From the other side, it seemed an accident. The southern gate cut into a shallow streamworn bed out of Gwymr/Frina⁠ ⁠—⁠ long since dried, but it had the watery texture. On the other side around the gate there’d been dug a wide tidy area. The stone façade was painted and laved. Walking up from the wilderness, though, splashed mud caked this side, and the banks of the dried stream slumped over the stone like a slimy eater.

Below that, eroding mud had formed or been formed into a slab on which a cliff-dweller guard lay and stared our approach with eyes of the night shift.

Like a recurring joke, the plan went wrong almost immediately. I asked the guard, “Have you seen a parrot?”

They were standing to open the gate. “Nope.”

I stopped and Mawla stumbled against me before harshly blowing her tongue. But I was looking up, brows creasing as I peered at the stars, my fangs dewing spice.

Had Staune abandoned us? No way she couldn’t’ve get to the gate already. Unless... had someone stopped her? But there was no one who’d want to⁠ ⁠—⁠ except Bauume. And the dog wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her, either.

“Mawla, do you smell Bauume around here?”

Flicked tongue. “Not even slightly. Haven’t since he took off.” She nudged me as she had whenever I’d slowed walking. “Birdbrain probably forgot, don’t get dewed out about it.”

“I trust Staune. And why else wouldn’t she get here?”

“Bauume don’t even know about her, don’t even have a reason to stick around here.” Her cowled head jerked up, before easing back down⁠ ⁠—⁠ keeping her face in shadow. “Hey guardie, seen a greencloaked venthole breeze by here any?”

“Nope. You louts going to actually come through, or just loiter?” They’d yanked the pulley and opened the gate while I’d not looked, and now leaned back on the mud slab, glaring.

“C’mon Kinri. Don’t get yourself knotted up. It’s the alchemist’s problem.”

“I liked her...”

The sifter pulled my foreleg forward, then pushed a hindleg forward too. It got me to start walking, and we were through the southern gate.

“Hey again,” said a plain-dweller guard, nodding at me. It was the one who’d let me through earlier. “Kinri and Alwam, was it?” They had the exit scroll in wing, scratched something off it. Then they asked, “You two doin alright?”

“We’ve... been better.”

“Way better,” Mawla’s clipped voice. She was now nudging me a lot more, suddenly eager for us to move on. Had the pain gotten worse?

I was quickening my pace for my own reasons. If that guard was still on watch, then⁠ ⁠—

“Look who it is, with an accomplice now.” The chocolate brown drake lighted down other side of Mawla. He had a smirk on that scarred face.

It twisted something in my gut⁠ ⁠—⁠ he knew something. “Have you seen a parrot?”

“Consorting with the alchemist’s demon pet too, are you?” Ffrom shook his head. “No, I don’t know about any parrot. But I do know about your friend here. Tell her to lift her hood.” Mawla had stopped nudging me, gone very still.

“Ffrom,” came the stab of the other guard’s voice, “will you ever stop harassing this wiver? They’re free to go. Let them go.”

Ffrom frowned, glancing between his partner and Mawla. “I’ve been told⁠ ⁠—”

“Don’t care.”

“—⁠ that this wiver⁠ ⁠—”

“I’ll give you an ari to shut up. That sound nice?”

Ffrom did pause at that. It made me pause⁠ ⁠—⁠ he had had a sword where other guards had clubs or nothing. Would an ari really be that tempting?

It was a pause for a second, but it was enough for Mawla to start limping away without me. I held her back with a wing, and she growled a little.

“Just a second,” I said. I looked at the chewing guard. The plan, right. “Hey, have you seen a greencloaked drake come back through here?”

Ffrom cut in fast. “We haven’t seen any greencloaked dragons.”

I smirked, and calmly said, “In that case, we’d like to report both trespassing and unprovoked assault.”

Ffrom frowned deeper. While the chewing guard now flared his frills, the endlessly frustrating guard nodded lazily. “Tell me more,” he drawled.

Mawla poked me with a claw, strainedly whispered, “Quit it. The guard is no help.”

“We’ve got to get the guard looking for him,” I told her. “He found you in the cliffs, he could find you again. I might not be there to help.”

