After the battle, Eve once again invited Raff, Kaz, and Li to eat together with the females, but Raff quickly explained that they intended to do some more shopping before Raff’s battle. Eve actually seemed quite excited to go with them, forcing Raff to simply tell her that they would be going alone. As they walked away, Kaz saw the injured look on the female’s face, and hoped that Raff hadn’t permanently damaged his chances at courting her.

“Quiet time?” Raff asked, and Kaz nodded. Instead of using the silence rune, however, he chose to draw the one that simply muffled speech, making it impossible to understand. Hopefully, the humans tracking them wouldn’t get close enough for it to matter, at least not without being seen themselves, but if they did, unintelligible murmurs should be less suspicious than absolute silence.

Li was already in the air, circling overhead as she looked for the combination of gray and yellow hair. Of course, this drew quite a bit of attention to her, but to Kaz’s surprise, the people pointing at her seemed to be excited rather than fearful.

Raff chuckled, though his eyes never stopped watching the shadows and the narrower streets around them. “Li’s got some fans,” he said. “Maybe those two were just sent by some rich lordling who wants a pretty golden lizard to add to his collection.”

Kaz frowned. He’d been worried about Li in a vague sort of way, but now that worry solidified into a fist that clutched at his heart. “Would someone really try to take her?”

“Oh, Pellis curse my tongue,” Raff muttered. “Nah, she’s probably safe enough. I think they’d try to buy her first, so as long as you haven’t turned down any offers you haven’t told me about, she should be fine.”

The fist loosened, and Kaz looked up at his dragon, dipping and tilting over the rooftops, her scales shining like the gold humans valued so highly. She was utterly focused on her task, even the muttering he’d become used to hearing in the back of his mind reduced to little more than variants of,

Kaz and Raff walked while Li flew, and what seemed like miles passed beneath their feet. There seemed to be hundreds of small stores in the area around the stadium, many of them little more than carts with umbrellas over the top to protect their wares.

Once again, Kaz noticed that many of them sold the same things, though the colors and prices varied just enough to give people hope that they might find a prettier object or a better deal if they just kept looking. It was exhausting, especially since Raff lingered over something in almost every one, as if hoping that sheer boredom might drive their pursuers into the open. Kaz had to admit that if he was the one following, it might have worked.

Unfortunately, neither Li’s eyes nor Kaz’s nose managed to pick anyone out of the crowd surrounding them. Once or twice Raff called their attention to a couple of likely humans, but every time the pair were obviously wrong in some way. The only good thing was that Kaz found a stall selling something made using the spice he’d scented on the two, and he dropped his sound rune long enough to find out what it was.

Leaning forward, Kaz sniffed a round tube of meat pinched inside a partially cut slice of bread. It was spread with a red sauce that smelled very much the same as what he remembered from the day before. “What is this?” he asked, pointing at the thing.

The trader had been watching him suspiciously, but now he smiled. “Ah, you have excellent taste, my lad! This is my own invention. It’s called a war weiner, and I only make them during the-”

Kaz shook his head, indicating the sauce, rather than the meat and bread. “No, this. It’s,” he sniffed again, “sweet, but spicy, too?” He felt a bit of the burn that sniffing jiao could cause, and he rubbed his nose, fighting an urge to sneeze.

The merchant, a short, round male with a short, round beard, narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Did Liam send you? You tell that bas-”

Kaz cut him off again. “No one sent me. I think I saw someone eating one yesterday, and it smelled interesting. I wondered what it was. I’d like to buy one.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” the man said, still looking skeptical. “Two coppers.”

Rather than handing Kaz the one on the top of his cart, he opened a large metal box, releasing a billowing cloud of meat-scented steam. For the first time in more than an hour, Li came swooping down, landing on Kaz’s arm, and the merchant nearly dropped the war wiener he had been removing from the hot box with a pair of long pincers.

