“So um,” I started as we walked through the Dadafodd, “I’m Kinri and this is Digrif⁠ ⁠—⁠ you know that, I guess⁠ ⁠—⁠ but what about you? What’s your name?”

“They prefer to call me the priestess.”

“I get it⁠ ⁠—⁠ being mysterious is fun⁠ ⁠—⁠ but it doesn’t do much to sell us on the whole... trusting you thing.”

“What are you a priestess of?” Here came Digrif with the conversational questions. Asking the questions she wanted asked.

“Dychwelfa ac Dwylla. The church of our once and future faer, Dwylla the eternal. We give guidance to those in our charge⁠ ⁠—⁠ a rare and valuable thing, here in the land of glass and secrets.”

I didn’t back up. Where Digrif was following behind the priestess, I walked beside her, even when it edged me into slabs. Looking her in those inviting eyes, I asked, “Are you implying you and your church don’t have secrets of your own?”

“So skeptical, dear. You do not trust easily, do you?”

“Why would I?” I retorted.

The murmured response: “Only the first time, I suppose.”

She took a step forward, and this one I didn’t match, having stopped to think about that reply.

Digrif asked, “What’s that mean?

“She knows.” The priestess shook her head. “It’s nothing important, worry not.”

While my gaze whirled around the inside of the tavern once more, my thoughts played with this new piece of information. She was alluding to Hinte, she had to be⁠ ⁠—⁠ my first friend in the cliffs, maybe the one person down here I trusted. (And look how she repays that trust, that voice of mine-but-not-really-mine noted).

But the real answer was in the style, not the substance. That reply had bite. The priestess⁠ ⁠—⁠ had⁠ ⁠—⁠ nursed tenderness in her tone... but clearly it wasn’t something she was beholden to.

With that click of a conclusion, I roused to attention⁠ ⁠—⁠ the priestess was glancing back, at me, with something like a smile.

“Oh, you have a proper thoughtful look about you now. I’d love to know what’s roiling underneath.”

Hm. I thought a moment. Silence, or lie, or truth? I thought, and then I decided. “Just wondering how much of this all is an act.”

“I don’t act, dear. I actually care about you, Kinri, I do. You’re lonely and homesick, working a dreadful job and struggling to keep a room at a ratty inn. You’re so starved for friends or allies, that the alchemist is whom you turn to. I see that, Kinri, and I dew for you.”

“D-don’t.” It⁠ ⁠—⁠ the word⁠ ⁠—⁠ was a wall, a barricade, hastily thrown up and ready to fall down immediately. That⁠ ⁠—⁠ that was me, what I was. It would have been electrifying to hear those words out of any other mouth. But this was the mouth of a thief.

Why were they the ones who seemed to care?

“Where are we going?” Here came Digrif again, with the well-timed questions.

“To a certain slab on the second floor, to meet a pair of drakes. You’ll recognize them, Kinri.”

And I did.

The slab where they sat wasn’t in the shadowy corners or under an alcove. It was in the open, sitting where the piping of the crwths and pibgorns wafted and the drums’ rhythms easily found a head to bob or foot to tap.

“Weird,” I started, “that you worry about dragons overhearing when this is where you want us to meet.”

“Around this many dragons, this close to the music⁠ ⁠—⁠ it’s fine. The self-conscious secrecy you suggest only invites eavesdroppers.”

Unlike me, Digrif was quick to slink to the slab and lay down on a mat. There were two empty spots on the near end⁠ ⁠—⁠ for either of us⁠ ⁠—⁠ and one empty spot on the other side, for the priestess.

Beside that empty spot were the drakes she mentioned. The drakes I knew. The drakes I should have⁠ ⁠—⁠ against all doubt’s benefit⁠ ⁠—⁠ have expected.

Dieithr, and Wrang.

“Oh greetings, Kinri. It’s right fine to see you again,” said Dieithr. The brown drake propped himself up on his mat with a foreleg. In the other foreleg, he had a glass of something bitter and piercing that made my tongue curl when the stench touched it. He sipped and gave me a smile.

Wrang had stood at our approach. The plain-dweller wore robes with a gold trim, and in a wing he had a cane or scepter. He nodded at me. “Kinri.”

Digrif glanced back with a little frown. “Wow Kinri, everyone seems to know you.”

“It’s just because I know Hinte, I think.” I started toward the mat, while the priest looped around to her spot.

“Kinri, I know Hinte too! But no one knows my name.”

Wrang smiled. “Don’t draft yourself down, Digrif. You aren’t irrelevant. I simply have a prior acquaintance with Kinri here.”

“I gave you chance to steal the sword from the humans in the lake, right?”

That erased Wrang’s smile.

“I hadn’t thought you would be this combative, dear,” the priestess murmured. “Perhaps you should be sleeping.”

I stopped, considered her words. Was I being combative? It’s just⁠ ⁠—⁠ I had, on some level, trusted these dragons, doubted for them. But they were tied up in conspiracy. Hinte’d had been right, on every account.

(I’d wanted to see the good in dragons⁠ ⁠—⁠ was that mistaken?)

Hinte had been right. I wondered what she would say, if she’d been standing here. I, at length, replied: “I’m annoyed, is all. If you’re so put off by it, why don’t you start making sense? What are you all doing here? What’s going on?”

Dieithr took another bitter sip. “Dychwelfa ac Dwylla,” he started, “is more than just a church. You could think of us as a.... coalition of those who have Gwymr/Frina’s best interests at heart.”

Wrang gestured up with his scepter-wing. “Yes, exactly. We, more than anything, strive to protect Gwymr/Frina⁠ ⁠—⁠ against humans, against Aurisiuf, against Mlaen-sofran if need be.”

I liked to think my growl was a good imitation of Hinte. “And you strive to protect Gwymr/Frina... by stealing human corpses and trinkets?”

Dieithr. “Think of it as the most subtlest strategy of a veteran skirm player. Not easy to comprehend or explain, but that same obscurity baffles our enemies.”

“Sure. But⁠ ⁠—⁠ and excuse me if this is my tired combativeness speaking⁠ ⁠—⁠ I didn’t come here for more mystery and obscurity. Give me actual answers.”

Dieithr sipped once more that bitter drink. He sat down his cup. Licking his brilles, he murmured. “Yes, you deserve some answers, don’t you? Have a seat then, these won’t come quickly. But I assure you, this is screeds more than you’ll ever get out of Hinte or Aurisiuf.”

Dieithr took a deep breath. I took a seat. It took a moment for him to finally open his mouth, and maybe it was a coincidence that the rhythm matched what the instruments on stage were playing. Either way, they did, and it was poised to imparted the next words with a sense of poetic verity, and completed the image of an old story teller beginning once more...

But the next voice you heard wasn’t at all a storyteller’s, or even a drake’s. High, scratchy, feminine.

It came loud from the other side of the tavern and stopped all music in its passing and even the scattered conversation quieted.

(Really, you knew there was only one dragon who could get away with this interruption.)

A dragon stood atop the stairwall, staring right at me.

“At once, skyrat,” the forest-dweller said, alula beckoning.

* * *