I looked back to Ffrom, and she did too. I said, “Okay. His name’s Bauume. Wears a deepgreen cloak and has a weird accent. I’ve seen him busk at the east market, and also hanging out on the road to the Berwem gate.”

“Uh huh.”

Mawla popped her tongue, and told me, “He ain’t gonna tell no one.”

I looked back at the guard, and looked at him with that analytical eye my family had trained, seeing dragons as no more than bags of tells. I was not sliding back toward that: I gave everyone a doubt’s benefit, clouded my eyes to those tells. My patience had just⁠ ⁠—⁠ mysteriously⁠ ⁠—⁠ ran out with this particular dragon.

I could see it in his smile. It was a smile modeled after other smiles. He had, in fact, shone the same one last night, promising to take the humans to his prefect.

Hinte had been right.

“Which, I would suppose, is his own mistake.”

No one present had said it.

But I know the voice, acrid and airy. It had only been a few rings.

Even as the shadows around us swirled and gulfed, the air in my lungs seemed to twist and I couldn’t breathe.

All I could wonder was: would this be my last thought?

It wasn’t, because next I remembered Mawla, and said, “Run!”

Mawla twitched, but⁠ ⁠—

“Too late,” said that voice.

It had a direction, now, and I saw her standing above the prone fallen form of the chocolate brown guard.

I met the gaze, and looked into my own eyes, my own face. She didn’t have my headband.

Uane stepped from the waxing fog around us like a storm made flesh. Claws of light crawled above her scales, and flashing fangs of white stabbed across just as soon as you stopped expecting. A mosaic of color still rippled across the fabric of her Specter cloak, as if devouring the iridescent gray of inactive medusa fiber.

She was the storied war mistress of Specter incarnate. The wild colors had the look of a painting, and it wasn’t a trick; the colors of a Specter cloak were magic.

Yet still I glimpsed a discoloration like a blight seeping subtly through, same as last time. Now though, it was diminished in an obvious way, like it were being corrected. But it broke the spell, gave the visage a flaw which brought back into the world of real things.

Uane, in a word, reified the Spectacle of a medusa cloak. I found odd; whenever we had tutoring together, she never could focus on anything abstract. Patterning a cloak was everything abstract.

Maybe that impatience withered with the chance to intimidate, or maybe someone had patterned it for her.

However it came to her, it worked.

She smiled as if hearing the thought, and, folding her wings, said, “Art thou impressed? Dost thou miss this power?”

The earlier thought came back. It had felt good. That was just a club. To have a cloak and once again rend light, to control perception, control light⁠ ⁠—⁠ wouldn’t that feel good?

I answered, “No.”

“Pity, such a pity.” Was that a sigh?

“What are you doing here, Uane?”

“I grow weary of these Dychwelfa thugs interfering with our plans and walking over my sister. If thou hast no pride in thy name, it seems I must have it for thee.”

I shot another furtive glance down at Ffrom’s body.

Uane looked down at the guard for the first time. “Oh, worry not: they are not dead.” She flexed her wings, and frowned. “Though it would be easier if they were. One less pawn against Mlaen, hm.”

“Don’t, Uane. They haven’t done anything to deserve that.”

“I do not care.” She flexed her wings again, and then, as if remembering something unimportant, one wing dug a feathered form from a cloak pocket. “Oh, and were you looking for this thing?” It fell limp to the ground.

Staune. Eyelids closed, feathers askew, and⁠ ⁠—⁠ her chest rising and falling. I felt something settle back down in my gut at that.

“Curiosity worse than a cat,” she muttered. “Keep better control of thy pets, next time. I could have hurt it worse. Killed it, perhaps.”

My hindlegs dug clawed into the silty dirt behind me, but my forelegs gingerly picked and held Staune. “You okay, little hen?”

Softly, a “Starsnout.” I smiled.

Mawla was nudging me now. She’d slung her weight to her good legs and was staring hard at my sister.

She was saying, “Kinri, who is this?”

“Um,” I started, crawling out of my thoughts. “This is my little sister, Uane.” In my forelegs the parrot moved and stretched.

The yellowbrown wiver looked between us, brilles clearing, brow widening.

