Adwyn stood straighter. He said, “Kinri, tell me exactly what is happening, concisely. This is now a matter of Frinan security.”

“Uh, you know how you thought I was some kind of Specter agent? Well… that isn’t very far from the truth. I had a sort of… mission in coming here. I don’t know what they’re plotting, but they — my brother wanted me to get the frill of a faer, gain some kind of influence in the land of glass and secrets. It’s why I tried to become a secretary or something for Mlaen​-​sofran.”

“So you have been in contact with the Specters?”

“No! This is the first time something like this has happened.”

“What is this new order of yours?”

I held my breath. I didn’t look at him when I spoke. I didn’t speak louder than a murmur. I dragged the words out of my throat like weights, and let them plummet.

I said, “I have to kill you.”

“I can’t imagine killing me would end well for you⁠ ⁠—⁠ or accomplish your goals, for that matter,” Adwyn said, peering down at me with a look of patience and recognition⁠ ⁠—⁠ as if he’d had this conversation before.

In front of me the orange drake flicked his tongue. I had to look up to meet eye with him, and I broke it just as quick. “Granted you even had it in you to do it⁠ ⁠—⁠ and you don’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ you wouldn’t survive my assassination. And if those two conditions didn’t hold, I⁠ ⁠—⁠ personally⁠ ⁠—⁠ wouldn’t recommend this. And not simply because my life is in question, either.” He paused. “Can you tell me why? What purpose could it serve?”

I looked up⁠ ⁠—⁠ further up, at the sky. “Well… like I said, Highness Ashaine sent me here to gain influence over the faer, and I sorta… completely failed at that. They⁠ ⁠—⁠ he wants faster results, and um… you have the most influence over the faer. So with you out–out of the dance, I would have an easier time.”

The orange drake shook his head. “I suppose that would show the ignorance of the Specters. Or their utter disregard for your life. I am hardly the one Mlaen likes⁠ ⁠—⁠ no, loves⁠ ⁠—⁠ most of all. And there is no chance of you influencing or even breathing upon the one whom she cherishes. Your efforts would be in vain.”

I waited, then sighed, then said, “You aren’t going to tell me who they are?”

Adwyn lifted a brow, then whisked a wing dismissive. “Why? You already know them.”

“I can’t imagine who,” I said, brilles clouded. “Does Mlaen have some family in town or something?”

“Oh, that she does⁠ ⁠—⁠ and you know them as well⁠ ⁠—⁠ but he isn’t whom I’m thinking of.”

At the adviser’s smirk I growled; but nothing happened. Staring at the almost playful gleam in his metallic​-​red eyes, there dewed a twitch of sour in my glands and I glared down at the ground.

I said, “I don’t see how any of this helps me!” The words came out hard and I flinched at how loud my voice was. Even in the privacy of the alleyway, I wouldn’t, couldn’t, risk anyone hearing this conversation. Lower, pleadingly, I said, “Can you at least fake your death or something if I can’t kill you? I need this.”

Adwyn was regarding me with a small frown. It looked fake, mounted on the same face as so many smirks, even as his tone rung true. “You are serious,” he said.

“I wouldn’t joke about this!”

Adwyn lifted an alula to his temple, brilles clouding. “How were you planning on ever killing me?”

“I don’t know! I had the knife. I… thought of stabbing you with it a few times, but I couldn’t do it. Maybe I would ask Hinte for some poison for your food or something. I⁠ ⁠—⁠ really don’t know.”

His brilles remained clouded. “Why would you take orders from your family?” he asked. “You’re an exile. Or was that a scheme as well?”

“I really did have a falling out with my family. I⁠ ⁠—⁠ things happened. And⁠ ⁠—⁠ leaving was the cleanest solution at the time. But my brother appeared before I would have⁠ ⁠—⁠ left. He said I should go somewhere in the Dyfnderi protectorate instead, and that he had a plan, and that when it all worked out, I could come back. Everything would be fixed. And I could finally be stargazer.”

The orange drake half​-​cleared his brilles. “There is a small problem with that, I glimpse.” I heard a smirk in his voice, but I had no idea why it never ventured out to his lips. At my tilt, he said, “You cannot return to the sky. It would violate the Severance.”

I coiled my tail. Looking up at sliver of sky I could see in the alley, I murmured, “Ashaine said that was a detail, that he would take care of it.”

“He cannot,” Adwyn said. Then, low, “Unless he means to goad the sky into another war, after over a hundred gyras of peace.”

“Ashaine has moved mountains for me. I trust him.”

“You should not. You simply do not send dragons whom you respect and value on missions that couldn’t possibly end with them alive and⁠ ⁠—⁠ effective.”

“But…” I started, because I knew that’s how it had to start. I just didn’t know how to finish it.

“Unless they gave you some special means to accomplish this, I do not think this is an objective given in good faith.” A significant pause, then an orange head leaning closer. “In fact, tell me more about this Specter ‘illusionmaster,’ your… sister. Why is it they couldn’t kill me themself, if that’s truly in sight of their ends?”

“Because, um.” I looked up. “Well, the cloak’s mosaic⁠ ⁠—⁠ the uh, colors it was producing, seemed a little off. Like something was wrong with it, or something was interfering. Maybe that was a part of it?”

“And yet, she trusted that cloak enough to appear before you, in the middle of the market.” He sighed. “My point is, Kinri, that all you are suggesting is doubt. You wish to trust them simply because you can doubt their ill intentions.”

“I’m doubting your speculation! I already trust them.”

“And you shouldn’t. Where were these dragons when you were exiled? How much help have they been to your living a life on the surface?” The orange drake looked away, and came back with some look in his eye. “Why not trust me, instead? I can assure you I would never send you on a doomed mission.”

“Why should I trust you? I don’t even know what you want!”

Adwyn nodded. “I suppose that’s fair.”

The orange drake sat on his haunches, and waved his foreleg for me to do the same. I remained standing.

“Would you mind my sharing a little story from my past? I’ll keep it short. It should render some things aclear, I glimpse.”

My head stayed still. I said, “Go ahead.”

“Very well. I have told you I was thirtieth in line for the Geunantic throne, correct? Well, when I hatched, I was forty​-​and​-​sixth. You must understand, this is not a number that tends to wane smaller as time grows on.” For once, Adwyn smirked, and because of that I could believe him.

“I was young then, and quite unsubtle in my methods. But I was subtle enough to avoid official punishment.” The orange drake pulled the root of something from the gravel. Having long broken off and been exposed to the elements, the root was dried and hardened. “Of course, everyone knew I was guilty⁠ ⁠—⁠ they called me the black ascendant⁠ ⁠—⁠ but none could prove it. Our justice system is flawed that way⁠ ⁠—⁠ or some would say, featured.”

He gazed up at the sky, and at the skylands floating above. “I still don’t regret any of what I did to advance this far in succession. What I do regret is how it affected my sister when she found out. It hurt her, and I wanted some way to make it right. So I went to the king. He is a wise, philosophical drake⁠ ⁠—⁠ judgment being about all he is good for with our parliament allowed to do much of the more important things.”

The orange drake looked back at me, at me. “I wanted a way to make things right. He didn’t give me one, but he did give me a path to follow, that I might better understand. His first suggestion was monasticism.”

The military adviser smiled a smile that had lost at something. “It will come as no surprise I didn’t accept this.” He rolled the root around his toes. “Next, he gave me a challenge, a method to reach my own enlightenment. I would go to Gwymr/Frina, and try to reunite it with Dyfnder/Geunant, like so many others have.” He stood the root up on his foot and balanced it there for a moment. “He said I had the head on my withers to pull it off,” he continued, hissing a little laugh. “He told me to do this, but with one stricture: I could not kill anyone or anything along the way.”

As he continued, his voice began in low, approaching tones. “It may look, to some, not a fitting punishment for my actions. But I think it has given me a sort of wisdom. I think I understand better than most the value of peace, and the price of violence. This has become why I want further peace between our two strongholds, and why I do not think a path of violence is the one down which you should go, Kinri.”

Adwyn snapped his root, and dropped it. “It won’t end well, simply.”

I was looking down, scratching the gravel. “I guess that makes sense. But you haven’t given me anything. None of that helps me.”

“I suppose.”

Adwyn looked over toward the horizon blocked by cliffs, where the loversuns ran themselves to the rim of the world and clouds and skylands danced before the suns’ gaze. “So, what are we to do? I rather hope it’s been settled how unfortunate an idea your plan was.”

I stamped a foot on the gravel. “What else am I supposed to do? Rot away on the surface with no hope of ever returning to my home?”

Adwyn looked tilted at me. “Tell me, do you think you’re stuck on the surface with return only an invisible dream? Or is it something you’re truly anticipating and working toward? I confess it doesn’t sound as though you have seen your own mind on this matter.”

“It’s⁠ ⁠—⁠ complex.”

“Tell me the complex answer, then.”

“I…” I scratched the gravel again. “It’s⁠ ⁠—⁠ I want it. I want it, but it does feel like a dream sometimes. And it’s not a contradiction because it’s about, uh, timescales.” I poked an alula at the military adviser. “What about uniting Gwymr/Frina with the Dyfnderi protectorate? You’re trying to do it, but you aren’t going to do it tomorrow, or overmorrow, or anytime this cycle. It’s hard and no one’s done it and some dragons say it’s impossible, but you can’t just… not try, even if you believe them. What else can I do? I have next to nothing down on the surface.”

Adwyn nodded. “You are, in fact, quite right. You’ve only missed just one crucial fact: you cannot do things on this scale alone. I have help: two other canyon​-​dwellers with me, along with allies in Rhyfel, Cynfe, to name two. Even the faer is sympathetic, if naturally opposed to change.”

Another smirk, again giving his words that curious tinge of honesty. “Whom would you rather assist you? A distant, invisible brother who has helped you none at all, or myself, who at the very least is responsible for your being in Gwymr/Frina at all?”

My eyes flashed clear. “You’re going to help me return to the sky?” I couldn’t control my pitch.

“Not quite. But you don’t want to return to the sky. You want somewhere to belong. I can help you with that. In fact, I don’t think you’d even find that in the Constellation, were you to return. The same things you ran away from haven’t gone anywhere, have they?” Adwyn shook his head. “Alas, the choice is yours. Make your decision.”

I turned my back, speaking low, “But where would I fit into any of this? What could you want with my help at all?” Even with my back turned, I watched Adwyn’s cast shadow, waiting for his reaction.

It was his shadow folding frills, as if he’d just won at something. A drop of embarrassment flickered through me. Had I fallen for some trick?

A movement distracted me⁠ ⁠—⁠ closer to the patch of shade near the alley’s mouth, there came another shadow, waxing, that of a dragon flying low overhead on a glider. But a motion from the drake’s shadow jerked my focus back to it.

He was speaking; he said, “Why, Ushra’s granddaughter clearly sees something of value in you.”

I spun around, saying, “But she doesn’t! She doesn’t trust me at all⁠ ⁠—⁠ she thinks I’m flimsy and fearful and completely useless.” What would she think when she found out about⁠ ⁠—⁠ all of this?

I watched Adwyn’s assured look falter at that.

There should have been a thrill of being right, of landing a retort he couldn’t counter. But if his helping me was conditional on me being useful, if he only thought I was useful because of Hinte…

Behind me came the crunch of a dragon’s landing, and the voice I least wanted to hear in reply said, “You are not completely useless.” The voice was jagged.

I spun around, catching Hinte standing there in her soot​-​covered cloak and glider.

---

Adwyn had left us alone, if after an exchange with Hinte that was her glaring and his smirking back until he bowed his head and turned to leave in the direction of the head guard and the scribes returning to town hall. I tried⁠ ⁠—⁠ really tried⁠ ⁠—⁠ not to wonder what message he would send the faer.

When he seemed out of earshot, the dark​-​green wiver looked blankly at me from the mouth of the alley and stated, “I never said you were useless.”

“You called me untrustworthy, and scared. And flimsy! You have your name in all of the papers, and work beside Rhyfel, and I’m just… your…”

“Friend. You are my friend.”

“Your friend, who drops your knife while you are out being a hero.”

“Who can still fly, while I was being stabbed in a burning building.” Hinte brushed an alula over a soot covered shoulder.

My mouth had opened to reply. It closed and I dropped my eyes to the cloak’s wings. “I’m… sorry, I forgot.” I kicked a bit of gravel. “It’s just… I can fly, sure, but all it left me was being nothing more than a useless messenger.”

“Kinri, your group recovered a body. We did not.”

“I⁠ ⁠—⁠ maybe. But still, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have forgotten so soon. I keep doing that.”

An alula brushed my cheek. I looked up to rust​-​orange eyes. The dark​-​green wiver smiled at me, and I broke eye, looking up. Her smile flattened to normal just as I stopped looking.

Hinte said, “I had forgotten too. The pain is waning, and this glider means I can still fly. Slowly.”

I hesitated. “That’s… good?” Her tone was chewing gravel, and as I glanced between her frown and the length of gold​-​winged brown wood, I bit my lip. I was missing something.

“I think so too,” she started, “then I wonder why I fly so slowly, and I remember that it is not real flight. And then I am wondering what it would take to exterminate the rockwraithen.”

“A lot of hunters and enough aris to pay them?”

“No,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ she waved a wing⁠ ⁠—⁠ “just the right germs and cultures. The forest once had songwraithen⁠ ⁠—⁠ banshees. They were a menace, until one alchemist came along with a plague fermented just for them.”

“Huh. That’s…” I jerked my gaze down to the fledgling alchemist. “—⁠ scary! Could someone do that to dragons?”

“In principle? Yes. But there are anti​-​alchemist monasteries and orders almost waiting for something like that to happen. Covalan glass can catch any crafted plague, and these monasteries have secrets to counter alchemical strains.”

“Anti​-​alchemist orders?” I tilted my head, frills curling. “Do they have anything to do with why dragons here hate alchemy so much?”

Hinte nodded once. “Opa says they do. Dwylla was an acolyte of one of those orders, the Ohmal cult in Anterth/Gwirion. Until he met my Opa, that is.” Hinte watched me nodding, and absently added, “Gronte had told me stories of him. If anyone is to blame for the superstition, it would be him.” She was shaking her head. “Yet somehow, Gronte sees something worth admiring in him. I only see the reason this town is such a mess.”

I was flicking my tongue, then blurting, “What Ohmal cult⁠ ⁠—⁠ hey, wait, you’re distracting me! Don’t change the subject, Hinte. We’re still talking about our… um.”

“No, it has already been settled.”

“What’s been already settled?” The voice rung out, loud, but didn’t come from left or right. I glanced around, then behind me, then joining Hinte in looking up. Digrif was there, winging down behind the black​-​clad wiver. He landed with a thump, glancing at the alchemist, then behind her at me.

I was saying, “Nothing! Hi Digrif!” and squeezing my way out of the alleyway. Hinte stepped aside first, though.

The fledgling alchemist glanced clouded at Digrif. “Kinri had said I thought she was useless.”

My claws dug a little at her phrasing. By now I was out of the alleyway, between the two other dragons with a sort of triangle between us. I was closer to Digrif, and Hinte was facing me.

Digrif was flicking his tongue. “Well, did you?”

“She has proved herself capable.”

I snorted, and growled, “So that’s a yes.” I spun around, tail whipping, claws scraping gravel, away.

“Where are you going?” Hinte asked.

“I⁠ ⁠—⁠ don’t know. Just… going.”

“Why are you going? I told you aren’t useless, I admitted you were capable. Nothing is wrong.”

I spun back around. “You can’t just say that!”

“I can. Why can’t you say it?”

“Because it’s not! I mean, it is. I mean…”

Hinte tossed her head to the side. “I hate this. My friends keep getting upset for secret reasons, and they expect me to say something, and when I do, it is just the wrong thing. What do you want me to say, Kinri?”

I stopped and turned around slowly. “Do you even know why I’m upset?”

“Because you think I think you are useless, even after I told you I do not, several times.”

“No! It’s not just that.”

“What is it, then? Do you want me to apologize?”

“I guess?”

“Fine. I am sorry for whatever it was I did that set you off. I don’t think you are useless.” Hinte clouded her eyes. “Are we still friends?” The words were slow and light.

“Um, yes?”

We stood there like that for a few instants, me scratching gravel with my face knit like fabric without seams, her folding up her glider with a slight frown.

Then Digrif said, “Now hug.”

“Um.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re friends again! It’s what you do when you make up.”

“I guess.” I opened my wings as I looked over to the fledgling alchemist. She took two steps toward me, then snapped open her wings and pulled me up into her embrace. It took two tries for me to return the hug, get my wings in the right place.

We hugged. It was three breaths before Hinte pulled her wings back.

“Are you happy now, Digrif?”

“Well, are you happy, Hinte?”

“Do not ask me that.”

“Aww. What about you, Kinri?”

“Um. Ditto?”

“Oof. Why are you two so dark? We’re supposed to be heroes.”

“No, I am supposed to be heir to my grandfather’s knowledge and future high alchemist of Gwymr/Frina. That is all.”

“But don’t you want to be a hero?”

Hinte opened her mouth, then closed it.

“I want to be a hero.” With how Digrif and Hinte glanced at me at this, I wondered if I had timed it wrong.

Hinte rolled her head at me, looking back to the warm​-​gray drake. “I want to save dragons. If that makes me a hero, I do not care.”

“So you do want to be a hero, see? But to be a good hero, you need to be a beacon of happiness and positivity.”

“Why? It sounds fake and manipulative.”

“To inspire hope in others! To stay determined! To enjoy what you’re doing?”

Hinte only shook her head.

“Well, what would you suggest?”

“A hero fulfills her oaths quickly and efficiently.”

I glanced tilted at Hinte. “Um, maybe that isn’t the most important thing.” The words wormed out.

Hinte glanced back at me, witheringly. “Then what is?”

“Well…”

If Uane were answering, her unthinking response would be upholding the supremacy of House Specter. I hadn’t believed that. Neither had Ashaine, once upon a time.

I said, “I don’t know. It’s just⁠ ⁠—⁠ if you might die, or be arrested, or–or something, if you followed orders… would you?”

“I do not receive orders. Were I a soldier or a lesser alchemist, then yes, as that is what the position requires.”

I clouded my eyes and looked away. I held Hinte’s exasperated look in my mind, and imagined how it might darken if she learnt what had just happened between Adwyn and I. I could hope, but Specters knew secrets didn’t last.

---

“So, now that the gang’s all here, what’s next?” The warm​-​gray drake had shifted position; he had started walking right before realizing we weren’t going anywhere, and stopped.

The black​-​cloaked wiver waved a wing out at the active crowd of guards and scribes. “Wait for this kicked anthill to calm down.”

“Yeah, but till then? There isn’t all that much we can do right here. I feel like we should be contributing to something.”

“To what? Nothing is happening, save the administration scrambling to get a record of their failure. If someone needs us, they can find us. We are not hiding.”

“But Adwyn​-​sofran told me to find you. Maybe he expects us back.”

“Adwyn is the one who left.”

“Maybe something came up?”

Hinte glanced at me, face at an angle where Digrif couldn’t see it, making an tongue​-​twisted, exasperated face. Smoothly, as she looked back to him, she turned the tongue twist into idly licking her brilles. She said, “Fine. We will find Adwyn, and he can tell you to wait.”

I looked between the two of them. “Um. You’re going to see Adwyn? Together?”

“That is what I just said.”

“I’ll⁠ ⁠—⁠ leave you two to that, then. I’ll just be… not doing that. Over here.”

“You don’t want to see Adwyn?” Digrif asked. “Oh, does this have to do with what he pulled you away to talk about? It smelt serious. What was that about?”

The black​-​cloaked wiver turned back to me, adding, “Yes. I am curious why ‘Ushra’s granddaughter’ came up in this conversation.”

I looked between the two dragons. Beneath my cloak, my tail twisted into knots. Even though I felt it in my glands, I didn’t let shame or worry dew onto my fangs. I was flicking my tongue.

I said, “Does it really matter? I’m… it’s⁠ ⁠—⁠ settled. Don’t worry about it.”

“You are not standing steady, Kinri​-​gyfar.” Hinte noted. Was that metaphoric or literal? I looked at my legs.

“Adwyn seemed to worry about it, though,” was Digrif’s response.

I folded my frills, looking up at Digrif. “But we talked through it, really. Everything is fine.”

“I saw the look he gave you before he left, Kinri​-​gyfar,” Hinte said. “He was never at ease around you, but now it resembles more the look he gave the thieves driving the cart. I think that tells on its own.”

She was looking down to the ground, then peering, her forked tongue whirling in thought. Very slowly, she said, “If you want me to continue to trust you, tell me.”

“I didn’t believe Adwyn,” Digrif blurted. “When he said you were the one behind it⁠ ⁠—⁠ I didn’t believe him. Well now, I⁠ ⁠—⁠ don’t know. Tell me it wasn’t you who betrayed us to the thieves?”

“It wasn’t. At all!”

“And how would we believe that?” Hinte stomped a foot. “Adwyn suspects you still, even after this private talk with him.”

“Because I’m your friend! Because I really didn’t do it.” I looked from Hinte to Digrif, back to Hinte, before huffing a sigh. Staring starlessly up at the sky, I said softly, “And Adwyn doesn’t suspect me. He knows I’m on his side, now.”

“Then when Digrif and I find him, we shall ask him. He’ll vouch for you, and waive all doubts, will he not?”

“Well…”

Digrif bumped me with a forefoot. I looked up to a yellow​-​eyed face that wasn’t smiling, but was lined with some compassion. The lovely drake said, “Well, I am your friend, Kinri, and I believe you. But maybe… if we should believe you because you’re our friend, you should open up to us because we’re you’re friends, too.”

The warm​-​gray drake smiled. “If you want that is. Hinte’s just being a little… Hinte, right now.”

I couldn’t help but reflect dimly a little of Digrif’s smile. A bit of his humor might have come with it, because I laughed and said, “You should see her when she’s being a lot Hinte.” The wiver narrowed her brow, and I popped tongue at her.

“Well, what’s that like?” Digrif flicked.

“Let’s just say that if I hadn’t been there, she would have exploded someone’s face.”

Digrif’s eyes flashed clear and his mouth formed an ‘o’.

Hinte hissed, but it sounded harsh more than laughing. “I did. The second time would have left scars.”

But the dark​-​green wiver tossed her head. “Do not distract from the conversation, Kinri​-​gyfar,” she said. “Were Digrif’s sweet words enough to get you to explain or will he have to kiss you as well?”

My eyes flushed. “Err, is that an option?”

Digrif said, “I think it was a joke.”

“Maybe.”

“Again, will you explain?” Hinte rolled her head. “We cannot tell how slow the scribes are going to take, and I do not think your confession to Adwyn was brief.”

“It’s not a short story, no.”

“We’re listening,” Digrif said.

“Well,” I started, “I’m not going to start at the beginning, because that would take too long.

I looked between the warm​-​gray drake and the dark​-​green wiver, and took a breath. “Okay, so I have a brother, and⁠ ⁠—⁠ hm. Maybe I will need to start close to the beginning.” I scratched my cheek. “In the sky, drakes can’t become House Zeniths⁠ ⁠—⁠ the leaders, basically⁠ ⁠—⁠ because they aren’t as suited to the task as wivers. Or well, maybe they are, but it’s just the way things are done.

“And that’s the problem. My brother, he’s the best leader out of my mother’s children, out of the four of us⁠ ⁠—⁠ well, three, after what happened to little Doikko. And I guess four again because Ashaine had said she’s laying⁠ ⁠—⁠ has laid now, I guess⁠ ⁠—⁠ a new daughter to replace me as heir.

“Uane was always a little impulsive, too willing to be alone and do her own thing, to be a leader. And me, I was a good heir; that’s what they used to say. Calm, polite, pretty but not too pretty, smart enough.” I flicked and twisted my tongue. “It wasn’t fun⁠ ⁠—⁠ the rules chafed, the judgments stung⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I closed it off and flew on, because that’s what you do when something’s important and you care about it, right? But then I realized, why should I care about any of this? And it all fell apart.”

“You are meandering.”

“Am I? Sorry, I guess. But that’s the dilemma we⁠ ⁠—⁠ they had had. Uane was too unmanageable, I was good enough till I wasn’t, and Ashaine is a drake. But aside from that? He knew all the histories, the etiquette. He even knew the politics and the economics, though he wasn’t supposed to.

“And then⁠ ⁠—⁠ he went to Taivas/Kuolemma. He changed, I changed. Uane changed too, but she doesn’t matter so much. When he came back, he’d become some special adviser somehow⁠ ⁠—⁠ even though you don’t see drakes in that position. And me, I was a pariah. I’d lost my any inheritance I might’ve had, I’d all but lost my status as future Zenith of Specter. Things just kept getting worse for me, and better for my brother.

“I was exiled, and it only took a few gyras. It was like⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was that the whole family hated me. Even my dearest older brother just… didn’t seem to care anymore.

“But he did, and just before I’d–I’d⁠ ⁠—⁠ just before I had… left, was going to leave, he found me, told me he’d only acted around the others, but still loved me.

“He had a plan. He said he was going to become the Zenith. And he told me he would bring me back to the Constellation when he did it.

“But he needed my help. He wanted connections in the cliffs. He wanted to send me to Dyfnder/Geunant, but we settled for Gwymr/Frina. It’s a smaller town, life would be simpler. Ashaine had said it himself: maybe his plan won’t come together, and I⁠ ⁠—⁠ I really will die never seeing the Constellation again. The last winner always plans for failure, right? Err, that saying sounds a bit weird in y Draig.

“And… that’s the secret. I’m not really loyal to Gwymr/Frina. I’m acting on behalf of Specter… and of the Constellation, kinda. Not really, but that’s how they’ll see it.”

Digrif tapped his chin. “That sounds… okay? You aren’t hurting anyone, just trying to get home.”

