Josef opened his mouth to retort, but at that very moment a horrifying sound—“Thluu-thluu-thluuuu!”—arose from somewhere near Kiggs. Princess Glisselda leaped onto a stool, crying, “St. Polypous’s legs, where is it?” Josef drew his dagger and looked around wildly.
Only Lady Corongi stood frozen, eyes wide with astonishment, as the voice lisped, “I see you there, impostor!”
I looked to Kiggs. He nodded at me and opened his hand behind his back, revealing my lizard-man figurine.
He said, “Who is it calling an impostor, Lady?”
Lady Corongi snapped out of her shock with a shudder. I faced her. Her fierce blue eyes met mine only for a second, but in that fragile eternity I glimpsed the mind behind the manners; in that endless instant, I knew.
Lady Corongi charged into Glisselda, who still stood on the stool. Glisselda screamed and folded in half over Corongi’s shoulder. The venerable lady whirled and bolted down the stairs.
Shock froze us in place for a heartbeat too long; Kiggs recovered first, grabbed my arm, and dragged me down into darkness after her. Josef shouted something after us, but whether he called to us or to Corongi, I could not discern. At the bottom of the stairs, Kiggs looked right and I looked left. I saw the edge of Lady Corongi’s skirt disappearing around a corner. We dashed after, following the faintest of trails—an open door, the ghost of her perfume, a curtain ruffled by a nonexistent breeze—until we reached a cabinet that had been pulled out from the wall, revealing an entrance to the passageways.
Kiggs broke off pursuit. “That was a mistake, Lady,” he said. He dashed back into the corridor; three doors along was a guardroom. He threw open the door, shouted for attention, and made five hand signals in quick succession. Guards poured out and scattered in all directions. Kiggs dashed back to the shifted cabinet; there was already a guard beside it, who saluted and handed us a lantern as we passed.
“What have you asked them to do?” I said.
He demonstrated the signs as he spoke: “Spread the word; all hands; seal the lower tunnels; notify the city garrison; and …” His eyes met mine. “Dragon.”
It was an impressive array of signals. “Will they be following us down?”
“Soon. It will take time to get everyone in position. There are seven entrances.”
“Counting the sally port?”
He made no reply but plunged onward into darkness. Of course the palace guard would not be able to reach the sally port in time; that was why he was sending word to the city, but they would be too late. My heart sank in despair. Glisselda might be dead before any of us could reach her.
I had troops of my own that I could rally. I activated Orma’s earring on its chain, praying that he would hear it, that he had not already traveled some ridiculous distance, and that he could reach us in time. Then I reached for Abdo.
Where are you? he said. We were getting worried!
Bad things are happening. I need you and Lars to run, as fast as you can, to the northwest face of Castle Hill. The sally port in the side of the hill might have a hostile dragon emerging from it shortly.
Or it might have a very strong, wickedly fast old woman. There was still some uncertainty on that point.
How do we get down the castle wall on that side?
St. Masha’s stone. You will find a way. I hoped that was true.
And what are the two of us to do against a hostile dragon?
I don’t know. All I know is I am in the tunnels right now, behind it, and if you and Lars show up there will be twice as many people as there would be otherwise. We don’t have to kill it; we just have to delay it until my uncle gets here.
I let him go because I could tell he was going to protest again and because I kept tripping over the uneven floor when my concentration was elsewhere.
We passed the three doors, now unlocked and ajar, and knew that Lady Corongi had come this way as well. When we reached the natural cavern area, Kiggs drew his sword. He looked me up and down. “We should have armed you before coming down here!” His eyes looked haunted in the lantern light. “I want you to turn back.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Phina, I don’t know what I’d do if you were hurt! Please go back!” He squared himself as if he intended to block my way.
“Stop it!” I cried. “You’re wasting time.”
A veil of grief fell across his face, but he nodded and turned back toward the job at hand. We set off at a run.
We reached the mouth of the cave, but there was no one visible, just women’s clothing scattered all over the floor like a shed skin. Kiggs and I glanced at each other, remembering the folded gown we’d found here before. It had been right in front of us, and we hadn’t had the wit to see it.