The resemblance was there when you looked for it. Scales the same shade of night-sky blue, eyes the same staring silver, and the same hornless head. She didn’t have my white freckles, or my overlarge frills⁠ ⁠—⁠ and somehow she was taller than me.

But there were more interesting differences. There were scars across her face like thin vines, rings piercing her frills, and an seething imperiousness I’d lost⁠ ⁠—⁠ thrown away⁠ ⁠—⁠ a long time ago.

Her face was in a sneer, but it only looked worse when she smiled. “And who is this mudling, Kinri?”

“My name is Mawla, skink.”

Uane rounded and slowly said, “I do not think I was talking to thee.”

“Skiiink,” came Mawla’s voice.

Uane rounded on the bird perking up in my embrace. Staune writhed free and fluttered up to light on my head.

“Keep the squirrel’s bird quiet.”

Uane’s voice. “I don’t think I was talking to skiiink, no.”

“Staune, please don’t taunt my sister. She could kill you.”

“Acceptable,” she said, and hopped and wriggled into my cloak.

Mawla glanced at me. “What’s your sister doing here? She get exiled too?”

“No, it’s uh, it’s a long story.”

She brushed a wing. “Suffice it to say I’m far less foolish; I would never be exiled.”

“Don’t tempt the stars, Uane. You could be worse than exiled for leaving the Constellation unsanctioned.”

“Could, but won’t. Lord Ashaine is far too capable. I am far too capable.” She gave me one of her smiles. “Unless thou hast some plan in mind, big sister?”

Big sister? I⁠ ⁠—

I clamped down on the sweetness in my glands. With Mawla here, it was so easy to act like Kinri and guilelessly fly into that trap. I had to settle into my mask to deal with my sister.

Sighing a cold sigh, I glanced up to meet her gaze. Her words unraveled before me.

I asked her, “How much have you been watching?” A medusa cloak could hide you from sight⁠ ⁠—⁠ dragon’s sight. Parrots have good eyes.

“Now that would be telling, now wouldn’t it?”

What she didn’t say: I’ve seen everything that matters.

“In real words,” Mawla started, “she’s seen enough to gloat about, but not enough to gloat with.”

“Silence, mudling.”

“I bet you⁠ ⁠—”

“Mawla, please⁠ ⁠—”

My warning was the Specter’s wings flexing. I cut myself off, and lunged at the yellowbrown wiver. My wing flew to cover her head. I thrust a foreleg up were her neck had been.

A long, deep cut across the outside of my ankle. It would hurt soon.

“Keep this other pet quiet as well.”

I smelt Mawla’s spicy dew below me. I whispered, “I’ll get rid of her, I promise. Just don’t goad her again.”

Uane, meanwhile, rolled her wings. The illusionary fog around us redoubled. Enyswm had almost fully set, we stood in darkness now. Only the ravenous flicker of the Specter’s cloak lit. You saw her eyes shine.

It, well, it intimidated.

Intimidation wasn’t supposed to work on Specters.

I regarded the discolored medusa fibers, the subtle glitches haunting the details of the illusion – spots of color, writhing unreadable shapes, light acting as light didn’t. Even not knowing what to look for, you’d feel something off in your gut. You’d be on edge.

It had been an honest question. How much had she been watching? Not enough to gloat with. Something was wrong with the cloak.

I said, “A shame your cloak falters so.” Hypocrite I was, I goaded her exactly as Mawla shouldn’t.

“And look what I can achieve while it falters.”

She flexed again, sending suggestions of illusionary cats stalking in the shadows, fictitious bats perching on crags, and spiders that weren’t there hiding anywhere they should be.

I flinched. Because she wanted me to flinch.

“I thought,” she said, “that thou mightest have had it in thee to grow stronger, braver, with a little direction. Such a shame.”

I glanced down at Mawla, who twice over might not be here if not for me. “I have grown braver, Uane. And I didn’t need your direction.”

“Thou thinkest heroics will grant thee anything? A true Specter is powerful. The Spectacle is about power. And thou hast none. No worthwhile allies, no cloak. So much nothing.”

“I⁠ ⁠—”

Her knife flashed out again in the dark. “Quiet.” Then she said, “I am beginning to wonder if thou simply dost not care for thy cloak the way we do.”