Looking from Kaz to Li, the male’s eyes caught on Kaz’s blue hair, and he pointed with the limp meat tube in his hand. “You’re Kaz! And you like my war wieners?”

Kaz started to say that he hadn’t even tried one yet, but the male was already putting one together and shoving it into his hands. Four more came after that. Two for Raff, another for Kaz, and one for Li, though the merchant handed this to Kaz as well after realizing that Li couldn’t swallow it whole or grip it in her back claws while standing on Kaz’s arm. He was wrong, of course, since the dragon had eaten larger crystals, but Li would reveal her teeth in the process of gulping it down, so Kaz didn’t say anything, much to Li’s disappointment.

“If you come by tomorrow before the tournament,” the merchant said, leaning close, “I’ll give you more. If you walk out on the field eating one, I’ll feed you for free for the rest of the week.”

Raff brightened, taking a large bite of his war wiener. “Mm, not bad,” he said. “Not sure how I feel about the sauce, but the meat an’ bread are good.”

Kaz tore off a piece of one of the three he held and handed it to Li, making sure to cover her mouth as she took it. He bit off the next chunk, finding that it was quite pleasant. The meat tasted a bit strange, clearly having been made with some spices mixed in, but the best part was the sauce. He quickly took a second bite, then a third, only to find that he’d already finished the first weiner.

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The merchant grinned at Kaz’s reaction, leaning in to whisper, “The sauce contains an Imperial spice called rougui. It’s sweet but spicy, with that strong scent, so it can draw in customers from blocks away. Hardly anyone here in Cliffcross uses it, so it gives my war wieners their own unique twist. Don’t tell, though.” He closed one eye in what Kaz was beginning to realize meant the human doing it believed you now shared a secret.

Having learned what he wanted to know, however inadvertently, Kaz stepped back, handing Li another bite. The dragon pushed the bread aside with her nose, but gobbled down the meat before licking the remaining sauce from the bread.

“We’ll be back in the mornin’,” Raff said cheerfully, waving to the merchant. “The flavor kinda grows on you, eh?”

The other male waved back, turning as the next customer stepped up. Kaz was so focused on eating that he barely noticed until Raff hissed, “Kaz, sound.”

Kaz blinked, pushing ki into the image of the sound-muffling rune. Raff continued eating as they walked away, but spoke around his mouthful. “Does the guy in line behind us look familiar?”

Kaz couldn’t look back without being obvious about it, but Li turned her head to peer over his shoulder. she said, showing him the two males now accepting war wieners from the merchant. The gray-haired male was looking impatiently after Kaz and Raff, but the yellow-haired male had eyes only for his meal. They both had short hair and pale skin, and were almost exactly the same height. The yellow-haired male even had an unusually large posterior.

“Maybe,” Kaz said. He tried to pick out their scents, but the odor of the rougui was so strong that it overwhelmed everything else.

As the two humans left the cart, Raff turned sharply to the right, heading down a different street. About halfway down the block, he stopped, looking at a sword in the window. “They still behind us?” he murmured, and Kaz nodded. Li was resting her head on his shoulder as if she was sleepy, which allowed her to watch the males as they made their way along.

“They’re trying not to be obvious, but the yellow-haired one keeps glancing at us,” he said.

Li shifted, raising her wings.

Kaz looked at her. “Just don’t get too far away. We know they have friends.”

The dragon bobbed her head, then rose into the air with a few powerful beats of her wings. Kaz felt her joy at being airborne once again, and his eyes followed her as she turned. Someday he would find a way to fly with her. Not just on her back, but beside her, equals in the sky.

“You stay close, too,” Raff said, turning away from the shop. “I know a spot not too far away where we can try to corner ‘em. You can drop the noise spell now, though.”

Kaz did as he was told, trailing along after Raff as Li circled overhead. To their followers, it must have seemed that they had simply resumed their shopping, but now Raff led them down quieter and quieter streets, until he paused in front of a shop displaying a shirt and pants in the window.