“No, but that’s not the all of it. When my brother said he wanted connections, he meant like the faer. I’ve inched closer to that, but they don’t think I’ve moved at all. I don’t know how they know all they know. But clearly it’s not perfect.”

Hinte narrowed her brow. “What do you mean, all they know?”

“Just stuff like how we’re friends, but I haven’t used our friendship to curry influence with or through your grandfather, or⁠ ⁠—”

“It would not work,” Hinte cut in. When I tilted my head, she continued, “He would rather I had let you die in the lake than waste a drop of his precious Wundervernarbung.”

“Really? What’s his problem?”

“I do not know. But perhaps, you know how old he is; I think he’s seen enough death that one more just isn’t a difference.”

“But Gronte seems so much nicer!”

“Seems,” was all she said.

Digrif lifted his head. “Well, the old three is all dead except for Ushra. I bet that probably hurts.”

“Old three?”

“Old three. Rhyfel the elder, Dwylla the eternal, and Ushra. Together, they were once the adventurers in the cliffs! They fought monsters and saved dragons, and blazed glory all across the country. Then, they found a Dyfnderi labor camp plagued by monsters, and disease and⁠ ⁠—⁠ they say⁠ ⁠—⁠ the terrible demon of the lake…”

I was listening with wide frills, and Hinte staring at Digrif with an expression too light to be a glare.

“The stories go that the trio descended into the pits beneath the lake and slayed the demon, and then the monsters and disease disappeared, and the dragons above were so happy they made them rulers on the spot, and they were the best rulers. Rhyfel created the guard, Ushra was the healer, and Dwylla became the first faer. Once, Anterth sent a whole army here, and they stopped it themselves!”

Digrif clouded his eyes for a second, as if remembering how it went. Hinte opened her mouth, but Digrif spoke: “But eventually, Rhyfel died in the first battles of the Dyfnderi’s Spider War. Then, Dwylla was slain by Aurisiuf of the night. But Ushra just… survived, all this time. By alchemy, they say. I even heard he fought Aurisiuf and lived! That drake is scary.”

Hinte curled her frills.

I asked, “How do you know all of this? I study Frinan history with Chwithach​-​sofran, and he never said any of this.”

“I like history. It’s fun.”

Hinte said, “That’s because it’s all nonsense. Chwithach has the sense to only teach what he can prove is true. These are tales spun by drunkards and parents. You’d think Aurisiuf were some kind of monster, listening to them. Or Dwylla was some kind of saint.”

“But he was a monster, basically. He struck mysteriously in the dead of night, and no one has ever seen his face. He could have been a conjuration of the demon of the lake, for all we know.”

“We don’t know. Kinri, can you continue?”

“Yeah, but we can make theories. Me, I think the Aurisiuf is secretly Ushra’s brother or some relative. It explains why they fought, why he might have something against Dwylla. And if he’s really the one behind this, how he’s could still around after all this time.”

I saw Hinte cover her face with a wing and look to me, but I jumped into the new topic. “You think he’s a forest​-​dweller?”

“Yeah. It’s not that hard to scent. The cliffs used to have a lot more forest​-​dwellers, until they all disappeared.”

Hinte snapped her gaze to Digrif. “We didn’t disappear, we were killed! On Dwylla​-​drwg’s own orders!” She sighed. “Did you not learn of the Inquiry with all of your ‘history?’ ”

“But that was alchemists, not forest​-​dwellers.”

“Digrif,” Hinte said in a warning tone. Turning to me, she added, “Kinri, can you get back to your story and forget this residua?”

“Okay, okay. So the things the Specters know⁠ ⁠—⁠ they know we’re friends and your grandfather is important⁠ ⁠—”

“And do not know we cannot be manipulated.”

“—⁠ Yeah. They also think Bariaeth is disloyal to the faer and that I’ve stayed away from him.” I wiggled my tongue. “Oh! The faer apparently has a brother and I don’t know them.”

“Mlaen was picked from the educated ranks of Anterth’s temples. It is more than likely he does not even live in Gwymr/Frina.”

I shook my head. “She said that they live here. And that I’ve met them. Adwyn even knows who it is and won’t tell me,” I said in a tone that was not a whine.

Hinte snapped her tongue, holding it out for a beat. She yanked it back into her mouth and shook her head. “It must be a well​-​kept secret.”

Digrif tilted his head. “But you know all kinds of secrets.”

The fledgling alchemist flung a glare at the warm​-​gray drake, but her look relaxed, and she smiled. “Exactly.”

Digrif frowned. “Well, why do the Specters know it?”

I spoke up. “Uane made it seem like it was obvious, as if anyone paying attention could taste it.

Hinte said, “I don’t think it was.”

“Maybe. But… that’s not the part that has Adwyn suspicious. It’s the⁠ ⁠—⁠ reason my sister contacted me.”

“Which is?”

“Adwyn. She⁠ ⁠—⁠ they⁠ ⁠—⁠ he wants me to kill Adwyn.”

Digrif shouted, “What!” Quieter, he said, “Why would you do that? Why would they want that?”

Hinte was nodding. “Yes, that makes sense,” she said.

“How?”

“Digrif, you would not understand. Kinri​-​gyfar, remember last night, in town hall? Who was there? The faer, her assistant, Rhyfel, Adwyn. The rest of the advisers do not take their roles as seriously, and Mlaen doesn’t take them seriously.”

“I thought she just didn’t want to send for them. She just sent for whoever was in wing.”

“Except Bariaeth.” Hinte shook her head. “It is telling that the faer cared so little for his advice to hold that meeting without bothering to send for him.”

“So you’re saying Adwyn is important?”

“Adwyn is intelligent. Imagine you were the Specters here. This one drake guessed that there was more to Kinri, drafted the plan to fake the ape’s death, realized the bodies had been stolen, and convinced Kinri to switch sides.

Hinte took a breath. “He’s been annoying. It is as if every setback is his doing. Wouldn’t you want him dead?”

“No!” Digrif stomped.

“Why not?”

“Killing is wrong. And Adwyn’s been doing the right thing.”

Hinte growled. “Regardless, the Specters see it that way. It is the cleanest solution.” Hinte licked her brilles. “And if Bariaeth catalyzes their plans, then Adwyn’s absence would make whatever he’s up in town hall that much easier.”

“Wait, the Specters are with the thieves?” Digrif asked.

“Yes, it is obvious at this point.”

“But why didn’t they tell Kinri?”

I sighed. “Maybe they don’t trust me.” Who would?

Digrif kicked a rock. “Kinri.” I looked to him, and his gaze was very intense. “Are you going to kill Adwyn?”

“No! How could I? Everyone knows.”

The warm​-​gray dragon spread his lips a big grin full of pointed teeth and fangs bedewed with one drop of sweetness each. “Then you’re still a good dragon.”

He nudged Hinte. “And we do trust you. Right, Hinte?”

“Not quite.”

Digrif closed off his grin and scowled, but Hinte spoke before he could:

“Why did you reveal this now? You never told us you were a Specter agent. Is it because Adwyn confronted you?”

“I… yes?” I said. Hinte’s face hardened, and her rust​-​orange gaze burnt into me. “No! I told you because… we’re friends? Like we all said earlier.”

“You confessed to Adwyn first. Are you his friend, too?”

“No…” I looked down, something⁠ ⁠—⁠ sour dewing on my fangs. “Look, Hinte. I wouldn’t have told Adwyn anything if I thought I was really going to kill him. Hinte, I am a Specter! Do you think I can’t lie? I told the truth because I wanted to. Honestly.”

Hinte turned around. Digrif had had his foot on her, but he didn’t stop her.

I stared at her back. “Do you believe me?”

“I believe you wouldn’t have done any of this if you didn’t have to.”

The black​-​cloaked wiver began walking off.

“Are you mad because I broke with my orders? Like, um, warriors are supposed to not do?”

“Did you swear an oath to serve your brother?” She had stopped, but didn’t turn around.

“Um, no. We⁠ ⁠—⁠ Specters don’t really do oaths, ever.”

“Then no. Honor does not imply following without question. It implies that when you make an oath, a promise, it means something.”

“Okay, but well, do you… trust me, Hinte?”

“I trust you not to kill me even if someone asks you to.” She had already started high​-​walking away.

“I guess that’s something.”

I watched the black​-​cloaked wiver walk away.

“Since um, since you aren’t mad, and I won’t kill you, does that mean I can⁠ ⁠—” I glanced at Digrif “—⁠ we can follow with you, wherever you’re walking to now?”

The black​-​cloaked wiver slowed to a stop. She shifted her wings, lowered her head, worked her frills, all without turning or glancing back.

It felt like we were there waiting, watching, for a very long time, but it couldn’t have been.

Hinte said, “That is your choice.”

She walked on without us, and we followed.

---

“I glimpse you’ve made your decision.”

We’d found him, a ways from the alley and chatting sparsely among about five guards, and patient​-​looking Adwyn. The guards looked new faces; but among them you saw a familiar black​-​tongued cliff​-​dweller, that sneering, bamboo​-​plated prefect, and that pink drake. The military adviser had stood between Gwynt and the still​-​talking prefect, and might have been listening to what the prefect was saying; but the orange drake had broken away and now padded toward us.

Beside me, Hinte was glancing between me and the adviser, and on the other side of her, Digrif was waving at the guards.

I flicked my tongue at the orange drake. “Why do you say that?”

“Would you be returning with Gronte​-​wyre if you two held any outstanding issues?” Adwyn asked. “Whatever tensions there were have settled, have they not?”

I frowned. “It doesn’t feel settled.”

Hinte looked hard at the orange drake, asked him, “Do you think Kinri is working with the thieves?”

“There are more likely suspects.”

“Yes or no, do you believe Kinri​-​gyfar betrayed us?”

“The world doesn’t grant a glassy yes or no,” Adwyn said. “Remain cautious until we’ve found who truly is behind it.”

She flicked her tongue. “You have no idea, do you?” Turning to me, Hinte peered for a breath. Then she nodded once at me, and quickly looked away.

Adwyn looked between the black​-​cloaked wiver and me. Behind him, the five guards continued talking without him: Gwynt starting to talk loosely, and the guards all listening, aside from the prefect, who stared at Adwyn and looked to have been stopped mid​-​sentence. The pink guard looked between the rest and us, laying down, and he grinned almost savagely.

Adwyn spoke in a precise, serene tone, the very one he’d used when asking for debriefs. “Hinte​-​ychy, why don’t you tell Kinri how you really feel?”

Hinte scowled. “Why don’t you?”

The orange drake smirked, and looked at me. “I think,” he said, “that your saying she doesn’t trust you hurt her, on some level.” He looked at the spaces between us. “And,” he continued, “discovering that you were a kind of traitor, or more, that you were capable of contemplating murder, or even following through with it, perhaps it scared her.”

“Not,” he quickly added, “on a visceral level, but a more abstract sort. As if a pet snake was found playing clarinet, or a tentacle snail began shuffling and dealing cards. It’s… unsettling, I’d call it.”

I glanced at the scowling wiver beside me.

She growled. “I am not afraid, and I am not hurt. I had been baffled that someone whom I owe my life to would claim I do not trust her. I am angry that someone would hide something like this from me. And I hate that someone’s brother would give them such a lowly order. I am not afraid, and I am not hurt.”

The black​-​cloaked figure whipped around. I hopped back and snapped out a wing to stop her.

“Hinte⁠ ⁠—”

“Quiet.”

She pushed past my wing and there really wasn’t anything I could do. Hinte started off, then paused.

Without turning, she asked, “May I go, Kinri?”

I waved my tongue. “Um, I can’t stop you?”

She stalked off at that, alone.

“Where is she going?”

“To be alone, most likely. Or perhaps to find Rhyfel the younger.” The military adviser turned to the guards behind him, who still chatted⁠ ⁠—⁠ even the prefect had joined back in at some point.

With Adwyn having stepped toward us, we could see two plain​-​dwellers who were out of sight: a tall one with spiky horns and a longer one whose face might have felt the wrong end of a club a time too many.

The military adviser waved at the second one. “Follow her, obliquely. Tell me where she goes.”

The guard nodded after a few beats, and tapped wings with the other guards⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I jerked my gaze to Adwyn.

“What! You said she wants to be alone. So you send someone to follow her?”

“You forget, Kinri​-​ychy, that this is bigger than personal drama. This concerns Gwymr/Frina itself, and you three can still be suspected. Furthermore, Hinte still has an unclairified connection to Aurisiuf.”

Adwyn was looking down at me. It wasn’t hard⁠ ⁠—⁠ everyone was taller than me⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I couldn’t help but notice it, here. “There is being nice, and then there is neglecting to consider what Hinte would honestly have to lose in allying herself against Gwymr/Frina.”

“Her friends?”

“I’m looking at both of them. Would you two truly choose Gwymr over Hinte?”

“Um… no. Not at all.”

“Well, probably not. Friends are important, and Hinte wouldn’t do anything evil.”

I asked, “What about her home? She’d lose that, too.”

“Her home is as much the forests as it is the cliffs, if not more. She grew up in the forests, and came here when she was already closer to adulthood. And… Gwymr is not welcoming to outsiders and loathes alchemists. I suspect this would diminish her fondness of the land of glass and secrets.”

Digrif flicked his tongue. “Why are you accusing everyone, Adwyn​-​sofran? First it was Kinri, then Hinte, but they haven’t done anything.”

“I am not accusing, I am being cautious. There is no clear indicator that Hinte is guilty or innocent. There are, however, reasons to believe she could be involved, and those are reason to be cautious.”

My voice chilled. “There are reasons to believe you could be guilty. We have nothing to prove anyone is involved.” I very deliberately glanced aside, and dropped my voice to a murmur. “One may be forgiven for wondering whether you are doing this for more than appearing to be active and effective.”

“Kinri, for your sake I will repeat myself: this is a matter of Frinan security, not petty drama.”

Digrif looked confusedly between the orange drake and me.

I didn’t release the chill in my voice, even though I should. “So Hinte stalks away in anger because you forgot what tact was, and now it’s a matter of Frinan security.”

Adwyn looked, peered, at me for a little bit. Then he sighed, shaking his head. “With much respect⁠ ⁠—⁠ which, I suppose may be more than you deserve⁠ ⁠—⁠ I do not answer to you, and you hold no authority to speak of. The decision is mine, and the decision is made.”

I mirrored his sigh, and my disappointment was real as I said, loud, “Well, I’ve tried. When your spy has his face half​-​exploded⁠ ⁠—⁠ I suppose the decision is yours.”

I saw the pause in the stride of the spy, who’d slinked away maybe twenty steps already. I watched him step forward slower, with more hesitation, as complex looks crawled over Adwyn’s face. And the pink​-​scaled guard was looking at me. I cleared my brilles, but glanced back to Adwyn as he spoke.

He was saying, stiffly, “Should that happen, it will have been your friend’s choice to commit crimes and reap the punishment.”

The reply rushed at the heels of his. “That isn’t what happened after the incident at the Berwem gate last night,” I said.

He didn’t yell. “So you think that simply because her grandfather is⁠ ⁠—⁠ who he is, Hinte should be above laws?” He tossed his head. “No. I will endeavor to punish anyone who interferes with the workings of this⁠ ⁠—⁠ situation. No matter⁠ ⁠—”

“And if⁠ ⁠—”

“Screaming fires, will you cool it?” The pink guard⁠ ⁠—⁠ Ceian⁠ ⁠—⁠ had broken from the rest and arrived behind Adwyn. “Blinking silly⁠ ⁠—⁠ look,” they said, whisking a wing at a butte maybe a dozen wingbeats away. On that butte sat a dark form holding a vague light form that could be a scroll. We couldn’t make out exactly who this was⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I don’t think we needed to.

As we all looked over, the figure jerked up, leaping and slipped out of sight on a glider.

I grinned. “See? She’s not doing anything.”

Adwyn tilted. “Then tell me, why is she running away?”

The pink guard said, “Blueface, why are you arguing when Adwyn’s already given the order? The drake’s long gone.” Then, in a tone that had lost all of its edge, “Sofrani, why are you bothering with this argument?”

A cryptic smirk. “I have a certain interest in Kinri. I would like to see what she is capable of when she isn’t putting on acts.”

“Ah, so strange adviser stuff.” The pink drake stretched their neck, and looked between all of us. “Listen, boss said we were waiting for something important from the hall, so we’ll be here a ring. Jarce found some decks in his bag and we’re going to start up some card games. You want in, Sofrani? I’ll even let your certain interest go first, and pick her opponent.”

Adwyn turned to me. “Well, Kinri? Care for the diversion?”

I peered at the orange drake. The fire that had me speaking a chill tone, leaping to Hinte’s defense, still burnt in my glands. I could still reach for that dewing, find something biting to fling at the military adviser. But… I could see farther than a few strides ahead, I just deliberately didn’t. They were both practiced habits. And when it came to what I wanted, at its simplest, Adwyn did want to help me. If there was something to be gained from attacking him, I’d do it with more planning.

I gave him a cleanly​-​cut smile, and there was no fire behind it. Adwyn was a drake of rules, and maybe I didn’t like those rules, or what they led to, but I could respect that they didn’t come from a place of malice.

I told him, “Um, sure.”

Ceian whistled, and grinned at me. “Pretty. So, name of the game is Wicked Licks. Who do you want to go up against first? I’d go for your boy with the twisted horns over there. He’s easy pickings.”

I hummed. “I’ll go with…” I smirked at the drake. “Adwyn.”

Adwyn smirked back. “I can’t imagine picking me would end well for you.”

When the eighth long ring chimed, it didn’t stop on the sixth note. The timbre turned from the bells of the highest carillon to the raw or piercing double trumpets you only heard in the cliffs⁠ ⁠—⁠ because of course the cliffs lacked the restraint and poise of sky music. And yet, the sound closed in like a coming doom.

The trumpets remembered the carillon’s melody inf repetition, and they melted, culleted and reglazed it in the logic of the Frinan anthem: Mlaen’s anthem, the one she’d commisioned only days after taking the throne. It shone out, because you always heard Dwylla’s anthem blaring at Dim​-​Fflamio games or being played out of key somewhere in the Moyo​-​Makao. Above, the doom drew closer.

I looked up; everyone did. The trumpeters flew in a skein behind three dragons who pulled your gaze like the wind. On the left, a small dragon in prim black and gold; to the right, a hurricane of colors that made me dizzy just looking at them; and leading at the skeinhead there flew a dragon wreathed in red and gold robes as ornate as any I’d seen in the cliffs.

Landing in our cordoned off patch of road, in the emptied out center, orbited by the various crowds of guards around the alley and cliffwall, the trumpeters were in a circle around the three: all were dressed in black, and it smelt deliberate, like a way of accentuating the colorful dragons.

A caesura, and then they blew a great final chord⁠ ⁠—⁠ and we felt it, even away from the road, all the way by the cliff. That chord hung in the air, vibrating and fading glacier​-​like. The long release of the sound hinted at some unseen, resonating chamber.

When the circle of trumpeters kneeled, they revealed the secretary Cynfe, and the treasurer Bariaeth, and the faer Mlaen​-​sofran.

“Blindness,” swore a voice across from me⁠ ⁠—⁠ the Dynfderi adviser. He had looked up from the card game we were playing (a game I wasn’t losing, necessarily) and he said, “This can’t bode well.”

I opened my mouth, but a high, eager voice interrupted:

“It’s the faer!” Beside me, Digrif leapt and landed in a kneel. Two guards⁠ ⁠—⁠ the pink guard, Ceian, and a plain​-​dweller… Jarce?⁠ ⁠—⁠ smiled or clicked at him.

Looking at the rest of the guards, though, they all watched the new arrivals with frowns or lines: it was all focus and seriousness, but no surprise. Had they expected this?

I glanced back at the adviser. “Do you know what they’re doing here?” I whisper​-​asked.

“With this much fanfare, I glimpse we’ll find out.”

So he didn’t.

I peered at the new arrivals. Having arrived together is about all was in common.

Cynfe⁠ ⁠—⁠ whom, despite myself, I looked at first⁠ ⁠—⁠ looked around steady, scoutingly, her fangs out. I saw guards scowling back, and the blue​-​green wiver met their gazes unfaltering.

Bariaeth, in discordant counterpoint, smiled beatifically, and his glance could mollify the guards whom Cynfe had put on edge; but it wasn’t dramatic: some looked neutral or skeptical, and only a few actually smiled back.

And Mlaen​-​sofran was a mix of the two; yet it seemed less, and not more, because of it. She didn’t smile or scowl, only watched, despite her ever​-​clouded brilles. It was as if all of her reactions were kept to herself, and she offered up nothing to the world.

That one moment, with all of us watching the arrivals in dewing anticipation, dragged on and on. The trumpet’s chord, still ringing out, made the interval felt; it was time hanging in the air. Like that, Bariaeth’s beatific smile became small and ambient; and even Cynfe’s scowl faded. The faer continued to watch, cloudily, and the moment dragged even further on.

And then faer flared her wings, and she must have unclouded her eyes⁠ ⁠—⁠ if only instantly⁠ ⁠—⁠ because there was something intense in her gaze for a glance that wasn’t there before or after. Whatever it was, she kept it from her face, which relaxed and waited, and her tone, which simply asked:

The question was, “Is this my guard?”

Trumpets had struck silence, and the faer’s words lay there in it, for a moment.

---

Mlaen had returned to her neutral, cloudy​-​eyed watching. With her mouth set in a thin line, you knew she wouldn’t be the one to clear the silence. And whoever did would have the attention and judgment of the all the guards. Mlaen had crafted the delivery of her question, giving the words a sense of deep, officious importance, and whoever dared respond would be thrust to that same standard.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that when the response finally came, it was Rhyfel the younger chuckling and saying, “Well, it sure isn’t Bariaeth’s guard.”

It wasn’t that his joke was particularly funny, as much as it was an excuse; Mlaen had everyone wrung near their limit, and the drake’s timing shattered the tension like glass. There was laughing⁠ ⁠—⁠ not everyone, but enough that it would be weird if you weren’t even smiling a little; Adwyn was laughing. I was clicking a little, but not so much that I missed the calm glare that leapt from Bariaeth’s face right at the high guard.

The treasurer’s lips moved in a murmur, and of course I couldn’t hear it all the way at the cliff wall. But it was one word and free to guess: ‘Yet.’

Besides Bariaeth⁠ ⁠—⁠ and beside Bariaeth⁠ ⁠—⁠ were the two dragons who also weren’t laughing. The faer might have quirked her lips, but her head was turned away, looking at the high secretary: and she, on the other foot, wore an expression that was more teeth and fangs than lips.

She growled, and she said, “Whoever you are, you’ve failed. Each and every one of you.” Her wings had flexed a bit, not quite spreading. “Whenever the thieves decide to do something more destructive than mere stealing, I loathe to see what becomes of this town.”

The faer was shaking her head, and touched a wing to her secretary; and that was enough for her to relax her face and fold her wings back at her side.

The faer’s was the calmest response I saw, besides Digrif’s confusion. Among the nicer reactions from the guards were half growled jeers along the lines of, “Spit off,” or “Don’t you belong in a tree somewhere?” or “What the ash are you doing here?”

The treasurer smiled. “With that said,” he opened, “one may note that some of us have failed you more than others. After all, how much can we do on flawed orders? Can we trust leaders who know scarcely more than we do?”

There were guards nodding, there was Adwyn frowning, but I only pouted. It wasn’t even subtle.

Meanwhile, the faer yawned.

When she was done, “Indeed we cannot,” she slowly said. “This is why I remain faer. I was notified of the thieves’ escape less than two rings ago. On my orders, the inquirers recovered another ape corpse and captured the remaining thief. Two inquirers did what one⁠ ⁠—⁠ two⁠ ⁠—⁠ three⁠ ⁠—⁠ four skeins of my guards could not. This is a disgrace.”

The faer’s look grew pointed. “Rhyfel​-​ychy, is this my guard?”

The scarlet dragon glanced up to meet what must have a desert of a gaze, and said, “Yes. But I reason you would’ve had an easier time hunting these louts when surprise ain’t on their side.” The words were careful, balanced to remove emphasis from any particular part of that sentence.

He added, “Adwyn’s reports said thieves. Scent it like we did. A dragon can’t fly carrying weight like a corpse⁠ ⁠—⁠ should we have expected just thieves to afford peak quality gliders?” He shook his head. “I know two alchemists in this whole town, both purportedly loyal⁠ ⁠—⁠ should we have expected alchemy?” Rhyfel the younger whipped out a wing. “This shot straight out of nowhere. No one saw this coming.”

“I can see it, but I am not content with failure.” Mlaen paused, then said, “As embarrassing as this episode was, and is, this endeavor remains recoverable. We have a single task that will allow us to call this a victory, which I shall entrust to the best among you. For the sake of yourselves and this town, succeed.”

---

“Mlaen is taking this far more seriously today. I wonder what changed.”

I glanced at the orange drake sitting across the playing card strewn boulder. “This is a matter of Frinan security,” I echoed, “isn’t it?” I clicked my tongue before adding in a different tone, “Last night it was just humans, now it’s dragons working against us, too. That changes a lot.”

Adwyn rolled his head. Maybe it was indifference, maybe it was me saying things he already knew⁠ ⁠—⁠ but he had asked.

“I know Mlaen,” the adviser said. “Even thieves of this caliber wouldn’t be enough to startle her; she would trust Rhyfel the younger to ground them. But summoning the inquirers? Deigning to give this speech? She is worried. I glimpse there’s something more to this, something she for now only suspects.” He licked his eyes. “But she has a certain intuition. We can assume there’s depth to it.”

I flicked my tongue. “Hinte thinks the Specters are behind this.”

“They very well may.” The military adviser looked at me. “We’ve had our fill of speculation, for what evidence we have. Now, we should act.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked. “What can I do?”

“You can go home,” Adwyn said without smirking. “I know you don’t want to be here, and I can tell you have no investment in what we are doing. You can go home.”

