“It’s not going to glow or vibrate or detect ghosts or anything now, is it?” Leftie asked.

“What? Your arm?” Trip was sitting on a blanket with him, the last of the people he’d healed. Sardelle had healed Duck and another injured pilot who’d arrived later, entering the hangar bleak-faced and devastated after admitting that he had crashed his flier into the harbor.

“Yes, my arm that you magicked up and left all tingly.” Leftie rotated the limb, eyeing it suspiciously. The gash that had been there, a wound so deep the bone had been visible, was the faintest of scars now, and Trip thought even that would fade with time.

“You’re supposed to thank a healer,” Sardelle said. “Not complain.”

She’d finished and now stood, watching General Zirkander, who had only stopped working for a few brief words here and there. Though night lay deep outside now, he was sawing, sewing, and replacing hull and wing material right alongside the ground crew and several other officers. Trip could tell he was worried the dragons would return again soon and without warning.

“Oh, it wasn’t a complaint, ma’am.” Leftie lowered his arm. “Just a concern. I’m not comfortable being magicked.”

“I should think it preferable to the alternative.”

“I guess. I’m just… It’s still tingling, Trip.”

Leftie extracted his lucky ball-on-a-chain charm and kissed it. This was the fifth time he’d felt the need to do so since Trip started healing him. Trip was positive Leftie didn’t kiss it that often when he was flying into battle against impossible odds.

“That’s because it’s finishing growing new skin. It’s supposed to tingle. I promise that ghost detection is not in your future.” Trip patted him on the shoulder and stood up.

Blackness encroached on his vision, and he held his hands out to steady himself.

Easy, Azarwrath said. You’ve done a lot today. Your body needs rest.

I don’t think anyone is getting any rest tonight. Trip looked toward Zirkander and the others and felt another wave of guilt for not having been here for the battle.

I missed it too if it makes you feel better, Jaxi spoke into his mind.

Trip didn’t think he’d left his bank vault door open, but he was tired, so maybe he was easier to read. Or maybe Jaxi could simply guess from his face.

I was helping teach a twelve-year-old to catalog medicinal herbs when the dragons came, Jaxi added. A scintillating task, let me tell you. By the time Sardelle and I reached the army fort, all the fliers were already up in the sky and engaged in battle. There was no way for us to join Ridge. Jaxi sounded like she felt as bad about missing out as Trip. If Bhrava Saruth had been here, Sardelle and I could have flown into battle on his back. Or at least gotten a ride to the fort so we could go up with Ridge. He likes having us with him.

I’m sure it’s a helpful advantage for him.

It absolutely is. If I had been up there, maybe he wouldn’t have lost people.

She sounded distressed on Zirkander’s behalf—or maybe she’d known the pilots who had been lost?—so Trip didn’t point out that it was something of an arrogant thought. Besides, hadn’t he thought something similar in regard to himself earlier?

“Trip,” Zirkander said, walking up behind him. “Ahn and Grady gave me their reports, but I want to hear directly from you about the meeting with the elder dragon. Is it true that there’s no chance that he’ll take up residence here and act as a large golden scarecrow?”

Zirkander’s uniform was rumpled and stained with soot and engine grease, and he looked wearier than a sled dog at the end of a five-hundred-mile trek. Trip wished he had better news.

“Sorry, sir.” He seemed to be apologizing a lot tonight. “Unless Shulina Arya develops an interest in him, I don’t think so.”

“What?” Zirkander looked at Sardelle with a puzzled expression.

She lifted a single shoulder.

“Drysaleskar found her fetching, sir,” Trip said, “but she rebuffed his attempts to woo her.” Woo was hardly the word to describe the clumsy advance he had witnessed, but he lacked a better term.

“Is she even old enough to be wooed?” Another look at Sardelle. Maybe Zirkander considered her his guide to all things magical. And dragon-related. “I’ve seen her on wheels.”

“If she is, I suspect she would be more drawn to a younger soul,” Sardelle said, then yawned and rubbed her neck. “I want to check on our surrogate mothers to make sure nothing happened to them or the babies in the attack.”

Zirkander nodded.

“Trip, do you want to come along?” she asked.

“I… want them to be all right, of course, but—” Trip extended his hand toward the fliers, “—I’m sure the general needs me here.”

“We can always use your engineering knack, Trip, but you may want to be elsewhere for the rest of the night.” Zirkander glanced toward the doorway. “You may have noticed Angulus came up here to check on us—and Major Kaika.”

“Yes, sir. I sensed them leaving about ten minutes ago.” Trip remembered Kaika refusing to be carried, saying she had recovered and was fine, and that she would walk out at Angulus’s side, but what did that have to do with Trip being elsewhere?

