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.

* * *