“But I do have investment! My friends are in this⁠ ⁠—⁠ they might get hurt.”

“Then you should find Hinte and ensure she does not get hurt,” he said. “Or gets anyone hurt. Explosively.” There was the smirk.

I rolled my head and gazed searching off toward the butte that Hinte had disappeared from. Beside me I heard wings unfurling, claws scraping gravel, and then Digrif speaking:

“What are you going to do, Sofrani?”

“Glimpse what I can of Mlaen’s suspicions, and whatever brings the treasurer here,” he replied. “And perhaps, a little scheming.”

I dropped my gaze to watch the military adviser take off and glide toward the ring of black​-​cloaked trumpeters, leaving me with Digrif and the guards some strides away.

“And then there were two,” I said to Digrif. “What are we supposed to do now? I feel a little useless.”

“Find Hinte, like Adwyn suggested?”

“She can take care of herself. I don’t know why she ran away, but she’ll come back when she’s ready, won’t she?” I looked away from Digrif. “Why don’t we find some way to help the guards? Show Adwyn that I am invested?”

“Well…” Digrif started. His tone reached and searched for something, and I glanced back at him. “What if Rhyfel is right?”

“About what?”

“Well, no one saw this coming.” Digrif scratched the ground. “Adwyn​-​sofran is a military adviser, and that makes him a strategist, right? And well, Ushra is like, the best, cleverest alchemist? They say he can bring the dead back to life. Well, together, they’re the smartest dragons in the cliffs. Or well, there’s Anterth’s scarlet snake⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I mean in Gwymr/Frina.”

The handsome gray drake shook his head. “What I’m saying is, they’re the smartest, and neither of them saw this coming. Adwyn​-​sofran thought it was just humans, and Ushra thought it was some other stronghold. It makes you wonder what we’re up against.”

“It was a surprise,” I said. “It’s not going to work twice.”

“Still, that bluish​-​green wiver was right. The guards failed⁠ ⁠—⁠ we failed. The thieves were right beside us and we still couldn’t stop them. Maybe we really don’t belong here.”

The warm​-​gray dragon kicked a rock, and between his sad frown and the sour tinge in the air, you’d think this all was some personal failure.

I brushed an alula over his shoulder. “Digrif, don’t blame yourself for this. I’m the one who failed, not you. You did everything you were supposed to.”

“We were both right there,” he said, nudging me away. “You flew after them, I just stood and gawked.”

“So did all the other dragons around us, even Gwynt and Adwyn. It doesn’t mean anything that I was the one looking right at them, wondering why they were so tense. It could have been any of us.”

A sudden drawl from behind me, some dragon saying, “So you’re the one who chased after those thieves?”

I spun around, and there was Jarce, running an alula over his twisted horns.

“Um, why do you ask?”

“Just been reasoning about things, after the faer’s little speech a ring ago.” He frowned, and said, “Tell me, what even is a human, anyways?”

“Well…” I scratched my cheek. “Do you have sloths down in the cliffs? …No? Well, they’re like uh, rats, except a lot bigger, without any hair.”

“That’s it?” the plain​-​dweller drake said, tossing his head. “And why in Dwylla’s name is the yawning faer spitting up this much fuss about hairless rats?” Jarce was glancing around, and as you followed his gaze, you saw Gwynt and Ceian leaning in. By them stood the cliff​-​dweller perfect over whose ashcloak a red sash sat clashing, Adwyn’s spy (who’d returned), and a plain​-​dweller wiver bigger than any other guard.

“Just riddle it,” Jarce was saying. “The sleeping faer for once deigns to flap outside her hall, riles up the bleeding inquirers, and gets everyone dripping about some critter no one’s ever heard of.” They pause for a breath cycle. “Just riddle it. What’s really going on?”

Digrif spoke up, voice a little flat. “But humans are real. There are stories about them. They say there used to be a town on the other side of Anterth, down in the valleys. Banti/Gorphon. Used to be. They fought with a bunch of humans and⁠ ⁠—⁠ lost.”

The big plain​-​dweller lifted her head, held it aloft. “This is Gwymr/Frina, hatch. You think some mighty town​-​destroying creatures going to be coming at us, through the fires, in the gray season? It don’t fledge sense.”

I clicked, saying, “Do you think something from the other side of Anterth is going to know what a gray season is?”

Jarce dismissively waved a wing. “All I’m saying is, this all smells funny.”

“And I was there when Hinte fought the humans in the first place!” I said to the fool. “I know how everything happened.”

The white​-​cloaked guard⁠ ⁠—⁠ the prefect⁠ ⁠—⁠ licked their eyes. Peering, they said, “Hrm. Aren’t you rather young to be sifting? Thought Mlaen didn’t let hatchlings into the lake anymore.”

“I am twenty​-​two gyras old!”

“You don’t look it.”

“At least I don’t look like the wrong side of a tortoise!”

I spun around again, huffing. When I caught Digrif’s eye, I asked, “You want to go find Hinte?”

And like that, we were striding away from the throng of guards, toward that butte.

---

I said, “I just don’t think the garters stand any chance at all. I mean, you name yourself after the most harmless snake, and do you expect anyone to take you seriously?”

“It’s just a name,” said the drake. “And, well, I think garter snakes are cute.” He rolled his head at me.

“They are cute. It’s just, a Dim​-​Fflamio team shouldn’t be cute, they should be fierce.”

I looked up. We’d walked a dozen strides or less from that edge of the market where all the guards were milling, but even that was enough to free up the light from clouds, and let it fall playfully across the gravelly emptiness.

Big buttes and cliffs like afterthoughts gave the land around here structure, but that was just more space for Hinte to go storm off into, or whatever it was. Digrif and I craned our heads all around, peering at the big rocky things. For maybe the fifth time a skink or monitor on the cliff darted about, and I jumped like I’d found something.

Despite the buttes, this place was lousy with trenches and edges. I peered over one, and a long​-​dead wildcat rotted down there. I held my tongue and walked on.

Digrif was leading the way. At least I could steal away in conversation with him, even if we were aimed at Hinte. What else was there? Trying to be invested, on my own, amongst the guards who glared and muttered at me?

“Hey,” came a voice, and there also came a poke. A wing patted my shoulder. “Cheer up. Everything’ll be fine right when we’re back with Hinte.” The handsome gray drake smiled, and dawn take me if there still wasn’t a shiver from that, slithering up from my tail.

I looked down and away, buried my gaze in one of the trenches around here, and stepped in some direction. Digrif followed after me.

“Don’t believe her act.” he added, late. “Hinte hates being alone. We all do.”

I tossed my head, but watched him from my sight’s edge. He just hitched his wings, and started away, leading again. I sighed. Digrif cared, but he wouldn’t push. No one would.

Then Digrif tripped off a trench edge, fell plop down the ground and you had to laugh. I slinked over and Digrif was fine and laughing too.

I jumped down after him, into a trench big enough to be a gully. I looked around⁠ ⁠—

“Ah!” I yelled and half​-​fell over.

Crouched and leaning against the trench wall, there was a scarlet cliff​-​dweller limply holding, in his forefoot, a long aluminum sword. Behind him lay a covered forms⁠ ⁠—⁠ one of the bodies being guarded⁠ ⁠—⁠ while beside the cliff​-​dweller the pink​-​scaled drake, his head craned up like a sunflower. On the other side of them, some gravel disturbed like footprints.

Already Digrif had found some kind of bow. “Rhyfel the younger​-​sofran!”

I hitched my wings and I glanced at the pink drake. “Ceian. You get around quickly.”

“It helps to be going somewhere.” He grinned like it was funny. At least now he wasn’t grinning like Rhyfel in a cheap mirror⁠ ⁠—⁠ but it probably wasn’t out of any newfound discretion.

Rhyfel stabbed the aluminum sword in the ground, and it only leant over a little bit. He nodded at us and said, “Yo Kinri, Digrif. Don’t think I got a chance to say good job with the thieves, but it was. Keep it up and you could be guard material.” Then his voice slipped low, and he muttered something.

Hopping up from his bow, Digrif said, “Thanks!”

I only flicked my tongue. “What was that you said?”

A little smile. “Ah, nothing. Saying we’ll need it, going by the scent of things with the humans.”

A gray​-​scaled head was tilted. “You don’t think Adwyn​-​sofran’s plan is going to work?”

“Nah, I don’t.” Rhyfel glanced between us. “And get yourselves out of the sun. It’s cool in the shade.”

A little closer to the high guard, he was saying to us, “Don’t get me twisted, I love the fella, he’s good, but he plays Skirm”⁠ ⁠—⁠ Rhyfel waved a wing⁠ ⁠—⁠ “where you take turns, follow rules, and⁠ ⁠—⁠ let’s face it⁠ ⁠—⁠ no one plays it as good in the cliffs.”

“I don’t know Skirm.”

“It’s just another war game. You play one, you played then all. Point is, Adwyn doesn’t expect much out of his obstacles⁠ ⁠—⁠ definitely not smarts. He fucked up with the thieves.”

“Did you expect any more of them?”

…Was I defending Adwyn? Maybe today’s would turn out as dense and strange as last night. It almost has.

A head turned⁠ ⁠—⁠ Ceian’s. He frowned at me.

Rhyfel licked a brille. “Adwyn called down the storm himself when decided to go shop in the middle of a mission. There’s confidence, and that’s too much of it.”

“I mean, he trusted your guard,” I said softly, looking away, and darting my tongue out. The pink drake now outright scowled at me.

“My guard was tricked and lied to.”

“Hey, maybe we shouldn’t argue,” said Digrif. “It’s all done, isn’t it?”

Ceian dropped his scowled and nodded at Digrif. “Yeah, let’s cullet the circling talk.”

I spat on the ground. “So. What were you two talking about?”

Ceian flicked a tongue toward Rhyfel. “Asking the big guy here about the past. Pretty slick history. You wouldn’t know.” He glanced at the warm​-​gray drake and back. “’So anyway, why does everyone calling you Rhyfel the younger like we’re about to forget? The elder’s pretty old and dead, ain’t he?”

“It’s kinda an odd thing to stress,” I added.

Rhyfel paused for a beat, a long beat, then spoke quiet. “It’s just about your name being synonymous with a traitor. Kinri, you’d know all about it, I reason. Nothing too deep to it.” He tossed his scarlet head. “Just have to distance yourself from it, be your own person.”

“And you still end up feeling like nothing’s changed at all.” I nodded at him.

Rhyfel gave me a real smile and looked close with those too​-​black eyes, saying, “Gwymr/Frina’s good for that.”

“Good for feeling that way, or good not feeling that way?”

He only laughed.

I growled, but tossed my head. “Of course none of you are going to be straightforward. It’s like Adwyn is contagious.” I pushed gravel for a breath cycle. “So. Adwyn was saying he has you at the table for whatever his schemes are.”

“ ’Course he does. I may look cliff​-​dweller⁠ ⁠—⁠ well, I am⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I’m Dyfnderi. Mostly cause old Rhyfel’s housename meant we weren’t exactly allowed in Gwymr/Frina with our heads still on. Treason’ll do that.” A savage grin. “Really, I was just tellin Ceian how Mlaen found and dragged me back to the cliffs. It’s a story.”

Before he could continue the first short ring chimed.

So Rhyfel took his sword out of the gravel, and said. “But it tastes like I have to go about now. See you at the gate.”

“Okay.” I looked down, at where his sword had been before my gaze drifted, caught what I’d missed, and I said, “Hey wait, there were three prints in the gravel here, who was⁠ ⁠—”

“I was wondering when you’d notice,” said a voice, jaggedly.

I heard the heavy fall onto gravel behind me, and I didn’t turn. “Guess that’s our search. Hi, Hinte.”

“I couldn’t hide from you, could I?” She stepped forward, and I chose to turn. She muttered something about being narrowly perceptive.

A very small smile sneaked onto my lips, and I replied, “You found me first.” I didn’t like how nostalgic I felt, and I blamed it on Rhyfel.

Digrif was watching with a more open smile, slinking over the black​-​cloaked wiver. Ceian over there was gawking at Hinte, some smile working onto his face.

“Are you here to apologize?” she asked us.

I met orange eyes. “Nope!”

She turned away at that. The wiver paused there, before she started walking away, toward that ramp​-​like path out of the gully. “Good,” she said.

It was a thought, untangling breath before I realized I could follow after her.

Digrif was stepping after her too, murmuring, “Hinte doesn’t make any sense.”

I glanced at the dark​-​green wiver, and then back at him. “I think she likes it that way.”

---

I didn’t really know where to put myself. Where to stand with Hinte had always came easy⁠ ⁠—⁠ maybe I trailed after her, maybe I’d bounce in step beside her⁠ ⁠—⁠ but now I had to think about it, and that was what awkward was.

So I walked beside Digrif. The warm​-​gray drake was trailing resistantly after her⁠ ⁠—⁠ right now he followed behind her, but he’d sidle forth as if warming up to something before it fizzled out.

After a few of these, I chose to walk up beside her myself. “Hey Hinte,” I started. Digrif wanted to apologize, but I… didn’t know. Was it my fault she hid away? “About earlier, um, you see…”

Hinte didn’t turn. Her strides grew quicker.

At least it wasn’t a long walk back to the alley. The clouds were still drawing in from the east, but it seemed a temporary thing, looking at the horizon.

A little bit of time passed.

“So Hinte, d’you hear faer’s speech?” The warm​-​gray drake finally found it in him to stay beside her.

“No. It was not worth my time.”

“Hinte! That’s disrespectful. It was the faer.”

“I mean, she’s kinda right?” I started. “It was for the guards mostly. It doesn’t really affect us.”

“Still, it could have been important.”

I shook my head, and told the wiver, “Mlaen mostly just yelled at the guards for losing the bodies.”

“Good,” said Hinte. “Someone needed to place the guard. They’re a mess.”

We walked on awhile, and then we were back at the lip of the market. You started seeing guards again.

“So. What were you doing with Rhyfel?”

“Talking. He is not as tongueless as he acts.”

“Well, of course,” Digrif said. “He’s the high guard! He’s the one who stands between Gwymr/Frina and lawless chaos.”

“You wouldn’t know by meeting him.”

“That’s just because he knows how to have fun instead being all serious all the time.” Digrif drew his wings close. “You two could learn from him.”

“…I’m fun,” I said, and the warm​-​gray drake smiled. With an alula he poked me, and I bounced a little.

Hinte was saying, “This is a mission. It is serious.”

Digrif didn’t smirk because Digrif doesn’t smirk⁠ ⁠—⁠ but it wasn’t simply a smile. “Well, I disagree⁠ ⁠—⁠ this isn’t a mission. We’re waiting for the real mission to start, the one the faer says’ll go the best among us. You two, probably.”

I laughed, enough that I had to pull a wing over my mouth and Hinte was peering at me.

“Regardless,” she started, “if not to apologize why did you two find me?”

I flicked my tongue, but it was Digrif who replied:

“Because we’re friends,” he said.

Hinte held the drake’s gaze for a while, before her line of a mouth grew very, intentionally flat, and she turned to step away.

“So,” I said, looking between the two of them. “Where are we going now?” I gazed to where the trumpeters had cleared out. “I say we find Adwyn.”

“No.” Hinte turned around to say this. Digrif watched, scratching his cheek.

“Why not?” I asked. “He said he was figuring out what’s up with Mlaen, and doing some scheming⁠ ⁠—⁠ we should find out.” But I saw Hinte was already shaking her head. “Is this about what he said earlier? Maybe he’ll apologize.”

“I don’t want apologies.”

Digrif stepped forward. “Well, how about this: Kinri can go find out what Adwyn’s up to, and Hinte can go back and see what Rhyfel had to leave for.”

“And you?” she asked.

“Well… I stayed with Kinri last time, maybe I can go with you this time?”

Please stay.

Hinte glanced at me first. She said, “Do what you want.”

“It’s only fair,” he said. “Is that alright with you, Kinri?”

“It’s⁠ ⁠—⁠ fine. Maybe he’ll tell me more without anyone else there. We’ve got some kinda alliance thing.”

Hinte still frowned at me. She breathed in, and it felt like a sigh as she softly said, “There are worse dragons to ally yourself with.”

“Like who? Bariaeth?”

“Him, or the Specters.”

“But…” I started, “we don’t know that my brother is up to anything bad. Maybe after I explain my alliance with Adwyn he’ll reconsider.”

“Do you even know what your brother wants?”

I looked up. “Maybe? He always⁠ ⁠—⁠ we always said we would change House Specter, fix it. That was when I was going to be Zenith⁠ ⁠—⁠ and I think that’s part of why he wants to help me back.”

Hinte was still. “And everything⁠ ⁠—⁠ everyone you leave here in Gwymr/Frina?”

“I⁠ ⁠—” I lowered my gaze from the sky. At Hinte, I continued, “Um, I didn’t really think of that part. I⁠ ⁠—⁠ don’t think of this stuff much.”

“Tongueless,” she said. Mouth flat, fangs a touch visible, she added, “Would Adwyn be any different? Think about whom you follow and why.”

Hinte stepped back, turned, then stopped. Looked at me. Said, “I told you I wouldn’t walk away again. May I go?”

“If not my brother, and not Adwyn, who am I supposed to follow?”

“Follow your tongue,” said the black​-​cloaked wiver.

I glanced at Digrif. “I just want to live a simple life,” I murmured.

A distant bird caw cut through the silence, and I finally said to the wiver, “I’ll be⁠ ⁠—⁠ fine. You two just go find out what the high guard is up to. He probably knows when we’re leaving.”

Hinte nodded at me, still peering too intensely out of those eyes that were orange and not black. Before she left, she spoke.

Her voice was faint like a zephyr:

---

Above, valiantly, the suns beat light on the clouds, and resulted nothing except igniting a little glow.

But the alley was the same in the sky​-​light, if darker. And it fit, with the dusk breathing down and with how vacant the area was. The guards for the final task must have been selected or something, because the ranks here had shrunk by at least two thirds.

I padded across gravel riddled with growths that were more roots than spouts, and I tended toward that cliff across from the alley to check among the guards.

With my stars, you already knew it wasn’t that simple.

Back at the cliff, most of those guards were still standing around like weeds that listened: Jarce, with the twisted horns, idly clawed the gravel and was grinning at the speaker; the big wiver beside plain​-​dweller smiled too, subtle, and leatn against the wall; Ceian, somehow already back over here, bounced on his feet, grinning almost savagely (I knew he hadn’t gotten over it); and the prefect was still here, tapping toes, frowning, and looking around as if waiting for the speaker to quiet.

That speaker was Gwynt, black tongue waving, and his wings moved in emphasis for his voice, which sounded half​-​comedic, half​-​storyteller, like someone in the cadences of a long joke.

“…And he said, the houses are falling!” Gwynt finished in a high​-​pitch. The other guards chuckled loosely.

I tended closer; Ceian scowled, but Gwynt smiled me over.

Wrinkling my snout, I said, “I don’t get it.”

“She says,” Jarce started, “having not heard half the⁠ ⁠—”

“Yeah,” Gwynt interrupted, “The high houses are pretty irrelevant these days. You wouldn’t have heard of them.” The interrupted drake only tossed his head.

Jarce was looking at Ceian, muttering, “Who’d have thought when you need daddy Dwylla and his coffers to keep your life together, you don’t know what to do when he’s gone?”

Gwynt chuckled at him. Glancing at me, he said, “Right after Dwylla alighted, everything seemed fine, but after some generations pulled by things got worser and worser for the high houses. There ain’t much left of them, these days. They say you can still find the last scions in bars wailing that the houses are falling!” He clicked.

The big wiver snapped out her wing. “It ain’t Dwylla’s fault, it’s Mlaen’s. Dwylla did right by this place. Mlaen meanwhile is selling this town part by parcel to the gray scales.”

Gwynt now. “Mlaen’s just trying⁠ ⁠—”

“Mlaen ain’t trying ash. Have you seen prices of anything these days? Have you seen what the sifters have to deal with just so their bosses can turn a smidge more profit? And don’t get me started on what they’re selling. I was in the market today and saw a mountain​-​dweller glass vase. Glass! Can you imagine the nerve they must have, to sell glass to us!”

Gwynt sighed. “Don’t mind this wiver here. She gets worked up on the slightest breeze.”

“I ought to get worked up! This is significant, and Cyfrin ac Dwylla will be so much better off once that red tyrant is off the throne. Bariaeth will lead so much better.”

“Uh, is that the old name of the town? I thought it was recognized as Gwymr/Frina.”

The wiver gave me a grin I didn’t like the taste of. “My voice must have slipped.”

“Nah, you just got too much to drink at the Dadafodd,” said Ceian. “Next thing we’ll see is you in a Dychwelfa gown, singing the glory of Dwylla, I’ll bet my toe.”

Gwynt nudged Ceian. “Don’t do that.”

I flicked my tongue, glancing around. “So uh, this might be a weird thing to ask, but… why was Dwylla so special? Dragons talk about him like he was a⁠ ⁠—⁠ deity.” I saw the prefect perk up, frill flaring, now listening.

“They say Dwylla had two eyes,” Gwynt started.

“I should hope,” replied the prefect.

“Yeah, but you see, one of these eyes was pure black, and the other was pure white. They say he can look right at you and see all of the good and evil in a dragon.”

“And not just that. He was⁠ ⁠—⁠ radiant. A plain​-​dweller, but with white scales!”

I said, “Like Bariaeth?”

“No no, not like Bariaeth. Dwylla had pure white scales, like the clouds⁠ ⁠—⁠ like a sun. He was something noble. The treasurer is a cheap replica.”

“He says he’s Dwylla’s scion.”

“Then the blood is dirty.”

Ceian muttered, “That ain’t the only part of him that’s dirty.” Jarce laughed him; Gwynt smiled.

“Anyway,” I started, shaking my head, “have any of you seen Adwyn?”

“You checked the alley? Saw him smirk his way over there with the treasurer himself.”

My frills flared, and I lowered my head. He laughed, but instead of mocking you found something inviting in the curl of his frills, something friendly.

“I’ll⁠ ⁠—⁠ go do that.”

He smiled me off. But before I turned in full, he added, “Oh, that’s it⁠ ⁠—⁠ I’ve seen you at the Makao, haven’t I? That inn on the north side?” I nodded. “Small town, ain’t it. Say, you up for some cards later today, after all this? I drop by there for some Wicked Licks most days, me and some friends.”

“That sounds⁠ ⁠—⁠ nice.”

---

The carillon rang again, the second short ring. When I glanced, I saw dragons marching away with the blockades; and the road was opened up again. Guards slinked away from the area in pairs or flew lonelily away. I saw Jarce leaving like that, and the big plain​-​dweller wiver.

The sky was big above me, and the crowd fading away felt like the emptiness reaching down.

In your frills hinted sounds like bird calls, faint winds or fainter voices, and footsteps.

Onto your tongue wafted smells like the lingering mess of bodies, food they might have snacked, and a nasty, fearful smell sticking around that was the bad echo of the farmer dragons the guards had captured⁠ ⁠—⁠ the thieves’ family, who might go to Wydrllos for their ignorance.

Then there was a smell of holly.

“Specter,” came that lilting voice.

I slowly rotated.

There, in shoes with holes for claws, in robes that clung tight to her body, with her legs crouched readily, and her tart fangs protruding from her frown, the secretary of Gwymr/Frina stood before me.

“You look like you might attack me,” said I.

“I am prepared. An enemy of Gwymr/Frina stands before me, and she wears a weapon. A fool would be calm and pleasant, dealing with you.”

“So Adwyn is a fool?”

“Yes.” Cynfe clouded her eyes. “This afternoon has evinced that.”

“Okay… You don’t like me. I already got the message. Why are you bothering me now?”

“We received Adwyn’s note. He was too indirect with you, and I will emend that,” the secretary said. “The adviser will not be harmed. The faer will not be harmed. The Specter will receive from you no further communication.”

A pause like between lightning and thunder.

“When you fail any of this, you will die. I have Mlaen’s permission. Your friends will be tried as accomplices. Your country will bare the weight of your breach of the Severance.”

Cynfe stopped there.

The words forced me still with fear. But there was a gap, that respite between agnizing some sudden doom and reacting to it. I chose to adjust my mask then, try to dew sweet, not spicy.

I said, “I didn’t think I was that scary.”

“You are a fool. It’s worse.”

Clouding my brilles, I said, “Are you leaving now? I can’t imagine you have anything important to do here. I do.”

Cynfe spat. It splashed on the ground and wet spots dotted the Specter cloak’s sleeves.

The blue​-​green wiver leapt, and she was gone.

As her shadow sped away from me, it was a squeaky gasp that left me. The dew on my fangs abruptly spiced. Beneath me, legs trembled weakly and I could have fallen over.

I looked around, but none watched me. One pair of the faint voices snapped loud and intense, as of an expanding flame. I saw the gleam of certain cream​-​white scales at the alley’s lip.

I tended closer.

“Why, Adwyn​-​gyfar, would you render such outlandish conclusions?” The treasurer laughed. “I suppose you must lay blame on the innocent when you gaze is so narrow as to miss those truly at fault.”

Adwyn was staring at the drake. “I don’t glimpse you above lying, Bariaeth.”

“I do not need to lie. Why, I don’t even need to convince you. Rather, you must convince Mlaen​-​ychy there is anything at all to your speculation⁠ ⁠—”

“I shall.”

“Allow me to finish. To try to convince Mlaen you’ll need evidence. Should you even be capable of sifting the truth, you’ll soon discover that I have no incentive to ally myself with them.”

“Again, these are mere words⁠ ⁠—⁠ by which I have nothing to judge except their sound. And it doesn’t help your case in the dimmest that you seem to know who lies at the top of this, and yet you keep occluded.”

“Of course. They pay their taxes. If they have secret smuggling deals with humans, and if they perform dark magic rituals to revive their dead prophet, well, whom am I to judge?”