More words to unravel. My mind’s wings were aflutter, but the flight was too long. Uane was continuing before I had grasped her implication.

“Thou mayst think thou hast betrayed us, cloakless, but thou hast only made things stormy for thyself.”

Adwyn. I said, “Were you expecting hasty work?”f

“No, but I should have expected hasty betrayal. Do not pretend thou intendest to do anything when all the administration now knows.”

“But⁠ ⁠—” I dropped the airy Specter voice. She could see right through it. “The administration is kinda starting to trust me, star by star.”

“A damning statement, if ever there were.”

“Point is, I may be useful without being like you. Killing isn’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ isn’t very subtle.”

And knowing the star-absent despair that gathered like a fog around any death, how could I ever kill anyone?

“Useful in what capacity?” Uane looked down at Ffrom, who stirred as if slowly tending awake. “Thy method of problem solving appears to be running coilytailed to a guard and tattling like a moltling.”

“I clubbed Bauume.” My tail felt the tool still in my bag.

She smirked intense at the name. And she said, “Cute. You clubbed him, when thou shouldst have ended him. Now he’s running around, plotting a revenge twice over. The precise caliber of problem solving we need.”

“He’ll think twice next time! And if Ffrom hadn’t been here, the guards would have found and stopped him.”

“Rhyfel is flying this way. You can test that theory on him.”

I didn’t let her prediction unbalance me. It was irrelevant. I said, “I don’t need to break the law or do things alone. Ask⁠ ⁠—⁠ ask Asahine about the hero’s refrain.”

“I do not think I will.”

“He’ll tell you we were supposed to do things different. Not act like Specters. Be good, instead. That’s what I’m loyal to. Ashaine’s ideals. He should be too.”

Her cold regard glinted with a new glare. “I would be less insulted if thou were lying. Thou art a Specter whether thou wantest to be or not. Ideals do not advance our ends.”

Ideals are our ends. I said, “But I can.”

“Thou mayst, but thou wilt not. The evidence is clear, and stars know who has thy loyalty, but it is not Ashaine. Thou hast spat upon our designs.”

I opened my mouth to speak⁠ ⁠—⁠ and Mawla, forgetting, opened her mouth too, but neither of us were swift enough.

The Specter illusionmaster said, “Thou mayst beg forgiveness if thou wilt⁠ ⁠—⁠ but of course, thou wilt not. Know thy last glimpse of family, big sister.”

She turned, wings aspread. The cloak’s pattern was flaring, and the mosaic twisted. The shadows of her wings looked to stretch twenty times.

“If thou actest, we will notice. But if thou lookest, we will not be found.”

And like that, my little sister flew distant off into the vast darkness. The clouds only seemed to clear in her absence, stars returning to judge.

----------------------------------------

“What a skink,” said Mawla. She was trying to stand up. I got off her.

Staune was chirping high in reply, and fluttering over to her.

On her feet, the sifter nudged me. Smiled at me. I smiled back, a little wobbly. As if now invited, she threw a wing over me, pulled me a step closer.

She said, “You did good getting away from that mess. If your whole house is like that, I don’t know how you turned out alright.”

I didn’t. “Ashaine and Vaale were nice. Sometimes. I miss them.”

“Well if they really wanted, they could come and smell you.”

“They couldn’t. The Severance forbids it.”

“Didn’t stop her. If that cat is the one who cares enough to show up, well it doesn’t say much nice about the rest of them.”

“She’s here because my brother told her to be. She doesn’t want to be.”

“Doubt it. She wants you in the same skein she’s in. All the talk about pride and loyalty and what.”

The wiver poked me again. Grinned and said, “She wants her big sister to give her a word-hug. Tell her she’s not stupid for believing the Specter gab.”

“That doesn’t sound like Uane. I know my sister.”

“And I know siblings.”

“But uh, she was acting. We were kinda both acting. That’s what they taught us.”

“Whatever.” Mawla rolled her head and prodded the bird on her withers until she chirped and clawed the dragon back. The yellowbrown wiver started saying, “So tell me about this ‘betrayal’ nonsense. Sounds juicy.”