Glisselda had clearly put up a struggle while “Lady Corongi” undressed, so there was some hope the creature was not yet able to fly. We dashed out of the cave into the slick, snowy grass, looking around for the pair of them. Glisselda screamed; we turned toward the sound of her voice. Above the cave entrance, silhouetted against the growing pink of the sky, stood a wiry, naked man, Glisselda thrown over his shoulder.
He’d been at court disguised as an old woman for almost Glisselda’s whole lifetime. Doused in perfume, avoiding other saar, worming his way close to Princess Dionne, he had bided his time with a patience only reptiles possess.
For all my exposure to saarantrai I had never before seen one change from human to dragon. He unfolded himself, stretched, telescoped, unfurled some more. It seemed logical as it happened, all his human parts plausibly dragon: his shoulders separating into wings, his spine extending back to tail, his face lengthening, his skin bursting out in scales. He managed the entire thing without letting go of Glisselda; he finished with her clasped firmly in his front talons.
If we had been smart, we would have charged him while he was transforming, but we’d stood rooted to the spot, too dumbfounded to think.
All doubt was finally removed: it was Imlann.
He would not be able to fly for several minutes; a newly transformed saar is soft and weak, like a butterfly fresh from the chrysalis. His jaw worked; he could still spit fire. I pulled Kiggs back inside the cave before the fireball hit the dirt at the entrance, sending up a spray of scorched stones in a burst of brimstone. Imlann couldn’t work up a very big gobbet yet, but if he craned his neck down into the cave, he wasn’t going to need full flame, especially if Kiggs refused to retreat.
How long would it take Lars and Abdo to get here? And Orma, if he was even coming? I saw only one course of action, and turned to head back out of the cave.
“Are you mad?” cried Kiggs, grabbing my arm.
I was mad, as it happened. I turned back and kissed him squarely on the mouth, because this really could be the last thing I ever did, and I loved him, and it made me desperately sad that he would never know. The kiss startled him into releasing my arm, and I dashed out of his reach, out onto the snowy hillside.
“Imlann!” I cried, jumping and waving my arms like a fool. “Take me with you!”
The monster cocked his head and screamed, “You’re not a dragon; we resolved that in the laundry. What in blazes are you?”
This was it. I had to be interesting enough that he wouldn’t kill me out of hand, and there was only one piece of information that could work: “I’m your granddaughter!”
“Not possible.”
“Yes, possible! Linn married the human, Clau—”
“Do not speak his name. I want to die never having heard it uttered. He is a nameless thing, antithetical to ard.”
“Well, your nameless daughter bore a child to her nameless thing husband.”
“Orma told us—”
“Orma lied.”
“I should kill you.”
“You’d do better to take me with you. I could be of use in the coming conflict.” I spread my arms, posing dramatically, my crimson gown like a gaping wound in the snowy hillside. “Being a half-breed has given me formida
ble abilities that neither dragons nor humans possess. I can contact other half-breeds with my mind; I can direct them at a distance with a thought. I have visions and maternal memories. How do you imagine I knew who you were?”
Imlann’s nostrils flared, though I could not discern whether he was skeptical or intrigued. Down in the cave, Kiggs stirred, moving himself slowly and silently into position to attack.
“I know all about your cabal,” I said, feeling the urgency of keeping my mouth moving. “I know the coup back home is going forward as we speak.”
Imlann raised his spines as if alarmed that I could know that. Had I guessed right? Despair washed over me, but I kept going: “You’ve killed the Ardmagar and half the royal family; war is coming. But Goredd is not sufficiently weak that you will be able to walk right in. You’re going to need my help.”
Imlann snorted, smoke curling from his nostrils. “Liar. I know you bluffed me before. You should not have been so quick to brag. Even if I believed in your powers, your loyalty lies with the princeling in the cave. Which of your ‘formidable abilities’ will you use when I lean down and roast him? I’ve worked up quite a good flame now.”
I opened my mouth, and there was a sound like the world ending.