I padded closer to the alley’s mouth. Bariaeth stood high in front of Adwyn, blocking his sight of me. Neither knew I was there.

Unless they bothered to flick.

Adwyn was saying, “Perhaps before that may’ve been defensible. Now, however, they’ve committed crimes and you must name them.”

Bariaeth’s clicking. “A small correction,” he said. “The thieves have committed crimes. If I had evidence sufficient to link the thieves to some other party, believe me I would name them⁠ ⁠—⁠ for there is quite the reward in revealing them. But until then, I won’t. It’s a matter of justice, you see.”

“Then tell me who this is, and we could work together to absolve or convict them.”

“I’m afraid I won’t, not until I have reason to believe you would be any help at all. If you can discover this other party on your own, perhaps then talk to me.”

“Or, maybe you’ll only want to work together when Adwyn might solve it on his own.”

Bariaeth snapped around. Adwyn looked over. I smirked.

“The Specter. I should have guess you’d be sulking around here.”

I tilted. “Did the faer not tell you⁠ ⁠—” I stopped. I continued, “that she wants me on this special mission? I was there when the humans attacked.”

Thank the stars. I was near shaken up enough to blurt my thoughts: Mlaen hadn’t told him of Adwyn’s note, hadn’t even revealed the details of the mission. My smirk wasn’t an act, now.

“Surely the squirrel would be enough.”

“Who?”

His nose wrinkled. “The alchemist’s spawn. I’ve been informed that the heroics of all last night are her work.”

“Hardly,” spoke the adviser. “Know that Hinte would not have escaped the lake without the quick thinking of Miss Kinri.” Adwyn stepped forward, now beside the cream​-​white drake. In his white frills was said, “I’d show my appreciation, were I you. An alchemist’s displeasure is dim for your health.

Bariaeth did not jump. But he stepped to the side, distanced Adwyn.

Adwyn waved his tongue at the drake, then looked away. He told me, “I must find Rhyfel and finalize everything for the trip. Follow me when you’ve had your fill of the treasurer.”

The orange drake slipped out and slinked away.

Bariaeth stepped after him, but paused before me. He peered at me, and I peered at him.

In the daylight, Bariaeth didn’t look that bad. He had a nice, long snout, the hornscales beneath it grew garden​-​like, while the horns behind his head had a cute length to them. Scales fair like a cloud​-​dweller, pink eyes plain but not bare, he didn’t look that bad.

What grounded it was his ugly scowl. It was a wraith’s scowl.

He spoke. “I scent that you’re warming for that orange​-​scale and his noble quest,” Bariaeth said. “What’s that drake been feeding you? Some dillershit about friendship and unity?” The cream​-​white drake shook his head. “You’re a Specter. You see through all that political riddling. He’s talking about money,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ he pinched alula and pinion⁠ ⁠—⁠ “they always are. What value does any foreign fat​-​belly taste in this pit of a town? Glass and metal. It’s all we’re good for, you’d think, when every fifth dragon you meet is some flavor of sifter.”

I tilted my head. I was turning toward Adwyn, but Bariaeth was high​-​walking toward me, so it didn’t read as dismissive as I meant it.

“Dyfnder never cared about us until our lake started gleaming. Remember that, little wiver. Adwyn might believe his gab⁠ ⁠—⁠ methinks he’s too smart to, but he might. You shouldn’t.”

“And I should believe yours?”

“It’s not mine. It’s common knowledge. They’re talking our hard​-​earned electrum and aluminum, out where none of us can even taste it. That’s theft, in spirit.”

“It’s trade.”

“Oh, you’re part of the problem. You may say you’re an exile, but we don’t reason for a second that you’re here by chance. I’m sure the Specters back home would like a pretty little trade patent with the mudlings, won’t they?”

“You would know. My sister was just telling me that I should work with you.” I looked up. “One of us is lucky I really am an exile, I just wish I knew which.”

---

It was near the outskirts of the cordoned off area, smelling like tortoises and crushed plants, when I heard, as chased after Adwyn, a plaintive jagged voice.

“Stone​-​shells are too heavy to walk on the lake,” she said, whisking a cloak​-​concealed wing at a red​-​shelled tortoise as wide as two dragons, with carapace textured rocky and scratched. The big boy was stepping his fat feet inside a fence or pen thingy that looked like it’d been tossed up breaths ago. I padded over from her side.

“Sure they are,” some plain​-​dweller handler replied, “but Rhyfel​-​sofran told us the human camp was in the cliffs on the other side of the lake, yeah?”

The black​-​clad wiver rolled her head and glared at the tortoises. That tortoise snorted at her.

The handler said, “You can just walk along the edges, can’t you?”

“It will be slow. More than slow the stone​-​shells.”

A drake approached from behind. “Have patience, Gronte​-​wyre~” Adwyn said, “time is hardly of the essence.”

“I am Hinte.”

A smirk. “Perhaps you should act like it.”

“I think,” I started, slinked toward the glaring pair, “that the thieves make it more urgent, don’t they?”

“I glimpse not,” he said. “The thieves got their little victory⁠ ⁠—⁠ they will be in hiding⁠ ⁠—⁠ for the next few days if they have any sense. And we’ve enough guards here they won’t try anything. We’ll be prepared.”

Hinte said, “And why is anyone still listening to you?”

Adwyn continued, looking at me. “Surviving the lake is more important⁠ ⁠—⁠ between the heat and the clouds, exerting ourselves by rushing over the lake is ill​-​advised. We need to carry supplies for all of us, and for that, tortoises.”

I looked at the munching turt behind that pen that probably did nothing. “And they’re cute.” I glanced to the dark​-​green wiver. “Right, Hinte?”

She was walking away from the adviser. I low​-​walked after her, and now I stood near where, under Hinte’s peering eyes, a warm​-​gray drake twiddled his halluxes.

“Hi, Digrif.”

“Hey,” he said without looking up. Looking over his shoulder, he wasn’t twiddling his halluxes, but entwining some snarled red roots. The roots are thick with twice the girth of my claw. Textured rough and flaky, the roots snapped under the gray dragon’s twiddling.

“What are those?” I asked. “Those, uh, dinder roots?”

“Yea. They grow pretty awfully in the soil here, though.” He pierced the root with a claw. The root writhed, lethargic and bloody. But the blood was white. He did this a few more times⁠ ⁠—⁠ but the response from the roots was never quick enough to stop him from opening bleeding gashes.

“See? They have no life to them⁠ ⁠—⁠ It’s like they’re diseased. And they’re supposed to be ten times this big!” He twisted the roots again, with strong, frustrated motions. He tied the roots into a sword and made to poke me with it; but the roots just drooped away from me. As did his frills.

“They are stunted,” Hinte said. The drake looked up, tilting his head. “What? The plants need a certain nature of soil to grow. When they do not have that, they growth stunt.”

“They growth stunt?” The black​-​clad wiver kicked a foot at me, but it didn’t connect. “Ow,” I said anyway, and I swiped at her.

“Their growth stunts.” Hinte looked at Digrif. “Do you know nothing of farming? This is simple.”

“Well, I was always more of a construction type. Whole family was, I think. I’d never grew anything before. But I missed the roots, sometimes, so I gave it a shot⁠ ⁠—⁠ how hard could it be, really…”

“I guess it is harder than you expect?” I asked.

I saw Hinte’s frills flinch before I heard the final click of fastened supplies. Rhyfel’s commanding growl came next:

“Time to leave, fledgelings.”

Hinte turned with me, but we waited for Digrif to stand. Together, we went over to where the guards spurred two stone​-​shelled tortoises to move. There were blanketed forms, three of them, that stunk, and a bunch of pycnofiber bag. Here was Adwyn beside Rhyfel, Gwynt beside Ceian, and the prefect frowning at⁠ ⁠—⁠ Cynfe?

The orange drake smiled at my look. “Our party has… grown, some.”

I glanced at the blue​-​green wiver. “Why is… she here?”

She gave a grin with teeth and fangs. “Oh, Mlaen wants there to be someone here whom she can trust not to disappoint.” She found it in her to close her mouth. “And, given the circumstance, someone whom she can trust at all.”

Cynfe’s black and gold robes had switched to something all black. When I peered closer, I saw thick gray nets covering her legs and wings.

I looked away. For the silence, I said, “And the rest of them?”

The scarlet perked his head. “My picks. We need good stock in the lake, and a prefect.”

At a wing signal from the high guard Gwynt came up and took our bags, and strapped them onto the turts. He and the prefect put themselves beside the ambling turts, spurring them to move till they had a good pace, and climbed atop. When the high guard and the adviser started moving, we followed after them.

“Ooh, can we ride the turts?”

Rhyfel said, “Nah. A big turt can carry maybe three dragons for a pace. There’s one too many of us.”

Hinte glanced at Digrif, then me, but didn’t say anything.

I held her gaze, though, and tried, “So Hinte, about earlier⁠ ⁠—” And like earlier, that was how about far I got before she turned and stepped away quick.

Digrif could only frown when I looked to him.

So we all padded on like that, turts in the lead, Ceian slinking after the high guard, and Hinte just in front of us.

I looked ahead, toward the Berwem gate. I’d never seen it in the daylight, and the sight slacked my tongue. The gate towered, a great bronze​-​rimmed granite shield. Three other gates like it guarded the town, scoria brick things that pinnacled the other outroads. Maybe they rose taller, or stood fatter; those were trade roads, after all. But the Berwem gate had a certain ancient durability to it. The frowning white face of Dwylla the eternal didn’t hurt.

We walked toward it. Hinte fell back to walk beside us in silence. Ahead, Ceian tended closer to the chatting pair, Adwyn and Rhyfel, and the high guard pushed him back. He sulked up onto a tortoise with Gwynt and road on like that.

When I looked back behind us, strides and strides away, a cloaked figure, hood up, followed behind. When the sunslight slipped under, scales were blue​-​green.

And so, we set out for the cliffs like that; the detours were all done, and soon this mission would be over.

Clouds were closing in like anticipation, and a fourth little ring was fading behind us.

Clouds drew in asudden and hid the suns, bearing down on the world. The ninth long ring came to a close like it was seeking us out in the cliffs, faintly.

Out here little skinks slithered along the cliff faces, hunting the last glider​-​scorpions and tentacle​-​snails before the gray season in full fell. The calls of the ax​-​crested pterosaurs filled the air, sounding reedy and warbly. I saw one swoop down all asudden and fly off with a dust turtle I hadn’t even seen, hiding behind a low fern.

“Poor little turt.”

“Pterosaus have to eat too.”

I looked around. Past the Berwem gate, all the guards had pulled ashcloaks over themselves, though they maneuvered the red sash onto the outside. We walked up that same ravine that wound us back into town last night, limned almost adventurous in the sky light.

The pink guard was slinking back beside the dark​-​green wiver, more subdued, but not so much as when talking under Rhyfel or Adwyn. “Hey, uh, Hinte, was it? Everyone called you Gronte​-​wyre, but I don’t think that was your name.”

The dark​-​green wiver glared at the guard. “Call me Hinte.” Then she said, “Why do you need my name?”

“To talk. My name’s Ceian, the youngest in the guard. But I’m going to be the best some day.”

“Okay.”

“And you’re my age, and already doing cool stuff, so I thought you might make a good friend.”

“Me? The creepy alchemist’s daughter?”

“Oh. I forget about that.” The pink guard frowned, brilles clouding. “Well, you didn’t do any weird alchemy stuff back there. So long as you don’t do any of that, you’re fine.”

Hinte turned away from the guard and high​-​walked on. The guard kept up, until Hinte scowled and said, “And just what is weird alchemy stuff?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it is alchemists do. Turn sneks into snails, make dragons blind, raise the dead, unnatural stuff like that.” His eyes flashed clear. “I heard alchemists have a potion that makes you shit out your soul. Is that true?”

“First, souls don’t exists, they are absurd. Second, half of that is magical or impossible. If you could turn animals into each other, it would be magic, not alchemy. You can make dragons blind, but I have only read of one mixture that wasn’t temporary. And it is costly.”

The fledgling alchemist looked around. She continued, “And⁠ ⁠—⁠ you cannot raise the dead. It’s not even worth trying.”

Ceian rolled his eye. “Magic, alchemy, what’s the difference?”

“Alchemy makes sense. The harder you try to understand magic, the madder you become. Alchemy is reliable. Magic is mercurial.”

“It’s all the same to me. They’re both unnatural.”

“Alchemy is perfectly natural. It’s magic that isn’t. An alchemical agent doesn’t do anything that wouldn’t happen on its own. Alchemy follows laws, the same laws as anything else. Every piece of magic is different.”

“Um,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ I brushed my wings along my cloak⁠ ⁠—⁠ “Specter cloaks are all the same.”

“And what are they made of?

“Medusa fibers. Hairs from these vicious jellyfish things.”

Hinte snapped her tongue. “And what do those creatures do? To hunt, that is?”

“They make these really blinding flashes of light.”

She padded on a few breaths. Then, she at last said, “Compare your cloak to my knife. They’re both magical, yet could they be farther removed from each other?”

“You have a⁠ ⁠—⁠ magic knife?” Ceian stepped to the side.

Hinte looked at me. “Had,” she said.

“Alright.” Ceian tended a slight closer. “So, what sorts of things do you like?”

Licked her brilles, Hinte said, “Alchemy. Seafood. Birds.” She paused. “Drakes who know when to spit off.”

“Cool. I’ve never had seafood. Birds are kinda—cute, I reason.” Times passed in footsteps. “So, what are you doing after this mission?”

“Reading.”

“What for?

“My studies.”

From ahead, someone called, “Ay Ceian, let me get your take on this, c’mere.” Rhyfel was glancing back.

The pink​-​scaled drake dash toward him.

“Good riddance,” Hinte said. I grinned at her. She only peered, and said, “What?”

“He likes you.”

She rolled her head, and only said, “You are hardly one to talk,” with a pointed glance at a warm​-​gray drake.

“Still,” I said. “He’s cute. Especially when he isn’t being a vent. You could do worse.”

“With whom? There is no crowd of tongueless drakes pining for the creepy alchemist’s daughter.”

“Do you even talk to any drakes, though? Besides Digrif.”

“I sit in Dadafodd sometimes,” she said. “It’s more than you’ve done.”

I stopped walking.

“Hinte…”

She stopped with me, watched for a bit. “Should I apologize?”

I licked my fangs. “I⁠ ⁠—⁠ you’re right. I don’t really go out much.”

Hinte started low​-​walking again, and I did too, while she overtook me, I sidled up beside the warm​-​gray drake.

“Digrif?”

“Huh?”

I forced my tail to hang still between my hindlegs. “I was just wondering. If tomorrow or some other day, you wanted to, um, fly down to the cliffs southern. They’re kinda pretty and there are cute pterodons and the clouds fly right overhead and uh…”

“Sure. Maybe overmorrow or so. I have job to handle tomorrow, don’t know how long.”

“Yay.” I look around. Hinte still low​-​walked ahead, clicking softly and several strides beside her Ceian had some smirk on his face. “Gah! I forgot you two were so close.”

“Don’t mind us, plan your date,” said the pink guard.

“It’s not⁠ ⁠—”

“Focus on the mission.”

I jumped again. Behind us padded the hooded wiver, who stared blank at me.

I high​-​walked till I was up beside Hinte, and had three dragons between the secretary and me.

We walked on like that, another wind coming down from further through the ravine. It was dirty with dust and vog, and, with that stench of sulfur and metal, it was clear, in my heart, where we were headed. I coiled my tail up.

We advanced toward the Berwem.

---

There was a weird smell as we walked, and at first I thought it might’ve been someone’s lunch.

With the turts’ bags sealed tight, you had to wonder where. I’d left my bags with the turts, and Digrif, padding on beside me, had too. Hinte, on the other side, had kept her bags, but having bought that roast I wouldn’t guess she brought lunch.

Looking down from the haughty cliffs, the stone​-​shells were big rank boulders in front of me, but they moved. Gwynt and the prefect perched up there, and I would have smelt this on the black​-​tongued guard before now. Was it the prefect?

Throwing my gaze further, there was Rhyfel the younger and Adwyn up front, and Cynfe nowhere to be seen, not even behind.

When the wind turned and the smell waned, I tossed my head and kept on. Must be ambient. But slowly, the scent crept up again, now turned almost toothsome. Flicking a tongue, whirling the forks, you could catch details⁠ ⁠—⁠ coppery, and like boiled meat⁠ ⁠—⁠ and fill in the details: glasscrab meat.

They served it at the Moyo​-​Makao, always to a lot of applause. All I knew about cooking it was how delicate it was, scooping out only the good meat, with the shell all shattered and crizzly; and how long it took to cook, with the skin taking to heat like dirt. Cooking it was a day and a night’s work, but you did it for the taste.

The smell wavered and waxed with our march forward, until more details resolved: underneath and beside it were the smells of blood and smoke and spice. It made me slow down, and when I looked I saw more and more tongues waving.

This wasn’t the smell of a wild glasscrab.

I wasn’t sure what could cook meat in the lake. A dragon, out camping in the lake? But you couldn’t enter the lake without a sifting license. Were they trespassing? Or maybe they came here with a friend who didn’t tell that entering the lake is trespassing, and illegal. Completely understandable, really.

Hinte would’ve taken a mess of a detour into the lake⁠ ⁠—⁠ through the cliffs and caves and badlands⁠ ⁠—⁠ and it couldn’t be an accident. She didn’t even flick when Adwyn revealed her crime. And she said she’d sifted for almost half a gyra⁠ ⁠—⁠ but did you get that good at siftings that quick? On your own?

Hinte was smart⁠ ⁠—⁠ smarter than me, maybe. Ushra was that legendary alchemist, Gronte was that artificer turned fugitive. And yet, I couldn’t swallow that answer.

Adwyn hissed from somewhere up front, “Does any else smell cooked meat?”

“I do,” I said, amid a chorus of agreement from about everyone. “Smells like cooked crab meat.”

“Well,” someone started, “there’s a few sifting parties out this ring. Maybe they got a snack.”

“Mlaen canceled sifting today, idiot.”

“She can do that?”

A sudden scraping sound snapped off the conversation. You looked up⁠ ⁠—⁠ and a boulder stabbed down until it became a rock explosion! The sound was earthy thunder. A scar was gouged, a crater of rock and glass tears, and some blood that might’ve been a wormrat.

I was over by the rock in a leap, with Digrif and the prefect.

“Get away from the rock!” someone yelled, and it was Rhyfel.

There came a certain patting sound from behind, like the rain after the monumental thunder.

I was turning confusedly around⁠ ⁠—⁠ and a brown ape charged right at us! Snarling like a wildcat, wrapped in rags striped with grime, and lunging as if pouncing forth, it came at us⁠ ⁠—⁠ and the thing wielded a wicked bronze spear, and it was only like a spear. Something deadly, something known.

The spear went for the gray drake. He dodged out of the way, out of my sight. Then came his scream and I looked and there was another ape, and ropes were smacking against the cliff wall.

The new ape twisted its spear, and it pulled it out and there was his blood, dripping.

The black​-​tongued dragon was standing up, the white​-​cloaked dragon was standing up, the scarlet drake was coming, the orange drake was coming. There were swords out now. Three.

The green wiver was beside the other ape, and punched it. The ape staggered with a yell. I saw it’d stood over a bleeding pink drake and I saw the spear now stabbed at the drake again. In the sunslight the bloody thing seemed to glint.

With a tackle, the cliff​-​dweller was here now. The ape hit the gravel now, growling, and like that the spear was finally just a thing, rolling pathetically on the ground.

Pained, terrible yelling behind me. There was turn, and I was looking at an ape just strides behind me, restrained by a thick gray net that glinted baleful. Sizzling black burns touched its brown skin under the nets.

I smelt the ozone of magical lightning.

On the other side of the ape a blue​-​green wiver stood, fangs bared and lit bright in the sunslight. She wasn’t looking at me.

“Th–thanks.”

The blue​-​green wiver leapt over me.

Behind me, one ape now had a sword, and behind it a black​-​tongued cliff​-​dweller writhed with a belly open like a book. The gray drake, bleeding from his breast, lay on the ground still, but he sometimes moved. Near the cliff wall, the orange drake pinned the first ape, forefeet wrapped around its neck.

The dark​-​green wiver had a knife that didn’t glow, and another ape stood between her and a scarlet drake wielding his sword.

The prefect dashed up to them, and the ape lashed out once. The prefect bled in a gash just under the neck. And fell to the ground screaming.

The dark​-​green wiver stepped toward it. The scarlet drake stepped toward it.

The ape was shouting, looking around, and its face was contorting as if crushed by something. And it was wet, and streams of water rolled down from its eyes. The shouts became howls, until the scarlet drake lunged and wrapped a claw around its neck, and there was silence.

Someone shouted, and it was the adviser:

“Another one! From where we came!”

We turned. A fourth ape was treading toward us. It was naked, not wearing rags like the other two, and it walked slowly, on the hindlegs. The forelegs were extended, and both of the forefeet splayed; nowhere on it was a weapon.

A memory came from someplace distant, Chwithach telling me that apes were intelligent, but not equal to dragons. Did it want to say something with this? Emphasizing that it meant no threat?

This ape dropped to its knee, and it yelled, an utterance that was just a long string of garbage sounds. Some might resemble syllables, if something was very wrong with your throat. It yelled again, similar yet different, almost more familiar⁠ ⁠—⁠ and then again. The last one was something like intelligible:

“I go of peace dragon.”

Rhyfel let ape in foot fall, and it didn’t move. He measured his way forward, frills adjusting, tongue flicking, until he was steps from the ape, sword held in a way that could be the ape’s death in less than a breath.

The high guard spoke, telling us, “I reason it means I come in peace, dragons.”

“An odd demonstration,” Adwyn said, backing off his ape, and standing where he could see all three of them.

Rhyfel scratched his cheek, and when he spoke again, he had an in an accented voice pitched very high. It wasn’t y Draig.

The ape shifted its face, and there might have been something to read there, if you could read it. It spoke again, and there were sounds common with Rhyfel’s utterance. Of course, the texture was a world’s difference, and you wouldn’t have called it the same language if you realized it was language.

Rhyfel glanced at Adwyn. “It’s another Ulfame. That keeps things simple. It says it’s spoken with dragons before⁠ ⁠—⁠ and it claims we had some deal, and that we have betrayed them.”

Adwyn nodded. “With the thieves, most likely.”

Hinte jabbed a wing at it. “Ask why it isn’t attacking like the others.”

Rhyfel spoke again. The ape replied.

“It says its comrades were only grieving the ape you killed, and lashing out because of it.”

A sudden start in front of Adwyn. Onto the moving ape, he dropped a foot, and held the forelegs in wing. The ape was restrained like that, as it squirmed and whirled its head around. It saw the ape knelt in front of Rhyfel’s sword, and then it saw, laying on the ground by him, the motionless ape.

“You kill they monsters,” it howled, and it made more incomprehensible sounds.

Looking at that wet​-​faced, howling ape, and at the ape knelt down and curled in on itself, they seemed so small. The haunting creepiness of their visage remained, but the weakness tempered it. Between Cynfe, Hinte, Rhyfel, and Adwyn, the apes couldn’t hurt me.

“Adwyn,” I murmured, slipping toward him. “Just to be sure⁠ ⁠—⁠ the faer hasn’t any secret alliances or trade or whatever with the apes, right? Just checking.” I spoke low, and exaggerated the growling, hissing and clicking of my speech, spoke fast, and in general made it harder for the apes to grasp.

“Of course not.” He whisked a wing, and peered at me. “You’re thinking these apes must have been assisting the thieves⁠ ⁠—⁠ or whomever the thieves work for?”

“Well, sort of. I’ve no idea why, though⁠ ⁠—”

“I see it clearly: the thieves work with the humans from the shadows, but they saw them as game pieces⁠ ⁠—⁠ so killing them off was always in their plan, a plan which you⁠ ⁠—⁠ which we played blindly into.”

“Oh.” I said with my frills drooping.

Then I grinned. “Well, why don’t we wreck those plans?”

“What are you suggesting, Kinri?”

We’d been speaking lowly⁠ ⁠—⁠ but everyone was looking at us.

I said, “Hey Rhyfel​-​sofran, interpret for me please?” The big scarlet dragon glanced at Adwyn, and the adviser nodded.

“You got it,” Rhyfel said.

“Human!” I said. Rhyfel turned it to a few words, with deliberate, exaggerated pauses between them. He didn’t speak as quick as the apes. I continued, “You have been manipulated! We are not the dragons you worked with. They left you here, here to die!”

Rhyfel translated, and stumbled over one or two things before the human interrupted, standing up, and shouting. It was translated, “He asks who killed their comrades?”

I paused, some wide look on my face. I prayed the stars the human couldn’t read dragon faces.

“Ah, you see… there was something of a misunderstanding,” Adwyn said as I was still thinking my response. “The first of your friends was killed by a rockwraith, correct?” As he translated, Rhyfel made a slithering motion with his foreleg, hissing and flicking his tongue energetically.

The human turned its head to the right.

“He says yeah.” But he didn’t say anything.

“We found it⁠ ⁠—⁠ him, first,” I said. “But when my friend went to investigate, your friends mistook her for a rockwraith.” Hinte moved in the corner of my eyes⁠ ⁠—⁠ it looked to just put her knife up.

The ape made a cryptic motion with its arms.

“He asks why you stole their bodies, then.”

“To bury them.” I blurted.

Rhyfel translated. And there was silence.

Adwyn was nodding at me, and smirking. “Indeed. We are not your enemies, human. The other dragons are. The dragons who truly stole two of your friend’s bodies. We need your help to discover those real betrayers, the manipulators, and you can avenge your fallen friends.”

Rhyfel translated, “He says they will consider our offer, alone. He wants us to release the others, and return the bodies.”

“Kinri,” Adwyn said.

“What?”