“It’s not. Just⁠ ⁠—⁠ tart. They want me to... wanted me to kill. Adwyn.”

“Ouch.”

“Perfectly acceptable.”

Mawla continued, “I can’t lie and say I’d miss him⁠ ⁠—⁠ or anyone’d miss him⁠ ⁠—⁠ but that’s a little much. More than much.”

“Yeah. I confessed to Adwyn a bit later. That, I think, was my ‘betrayal.’ Now, he knows there’s a Specter in Gwymr/Frina who wants him dead, and that I have⁠ ⁠—⁠ reasons to want to help them.”

“You do? Will it pay pretty?”

“Um, no. She said they’d give me a Stellaine shard, for my cloak.” I tapped my cheek. “And... and maybe Uane is a little right. I’m powerless.”

Gwynt and Ceian. Take to the highest skies, I prayed.

“So? Fuck power. Friends are better.”

“Maybe. But a little power wouldn’t be bad. I am still a Specter. It was how I was raised.”

She tossed her head. “And it’s not how you turned out. Look at her, then look at you.”

“We act different, but we’re still acting. You wouldn’t understand, we both grew up in the courts of the Constellation. I had it worse than her, even, because I was going to be Zenith.”

“Uh huh.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“It’s just not that complex. You’re nice. She isn’t. Pretty simple.”

“I act nice.”

Mawla brought a wing to her head, sigh a breath. “Flick. I get wanting to think you’re some master manipulator and every nice thing you do is some act,” she said. “Wrang is the same way, except he’s awful about it. You don’t want to be like that drake. Face it, you obviously are nice⁠ ⁠—⁠ you go out of your way to be nice. Just riddle it: what sort of great big scheme do I blow into? I’m an ashy sifter, that’s all you know. You’re silly.”

“Maybe.”

“Whatever.” She started poking Staune again, and it turned to whole battle. “What do the Specters even want? You never hear about them except as some spook in the sky.”

“Mlaen’s favor. I came here so I could get a spot in the administration, and sway things. But really, I had wanted to help them most so I can end my exile and get back to the Constellation, be home again.”

“Why? If these are the sorts waiting for you back there⁠ ⁠—⁠ you ain’t said they aren’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ what could you possibly want in shouting range of them?”

“Well, imagine if you had to leave the cliffs.”

“I do every night I get to sleep. I’d be on the second boat out of this shithole if I could pay it.”

“Oh. Well, for me I⁠ ⁠—⁠ wait, why the second boat?”

“You never want to be the first in line to anything. Let some sap eat the danger if there’s any and give you time to turn around.”

“I⁠ ⁠—⁠ okay. Well, I like the sky. It’s... I don’t want to say it’s better than the surface⁠ ⁠—⁠ but it really is. Beautiful, open, free. Everything’s bigger in the sky, because there’s more room.”

Mawla just rolled her head without committing anything. She blew into Staune’s face, and the parrot gave truly awful squawks.

Staune fluttered away and throned herself on some fern. We rested awhile like that, Staune chirping some simple, bizarrely upbeat song, while Mawla was looking up, searching for something.

Though I followed her gaze, I only saw someone flying high east --- from the town hall? But it wasn't what she was looking at.

When she finally spoke, the wiver’s voice was so quiet I only caught it by seeing her mouth move.

“I kinda hope you’d stay here awhile if that works for you.”

I met her blue eyes and smiled.

She made a sharp, short sound that was⁠ ⁠—⁠ but didn’t feel like⁠ ⁠—⁠ a laugh. “Thanks. I know a lot of dragons, but none of them are really friendly.”

Time passed awkwardly, my eyes darting around. Eventually I broke the quiet with, “So uh, I guess this means we’re friends?”

The light brown wiver grinned at me. “Yeah.”

A high squawk pierced the air. “And about me?” the parrot asks.

“You’re cute,” Mawla said.

“We’re friends too, Staune. You helped me out today, and you really didn’t have to do that.”

Staune spoke in my voice, “You’re starly.”

The parrot fluttered back onto my back, and we were all smiling under the night sky

Sometimes the stars visited in fire and rock, but sometimes they visited in friends and enemies. We fluttered a little nearer to heaven all the same.

* * *