It wasn’t me, although I was ridiculously slow to comprehend that. Lars, who’d sneaked up on the left, had started up his great war pipes, brawling and caterwauling and screaming musical obscenities at the dawn. Imlann jerked his head toward the sound and a shadowy figure leaped at him from the other side, vaulted up the dragon’s neck, and clamped arms and legs around his still-soft throat. Imlann thrashed his neck around, but Abdo held tight—tight enough to prevent Imlann from spitting fire.
“Kiggs! Now!” I cried, but he was already there, stabbing at the foot that held Glisselda. Imlann uttered a gurgle and withdrew his foot reflexively. I reached Kiggs at just that moment; together we rolled Glisselda to one side. I helped the sobbing princess down the rocks toward the cave entrance while Kiggs, unwilling to leave well enough alone, took a stab at the dragon’s other foot. Imlann lashed at Kiggs, knocking the prince down to our level. He landed on his back, all the air slammed out of him. Glisselda ran to his side.
There was a hot, sulfuric wind, and I looked up to see Imlann launching himself off the hillside, Abdo still clinging to his neck. I cried out, but there was nothing I could do. Abdo couldn’t let go while he was in the air; the fall would kill him. Imlann circled lazily back toward us. If he was hardened enough to fly, he was too hard for Abdo to keep squeezing him flameless. He was coming back to torch us into cinders.
“Get back!” I cried to Glisselda and Kiggs, shoving them toward the cave. “As far as you can!”
“Y-your lying saved us!” gasped Kiggs, still dazed from his fall.
My lying. Yes. “Hurry! Run!” I urged him.
Something huge screamed through the sky just above us. I looked up to see Orma hurtling toward Imlann, and I wept with relief.
Imlann turned tail and fled, or appeared to. He let Orma nearly catch him before reeling around in the sky and grappling him. They pinned each other’s wings and plummeted toward the earth but managed to escape each other’s grasp before they hit the trees. They spiraled upward again, each looking for an opening. Imlann flamed; Orma, noticeably, did not.
He’d spotted Abdo and did not wish to harm him. The humanity of it took my breath away; the colossal stupidity of it filled me with despair.
Abdo, clamped onto Imlann’s neck, would deprive Orma not only of the use of fire but also of the ability to bite Imlann’s head off easily. Orma’s only hope would be to successfully drop his father out of the sky, but his father was longer by a quarter. It was not going to be easy, and Abdo might still die.
From the city, something else huge and dark rose into the sky and approached the fighting pair at speed. It was another dragon, but I couldn’t tell who. He circled the snarling pair at a safe distance, not engaging either of them, but watching and waiting.
Behind me, Kiggs spoke quietly to Glisselda. “Are you hurt?”
“I believe I may have a cracked rib, Lucian. But—is the Ardmagar really dead?”
“It was all a bluff. I’ve seen her do it before. It’s her particular talent.”
“Well, go fetch her, would you? She’s standing in the snow in her ball slippers, and she’s going to freeze.”
I had not realized until that moment how cold I was. I didn’t even have a cloak. Kiggs approached me, but I would not tear my eyes away from the sky battle. Imlann flew a little further east with each pass; soon they were going to be fighting above the city. If Orma was unwilling to risk the life of one little boy, was he really going to drop Imlann onto buildings full of people? My heart sank still lower.
The cathedral bells began to toll, a pattern not heard in forty years: the ard-call. Dragons! Take cover!
“Phina,” said Kiggs. “Come inside.”
I wouldn’t be able to see the dragons from the cave mouth, the way they were positioned now. I stepped away from him, into even deeper snow. Kiggs came after me and put a hand on my arm, as if he’d drag me back, but his eyes were on the lightening sky as well. “Who is that third dragon?”
I suspected I knew, but I did not have the energy to explain.
“It’s hovering uselessly,” said Kiggs. “If it were an embassy dragon, I’d expect it to side with your teacher.”
That last word jarred me. I’d expected him to say “uncle,” truly. I had told the truth right in front of him, and he could not, or would not, believe it. He was offering me an easy way back to normal, and I was sorely tempted. It would have been so simple not to correct him, to let it go. It would have been effortless.