“Do you see them cooperating?” he asked, still restraining an ape.

“We have no choice.” Hinte answered for me. “The thieves have two bodies. They can undermine our plan, as it stands.”

“Yeah. The thieves have the other bodies⁠ ⁠—⁠ so long as they do, we share a common interest.” I looked up. “And we have no idea where these apes came from. It could be a search party already, for all we know.”

Meanwhile, Rhyfel said something to the ape, and it made a harsh sound.

Adwyn hummed at me. “Well reasoned. I glimpse hope for you yet.”

“Um, excuse me?” I said, my voice taking on some ariose pitch. “I am not in courts of sky because I don’t wish to be, not because I am unable, Gyfari.”

Did I just say that aloud?

“Feh. You fooled me.”

Rhyfel sheathed his sword, and the human did not attack. Adwyn released his human⁠ ⁠—⁠ and it didn’t attack. Cynfe was over here, suddenly, and removing the net. That human got up, so slowly, and staggered toward its conspecifics.

Rhyfel was at the tortoises, pulling off the blankets, carrying the corpses to the humans.

I watched with my feet dug into the ground as the humans hefted the three corpses and one (hopefully) unconscious.

They walked toward the Berwem.

---

There were still skinks twisting about. Smelly tentacle​-​snails crawled, and that might have been a lesser spider scuttling about. Anurognaths leapt from cliff faces, some eagle cawed very far away, and maybe the shadow of a dragon unawares drifted by.

The world didn’t stop, even as this final mission had. We picked up pieces, silently.

You knew things had gone awfully wrong when it was up to me to do heavy lifting.

I strained. Poor frail Digrif blurbled on the cusp of⁠ ⁠—⁠ death, yet somehow smiling, like the witness to a secret. He murmured something about heroes.

My forelegs clasped the black cloak threaded with blue and pink cloak, its green​-​scaled owner on the other side, and between us we lifted Digrif. Nearby, Gwynt, the prefect, and Ceian were also carried, uplifted by everyone’s cloak save my own. It was how we got the bodies up against the cliff wall, where we knew the vulture​-​bats wouldn’t try their stars.

You heard the fourth short ring trill in the distance.

The injured dragons lay against the wall, bleeding into the open. The guards brought no bandages.

On either side of me, were the uninjured or comparatively uninjured. Adwyn, the military adviser; Rhyfel, the high guard; Cynfe, the faer’s high secretary; Kinri, the dead weight; and Hinte, the alchemist.

We all looked to Hinte.

Adwyn spoke first: “Have you looked at all the injuries?”

“Yes.” She contracted her frills. “They will die before a flyer finds anyone. Perhaps they are already dead. Humans have poisons.”

Rhyfel took a step that could’ve started a lunge. He said, “Then what are you waiting for? I know you have potions.”

“Consent.” She hadn’t flinched. “Ask them if I may apply my alchemical mixtures to possibly alleviate or regenerate their wounds.”

The scarlet drake stared fire at her.

Meanwhile, the orange drake and the blue​-​green wiver were slinking over⁠ ⁠—⁠ to the prefect and Gwynt.

I paused, then found myself at the side of the warm​-​gray drake with a hole in his breast.

The heavy foot falls came⁠ ⁠—⁠ the high guard’s⁠ ⁠—⁠ and then Ceian’s voice.

“Hey Digrif,” I said.

He gibbered something. In there, somewhere, were the syllables of my name.

“This is important, so just nod okay? Hinte wants to heal you up with alchemy.”

Digrif’s head lolled.

Elsewhere, Rhyfel’s voice came, his tone like low yelling. Farther was Gwynt’s voice, firm and strained, and the prefect, some desperate pleading.

I poked the frail warm​-​gray drake. “C’mon. Heroes don’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ go out like this. You saved me⁠ ⁠—⁠ us. C’mon.”

A laugh, hissing. More gibberish⁠ ⁠—⁠ then something like a nod.

“Yes!” I lunged, and hugged Digrif, and got blood on my cloak.

I dashed back to Hinte and told her. She was already tending to the prefect, and the little gash under his neck. The thin cliff​-​dweller, naked without robes, wailed under the application of die Wundervernarbung.

Behind us, Rhyfel was still speaking, in that restrained yell, but Ceian’s voice rose to it, cutting in.

Soon the scarlet drake padded up behind while I twiddled halluxes, and watched Digrif slowly writhe.

“Ceian consents,” said the high guard. “Heal him.”

“He does not. I have frills.”

“I said heal him.”

“No.”

“Gronte​-​wyre⁠ ⁠—”

“Hinte. I am Hinte. Scion of Gären, heir of Ushra. I am not yours. You cannot order me.”

Rhyfel stood there, frills twisting slow. He drained of expression in breaths, as if building the sigh he expelled. “Ushra’s reputation has twisted you. Like an overgrown vine. Or a cancer.”

Hinte laughed.

As the drake walked away, she was whispering, “As I said, he isn’t as tongueless as he acts. As angry, as afraid as he is, and he doesn’t light to making threats. Even Adwyn does not manage that. Even Cynfe.”

Hinte stood up from the prefect. “I may not be acceptable as a guard now. And yet he does not brandish that.”

As we strode back toward Digrif, an orange drake stood a distance from the injured. Hinte glanced.

“Gwynt has declined your offer.” The adviser had a face weighed by sadness at wing’s length. He nodded once, and Hinte nodded back.

“Why? Do they think they can heal without Hinte’s help?”

“They don’t trust alchemy. It’s not right, it’s not natural. They’ll pray their bodies or the spirits might heal them.”

I shook my head, and we stepped away.

Hinte worked on Digrif, wiping die Wundervernarbung on his breast. Time passed.

Digrif had drifted off to sleep, and I’d watched Hinte apply die kleine Heylpflanze to Adwyn. Rhyfel refused. When Hinte went to check on Gwynt or Ceian, they wouldn’t allow her to apply anything at all, even bandages. Adwyn stitched up the cliff​-​dweller’s split​-​open stomach, and Rhyfel tied his cloak around Ceian’s chest riddled with spear holes.

I now stood away from the wall, watching Digrif lying there, healing. But my eyes tended back toward Gwynt or even Ceian. How they’d manage without alchemical support. Why they’d try such a thing.

Adwyn was beside me. He said, “I understand if you don’t wish to watch this. Cynfe has leapt away. You may too, I will find you when⁠ ⁠—⁠ it is all done.”

I looked at the adviser. His fangs weren’t out, and I kept mine in too.

I crouched and leapt, leaving two dragons healing by alchemy and two dragons whose fate was left to the endless stars.

---

The tenth long ring came in the quiet. A chime, yet it seemed a knell.

---

I sat on a cliff and watched skylands float by. Lying on my back, frills full and eyes gazing sighingly at the sky, I couldn’t have missed the thudding footsteps drawing toward me.

“Who’s there?”

Instead of responding the tall cliff​-​dweller drake stood above me, face carved in deepest solemnity. I watched him, he watch me.

Rhyfel the younger finally said, “Gwynt is dead. Ceian is dead. I hope your peace with the apes is worth it.”

When I rolled over and stood, the high guard was padding his way down from my cliff.

I upturned my head and stared uncomprehending at the starless blue sky.

---

I stood on a cliff and watched suns drift by. Orbited by a harsh silence, I didn’t miss the scraping footsteps drawing toward me.

I didn’t mistake the grape smell, and as Hinte stood there beside me, I might have heard for the first time the silence that wreathed her.

Then she spoke. “Do not listen to what Rhyfel said, and don’t bother mourning the dregs. Their deaths are meaningless.”

“…Why?”

Hinte pressed a wing out of her cloak. In it was a pink phial.

“A mixture? I don’t get it.”

“Die Wundervernarbung. Enough to have healed them both. They refused. They died.”

“But… why?”

“This town loathes alchemy. Instead of taking the cure, they prayed to their false gods, their Dwylla, to save them.” Hinte waved a wing toward the four solemn dragons below. “This is the extent of his capability.”

I could only look up.

Breaths passed, and it might’ve been profane, but I tried a last time to say, “So Hinte, about earlier, I⁠ ⁠—⁠ I am sorry. Even if you don’t want apologies, I still shouldn’t…” But Hinte wasn’t there⁠ ⁠—⁠ she’d left before I opened my mouth.

---

I lighted down by the six dragons, Hinte not among them. The prefect nodded at me. Digrif dashed over and hugged me.

Adwyn was stately walking behind him. “You did good work today, Kinri. Mlaen and I shall deliberate some compensation for the three of you.”

I saw Digrif smile a little, and I only frowned. “Where is Hinte?”

“I couldn’t find her. The mission is over. I glimpse she saw no reason to remain.”

I tilted. “Won’t we have to debrief again?”

“Yes. But… I must understand if you need some time to reel from the events of today. Death is…” He didn’t finish. Instead, he looked between us, and said, “And you two look as though this is your first.”

Digrif nodded slowly.

“The first I’ve seen,” I said.

The adviser turned and waved a wing. The three other dragons started walking, and like that, we were walking toward town.

“So, Kinri. I don’t imagine you’ll join me back in town hall, will you? There are mattered I’d like to discuss,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ his voice dropped⁠ ⁠—⁠ “the treasurer, the Specters, the thieves. Turning us to the same page.”

I looked up. “Well… no. I should find Hinte. See what’s up with her.”

Adwyn walked quiet for a breath cycle. “I see. Here,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ he winged a gasmask from a bag⁠ ⁠—⁠ “take this.”

“You’re giving it back?”

“I wouldn’t want to be in your debt, is all.” He nodded, and slowed his pace till he was beside Rhyfel, and began a chat.

Left with the warm​-​gray drake, I turned to him. “Hi. So, uh, are you coming with me?”

“I, well, don’t think I should. A dragon with three wings doesn’t fly, and it⁠ ⁠—⁠ I guess it feels like you’re closer to Hinte than me.” He tilted his wings starlessly.

I looked up. “I suppose I am, yeah.”

As my wings and the thermals took me high above the cliffs, my thoughts orbiting those words. I thought about why, remembering.

---

It was my very first day inside the walls of Gwymr/Frina. Everyone stared, everyone peered. Whispers and mutters stalked me.

And there were some, cloaked dragons, who stared, glared more than others.

I had known there weren’t many sky​-​dwellers on the surface, but I never expected this. Days stretched by, and it dug into my nerves. I was out to buy food, and the digging struck something. I’d turned down an alleyway⁠ ⁠—⁠ I just wanted to escape the stares. The alley was a dead end.

And when I glanced behind me, I wasn’t alone. Three figures all trailed behind me. I might have said they sneered if they weren’t wearing deep green cloaks that hid their faces⁠ ⁠—⁠ and under those fringed cowls, masks. I couldn’t see a scale of their bodies, and their brilles didn’t count.

I’d worn my Specter cloak that day⁠ ⁠—⁠ of course I did⁠ ⁠—⁠ and there wasn’t a pair of eyes in that alleyway on anything else.

“Specter,” one of them said. It wasn’t the one in front, but that was all I could tell.

They stepped closer, closer, closer. What were they going to do?

What could I have done? If I turned and leapt away, they could catch me. If I climbed the walls, they could catch me. If I walked past them… I wouldn’t walk past them. I trusted the stars, but I didn’t trust my body. And if there were three dragons walking up to me with that kind of curdling confidence, I wouldn’t’ve tried my body against their if my inheritance was on the stakes.

“Help?” I called out. It was so low I don’t know what use it was.

I trusted the stars, and maybe they were the only one who needed to hear me.

Just then, a fourth cloaked, hooded figured walked by the alleyway. Unlike these three, this cloak was black, woven in with sparse threads of pink and blue.

They turned and strode forward and just⁠ ⁠—⁠ passed between a break in the formation of the first three cloaked. It seemed like they were on another plane of being. The oppressive approach of the three cloaks had been a physical wall.

And they just walked through the wall.

A jagged voice came from under the hood. “Kinri,” it said.

“Who are you?” I breathed. I’d clawed for my composure, and found it too late to matter.

“My name is Hinte, granddaughter of Gronte.” Their frills folded under their cowl. “Ushra has invited you to dinner. I’m sure these dregs will not even try to bother you.” She turned so that her gaze fell over each cloaked figure. Two of them flinched, but one only made a sneering sound.

“You would dare⁠ ⁠—”

“Come on, Kinri.”

Hinte stepped forward, but turned to watch me step past the cloaks. If the stresses she’d put on the names hadn’t been obvious, the reactions gave it away. Ushra was someone who mattered, even if I’d never heard the name. And somehow, they, along with this Hinte, were on my side already.

Did they know Ashaine?

I looked at Hinte and gave her my first smile since stepping into Gwymr/Frina. I stepped after her and the cloaked dragons couldn’t touch me.

It turned out neither Ushra nor Gronte had been home, and I just ate lunch out on a tall butte with her.

It was a good memory. And, more than that, it was a debt and a justification⁠ ⁠—⁠ why I had stuck with Hinte for so long. She had been there for me, in a way no one else had.

And, cringingly, I remembered what had happened next, as we walked and then flew away. I had wanted to convince her that saving me wasn’t a mistake, that I was worth it. I had tried, tried, tried to start a conversation, to relate.

“Hi!” “How are you?” “So why do you have those pink and blue threads in your cloak?” “What brought you to the cliffs?” “Do forest​-​dwellers really eat other dragons?” “Um, nice weather we’re having?” “Can you speak at all?” “You have pretty eyes.” “Am I doing something wrong?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

She hadn’t responded. And now, all these cycles later, I agnized: that was the answer. I was doing silence wrong.

Forest​-​dwellers were so obsessed with silence. Their poetry sung of it, as frilly as the sounds, and their stories dwelt on it. I didn’t get it. Or hadn’t. I’d tried asking Hinte about it, but she just ignored the question, and I couldn’t tell if that was significant or just Hinte being Hinte.

And now, gliding down from high above the town, aiming for that same butte where it all began, I saw a familiar lantern, and a cloaked figure with her hood down. Strides away, on either side, there were two tiny trees, aflame. They burnt dwindlingly in the dusking light.

I lighted by her atop that butte, and just stared at the horizon. Oleuni tested out the horizon, and, discovering that the sky there was fine, led Enyswm down to shine above the rest of the word. Puffy clouds and distant sky cities trawled the far reaches of the sky, the light of first dusk revealing hidden natures of their forms.

Most of the butte was hers before I arrived; besides the lantern, and burning trees, two scrolls spread out around her weighed down by stones. Even then, the wind meddled with the page. (Better than still, dead air.)

A lunch lay half​-​eaten beside the dark​-​green wiver, but she had covered it when I climbed up and hadn’t touched it since, for me.

Hinte rolled up a scroll and set it down by the other two. I sat where it had been, and hung my legs from the edge of the butte with her. Her eyes cast her gaze off to the horizon, joining mine at the sunset.

We sat like that, in silence. Hinte’s breath came in half​-​heard draughts out of step with mine. Her grape scent lingered and overshadowed the mellow contentment dewing on her fangs.

The sky darkened asudden with the last ray of Enyswm finding its mark. I licked my eyes, letting my gaze fall from the horizon. It fell on Hinte at the same time she glanced at me, in the full dusk light. Our eyes met and stayed like that awhile.

I smiled.

She returned it.

My gaze fell to the ground at last, as if for so long resisting gravity. I bought my forefeet together and drew my wings over me.

Maybe this is what she wanted. To just sit and enjoy silence with a friend.

So like that we sat, and watched the light slink away under the horizon. Above, the endless stars revealed themselves, as if rousing from some great sleep.

The drake felt death breathing down his neck. He laughed.

“I cannot imagine killing me will end well for you⁠ ⁠—⁠ or accomplish your goals, for that matter,” he said, peering down at nothing. He smelt the holly.

“One day I’ll find the will, you know.”

“What has it been? Ten, fifteen gyras?” He fluttered his tongue. “I don’t glimpse you doing this out of any lingering hate.”

Something sharp slid into a sheath. “I still don’t like you.”

A smile she couldn’t see. “Understandable. But as long as you do this, I can’t help but still see the knee high little moltling who couldn’t hold a knife steady, or even pronounce ‘kill’ correctly.” Quietly, he knew she wouldn’t do it, knew she wasn’t like him. Not Mlaen’s little flower.

She said, “I’ve come a long way.”

“You have. And some things never change.”

The larger wiver moved, and the smaller drake turned round.

“Quite the day we’ve had, Cynfe.” Adwyn found his usual smirk.

The bluegreen wiver tossed her head and slinked past him, down the twisting ramp. That ramp saw one into the town hall’s interstitial lobby. One could only move forward through it: up the left corridor one followed the smell of pyrite and electrum; down the middle a ramp lead to the officialities of Mlaen’s throne room, and on the right corridor there lingered the dust from feet of all the foreign advisers. Adwyn’s too.

The high secretary started into the lobby, and the military adviser came at her heels. She still wore the scaleconcealing cloak from earlier, and he still wore his schizon armor.

Scrolls rested here on shelves. Many were clawed in foreign tongues, in foreign scripts, and some were made illegible by time; no one had noticed. Some of the rugs or banners here were woven of a curiously fine silk; no one could place it. Paintings touched all the walls, tempting the gaze of all who came down here. They all had the same name clawed in the corners; no one had complimented her.

She didn’t even glance at the paintings as she high​-​walked past; but with the frustration working through her frills, it could just be other things drawing her mind.

“A day spent cleaning up your messes,” the secretary replied at last. “I have a stack full of untranscribed reports lingering because of this moil. Every day I wonder why Sofrani bothers keep you around.”

Who else was there? Instead of saying it, the adviser overtook the secretary, aiming toward the dusty corridor, toward his office.

His orange tail waved her to follow, or dismissed her. “I haven’t drafted my report either. It’s the last remaining task, today.”

“Knowing you, there’s still some way you’ll find to mess it up.”

Adwyn popped his tongue. “I wouldn’t look past the fact that we’ve uncovered no less than three traitors because of my detour, and I alone persuaded one of them to our side. A potential alliance with those humans, three guards revealed to be ineffective, and—”

“You can stop bragging,” said the secretary, trailing beside him. “Unless you’ll also own up to the unprecedented mess you created, blocking all movement out of the market, and the three dead guards.”

“Trivialities,” he replied. “My success speaks for itself.”

Wordless, the bluegreen wiver followed him to the mouth of the dusty corridor.

“…How lucky, that you didn’t know them,” she said. “That you can call them trivialities.”

Adwyn whisked out a wing, and trailed it along the wall. “Rhyfel’s spent enough time entertaining the pink drake. There isn’t all that much to him, in the depths,” he said. “Wasn’t, rather.”

“Have you ever lost anyone, Adwyn?”

A question which merited no answer⁠ ⁠—⁠ a question he did not answer.

The wiver had her frills fluttering smugly as though he had, though.

With a tossed head he looked down the hall. Their leisurely pace would bring them to his office after another quick exchange. The orange drake glanced at the wiver.

He asked, “What is your opinion of Kinri?”

The high secretary flicked her tongue. “Who?”

“The exile, the sky​-​dweller.” The embarrassing puzzle of a wiver.

The tongue disappeared, but no other reaction came across her bluegreen face. “She’s useless.”

“It would seem that way, wouldn’t it?” She would like it to seem that way.

The secretary peered. “I know that look. You’re thinking the precise opposite of what you’re saying.”

“You cloud me. I mean exactly what I say. There are, perhaps, elements I have omitted.”

There was only a hisslaugh, and her saying, “Transparent.”

“Is that a bad thing? After all, they say a cliff drake should be like glass: cool and trans—”

“Cool, and transparent, and brilliant. I know the saying. I’ve lived here longer than you.”

They slipped into the corridor. The light came dimmer here, and now the murmur of phatic conversation was rearing up in their frills.

“Irregardless,” the military adviser started, “it’s an odd thing to maintain, when Kinri did matter in the resolution of today’s⁠ ⁠—⁠ incident.”

A hum. “No surprise you’d be one to appreciate spineless diplomacy. We had those apes at their throats.”

“If not for peace, appreciate that this will leave us glimpsing the face of whatever conspiracy festers in Gwymr/Frina.”

“We already have a thief captured.”

“A thief who only admits to getting orders from some blighter claiming to be the shadow of the night.” Who could trust that testimony?

“Give them time. The inquirers know how to get confessions.”

So they walked wordlessly on till Adwyn turned the doorway to the office of the Dyfnderi advisers, where a light orange wiver had another, darker orange drake up against the wall, snouts pressed together.

He turned back around, and they continued walking.

“What about Hinte?” Adwyn asked.

The secretary found a smile. “Her. She’s cute. I do wonder what’ll come of her as an adult.”

Adwyn hummed without response. He said, “She worries me. One of the suspects was found by her admission. And emotionally⁠ ⁠—⁠ she’s cryptic.”

“She’s lonely. You would be too, if your only friend was that Specter.”

“There is the halfbreed, Digrif. She seems to tolerate him.”

“Oh? Good for her.” The secretary licked her brilles and smiled a different sort of smile. She was adding, “Gyras ago, Gronte was telling me how melancholy the wiver was.” Her voice dropped to a murmur. “I didn’t have the time to spend with her, then, and… that still hasn’t changed,” she said. It had the whispered quality of a confession, and the wiver was watching the rocky floor shift as she walked.

Adwyn’s low walk gained some stiffness. At length he said, “You keep Gwymr/Frina running. Don’t think you weren’t serving her anyway.”

Cynfe threw out a foot and shoved the orange drake to the side. His wing folded against the wall. She said, “I didn’t ask for your glassblown words. I can manage myself. I’d rather.”

The adviser always walked with a baton, strapped to a foreleg. Now a wing brushed the hilt. Lingered for just a moment. Adwyn, the black ascendant, had sworn a vow of pacifism; he reminded himself. Violence wasn’t proscribed; but it was discouraged.

They continued walking like that, strides more distance between them.

This corridor didn’t end. As it wound along, it curved. By now, the pair had looped around and were walked up the other hallway.

“What was the point of dragging me along?” asked Cynfe.

You chose to follow me. He didn’t say it. He licked a brille, tongue nimbly curving around his eyepaint. He chose to say, “A nice walk and talk with a friend?”

“I recall more of your sifting for opinions than proper talk.”

He nodded some acquiescence. “Fair enough. But the pair is becoming a quantity of interest. Surely it’s worthwhile that we read each other’s pages on the matter?”

They padded back into the lobby like this. Without answering, Cynfe strode over to the mouth of the ramp downward.

There was no bridge. She simply informed him, “Mlaen​-​sofran is expecting you.”

He clouded his brilles, thought of the pair of Dyfnderi advisers, frowned at the unwritten report that would for now remain so, and said, “I suppose I’ll see her now.”

She let the drake follow her down the ramp to Mlaen’s officialities. Under her breath, she muttered, “I still don’t like you.”

---

“You fucked up, Adwyn.”

It wasn’t the throne room, but standing on her dillerskin rest, wearing those vermilliondyed robes, staring down at the orange drake with her eyes strangely intense, that seemed a detail.

The red wiver had moiled in the dim of a single lamp, and now Cynfe darted around to light a few others. The reality that was limned in full light contrasted without contradicting: the faer’s posture hung taut and rigid, as if she were wrung up; her makeup had been washed away yet an acidic smell hung around; the two lamps were shining behind her, and the swelling shadows under her eyes weren’t just the lighting.

This was the faer of Gwymr/Frina. Perhaps the one truly exceptional player on their side of the board, barring Adwyn himself. With Bariaeth being… difficult⁠ ⁠—⁠ crytic behind his beatific smile⁠ ⁠—⁠ the faer stood the last remaining beacon for reaching the mystery at the depth of this mess.

And he had disappointed her.

Adwyn watched the red wiver settle back on her dark, dillerskin rest and watched her gesture for him to sit himself on a rough pycnofiber mat laying small before her desk. “I know,” he said.

The secretary stood herself at the faer’s right side, inkwell and fernpaper in wing, her scowl turned blank and receptive. Idly she was brushing her robes.

As ever, Mlaen​-​sofran watched. Contemplative, analyzing, regarding, peering, looking: all of these, but there was something more, something hidden. As ever, her brilles remained clouded.

Beneath her eyes a snout extended until its sharp end, where red lipscales wavered between an almost smile and an almost frown. A wing scratched her cheek; she yawned. Then at last, she looked down.

The slab of Mlaen’s desk was just stone. Papers swarmed over its face. None ever survived the night, yet they would return like weeds. A scratchy leaf of fernpaper laid center on the desk. It was Rhyfel’s report; Adwyn could read upside down.

He found himself looking back toward her face instead, though. While her brilles still looked cloudy, he could find the outline of her pupils scanning the page. He could watch the muscles around them shift and tighten, the slow sweeps as she took in the guard’s sketches, the saccades over text, and the instants where they were still.

“You should sleep, Sofrani,” he said.

Mlaen’s voice was drenched. “There’s still work to do.” She looked back at him. The faer didn’t quite have normal expressions anymore. Every emotion that played across her features was an inflection of the tiredness that leeched at every scale.

She folded up Rhyfel’s report, pushed it off to the side, and peered. “You’re never caught unawares, Adwyn. How much did you know?”

“Little enough to be, in fact, caught unawares.” Adwyn licked an eyescale. “This morning Ushra suspected the conspiracy of another stronghold. I found it ridiculous. Yet as I thought further on it, things blent together. The behavior of the humans. The presence of Wrang and Mawla in the Berwem. Ffrom’s insistence on collecting the bodies from Hinte.”

She said, “They were hints, yes. I found suspicion in them as well.”

He waved a folded wing. “Suspicious, yes, but even the scarlet snake couldn’t wring a deduction out of that. It only piqued. So I inquired the Sgrôli ac Neidr just whether any dragon had checked out any relevant scrolls, or otherwise shone interest in humans.”