“Ready?” he asked. Kaz just tilted his head, waiting. Raising his voice slightly, Raff said, “I need another pair of pants. My backup pair’s gettin’ a little thin in the seat. After that, I’ve got to head back for my other fight. You all right gettin’ back alone?”

Kaz nodded. “I will get there without trouble.” He spoke stiffly, too aware of his listeners, and he could see Raff’s lips twitch, though the big male didn’t laugh.

Raff stepped into the store, and Kaz turned away, walking toward the barracks. When he reached the first corner, he turned down a passage almost as narrow as the one where he’d overheard the two trackers the day before. Li lingered behind him, making lazy swoops through the air, as if simply enjoying the sun and wind, which, to be fair, she was.

He’d gone a fair distance when Li spoke. she told him, her voice practically quivering with excitement. As planned, she swooped down, flying through the street directly in front of the shop Raff had gone into. He would be watching through the window, and only emerge when he saw the dragon.

Kaz slowed his steps, walking just a bit further before looking up as if searching for his friend through the gap between the overhanging roofs. He put a ferocious frown on his face, turning and calling, “Li?”

There was a soft scuffle behind him, as of two people abruptly stopping in their tracks. A moment later, that scuffle turned to shouts, and Kaz ran back the way he’d come, soon seeing that the yellow-haired man was on the ground, while the gray-haired man was suddenly blazing with white ki, even though Kaz was absolutely certain that he’d only had the smallest shadow of mana when he’d seen him before.

The newly dangerous male thrust out his hand, grunting as uncontrolled ki blasted into Raff’s chest, but also shredded the flesh of his palm and fingers. It was as if he’d never used his power before that very moment, and he screamed as he staggered backwards.

Meanwhile, Raff stumbled, a hand going to the front of his shirt, where a dark stain was spreading far more quickly than Kaz liked. His expression was absolutely shocked, and Kaz thought it was the first time he’d ever seen the large male look truly surprised. Raff’s back came up against a wall, and he slid down it slowly, leaving a crimson streak dark against the pale stone.

Kaz ran forward as Li released a roar like none he’d ever heard from her before. For all her claims that the humans were mere annoyances, she liked Raff, and she was less than pleased to see him hurt. Unfortunately, her wingspan was too large to fit between the roofs, so she was delayed as she circled, trying to find the best angle at which to plummet toward the enemy.

But Kaz was already there. He had no time, and though the gray-haired male was clutching his shattered hand, he was also trying to get to Raff again. So Kaz reached out and tore his ki away. The power scattered, most of it flying away into clumps of disintegrating mana. But a single thick rope of ki also snapped away from him, and his throat exploded in gore. Something flew out of that terrible red and black hole, slamming into Kaz’s hand, where it quivered like something alive. Kaz barely had time to glance at it, seeing a red-soaked white orb carved with shallow runes, before it crumbled, turning into a thick, bloody paste.

Kaz wiped the sticky stuff onto the same wall against which Raff was slumped, his feet carrying him toward his fallen friend. He was almost there when Li called, and he heard another of her new roars, echoing through the narrow space in which they stood. He whipped around, seeing that the yellow-haired male was attempting to stand, his eyes wild and one arm clearly broken.

The male jerked upright as if dragged by a rope, and Kaz realized that the thick white cord of ki had transferred to him, pumping power into a body that was never meant to hold it. Li landed on him, all four clawed feet digging into his shoulders and upper arms as her teeth clamped onto the back of his neck.

“Get the rune-stone,” Kaz barked, and Li’s teeth shifted, clamping down on something buried beneath the skin. She jerked her head back, tearing the skin, and the stone came free. Even Li knew better than to eat it, so she spat it on the ground, where it disintegrated as thoroughly as the first. The male beneath her claws shrieked and fell down, eyes rolling back in his head.

Li said, entirely serious for once.

Kaz nodded, turning back to Raff.