But I had kissed him, and I had told the truth, and I was changed.
“He’s my uncle,” I said, loudly enough to ensure Glisselda heard it also.
Kiggs did not let go of my arm, although his hand seemed to turn to wood. He looked to Glisselda; I did not see what expression she wore. He said, “Phina, don’t joke. You saved us. It’s over.”
I stared at him until he met my eye. “If you’re going to demand the truth from me, you could at least have the courtesy to believe it.”
“It can’t be true. That doesn’t happen.” His voice caught; he’d gone pink to his ears. “That is, what Aunt Dionne might have been planning … I’ll allow that that happens. Maybe, sometimes.”
It had been about to happen at Lady Corongi’s suggestion, too, I suddenly realized.
“But interbreeding is surely impossible,” Kiggs continued stubbornly. “Cats and dogs, as they say.”
“Horses and donkeys,” I said. The cold wind made my eyes water. “It happens.”
“What did you say about my mother, Lucian?” asked Glisselda, her voice tremulous.
Kiggs didn’t answer. He released my arm but didn’t walk away. His eyes widened. I followed his gaze in time to see Orma pull out of a drop barely in time, shearing off a chimney and a tavern roof with his tail. The sound of the crash reached our ears a moment later along with the screaming of panicked citizens.
“Saints in Heaven!” cried Glisselda, who had come closer behind us without my hearing, clutching her side. “Why won’t that one help him?”
In fact, “that one” was gliding lazily back toward us. He grew larger and larger, finally landing just downhill from us; a gust of brimstone wind forced us back a step. He stretched his snaky neck, and then proceeded to do the opposite of what Imlann had done, collapsing in upon himself, cooling and condensing into a man. Basind stood stark naked in the snow, rubbing his hands together.
“Saar Basind!” I cried, even though I knew how futile it was to be furious with him. “You’re leaving Orma to be killed. Change back at once!”
Basind’s eyes swiveled toward me, and I stopped short. His gaze was sharp; his motions were smooth and coordinated as he picked his way toward me through the snow. He flicked his lank hair out of his eyes and said, “This fight has
nothing to do with me, Seraphina. I’ve gathered the pertinent data on your uncle, and now I get to go home.”
I gaped at him. “You’re—you’re from the—”
“The Board of Censors, yes. We test your uncle regularly, but he’s been tough to catch. He usually notices and spoils the test. This time he was experiencing excessive emotionality on several fronts at once; he could not keep up his vigilance. The Ardmagar has already ordered Orma’s excision, of course, saving me the trouble of having to argue the case.”
“What has Orma done?” asked Glisselda, behind me. I turned; she stood on a stony outcrop, looking surprisingly regal as the sky turned pink and gold behind her.
“He put his half-human niece before his own people multiple times,” said Basind, sounding bored. “He showed several emotions in quantities exceeding permissible limits, including love, hatred, and grief. He is, even now, losing a battle he could easily win, out of concern for a human boy he doesn’t even know.”
Orma was thrown against the bell tower of the cathedral while Basind spoke, crushing the belfry roof with his back. Slate and wood hit the bells, adding cacophony to the ard-call, which still pealed forth from churches all over the city.
“I offer him asylum,” said Glisselda, crossing her arms over her chest.
Basind lifted an eyebrow. “He’s ruining your city.”
“He’s fighting a traitor to his own kind. Imlann tried to kill the Ardmagar!”
Basind shrugged his bony shoulders. “Truly, that concerns me not a bit.”
“You don’t care whether the peace fails?”
“We Censors predate the peace; we will be here long after it has crumbled.” He looked down at himself, seeming to notice for the first time that he was naked. He made for the mouth of the cave. Kiggs attempted to block his way; Basind rolled his eyes. “This silly body is cold. There is clothing on the floor. Hand it to me.”
Kiggs did as he was told without complaint. I was astonished by his alacrity until I saw with my own eyes what he had remembered: it was Lady Corongi’s gown. Basind put it on, grumbling that it was too tight but noticing nothing else wrong with it. He turned and sauntered away up the sally port, unchallenged.