He waited for the scribe to stop scratching, and smirked. “Guess who? Wrang. Circumstantial evidence, of course. This was cycles ago.” He licked a brille. “But you did suppose the humans could have been trespassing long before now, didn’t you?”

“More than a supposition. I knew.” She’d spoken, and kept watching.

The adviser’s brilles flashed clear. He waited for an elaboration, received none, and at length continued, “…Irregardless, after that I had scried further clues. I followed Hinte and sundry as they walked toward the lake, and they mentioned a certain inquisitive drake waiting for Kinri at the library. Blend this with the thieves anticipating our plans, and the conclusion gleams: the leak occurred at the Gären estate.”

The secretary scratched all this out onto the fernpaper, but spoke up when still: “Not necessarily.”

Adwyn whisked a wing. “Nothing is necessarily. Focus on the shape of things,” he said.

“We can go over the shape of things later,” the faer said with a tonguesnap. “Right now, tell me your conclusions. I do not need to step through every breath of your reasoning.”

“I suspect the Dychwelfa ac Dwylla.”

“The Return of Dwylla.” Her inflection could have been disbelief, or something about as skeptical.

Adwyn echoed an old explanation when he spoke. “It’s religion that worships Dwylla as a god or prophet, and waits his returning some day.”

“Yes, yes, of course. I know of all that happens in my town, Ychyr.”

Adwyn flicked his tongue, held it still a moment. “It sounded like a question.”

He wondered if Mlaen’s brilles clouded deeper. “No. The name, the notion, simply… vexes me whenever I hear it. I knew Dwylla, and alighting was the best that he ever got. He never knew peace. Selfish, stupid to want him back.” She added, “—⁠ if such a thing were possible.”

A different voice spoke. “Don’t distract yourself, Sofrani.” The secretary looked at the adviser. “Adwyn, could you give any reason why these are your suspects?”

“They have enough influence, and they appeared at the Gären estate. More tellingly, Wrang, Ffrom, and Dieithr are all members.”

“And how could they spy on you? I know you didn’t allow them to sit in on your conversation with the Gärens.”

Adwyn shook his head. “Listen closely, as this next step is the most complex. Consider the librarian, Chwithach. He’s quite familiar with humans, even claiming to be friends with some. He was present at the market today. And most tellingly, the thieves tried to enter his house whilst escaping.”

“I don’t see the relevance.”

“Chwithach possess a certain magical implement that… transfers sound. Placed appropriately, they could have listened in on our conversation.”

“The most complex guesses are often the most wrong. Why couldn’t it have been any of the dragons actually present?”

“Ushra and Gronte helped point us toward suspecting the meddling of dragons. Furthermore, Ushra is your alchemist. Gronte is⁠ ⁠—⁠ was the forest hope. Kinri foiled their plans. Neither Hinte nor Digrif left—”

“So Ushra and Gronte did leave?” Punctuated by inked scratching.

“Gronte did.”

A telling hum, and then the red wiver clouded her brilles and she stayed like that for several moments. “You had known the Gärens were being spied upon, then? When did you know this?”

“I had all the pieces before we entered the market. The logic clarified during our… detour.”

“And you told no one?”

“I had circumstantial evidence. Suspicions, nothing more. To bank on them would be paranoia.”

“The line between paranoia and good sense is being right. You were right, Adwyn.”

“A draft of fate. Not something you can soar on.”

“How often are you wrong?”

Adwyn licked his brilles, took a look around the office. Looking away to corner, he said, “Well, I was wrong about Kinri.”

In the corner the red wiver’s shadow tossed its head. “So you think she’s no threat?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Balanced. But you’ve shifted the discussion. Paranoid or no, the very breath things stop being full in your control you shall report back to me. I am your faer. I decide what suspicions are worth banking our plans on.”

“If you put so much trust in my suspicions, know then that I suspect waiting carefully and reworking our plans instead would have ended worse for all of us.”

“Pray tell why.”

“Bariaeth insists that he has no connection with the thieves, and yet he refuses to name a group which, after my prying, seems to fit the hints.”

“You are a keen enough drake. The clues are present, and there are so few groups in town.” The red wiver scratched her right cheek with her left wing, and he knew she covered some twitch of a smile. She finally elaborated, “You guessed it without his help.”

“It’s the appearance, Sofrani. Why would Bariaeth refuse to tell me? Suspicious.”

“Why would he allow you to suspect him? He enjoys these games.”

Adwyn clouded his brilles. “He has told you, then.”

“Of course. I am his faer. I am the faer. No working of this town escapes my gaze.”

---

Adwyn had, in his head, practiced the flow of the day’s events. Enough that when delivering his recitation to the faer, he found his mind traveling distant the landscapes of his mind. Then, starkly, a detail he’d kept hidden shone suddenly out.

Adwyn said, “There was something too sensitive to commit to my note or to my next report.” He watched her look up, start listening again. “There is another Specter in Gwymr/Frina.” The persistent echo of ink scratching never came.

“Yes, I know.” Mlaen said, now glancing away, reaching for another paper. “Her name is Uane. Kinri’s odd sister.” Her eyes clouded even deeper. “That cloak cannot fool me.”

“Then why ignore it? Her presence violates the Severance of Earth and Sky.”

The red wiver unfolded another paper, and looked over it. “Indeed. I know you Dyfnderi are rather attached to the contract, for having drafted it⁠ ⁠—⁠ but try to look at this from a perspective instead of from impartial law.”

“That’s lustrous, coming from you.”

Mlaen yawned, and said, “Flick, no one wants or needs a war. Imagine I flew to the next mountaintop summit and said, behold, a sky​-​dweller spy. What could anyone gain?”

She shook her head. “At best, we could demand concessions from the sky⁠ ⁠—⁠ and pray the earth that they don’t default and force us to hostilities. Or embargoes.”

“And yet we should not just ignore it and let the problem fester. The Specter wish me dead.”

Mlaen frowned, and waved her tongue. “That shall be addressed. I cannot allow my allies killing each other.”

Adwyn sucked in a breath.

“…Allies, perhaps, is too strong a word.” She was smiling. She explained, “Highness Ashaine wants trade. He is not entirely unreasonable.”

“You don’t care at all for the Severance, do you?”

“Of course. What does it offer Gwymr/Frina? Ashaine has medusa fibers, refined ixel, the fruits of the heavens. The Severance offers nothing.”

“Are you ignorant of the Empyrean? It protects us from the sky.”

Mlaen did not look over. “The Constellation is not the old empire. It is fractured and selfobsessed. The Constellation is far too busy policing itself to impinge upon any of us.”

The orange drake muttered, “The sky is dangerous.”

“Is this a hill you intend to die on?”

“I suspect it is one you might,” he said. “I value your good graces⁠ ⁠—⁠ too highly.”

“Good. Now, onto another matter—”

Adwyn cleared his throat. Mlaen flicked her tongue.

The adviser asked, “May I ask how you saw through the Specter’s cloak? It could prove enlightening.”

Mlaen smiled, almost to herself. It could be mistaken for reacting to the paper, if it were a possible reaction. “I don’t suppose saying it was faltering here in the cliffs would satisfy you?”

“Kinri attempted the same excuse. Why would the Specter, supposedly not idiots, send an agent with a defective cloak? Why would the agent act, knowing it defective?”

“Yet it does falter.” Mlaen shook her head. “But yes, that alone did not give it away. But for how I detected her… It is not a skill you could learn.”

A pause, and the faer looked up⁠ ⁠—

The red wiver was looking dead at him, and for perhaps the first time in their knowing each other, the Mlaen cleared her brilles.

Behind them was nothing dramatic. She peered forth with sharp white eyes. They moved around her muted black sclerae with a slow inquisitiveness that couldn’t banish all impressions of the tired, sleepless faer. Even so, her gaze seemed to grow more intense as her pupils shrunk and saccades ceased with her eyes focused on him.

Until now, it had been hard not to feel some distance between the two of them. Eyes were the seat of beauty and clear thought, and yet hers were ever hidden, ever clouded.

For perhaps the first time, Adwyn truly met her gaze, and smiled because of it.

It was a second like this before Adwyn started, brow creasing in worry and fear. He did not exclaim, or shift his seating, or even break eye, but his polite glance became a stare, and his tongue waved and whirled.

Even as he looked, it was hard to be sure, but the dimness of the room gave it away.

Mlaen’s eyes were glowing softly.

Adwyn licked his brilles, nothing changed.

Her eyescales clouded just a bit, and the glow faded so subtly. She frowned. “Be at ease, Adwyn​-​ychy. There is nothing to worry about.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Mlaen was looking back at the page. Breaths passed, till the paper folded and found an arc to a bin.

She asked, “Have you heard the legends of Dwylla?”

“His eyes?”⁠ ⁠—⁠ he saw her nod⁠ ⁠—⁠ “I have. If you believe the stories, his white eye could see all the evil in a dragon, and his black eye could see all of the good.”

“Yes, that. The supposed purpose of the eyes is complete fiction. Started by the drake himself, perhaps. However, there is superficial truth to it.” Now one heard silence in the room, no papers shifting or ink scratching.

Mlaen licked a tongue up to a brille. “This is the Ohmal’s white light, a gift given to acolytes of the Gerddi ac Ohmal. Seven gyras of study, then your left eye is given to the light. A dozen and two, then your right eye is given. Beyond that⁠ ⁠—⁠ I do not know. No one more advanced than a dozen and five gyras tends to remain in the Anterth temple.”

It had seemed⁠ ⁠—⁠ academic, that Gwymr/Frina’s faer was older than his mother; a trivium that she had been personally picked by such a figure of myth as the eternal faer. Adwyn took a moment, clouding and clearing his brilles, and saw the faer again. Noticed that not only insomnia, but cruel time as well had authored her hagardness.

As habit, he slid back into analysis. “So Dwylla had studied at least seven gyras in this temple, then left?”

A nod. “He asked for proselyter duty to escape Anterth, and some cycles later abandoned the faith in whole.” Her lips smiled. “Ushra tells me he is responsible for that.”

The orange drake clicked his tongue, then said, “If only his left eye was a gift from the temple, why was his right eye black?”

“I do not know. I’d like to say it was natural, yet Bariaeth does not have them, and they kept the resemblance so strong in other regards⁠ ⁠—⁠ he even has his damned smile.” She tossed her head. “Regardless, the true purpose of the white light is to see⁠ ⁠—⁠ energy. Magic.”

He curled his claws into the pycnofiber mat. “Truly?”

“I gain nothing from lying.”

“I am… disturbed that I, that we, have never heard of such an ability.”

“The Gerddi is secretive. The temples are like universities. Admission is⁠ ⁠—⁠ harrowing, tuition is immense, and becoming an acolyte is all of these things again.”

“And yet, I still question why no one has glimpsed to sell this white light. It would be above profitable.”

“It is proscribed.” Mlaen said, finding another page of inked parchment.

“Forgive me if I don’t accept that stopping everyone.”

“Questioning the Gerddi is unheard of, defecting from it doubly so.”

“So it is a cult.”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“Then how did you escape? How did Dwylla escape?”

Mlaen leaned back, at last looking up to him. “I hadn’t even known of Dwylla until he came to me all those gyras ago. He is not in any of the records, and to the extent anyone in Anterth/Gwirion would deign to speak of Gwymr/Frina back then, he was known only as the eternal faer.”

“And for myself,” she continued, “it was returning to Gwymr/Frina. I have thought so much clearer since returning to my home. It’s⁠ ⁠—⁠ strange.”

Adwyn felt like an explorer in some guarded ruin, privy to legendary treasures. He dared tread further. “Forgive my asking,” started the drake, “but why did Dwylla come to you in particular?”

She glanced at him again. “To offer me the title of faer when he died. I accepted, and he⁠ ⁠—⁠ alighted just cycles later.” She returned to the page, read a little more, and folded and binned it.

“Again forgive me, but why… did he pick you?” he asked, and quickly added, “I’m curious.” Mlaen had reigned wreathed in mystery⁠ ⁠—⁠ a puzzle proscribed to solve.

The red wiver looked distant. “Anterth is a lot like Gwymr. The rich, the powerful, the educated, are so much more often cliff​-​dwellers than plain​-​dwellers. Dwylla had wanted to erase that line. Hence, a successor of mixed ancestry, who also hailed from Gwymr/Frina and studied in the same school he had. Not rare things, but altogether they perhaps made me unique.”

Adwyn nodded, slotting the piece into his jagged, half​-​unfinished picture of Gwymr/Frina and sundry.

“A last question: do you think⁠ ⁠—⁠ could there be some connection between this Gerddi ac Ohmal and this Aurisiuf legend?”

“No.” Her brow furrowed. “Where are you coming from?”

“It was just a reflection. It could explain why no dragon has sold the white light, nor even visibly broke with the cult. The so called Aurisiuf of the night could in reality have been a kind of enforcer or assassin to keep their secrets, and then superstition and legend ran wild. He’s said to have hunted Dwylla for years, and perhaps the noises about his returning⁠ ⁠—⁠ he has returned for your life.”

“One problem with that, I glimpse.” The wiver was smiling (smirking?) as she said it. “Dwylla reigned for nearly two dozen dozen gyras, and he died naturally in his sleep. I have been here for nearly seven dozen, and no shadowy assassins. Only disgruntled plain​-​dwellers.” She smiled an impervious smile.

Adwyn only frowned.

Mlaen, meanwhile, once more clouded her eyes fully. “And speaking of which, there’s another problem with selling the white light: it is not without its taxes. I cloud my eyes to hide my gift, yes, but it also reduces the strain on my body. Even still, it folds my lifespan. I would have alighted in about half these gyras had Ushra not been there.”

Adwyn thought of the ancient alchemist, and his wife. “I can see it.”

Time passed enough for another page to be binned. Then she said, “Now that we’ve culleted that tangent, shall we speak of more important topics? The apes, say.” Mlaen snaked her head forward. “You tell me that we’ve negotiated with them? That they’re allies now?”

“Temporarily. We only need them to catch the thieves—”

“The smugglers. They’re the ones with whom the humans have dealt.”

“Are you denying that there’s a connection? It’s a matter of simplicity. Who else would want the humans?”

The brownish red wiver was smiling at him. “Tell me Adwyn, what could someone want with a human?”

“Humans are magical creatures. Their organs could serve any number of purposes. Humans are prey. Their flesh is a delicacy in most countries. And, if nothing else, stealing the bodies interrupts our plans.”

Her smile had only grown larger. “Adwyn,” she started, “tell me, do you recall anything⁠ ⁠—⁠ odd, about the events in the east market?”

Adwyn knew condescension. “What are you saying?”

“Whatever the thieves want, I believe they have it. They let us recover the bodies we did. Staying in the market? The chase? The burning building? It was a game. A show. If they truly wanted to escape the market unknown, it wouldn’t be hard.”

The red wiver stopped, cleared her throat. “Or rather, they would have tried something different. Regardless it wouldn’t have worked.” For an instant her brilles uncleared. “After all, no working of this town escapes my gaze.”

Adwyn tossed his head, and just agreed, “We only need them to catch the smugglers.”

“After that, we can disregard them.”

A nod. But, “The Specter⁠ ⁠—⁠ Kinri won’t like that.”

“Let her,” Mlaen said, not looking from the page. “She’s not important. She doesn’t factor into our decision making.”

“I wouldn’t ignore her wholly. She saved Hinte. She made truce with the humans.” He paused. “She deserves some reward, say.”

“I’ll consider it.” The words came slow; Adwyn could feel the attention pouring onto the page. “But I will not consider her feelings when doing what is the best for this town.”

Adwyn leaned back. He glanced away. He said, “She’s more like her than you think.”

Mlaen paused for a moment. “Perhaps she is. I am not in the habit of rescuing every listless fledgling that astrays before me.”

“Only the first one, two, three times, I see.”

“Only the first time. Bariaeth was unavoidable. Ceian (peace be upon him) was… more Rhyfel’s choice than mine.”

Adwyn nodded. “As you say,” he said. “But is there anything else you wanted to discuss?”

Her eyes were clouding deeply again. She nodded slowly to herself. “You fucked up Adwyn.” A smile.

“You need to sleep, Mlaen. You’re repeating yourself.” He would smile in return, but he saved the dewing in his reserve of good humor.

“I can sleep with an empty desk.”

“Seems as though I was keeping you from that.”

At length, she replied, “I can’t sleep with matters undiscussed, either.”

Adwyn glanced around the room. “Why with me? Why only me?”

A startling scrape from behind him. The forgotten high secretary, by an now unlit lamp, glanced pointed at him, lips curling as he flinched slightly.

And the faer was speaking: “You’ve become my⁠ ⁠—⁠ third most trusted dragon. I’d like to temper my thoughts on you. Despite your fuckups, you can think.”

“I appreciate the measured compliment.”

Adwyn felt the lulling cadence of the conversation, and in his mind an abstract gaze unclouded, pointed at the future, at the pathless mystery thrust so suddenly into his awareness. To call the thieves, the smugglers, the humans and all a puzzle might betray to some an ignorance of scale; but Adwyn left no puzzle unresolved, whether it took days, cycles, or dances. And as it stood, it could not take longer than negotiating the sleeping faer into an canyon alliance.

But either goal remained pathless, and Adwyn clouded those abstract eyes. His tail wriggled a bit behind him, and he found claws slipping into the weave of the pycnofiber mat. It was vexing, to have a goal and yet be unable to pursue it.

Adwyn lighted his eyes on the red wiver, the last remaining beacon. He snaked his head closer. “Everything said, what has changed on a practical level? Do I have any new orders?” He smiled. “I suppose my mission to the Ulfame is off.”

“There’s nothing solid to suggest. Melt down exactly who the leak from your side to the thieves was. Investigate this talk of Aurisiuf. Keep an eye on Rhyfel,” she said. “I want this matter balanced as soon as possible. Settled at the head, if possible.”

She flicked a dismissive wing. “Oh, and be nicer to your assistants. A complaint has been filed.”

---

When Adwyn high walked back down the corridor, he curled his wings besides him. Frills pressed against his neck, and his tongue was sifting for something out of place.

He could smell the perfume that wafted around the male adviser, some tempting hot smell that could do with a more handsome harbinger. The female adviser had some noisome old eyepaint whose purple smell clung. It didn’t seem to have gone anywhere.

He smelt wet ink, as well.

Adwyn relaxed, his wings uncurled. Standing before the doorway, he breathed and stepped in.

There were three desks arranged like a triangle in the room. The male and female adviser had desks beside each other, and closest to the door sat Adwyn’s.

Both gazes darted to him as he came in and lay on his mat. But Adwyn didn’t look at them; instead, he peered breathing into his sister’s fire clay vase. The motions of meditation came easy; he was comfortable upon his rest of feathered cotton and obsidian, and soon, with a fountain pen and parchment, he began drafting a report.

“Sorry about earlier, Sofrani.”

Adwyn glanced at the male assistant, the other Dyfnderi adviser⁠ ⁠—⁠ who didn’t advise. He had a long snout and horns like spirals. Lips that were surely soft, and dark orange scales that almost shined. That slender neck led to a pleasantly muscled breast; Adwyn wouldn’t’ve thought he worked enough to gain one. Glance back up. The assistant’s wateryblue eyes would smile when he did smile, but right now he didn’t.

The male assistant had a simper cringe inflecting his face; and unlike with some, it was not tempered by being an act or mask. Frills squirmed and forefeet groped each other. His mouth opened to pile on more words⁠ ⁠—

Adwyn snapped a wing out. “Don’t apologize. I had a meeting with the faer. You interrupted nothing.”

“But—”

“Finish your report.” Adwyn pressed his pen to the page, filled in the literal formalities.

Across the room, the female adviser scowled the distance. He didn’t need to see this, imagination and experience was enough.

His frills twisted as the male’s chair scuffed slowly around, and afterward ink softly splashed. It was breaths before Adwyn heard sleeves brushing pages from both desks, and the room was quietly working.

Silently, Adwyn sighed.

Dead weight. The scrawny pair of neophytes only succeeded in sloughing paperwork from his scales.

Assistants, or minders. Wholly unnecessary additions whom capitol had insisted attend Adwyn, the black ascendant. What horror might he inflict unsupervised! (As if his motive hadn’t already been grounded, as if there were anything to be gained this far from the throne.)

Did it ever gleam to the assistants that Mlaen apparently trusted he alone among them? Did their uselessness weigh on them as it weighed on him?

He heard a throat clear, and when she spoke, a tasteful lilt inflected her tone.

“So, Sofrani,” the female adviser started, “how went your inveiglement of Kinri?”

Adwyn stalled his clawing, and considered a trice the reflection on the vase, the wiver. She had simple gray eyes, and around them colorful eyepaint. Rough almost chitinous lipscales that suited her frown. Robes that hung on her wings instead of her back, like elytra. Orange scales darkened down her legs to near black, and she had a certain manner of hum high like a buzz.

The female stood taller, but he still saw her as some manner of eyeless scuttling bug. Beneath him.

The female assistant’s motivation always gleamed dim, dull. Advancement or status, mayhaps. But what source lit this question? Flattery, entertainment? Boredom, bright curiosity? A scheme? Yet she lacked the opportunity or desire to scheme anything relevant.

And irregardless, the assistants did have one other use, Adwyn emended: to act as a sort of sponge for his thoughts, to soak and retain.

“Strangely,” he answered. “The wiver is almost sympathetic, when she doesn’t want to kill you. And an admirable restraining influence on the alchemist’s daughter.” He licked a brille. “Most importantly she has, occluded somewhere, enough of a mind between her frills. It would be convenient if she didn’t turn out to be the traitor at the depth of all this.”

“How does she blend into your plans?” she asked.

Brilles cleared, and Adwyn’s head whirled around. His lips twitched; transparency was a virtue, yes, but among his minders it was an instinct. Dull of him to forget, but understandable: the responsibility so rarely flickered across their behavior.

“Minimally. The faer has some measure of interest in the wiver, as does the alchemist’s daughter. She may prove a valuable ally in the future.”

A pause, before some smile spread its buzzing wings. “You mentioned that she could kill.” It was so blandly dropped into the quiet, like some unimplicating observation.

Adwyn turned, the smooth balls of his rest gliding quietly on the floor. He look at the female, who’d already turned around, foreleg sliding her pen across the page.

When he had her gaze, he said, “No. She wanted to, but she’s simply too gentle and weak.”

That buzzing hum, that mantis​-​like smile. “One wonders what you have planned for her.”

The same thing I always have planned. The same thing you should have planned, but subtler than you can manage.

Wordlessly, the military adviser sighed, and whirled his rest back around.

Forever their suspicion clouded him, and forever his gutted reputation as the black ascendent grounded him. One would think, in their perspective, Adwyn couldn’t sip a glass of water but malignly, and could but menace as he whistled on his morning stroll. Every tryst a conspiracy, every joke a codeword.

The orange drake breathed, clouded the brilles of his soul. He would stand calm. There was no need for anger, nothing it could accomplish. He returned to his report.

Adwyn’s focus swiftly departed the report. He knew it would resolve nothing save Mlaen’s inveterate itch to have every last draught of air or tongueflick of her guards be documented and archived.

(The adviser had neat clawings, but some did not, and knowing the high secretary would check and transcribe every report, this was one of the few times some species of pity for the wiver gleamed in Adwyn.)

What the adviser wanted was another recognized accomplishment under his name, another unsightly criminal off the streets of Gwymr/Frina.

He wanted Wrang of Llosgi Hoddi.

Adwyn knew that blighter lay at the depth of it all. Leader of that Dychwelfa cult (sanctioned in three locations, while Gwymr had no church of Dyfns), liaison with the apes, and no doubt the one who’d sown chaos in Rhyfel​-​ann’s guard.

All he needed was the evidence, and they could make the arrest.

Wrang lived in the west end, in the new Llosgi Hoddi estate. In order to rise early with the first sun for his inscrutable strolls, the plain​-​dweller would be sleeping right now.

It would be half a ring or less; the black ascendant could fly west, enter the estate, and the problem could be⁠ ⁠—⁠ severed at the head.

Adwyn had taken a vow of pacifism.

Still, if he entered the estate without his engraved, elegantly curved aluminum blade (which still sharp in its dillerskin sheath at the depth of his travel chest) then Adwyn could talk to Wrang, and with words weaved, or rendered, or advanced with turn by turn deliberation, he could talk out a confession.

Without witness for it, when any slip up of Wrang would surely to be denied once brought in front of the faer.

No; for now, Adwyn would leave him to his slumber.

Unless…

Gyras ago, Mlaen had known that some scarred, tailless plain​-​dweller, one Brigg of Aludu Dymestl, had stood hidden atop the empire of drugs that had rooted in the cliffs. Fruitless dances had flown by, and the problem had festered.

In the end, she never pinned evidence on Brigg. No, the inquirers had, and they acquired his confession.

The inquirers. They were… an option.

But how did one summon an inquirer? On occasion one saw them drift through the town hall, on very bad days one saw them menacing through the streets and whenever one visited Wydrllos there was one in action.

Adwyn presumed they answered to Mlaen. He ought to trust her to deploy them. But if he were the prime mover, the one alone who saved Gwymr/Frina, it could look quite bright under his name.

He could repair his reputation, little by little.

But first, he had to summon an inquirer.

---

There was no sound of footsteps padding up, no swish of robes, no huff of cyclic breath. And not even that ghostly nerval hum which haunted living things.

No, first Adwyn felt something was wrong, like lady death breathing down his neck. But his time was not now; if it were, it would already have been too late.

The balls of Adwyn’s rest slid quietly across the smooth floor. Now, though, the tiny scuffing squeak came like the scream of some fated prey.

Behind him stood a dragon. Gray nets hanging just out of the sleeves. Black robes resting still, stabs of red stalking up in very straight lines. A dark, dark snout extending from the cowl. Fangs dry of even saliva.

A voice like transpicuous glass, high and carrying, “Adwyn of Dyfns.”

The adviser dipped into his reserve of good humor. “So severe,” he said with a hisslaugh. “I glimpse that inquiry is dark work, but Dyfns’s breath, have a drop of sweetness. Are you this dour in the bedroom?” It was easy, to joke, to stoke the giddy flames in his soul. An inquirer. Was this luck? Dyfn’s plan? Had he caused this?

Across the room, the male assistant’s brilles had gone pale and bloodless, and there was venom spicing the air. Cowards. They were not the ones who should fear inquirers.

Like instinct, Adwyn glanced back. The snout had smiled. One smelt the drops of sweetness he’d asked for; and only one fang was bedewed.

That clear voice said, “Rhyfel​-​sofran sends a message.”

A foreleg was held out and the sleeves slid to reveal fernpaper tied close with a string of moss.

“What business merits an inquirer, yet isn’t committed to parchment?”

“Rhyfel required that none but your eyes see this note.”

Adwyn glanced at the male adviser, the female and back. He opened his mouth. He closed it. The note changed feet, and was unrolled. He read it with a glance.

> meet me at the river. big bridge

“Is this a joke?” He looked up.

The inquirer had soundlessly left.

No answers there. He looked back to the note.

Adwyn could refuse. He could finish the report that’d been interrupted enough. It wasn’t official business; the inquirers only took orders, and Adwyn answered to Mlaen alone. It was at best the request of a⁠ ⁠—⁠ friend. Adwyn could refuse, and get work done.

He wouldn’t, but he could.

Adwyn sighed and stood up. He thought quickly; meanwhile the assistants were still reacting to the inquirer.

The female was taking a long withheld breath. The male was licking fangs and glanced around. Their brilles grew very dark, as blood finally returned to them.

“Wow,” the male started, still looking where the inquirer had been. “Why can’t the Black Fang be that good?”

The female guard snapped her tongue. “Because we employ dragons, not unfeeling husks.”

“That sweetness smelt real,” said Adwyn with a smirk.

“Bdelli dew.”

“I’ve never been fooled by a bdelli plant,” he said. “They call them wyvern traps.”

“It’s almost as though the term has come to mean something more.”

“What did the note say?”

Adwyn closed his mouth, and glanced at the male assistant and she did too. The sudden words had tripped them, and meaning came after the fall.

“Rhyfel wants to meet me.”

“Smells like we aren’t finishing this report tonight,” said the female.

Adwyn affixed her with a look that once could have plotted murder. Now, it whined like a defanged snake.

“I glimpse this will be important and confidential.”

“And the Dyfnderi put forth a united front,” the female said. She stood up and she rose taller than Adwyn on his rest.

“Many eyes see clearer,” added the male with a nod.

Adwyn stepped to the door alone. “Were this a matter for Dyfnderi, Rhyfel the younger could raise it through the official channels.” Adwyn paused at the threshold. “Why, it may not even be political, but personal.”

“What personal business would the high guard have with you?”

Adwyn left the room.

He moved like a draft down the hall, and reached the ramp hearing slight padding behind him. Voices were calling.

He pressed out the big doors in a run, and he leapt from the top of the town hall. Dark against a dark sky, he trusted the stealth. There were⁠ ⁠—⁠ permanent ways of dealing with nuisances like them, but he had sworn a vow.

The assistants stepped through doors, and leapt after his scent. They winged in his direction.

Once he banked and turned, though, they were starless.

---

The eastern side of town, withered or blighted, slouched beside the Berwem. The northern side grew wild and overlarge, and the west was vibrant and green, yet fruitless.

Here in the center, though, there fell a sort of stiffness or trimmedness. Guards patrolled the roofs on turtles, and Adwyn watched as the carried lamps traced a sort of mortal starfield to match the sky’s offering. It had more seeking stars, though.

Adwyn spent a glance up at the stars, and watched the true seeking stars, the meteors, as they slithered across the sky. One had grown very big and bright, and moved quickly earthward. Perhaps it would strike true.

Below, buildings blended and blurred as he flew on. Toward the big bridge. A thick, redundant construct, which felt the strides of the caterpillar cows who every day hauled in the sifts. The bridge split the slouching east side from the glass shops of the business district.

Sifters or glassworkers were alike in how little a difference the job made to them. So many prodding, breathless posters asking for more sifters, more blowers. To lift Gwymr/Frina out of the shadows, to polish it to a shine. The caterpillar cows came from far off in the plains, the glazeward from an obscure forest serum, the glassworking equipment (some of it) from Pteryxian design, of all things. Gwymr/Frina was reaching high and far, for⁠ ⁠—⁠ something. Adwyn wondered what, and why. He knew the literal answer; he did not know the meaning of it.

Adwyn had overshot the big bridge. Looking around for bearings, he caught, all the way at the south gate, a familiar glint of gemstones sown into a gaudy cloak.

Beside the sky​-​dweller slouched another dragon without anything so identifying. By a lamp one also glimpsed the silhouette of a fluttering thing.

Adwyn knew it could only be trouble. But it was not his priority now.

As he lighted down another figure had emerged from the shadows on the east side, with a swinging confident step and that glowing smell like something overripe.

Were that all he saw, Adwyn might’ve lighted down right behind him as a surprise. When he looked back at the big bridge, though, he saw, coming toward the bridge, a figure measuring forth with all the severity of a Black Fang, and all the precision of an eternity clock.

He would have been worried if that wasn’t all it took to identify the figure.

Adwyn stole to the ground on the east side, behind a building which eagerly perched by the river. If a road didn’t wind right between them, one would think it would fall in. Almost like it didn’t want to be on the east side.

Adwyn didn’t either, and it only took these few thoughts before he had sight of the big bridge again, around a corner of that eager storefront, which let him peek unseen. He breathed deeper the farther he got from the filth.

Rightly, you’d guess that the figure’s precise strides overtook the sauntering of the Rhyfel the younger. They met on the near end of the bridge. The figure stopped still, his cloak swinging and flapping around him. One could see he wore something black beneath the cloak. He merely regarded the high guard, his expression for himself and whoever could parse the cowl’s shadows.

Rhyfel​-​ann waved slightly, the sort of wave given so many times the gesture resided half in memory. He still wore the schizon armor he’d had on the mission.

Here was the high guard and the last, closest friend of his traitor father; the heretic alchemist, the green devil. The forest​-​dweller who survived the Inquiry.

What matter would concern the two of them? What would they discuss in private? Adwyn knew eavesdropping.

Rhyfel​-​ann spoke first; a lesser drake would have trouble hearing a conversation across the street. Adwyn the black ascendant did not.

“You.” The high guard spoke the word like a curse.

“Do not act surprised, Rhyfel the younger. You invited me here.”

“It’s a greeting, Ushra​-​ychy.” The scarlet drake waved again, more dismissive. “At least you’ve completed the transmutation into a crotchety old drake. Was that one of your ambitions?”

“Do not waste my time, old friend. I have the most fruitful study of experimental olm blood mixtures to which I shall return.”

“Sounds mighty captivating.” Adwyn couldn’t hear him laugh, but knew he did.

The scarlet drake snaked his head around, looking over the street and the bridge. “Funny how just mentioning the pits is enough to lure you out of that estate. Should’ve thought of that all those evenings I was drinking alone.”

Ushra glanced behind him, waited, and asked, “Could you please tell me what you meant by the seal is loosening?”

“I will, we’re just waiting for the adviser. I invited him.” Rhyfel​-​ann looked down the big bridge again. “You ought to have met him this morning,” he added.

Ushra flicked his tongue, and moved his head; he glanced at the corner of the eager storefront.

Adwyn had slipped back when the gaze moved this way, but it nonetheless set his frills still, and his eyescales didn’t cloud for many breaths.

The legendary alchemist was speaking, “I did. He was tolerable, for one of Mlaen’s idiots.” His tone shifted lightly. “Somehow, I did not get the impression he is one to be late.”

That deep, calming growl of a voice: “Not at all, at all. I know he’s always complaining about his assistants crawling down his neck, they’re probably giving him trouble.”

Adwyn dared peek again, to see Rhyfel​-​ann doing another look around. “While he isn’t here, though, I could ask you something. Have you found out why, yet? It’s been dozens⁠ ⁠—⁠ no, hundreds of gyras. You’ve stopped sending me updates.”

Adwyn held his breath. Hundreds?

“I told you, you will be the first to know when I do. It is magic. Esoteric Pteryxian biological magic no living dragon has seen before. Short of returning to the pits again, we may never puzzle out why.” The alchemist flicked his tongue. “And yet, you say the seal is loosening. Pray tell what that means.”

Rhyfel​-​ann said, “We need those answers now. My strength is tied and Gwymr/Frina is in danger. I have to be there to protect it.”

“Whatever weakened you down there has been waning ever since Dwylla alighted. There have even been stabs of stillness⁠ ⁠—⁠ there was one earlier today, in fact. Did you feel that?”

“Of course I felt it. But it’s too⁠ ⁠—⁠ tempermental, too fluctuant. It’s worse than the weather. I need something I can depend on. Sure, it feels like it’s on the wane now, but who knows how long that’ll last?”

“Until I uncover its last mysteries, I can do nothing for you. You know this. I shouldn’t have to tell you again.”

“Ground me for thinking something might’ve changed these last few gyras.” Rhyfel​-​ann stepped back.

Beneath his cowl Ushra folded his frills. “My Enkelin occupies my time these days,” he said. “And unlike you⁠ ⁠—⁠ unlike most, I cannot pawn her off to compeers to free my time.”

The admission lured the high guard’s gaze back toward the alchemist. “Hinte. You know, last thing Ceian​-​ychy (rest his heart) was up to was itching for her.” Then he sighed. “I can almost forgive her for fighting my guards. You should have seen her when the thieves tried to burn a building down on us. I didn’t know fire could rot.”

Ushra was nodding. “She⁠ ⁠—⁠ worries me, sometimes. When I heard about that incident this morning, I was split. On one fork I could not dream any of that violence from the little fledgling, who would try to pick me fruits before they ripened. On the other it sounded just like the sort of strange turn her character has begun taking.”

The angle was just right to see Rhyfel’s fanged grin. “So that talk of experiments was dillershit, wasn’t it? Thought she wouldn’t be working down in Wydrllos just yet. Knew she wouldn’t end up like you.”

“I wonder like whom she will end up. She is⁠ ⁠—⁠ changing. She asked me for dragonfire, last night.”

“Dragonfire.” He smiled the syllables. “What fledgling doesn’t want to spit flames? I say give it to her. Maybe temper it till she quits picking fights, say.”

“Even were I to forget the dangerous, tongueless residua that dragonfire indisputably is, I don’t know what she intends to do with it. She’s changing, Rhyfel.”

A chuff of a laugh. “Of course she is. This isn’t your first hatch⁠ ⁠—⁠ couldn’t be. Why’re you acting like you don’t know what a rowdy fledgling is like?”

His voice wasn’t a murmur, but close: “Gronte had the first dozen hatches minded by servants. By the time Haune hatched, I had long left for the cliffs, keeping you in line, and trying to make a free thinker out of Dwylla.”

“Heh. Well, now you get to taste what it’s like having an egg grow up.”

“It is not just growing up. She knows things, brews mixtures that I know and have not taught her. Mixtures I do not know. Someone is teaching her, and I can think of a single dragon in the cliffs who knows more alchemy than I do.”

Rhyfel said, “Your teacher.” He stood a little straighter. “It’s true, then. He’s really back. I thought it was a bad joke.”

“I don’t think he ever left. He always had a way of hiding from every caution and sloughing even the most perfect death.” Ushra flicked his tongue. “Everything he does is measured. Ten gyras with him and I never learnt anything that could threaten him. As if he knew I wouldn’t side with him in the end.”

“Could that be why he wants your granddaughter? You were a touring professor when he found you. Your granddaughter is hardly even a wiver. Starting young.”

“Works well for the guard, doesn’t it?” Ushra shook his head. “That is his plan, it’s clear to see. But I’ll allow her. My Enkelin is stronger, cleverer than she seems. And if he trusts her more than he did I, the learning opportunity is immense.”

“Hope that doesn’t bite you latter.”

“I can handle it,” Ushra said. “Now, pray tell just what loosening the seal means, Rhyfel.”

“I ought not to tell you at all. Would it ground you to wait for my friend?” Friend?

“He’s already here.” Ushra looked over, and this time Adwyn didn’t hide. They met eyes.

Adwyn was high walking onto the road before Rhyfel followed Ushra’s gaze.

“Adwyn!” was his greeting. “You get enough trouble from those assistant?”

“Until I get back, only Dyfns can know. I slipped away. If they have any sense⁠ ⁠—⁠ they don’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ they’d stop looking for me.” He shook his head. “Good to see you, Rhyfel​-​ann.”

Rhyfel gave a laugh and grin. “Hopefully I’ll get two words out before they drag you away.”

Adwyn nodded and looked from the high guard. “Greetings, Ushra.”

The drake gave a slight courtesy, something hard and oily cracking on his schizon apron. Adwyn knew under the cloak and cowl was a drake time had been almost kind to. High cheekbones, a thin long snout. Sharp intelligent eyes. Lean but not muscled. He had the look of a scholar; not elegant, not grounded, but something like and unlike both. Far, far too old for Adwyn, though.

The legendary alchemist said to Rhyfel, “He’s shown himself. Let us get on with it, shall we?”

“After I get him up to height.” To Adwyn, he said, “You know the legends about the fires?”

Adwyn arched a frill, but shook his head. Before other drake continued, he asked, “What’s with this secret tryst? It sounds relevant to Mlaen​-​sofran.”

“Ah, that. There ain’t a whole lot of dragons I trust. Mlaen’s not with them. Too much squirreling around.”

“What do you need to trust us for?”

“You know the legends about the fires?”

“The demon? Or the monsters? Or the prison?”

Rhyfel tossed his head. “They’re all true fact. The demon’s sleeping. Those monsters are⁠ ⁠—⁠ were⁠ ⁠—⁠ the demon’s spawn. Down in the pits he’s sealed up tight, and that prison is sitting guard right over it.” Rhyfel spoke plainly and quickly, but gave Adwyn tongueful of questions.

He started with, “Sealed? With what?”

“Chwithach tells me it’s Ulfame demon​-​hunter magic. Ushra here tells me it it’s ancient Pteryxian tech. I don’t very much care.”

“Because you are not the only one who could repair it.”

“Either way,” the handsome scarlet drake started, looking back to Adwyn, “it’s something you can feel⁠ ⁠—⁠ I can feel⁠ ⁠—⁠ loosening up. And that’s just what I felt stepping near the fires.”

Adwyn asked, “Just what are you feeling?”

“Don’t worry over it.” The reply was snapped like a defense. Rhyfel followed with, “Call it a gift from the old Rhyfel.”

Adwyn gnawed on his answer for a breath. If he wouldn’t tell him…

He eventually let out, “If you’re being dim with the details, just what are you gathering us here for?”

He grinned, and shakiness limned it honest. “Timing is everything. The theft and the loosening happen in the same evening? It’s not chance, it’s design.”

Rhyfel spread his wings, pointed at both drakes. “I want us all in the same skein, and working together. Way I see it, Adwyn here can riddle out who the thieves are, what they’re about. Ushra can reason out how to ground the demon. I do everything in between.”

Ushra straightened his stance. “You forget to mention what our rewards would be.”

“To save Gwymr/Frina? To have done good? To win?” Rhyfel watched the alchemist not react. “What’s happened to you, old friend?”

Ushra tilted his frills, eyes clouded, a reply fermenting.

But Rhyfel said, “Don’t you hope to finally be free, Ushra?”

“I do not hope.”

“Then how about this: you help out, and I tell you just what Gronte was up to while you were out touring the plains.” Rhyfel had a certain high tone of voice that had Adwyn tightening his tail and digging into the gravel. He was grinning quite savagely.

“…Adequate,” was all the alchemist said, face still thoughtful under the cowl. “Silent nights, Rhyfel the younger. Adwyn.” He took now to be time to turn and measure his way back in the starry black of the night, farewells coming after him.

---

Moments like now, together with that scarlet drake under the bright skirmboard sky, whether upon the rooftops or streets, had always seemed to limn life with some private chroma. He had not reflected on it, yet all the same these instants had always felt quietly significant to him, as of some visual seed that a painter would grow into a piece to be remembered for a long time. Adwyn sighed.

Now he looked at that drake, with his faltering grin, as though through an obscure scrim. The moment was pale. Adwyn felt nothing.

“I’m sorry,” said Rhyfel, and it had the smell of those ambiguous responses he tended to at the oddest moments.

Adwyn asked, “Why did you come back from Dyfnder?”

Rhyfel never looked tired. But around the adviser, that showy grin was taken off⁠ ⁠—⁠ little details like that had kept Adwyn’s hope tucked away, instead of grounded. For worse or for better.

Even with a natural smile, his frills perked and attentive, and his legs slipping from a low stand to a high one, Rhyfel looked suddenly ancient, as if the wind had blown dust onto him, not off him. A cruel, helpful wind.

The first time Adwyn had seen this was the first time his hope truly faltered, but a small detail shouldn’t impinge upon a chimerical hope. This time when the adviser saw it, though, it was his trust that faltered.

“Cancel that question. When did you go to Dyfnder?”

For all that the scarlet drake looked ancient, it didn’t imply a lack of strength. Rather than a wearied old pillar or a crumbling monument, his age limned his features like a mountain that only grows taller and stronger.

At that particular question, with that particular emphasis, you could imagine an avalanche rolling down the mountain.

“You’ve riddled it out, then.”

“I’m not dim, Rhyfel.” He wasn’t, and neither was Rhyfel. Deception, riddling, was all a waste of time. Adwyn could at least trust Rhyfel to be straightforward. “Tell me: I no longer trust you; should Mlaen​-​sofran?”

Rhyfel paused, and Adwyn felt his fangs grow cold. But he did respond. “Yes. But I owe Mlaen something great, and she’s got something Dwylla lost. That’s why I came back, and why I’ll stay. Gwymr/Frina isn’t home, but it’s what I care about.”

Adwyn had a complex look on his face. “And yet, we cannot trust you?”

“No. Not me and not Ushra. We want to help and we will.”

Adwyn heard him trailing. “But?”

The high guard clouded his brilles, and his tongue wavered. “Deep, deep down in the pits, there’s a supposedly sealed door. You can find it by going the other way whenever any one way seems right. If it feels like you shouldn’t be there, keep going. After it feel like you right died, you’re close. If you go deep like that, you’ll find the sealed door.”

The high guard looked up high, brilles still clouded. “As long as that door stays all the way sealed, you can trust us.”

“It’s not like you to be this vague. What’s down there?”

“Deepest apologies, Adwyn, but I’ve already given you enough oil to light the town. Does the name Aurisiuf mean anything to you?”

Adwyn smirked at the legend. The drake’s tone should have tripped that up, but the adviser wasn’t scared of legends. “Not much.”

The scarlet drake shook his head. “If he were out of the picture, I could tell you what’s going on. But he’s the reason for the whole mess starting so long ago. And information always has a way of reaching him.”

Eyeless phobia. All of this blurry riddling, for what? Fear to catch the gaze of a moltling’s nightmare?

“I can’t hide this from Mlaen, you know that.”

“I thought so. You’re a good, loyal drake when it comes down to it.” The high guard muttered something, only caught for how stained were the orange drake’s frills. Something like, if only that were all it took.

Adwyn had puzzled out what he needed to puzzle out, and he would do his duty for the town. Now, perhaps, he could act for himself. Sate something kept occulted for very long.

“How old are you, Rhyfel?” Adwyn licked his fangs.

The scarlet drake revealed a grin. A real grin. “Three hundred ninety and four gyras young. I’m not really Rhyfel the younger⁠ ⁠—⁠ wouldn’t ever name a hatch after me. Don’t tell, though.”

Adwyn let out a sigh and wished he hadn’t; he felt empty now. “It wasn’t just Dwylla, then? Is it alchemy?” Adwyn stared as the drake shook his head. “Can’t tell?” Again. “Why not?”

“Aurisiuf.”

“Even Gronte? I don’t recall her being in your little group.”

“Gronte is all alchemy, yeah. Ushra’s a mixed case. S’ppose I am too, now that we’re speaking friends again. But I reason they’d both be here with alchemy alone. Well, maybe me too. Ushra’s good like that.”

“I can’t recall alchemists⁠ ⁠—⁠ even forest alchemists living to almost four hundred, though. It’d be something to boast about.”

The scarlet drake’s grin was near savage, though the adviser felt a pang calling it that. “Ushra hasn’t been the forests’ golden egg since before Dwylla bought the Berwem outpost. He knows plenty they’re still slobbing over.”

“Then who taught him?”

“Aurisiuf.”

Adwyn sat and his thoughts played out in twitches of his frills. Another dimension of Gwymr/Frina’s history had opened up, with as many answers as questions. But there was one mystery at the core of it all.

“Gronte, Ushra, you,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ his frills twitched and he seemed to glean from the drake’s word choice⁠ ⁠—⁠ “Aurisiuf. They’ve all be around since before the beginning, haven’t they?”

“They have.”

“And Dwylla, there was no reason he couldn’t have lived as long as you all, is there?”

The scarlet drake grimaced, but said, “He was in the same boat as us.”

“Then if it wasn’t old age that grounded him, despite what the histories say, what killed him?”

“Aurisiuf.”

---

Adwyn left the scarlet drake without saying goodbye, fearing it would sound final.

The schizon​-​clad adviser didn’t leap off and fly to the town hall. He walked the streets westward, past the eager perching building, taking in the dim, lamp​-​lit sights and letting his thought reflect and refract inside his skull. Walking was easy, tireless, and it seemed the freedom and speed of flight came at the expense of freedom and speed of thought.

Adwyn had realized one last lead he could pursue, a ningling suspicion, that might unravel the puzzle of the day’s events. He just had to wonder at the consequence if he was right.

He walked quiet on, before coming to a knowing stop. The adviser had chosen his route with his feet, unthinking, so perhaps a hidden part of him had expected this.

“Adwyn.”

Still, the adviser whirled around like a breeze, a foreleg already at his baton’s hilt. Metallic​-​red eyes settled on cowled face of the apronned figure, the untouchable alchemist. The foreleg fell.

“Ushra.”

“Do not act on what you have learnt here today, and do not inform the faer.” Gone was the almost wistful nostalgia of talking to the high guard. His voice was hard.

“Why not? If Gwymr/Frina is in danger, it is my duty to inform the faer.”

“The past stays in the past, Dwyn. We catalyzed this reaction. Let us bring it equilibrium.”

“Ushra—”

“Adwyn. There is a reason why I alone among our alchemists survived the Inquiry. Why no forest​-​dweller in the land of glass and secrets dares to look me in the eyes. Do not go sifting into this town’s past. You will regret it. I am not Rhyfel. You are not my friend.”

Orange wings touched the batonhilt only once. He didn’t stop for the vow; no, sense was sense, and Ushra was a very old, experienced alchemist. Adwyn peered, staring under the cowl where those pure black orbs must have been. They moved as the alchemist nodded.

The menace in his voice receded. “Perhaps I shall see you at breakfast some day soon. Silent nights, Adwyn.”

Ushra measured his way off, past Adwyn and down the street. Adwyn watched him walk away for a long time.

It was silly, but he waited until the cloaked figure was gone awhile before Adwyn smirked.

Ushra’s threat only clinched it: now Adwyn knew exactly whom to blame.

He crouched, and leapt, and flew off to the depths of the night.

---

Somewhere in the distant dark Adwyn heard an explosive smash. It would sound mighty were it near. Winging over the faintly scented air of the west side, it came anonymous, pathetic.

Adwyn knew the butte he winged toward, only because he saw the fledgling alchemist steal away to it rings earlier, before second dusk.

He knew it now because those two trees were still burning.

Thanks to the forest hope, there had been (and still were) enough green scaled refugees in the capitol, and thanks to them, Adwyn knew how forest​-​dwellers mourned.

The little wiver had acted stone when the guards refused her; but he had glimpsed from her twitching tail and restrained words that she raged at her inability to save them. The wiver acted callous over their alighting; but he knew hopeless emptiness in a tone, in a gaze.

It was those tells that reminded Adwyn he dealt with a dragon and not anything dangerous.

While those trees still burnt, the butte had become empty save a discarded skewer and a scent of grapes or glasscrabs.

Adwyn flew on. It wasn’t called the cliffs for having only one butte, and Adwyn was searching. For something, for someone. A dragon who couldn’t help but tell every time she thought of Hinte.

It made her behavior easy to guess, but the butte being already empty clouded that guess.

He still smelt the fledgling alchemist, but did that mean he came soon enough?

Ten houses passed below as thoughts reflected around in his skull.

He was too late.

But Dyfns shined upon him anyway: A different wiver was winging a bounding flight over the town, aimed toward the cliffs.

He trailed after her.

This wiver was a note of consonance. Rhyfel walked the night in his schizon armor. Adwyn wore his tight schizon suit. Ushra had crept out with a schizon apron and robes that had to be official (head alchemist garb, say) for it was woven in with the volcanic glass hairs Mlaen loved to flaunt.

Similarly, this wiver wore poisonous​-​smelling schizon robes. Black fibers danced with their bleached white brethren. Woven like that were little black and white pictures of birds, trees or eggs.

You couldn’t make all this out, of course. Adwyn had seen it before, this morning.

Following this wiver one noticed how she bounded or circled. It didn’t parse like she was going somewhere or even flew to enjoy the cool night air. Adwyn glimpsed she followed someone.

When she lighted down on someone’s high rooftop and watched a figure stalking down the street, he didn’t think aha!, he thought, of course. He did smirk at his luck, though.

Adwyn the black ascendant could land quietly. He did not.

From his scent the wiver might have guessed who. Still she jumped, and stiffened, and seemed to pause in her regarding the stalking figure.

Adwyn gazed at the stars while he hunted for the words.

The stalking figure was gone now, but the wiver remained.

Adwyn said, “I respected you, you know.”

He watched her. “You were like a legend, an immortal symbol of freedom. Where I studied, the prevailing belief is that you weren’t even a real dragon, but some personification of Dyfnder’s efforts to help the forest refugees. You’d saved so many dragons in those days.”

There was a certain incredulity in his gaze, and he added, “What changed? You had done so much good.”

Gronte curled her wings around herself. “Do you have a daughter, Adwyn?” She shook her head. “No, even if you did, you wouldn’t understand. Haune. She… she was Hinte’s mother, and it’s my fault. I didn’t know. Haune had had another child. And she had been so scared.”

“But why leave Dyfnder? You were doing so much good there.”

“Hadn’t I done enough? Hadn’t I earned the right to raise my daughter in peace, without my past weighing me down?” She shook her head. “Either way, Ushra wasn’t in Dyfnder. My husband was somewhere in the cliffs, living as some kind of noble bandit. The same trick he’d pulled when I had to raise my Haune alone. I wouldn’t raise Hinte alone.”

Adwyn said, “And of course the green devil wouldn’t brave to light anywhere in the canyons,” he said. “Was this about when Mlaen offered him his old position here?”

Gronte only nodded. “Ja. You’ve heard the whispers. Cults, demons, spiders, humans. The raw cliffs are no place to raise a daughter. I don’t know why Ushra wanted to come back here, of all places, but Gwymr/Frina was the cliff’s capitol⁠ ⁠—⁠ it had to be the safest. I knew it’s some design of Mlaen’s. Smite her. But I wanted somewhere safe to raise my daughter⁠ ⁠—⁠ granddaughter.”

“You’re skipping something, Gronte. You know what I really want to know.”

“Ja. I have a past here too. Dwylla. I had failed him. Ushra had gone to go find⁠ ⁠—⁠ something, out in the plains. Rhyfel had left for Dyfnder to fight the spiders. I was the one who remained, who should have remained, should have saved Dwylla from his madness.”

“You can’t save everyone, Gronte. At some point, it’s their own fault.”

“But it wasn’t Dwylla’s fault, it was Aurisiuf! I should have listened, I should have done everything he told me.” The wiver spun around and that frantic energy took moments to vitrify on her face. Gronte had calm, thoughtful green eyes. “But I can have a second chance, can’t I? That’s what Gwymr/Frina is all about, second chances.”

The Return of Dwylla.

Adwyn thought, we were both right, and wanted to laugh.

He took a step toward her. Foreleg at his baton hilt, he said, “Whom did you tell?”

“Wrang. Wrang of Llosgi Hoddi.” She looked down and something reflected in her eyes. “He’s been my liaison with Dychwelfa. They wouldn’t make me a full member⁠ ⁠—⁠ because of my scales, I suppose.”

Adwyn nodded once. “And the alchemy the thieves used, that was your work?”

“The Llygaid Crwydro sold me the supplies. You would be worried, to know what you can do to this town with just a pouch full of electrum.”

Adwyn didn’t smirk because he was standing before another traitor. But he said, “You would be surprised how few dragons can spare anything close to a pouch full of electrum. Or the ages you’ve had to learn alchemy.”

Over three hundred and a half gyras old, a traitor to both her old and new homes, drenched in the dimness of night, Gronte still managed a coy smile.

Adwyn snapped his tongue. “I’ve seen your confession. I will be taking you to Mlaen, now.”

Gronte’s smile faded yet remained, turning to something… not sad, but sorrowful all the same.

She said, “You could, and I wouldn’t resist. I cannot imagine it will bear fruit for you or mean very much to me.”

Adwyn drew his baton out of his sheath. Just a few toe lengths.

She snaked her dark​-​jade head forward. “You don’t think Ushra is loyal to Mlaen, or Gwymr/Frina, do you? Do you think he cares about them?”

“You are like Hinte. Untouchable because of one drake. Arrogant.”

Gronte looked over to where the Gären estate could just be seen. “He helped build this town. He fought Aurisiuf to a silence. He’s unraveled the chain of life.”

Her voice, a wisp. “He could bring the dead back to life.”

When she lowered her head, she was frowning and there was honest imploring in her eyes. “I think that deserves respect, don’t you?”

Adwyn sheathed the sliver of weapon. What good could it do?

He replied, “Law reigns above all. Should reign above all.”

“Said the murderer to the traitor.”

“I believe one can shine beyond their past. I think you should try.”

Gronte had no words to that. She merely looked up at the endless stars, as if their silence could give her words.

---

Adwyn had waited for something profound to light the silence.

What he got was a bonk. Upside his head. A rock cracked against the roof, and the orange drake looked up to see a purple parrot flutter down.

The blasphemous creature screeched.

Adwyn could do nothing but clutch and wriggle his frills while the noise lasted, which was till its handler leapt over and lifted the thing, petting it and whispering inappropriately sweet things.

“Why is that thing here?”

“Ima protect Wrinklyfrills. Toastyfeathers told me all about you! You’re a mean scheming drake and you’re making Wrinklyfrills all sour. Qyer!”

“Versta, please go back home and wait for me. This is an exceeding important conversation.”

“Neh! Ima protect.” Versta said chirping onto Gronte’s head. Wings flared.

The dark​-​jade wiver caught eye with Adwyn.

“Pray don’t mind him.”

Adwyn was glad to ignore the flying rat. “Tell me what you were out here doing?”

“Watching Hinte, making sure she’s safe. I think she’s going to where that meteors landed.”

A grandmother being a grandmother, then.

“So, Wrang. Tell me what he was doing in the lake last night.”

“I wouldn’t know. He hates to keep me informed of things. He had asked me about magical energy sources, not long before, so take your hint from that.”

“And the bodies? Was there design besides interrupting our plans?”

“Again, I wouldn’t know. Ask Wrang.”

“Oh, we will, shortly.”

Adwyn looked eastward, to the clouds darker than night that everlingered above the fires of the Berwem.

“You understand that this means conflict, correct? I don’t condone what you’re doing.”

In the moonlight Gronte’s grin had teeth and fangs.

“I know.” Like a final confession.

There was silence, and there was breathing.

Adwyn knew it was mistaken, but sense was sense.

The schizon​-​clad drake lighted down on the granite hall like the pupil of Gwymr/Frina. One glance was spared to the male assistant barring the door. Then the adviser scanned the four guards watching.

He smirked, and strode right up to the assistant. “I must speak with Mlaen.” The words came piercing like light, and his studied glare shone upon the assistant.

The other drake could have flinched. He swallowed and said, “She went out looking for you.” He didn’t mean Mlaen.

“A shame. Yet not my concern.” He took a step.

“She’s at the Berwem gate⁠ ⁠—⁠ thought you might fly that way.”

Adwyn glanced at a guard. “They have mirrors. Tell her to come back.” He took another step. “Or don’t. Wait until I leave.”

The assistant still stood in front of the door, albeit with a coiled tail and dew that could have been spicier.

He asked, “Where have you been?”

“Can I not fly out to talk to a friend?”

“You⁠ ⁠—” He stopped to collect himself. “You were summoned by an Inquirer, and you refused to let us accompany you!” The smaller orange drake glanced away. “Something is up.”

“Precisely why I must see Mlaen. Surely you aren’t holding that up?”

“She’d going to bite you when she gets back.” But he stepped aside.

Adwyn slinked his way down the twisting ramp, and paused frowning in the lobby.

He could have kept straight, gone down to the sleepless red wiver.

He went right, down the same corridor from earlier. Past the threshold of the Dyfnderi’s room, he was pulling down a pycnofiber curtain, and covering the doorway. It would stop no one; yet his assistants were not (to his surprise) foreign to politeness.

When Adwyn lay down, one lamp shone in this dim room, the one sitting on his desk. He stared into it, and reflected.

The scarlet drake had always been a chimerical hope. Adwyn’d always known he was somewhat older and foreign, and that was if he’d even been interested at all, at all. But they had complimented each other finely. And for Adwyn there had always been one more matter, on other thing to address, which kept him from seeing how bright it could shine. Kept him from ever asking.

Would it have been better to lose hope earlier, or later? Or never?

Adwyn sighed. There were clearer ways to deal with this⁠ ⁠—⁠ that old king had convinced him into at least some time in a monastery.

But to just accept it, to acknowledge what couldn’t be denied, to move past? Adwyn couldn’t tell you it wouldn’t work. Couldn’t tell you some half of him didn’t want it. Logic, rationality, philosophy, the disciplines of order and sundry, they all had come as easy to him as everything else.

And yet. Still there lingered some succulent complexity, some verity that dwelt in his feeling that he wouldn’t release so simply.

He liked the scarlet drake, fancied him. But Adwyn didn’t know what he would do about the feeling⁠ ⁠—⁠ but mere acceptance, stoic forgetfulness, seemed too abject.

And just as it had been with expressing his feelings beforex, right now there were still other tasks to be completed. Then, Adwyn could deal with matters of the fangs.

The high alchemist, his wife, and the high guard. None of them could be trusted. The wife and the high guard at least gleamed sympathetic about it, but the alchemist⁠ ⁠—

It was a threat. And an alchemist was the last dragon you wanted against you.

Adwyn could cede. Go to sleep now, and in the morning find something less… dangerous to occupy his attention.

What, truly, was at stake? Mlaen said it herself⁠ ⁠—⁠ concern for the law was rich, coming from him. Adwyn knew laws were just finely engraved stones. Treason, conspiracy, trespassing, theft of what truly wasn’t theirs⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was all pale, victimless and abstract.

Truly, Adwyn was guilty of worse.

But even if it weren’t about the law, Adwyn had to solve this mystery and he’d known it since the puzzling existence of the Dychwelfa revealed itself, even more with the baffling appearance of the humans, and most with the perplexing actions of the thieves. It was what the adviser had hoped to find (and disappointed not to find) in the sky​-​dweller exile; a sight for answers and a sight for knowledge. Adwyn had to know.

So perhaps morals didn’t shine, here. Adwyn decided he wouldn’t rest even if the thieves were actually heroes. It was a puzzle, to see their true face, to scry their true motive. The Return of Dwylla? The human demonhunters? The old pillars of Gwymr/Frina?

It all piqued, and if nothing else, Adwyn would sate his curiosity.

Adwyn rose and advanced once more to the threshold. Still, one more choice prickled: should he tell Mlaen? The alchemist’s threat lingered. Do not inform the faer.

Would the black ascendant stand opposed to an ancient alchemist? As the scarlet drake would say, there’s confidence and that’s too much of it.

But⁠ ⁠—⁠ Ushra was old and withering. What had he done to hold onto that kind of respect?

Gwymr/Frina had been haunted by its past long enough. Adwyn would care about its future.

“You look brightly smug,” came some growl of a voice. “I’d tell you it’s not a good look, but you don’t care and I don’t think that mug of yours has a better look.”

Adwyn cleared his eyes, leaving the realm of thought to discover he remained at the threshold, standing to block a scowling orange wiver.

He said, “I’d tell you rudeness isn’t a good flavor for you, but I don’t mind.” Adwyn stepped aside and the wiver did not step into the room.

“What you should tell me,” she started, “is what possessed you to fly away against your assistants? Shall I report this?”

“Do what you will. I think capitol will care more that I stand at the cusp of uncovering the secrets at the heart of Gwymr/Frina.”

“And you’ll have all that honor to yourself, won’t you?” She looked sour.

Adwyn regarded the wiver. He smirked a certain schemely smirk. “Well, I wouldn’t say you two are uninvolved. Why, you could certainly stand to make my life easier, less complicated. That should not go unnoticed.”

The wiver was like a bug. But that entailed a certain simplicity, an a lack of loyalty. She wasn’t on his side, not yet and perhaps not ever. But he had a sway, for now.

The female assistant followed after him, as he walked off. He didn’t mind, but didn’t allow her to step into the room with him and Mlaen.

Adwyn would unravel the secrets of Gwymr/Frina. Adwyn would descend the pits.

(And if the town needed a hero… the black ascendant could redeem his name.)

---

Adwyn paused a moment to see the paintings. Cynfe’s work. They smelt oddly of ink, and had the glow of the finest oils. Forms seemed to struggle to life, shadows sinking away and highlights popping. One painting stared out over the red distance of the land of glass and secrets, as it was known from its highest peaks. A land crossed and riveled deep with serpent​-​like gullies and ravines and gorges, with blooms of green or black life scattered all around. The suns neared colorfully the horizon, and thunderous storm​-​clouds weighed high above.

That painting was largest, the centerpiece. Others hung meekly beside it. One of a cracked fire​-​clay mug and its twin shadows, rendered to exact extremes for inscrutable reasons. One of a land snail eating a tidbit chicken, ponderously. Adwyn saw fish, scenes of bamboo, and the night’s sky.

What shined out most though, was that there were no dragons. He had to sift the walls to find it, tucked away in a corner. The one painting, with a dragon, was of Mlaen. A portrait. It could have⁠ ⁠—⁠ should have⁠ ⁠—⁠ been one of the centerpieces, but Adwyn knew why it wasn’t. The Mlaen dwelling in this painting regarded kindly, softness in her cheeks, a smile. As Adwyn looked longer into her painting, he felt a voyeur’s shame ride up on him, the sense that in this painting was a moment, someone’s moment, and it wasn’t his.

Adwyn had never seen this Mlaen.

He frowned as the lights blent together in his head: the paintings had no dragon save one, because no dragon would model for her save that one.

“I never did expect pieces like these in the land of glass and secrets.”

It was the male assistant, sidling up to him. He let him with a nod and no response.

They waited for the female adviser to get ready.

Among them settled the silence of the town hall very late into the night, like the rich soil to nurture fruits of thought.

It would help, if Adwyn hadn’t already found enough resolution to sate that hungry thinking part of his brain. Everything was decided; he would solve the town’s mystery, he would descend the pits.

Properly, the pits were just another sifting hazard (it was as if the lake collected them.) Plummeting chasms of dustone and glass out in the lake’s center, they were like stabwounds in its battle against the sky. The librarian had wondered if they were accidents of the flow of the glass, or sites of doomed meteors, or something odder still. They reached down to the caves that were like the arteries of the cliffs, and natives called those caves the pits too, in defiance of sense.

Dragons said they didn’t want to talk about the pits, but you couldn’t shut them up if you attempted to. The superstitious prattle was entertaining to hear, in the least, but Adwyn knew they were deeply hyperbolic: supposedly, the pits had humans, spiders, fungal oddities, slightly animated cadavers, things too monstrous and strange for the lake above, things which tried to be dead and failed, and things no dragons had dared yet to name.

If you believed their talk, one would think the unholy pits the place of some god’s lingering curse⁠ ⁠—⁠ if what the natives called unholy had, in their godless spirituality, some meaning greater than ‘it gives me the creeps.’

Adwyn breathed in and out, in and out. The posture of meditation came easily to him, and he found patience in the peace of the moment. The drake beside him didn’t make that harder; when he didn’t whine with his simpering voice, he was a fair sight. Adwyn breathed in and out, and waited for the female assistant against his better judgment. As he breathed, he felt the anxious notes of his heartbeats augmenting to steady rhythms⁠ ⁠—

And he felt them diminuting instantly upon his hearing the furtive step.

Someone was padding up behind him. Rounding, he saw a cringing figure in black and gold scurrying into the room.

“Hi–hi, Adwyn​-​sofran.”

Mouth closed, he popped his tongue. Opening it, he said, “What is it?”

The figure⁠ ⁠—⁠ who would stand his taller if she didn’t slouch⁠ ⁠—⁠ cast her eyes down, brilles clouding as a wing slipped into her bag.

Adwyn waited.

The figure pulled out⁠ ⁠—⁠ a thick white net rolled onto a stick of bamboo.

He tilted his head.

“Mistress⁠ ⁠—⁠ err, Cynfe​-​sofran has heard of your, um, glassheaded plan to stir trouble in the pits, and she wants you to take this so she doesn’t dew when you ground yourself.”

The adviser stared at the net​-​spooled bamboo. Gingerly, he grasped and moved it to his bag with care appropriate for a bomb or bible.

Concern molted from his face just as the magical implement left sight. He looked at the low secretary, regarded her, examined her.

Levelly he said, “I spoke my plans to Mlaen alone.”

The figure cringed back three steps. She wore such a embarrassed frown one would think her cheeks would twist off.

Adwyn smirked at the little eavesdropper, fangs unfolded.

This proved to be too much and the wiver squeaked. Adwyn wondered if her tail would fall twitching off like some little lizard. He’d seen it happen.

“Calm yourself,” he said. “I’d be a hypocrite if I faulted you for a touch of targeted listening in service to some scheme.”

Were he a persuader, were he interested in ingratiating, he’d’ve done it differently; but Adwyn knew what he cared about, and it wasn’t this wiver.

He took a stride toward the cringing figure. Still slouched in a low​-​stand, she saw the shorter drake look down on her.

He asked, “You report only to Cynfe, correct?”

“Bariaeth pays very much. But–but my mistress said she would make me strong and confident and not like sp–spineless whelps like him. I–I haven’t talked to him in a⁠ ⁠—⁠ while.”

With a neutral line, Adwyn said, “Strong and confident? You should start now.” He motioned her up.

“But⁠ ⁠—⁠ you are a Sofrani. I shouldn’t!”

“I don’t play the respect games, Gyfari.” He glanced aside. “And irregardless you have Cynfe on your side⁠ ⁠—⁠ or perhaps the other way around. There are precious few things she worries about.”

Adwyn saw the wiver still gawked at him, so he added, slowly, “She’ll protect you from whatever offense you might cause. Act as you wish.”

“Mistress says you have no idea what you talk about.”

He clouded his brilles for a moment. When he glimpsed a rebuttal, he cleared his eyescales, and saw an orange wiver was watching them. She sauntered over at his glance.

“Look at you, trying to be helpful. One wonders what strangeness has shined into you⁠ ⁠—⁠ if one wonder about you at all.”

Adwyn compacted his annoyance before it grew again. To the low secretary he only said, “Tell Cynfe this town has enough scheming without her throwing herself into the blend.”

The secretary nodded vigorously, and scurried away.

He turned to the tardy wiver.

“Shall we be off?”

---

Behind them the Berwem gate crashed close. It was a plunge⁠ ⁠—⁠ tangible progress toward the pits, a visceral separation from the civil into the wilds. The lamps had turned to red, and the catwalks thinned.

But perhaps Adwyn was letting his anticipation ferment his expectation. The mind​-​clearing breath came simply, but his tart worry regenerated as fast.

In his wings, Adwyn held that stick of bamboo; furling and unfurling little lengths of net. He ran toes over its smooth cords, catching no seam, and no stab of his claws could pierce them. A closer look found sections of net one could rip off, each with a bright red thread. Seamless as the cords were, every bit of red frayed outward.

The high secretary did not like him. He didn’t think that had changed. And yet, a gift seemed to clash violently with her character.

Of another dragon Adwyn might suspect some hidden fondness for him, but he didn’t glimpse her capable of such subtleties.

Right now the assistants trailed behind him, but in this moment of reflection, they’d come to his heels. He restrained a glare; without them, he might already be in the pits by now. These scrawny administration dragons could barely manage a flight to the gate. They implored him to stop, let them rest their wings for a spell. He should have left them then.

The male was speaking up. He asked, “So that thing’s magic, isn’t it?” Pointing at the net in the adviser’s wings.

Adwyn considered lying. “Worrisome magic. The secretary quite nearly roasted a human with these same nets.” He paused, tasted his fangs. “I cannot say my stomach agree with the thought of using this.”

The female assistant had a lamp that hung off a wing. Beside her head, as if to brandish her future scowls. She was not glaring at the furled nets, oddly enough.

Instead, curiosity⁠ ⁠—⁠ the Gwymr/Frina kind of curiosity⁠ ⁠—⁠ was limned in her face as she snapped up a look at him. She asked, “Where do you think the halfbreed got them?”

Adwyn thought she would scowl to taste just how much the locals were blending into her. Or, perhaps, she would scoff it off, take it in gaze.

He didn’t have an answer. “Mlaen leans far more into magics than one would glimpse. Cynfe is her little flower, bright and well​-​watered.”

“It looks⁠ ⁠—⁠ dim,” started the female, “to give implements like that to a secretary, and no guard.”

“Guards who wouldn’t take brightly to magic?”

“Guards who wouldn’t take brightly to orders?” She twisted her voice, made it horribly smarmy and sarcastic.

Adwyn said, “Turn down your lantern. Gwymr/Frina’s pits run deep.”

The female fell back off his heels like that, and they walked on, a dimmed lantern lighting their footing, and and red lanterns their ambiance. The female was positioned herself to deny the light to Adwyn.

And like this, they walked⁠ ⁠—⁠ not flew⁠ ⁠—⁠ to the prison at the center of the lake. Wydrllos was the safest route to descend the pits.

As Gwymr/Frina tended to a landmark behind them, nighttime fauna found their confidence.

Anurognaths crooned tunefully, and came down on sleepless tentacle snails. Big round bats glared from crevices and let the glider scorpion take a night of peace. One pair licked each other’s wings. A big six​-​legged jumping cat, she was not fully grown but bold, struck down from an evil​-​looking crevice​-​alley and came up close to them in near​-​deadly silence. Adwyn pulled out his baton and she went back to the dark, but the fear loomed that she wouldn’t be off so simple. Yet she was.

They walked on. Big ferns, cool​-​colored, poked out of the ravine wall and cast mean shapes. Moss grew thick on the gravel under foot, and smelt very dry. Sometimes it crunched. There was a murmur from a stream or rill that a cute dew pond sat somewhere around here.

The air was growing weary with chittering or stridulating of insects and insect​-​kin things. They were noisy tonight for no reason, but after quick reflection Adwyn decided perhaps they mated.

He misread a sign once, and it took them down a bad road where the dirt scorpions and wriggly wigs and mere spiders grew far too big, and they worried they might see a true spider.

Adwyn made them high​-​walk out of there very fast, for he would not even tend close to smelling those things again.

Perhaps one of the assistants smirked but he let them because they were administration dragons, of course they would smirk.

Most of the good creatures they saw were small and cute. Retiring monitors or skinks who liked the cliff faces, turtles who may be trying to sleep, and wild or stray snakes who slithered slowly about.

The female assistant found some meat to throw near those pretty serpents, and the things were well behaved around dragons for just this reason. One wouldn’t guess, but the female assistant nursed an odd sweetness for snakes.

There was not much game down in the ravine, maybe a six​-​legged wild camel who got lost or a diller sleeping or snuffling stupidly. They only saw one, and it could have been a wild one or one somebody didn’t know what to do with. You could tell by the shell, but they did not care. They walked on.

Once, Adwyn heard a lich​-​owl scream.

This sound struck such a vein of fear in the party that it was the female assistant who began to chat.

“Have you two seen that meteor tending close?”

“Chwithach or Ushra was saying it’s supposed to crash tonight and nearby too.” The male was nodding deeply.

“Wonder if any louts are going to get burnt licking after it.”

Adwyn swallowed spice and chimed in: “The exile was wandering about tonight. A sky​-​dweller. It’s no guess she was seeking it.”

“That’s stupid. You never know what dinks around in the cliffs. Humans, spiders, worse; dragons have been rumoring monsters here since this was our land.”

“It’s like you care.” Adwyn hisslaughed a little.

“I just know idiocy when I see it. And something has to be said. This quiet’s getting on my nerves.”

“Why? I find it peaceful, natural.”

“You heard that. We all did. Don’t mess around.”

Adwyn kept quiet which only stirred her further. She said, “I should think you would care, from how much you bring her up.”

“I do. But that hinges on her handling what she gets herself into. I’ll simply observe how this turns out for her.”

“Speaking of humans,” the other orange drake started, “you think the greedy things will scamper after the meteor? Rumor’s got it that your skein fought some earlier.”

“I don’t gossip. If Mlaen shows interest in this meteor, then I will speculate. As it stands, I don’t much care.” Adwyn looked up, glimpsed a cloud occluding a star. “How about we speculate about what dwells in the pits?”

The male assistant scratched his chin. “I heard Chwithach saying humans dug the pits anyway. Maybe that’s where they live!”

“All the background I read for this assignment tells me the pits were here before we built the outpost or the Wydrllos.” The female adviser looked thoughtful for once. “Even the ruins left are too advanced a construction for humans now, let alone hundreds or thousands of years ago.”

“So who do you think it was?”

“…The background didn’t say. It’s too bleary to guess. The Empyrean doesn’t care to mine, and Pteryx⁠ ⁠—”

“It was Pteryx.” Adwyn thought of the demon seal. “Trust me. I have it on⁠ ⁠—⁠ authority.”

The female adviser. “Then why not ask this authority what’s going on deep in the pits?”

“I did. That’s why we’re going down there.”

The female stopped walking, halting the light with her. The adviser spun around.

She said, “If you know, then tell us instead of laughing at our speculation.”

Adwyn smirked. “If I told you, you’d opt not to follow.”

Under his breath, he sighed.

The assistants were still hindrances. Adwyn couldn’t trust them. Their alliance was first of all to capitol.

Just as his should be.

But it wasn’t. The capitol had spat on him⁠ ⁠—⁠ called him the black ascendant, cursed his ambitions, outcast him to the doldrums of Gwymr/Frina.

Where he had gained new motive, new allies. He owed it to Mlaen to make her and her country strong. Dyfnder/Geunant was strong, and there was strength in an alliance, but he was doing it for her, and not for capitol.

He glanced behind at the assistants. Shook his head. Thought of⁠ ⁠—⁠ the scarlet drake. Shook his head. Adwyn would have to do this alone. He knew this now; he could trust no one but Mlaen​-​sofran.

He turned and walked on. After a lurch the light started receding⁠ ⁠—⁠ then after a bit stopped, and it slowly inched after him.

Adwyn heard her breathing behind him as they walked on.

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