“You may not have noticed a castle administrator who caught up with Angulus outside the hangar as he was coming in. He drew him aside and reported a complaint filed a little earlier.”

Trip’s stomach sank. Could the incident with Lockvale have caught up with him already?

“No, sir. I didn’t notice.”

“I wasn’t eavesdropping, but Jaxi has a knack for it.”

Pardon me, but it’s called observing, not eavesdropping. It’s not as if I hopped out of my scabbard, sneaked out there, and leaned myself against the wall where they were speaking.

“I suppose it was Lord Lockvale who made the complaint?” Trip sensed an indignant grumble from Azarwrath.

“Yes. What happened?” Zirkander regarded Trip gravely, his eyes troubled.

Seven gods, what had the nobleman said?

“He’s been teaming up with a silver dragon to try to drive Rys—Lieutenant Ravenwood’s family from their land. I questioned him so I could get the truth.”

“How did you question him?”

“Just with words and telepathy. I mean, I asked him questions about it so I could read his thoughts. That’s not—” Trip glanced at Sardelle, not sure how much Zirkander truly knew about magic and what sorcerers were capable of, especially since he seemed to hide in his office or the duck blind whenever magic was happening in his house. “It’s not that hard to do.”

Sardelle nodded, as if to back him up, but her eyes were troubled too.

Because Lockvale reported a lot more than questioning, Jaxi said. He wants you hanged.

Trip almost fell over. What?

“He said you assaulted him in front of witnesses, used your magic to pin him down, and then you tried to kill him,” Zirkander said.

“Sir, I never hurt him. I was just trying to get answers. He lunged at me with a pistol. I put a barrier up, and he bounced off it—after trying to shoot me—but that’s it. I swear.”

Trip lifted his hands and gulped in deep breaths, trying to stave off the panic rising, but memories popped into his mind of all the times he and his grandparents had been forced to move when he’d been a boy. Because he’d been accused of witchcraft, or of causing strange and otherworldly things to happen.

To have a nobleman do the accusing… How could he fight back? This could end his career. Or his life.

No, Trip would run before letting anyone kill him, but run where? His life and everything he loved and wanted to be was here. Only his grandparents were back east, but it wasn’t as if he could go there—it would be the first place the army would look for him.

Zirkander rubbed a hand down his face. Even though he didn’t say anything, Trip couldn’t help but feel he’d disappointed the general. At the least, he’d made trouble for him.

“Was Lieutenant Ravenwood there, by chance?” Sardelle asked. “Another witness to contradict this man’s claims—”

“They’re sleeping together,” Zirkander said. “Nobody is going to believe she’s an unbiased third party.”

Trip grimaced. He wasn’t surprised Zirkander knew, but lamented that he hadn’t been subtler with Rysha, that their relationship had become common knowledge among their superior officers.

“She wasn’t there,” Trip said. “I went down to deal with Lockvale while she and Shulina Arya chased down his dragon.”

“Is the dragon still alive?” Sardelle asked. Did she think it would have testified?

“No.”

“Ah.”

Zirkander rubbed his face again. “All right. Like I said, I want you to disappear for the rest of the night. It sounded like the military police might be sent to collect you. Tonight, Angulus is going to be busy hugging Kaika and admonishing her for getting hurt again, but we’ll go together to talk to him personally in the morning, before any overly eager subordinate can throw you in a cell. For now, go with Sardelle, and sleep at our place.”

“Do you think Angulus will believe a civilian over one of his soldiers that he knows?” Sardelle asked him.

“He doesn’t know Trip that well, and I honestly don’t know how he feels about him. You know how hard he is to read—for those of us without telepathy. And he may very well know and have a long past with this nobleman. The nobles have gotten preferential treatment throughout history, and they certainly expect it. Even though Angulus is a modern man, he’s always careful not to snub tradition. I would hate for Trip to be turned into some example.”

“Hm.”

Trip couldn’t read Sardelle either. Unlike Lockvale and most others he encountered, she could protect her thoughts.

“We’ll go then,” Sardelle said, inviting Trip along with a hand wave. “And see you later.” She patted Zirkander on the chest. “Don’t stay out here all night.”

“I’ll try not to. Trip, we’ll have your back.”

Trip was tempted to ask Zirkander if he believed him but sensed that he did without asking. A feeling of relief washed over him. Even though Zirkander didn’t have the power to belay orders from the king, at least he would argue on Trip’s behalf.

“Thank you, sir.”

* * *

As Trip and Sardelle, riding a pair of the army’s mares, passed through the gate in the city wall and headed into the quieter suburbs outside, Trip scribbled another item on the list he’d started. None of the mothers had requested a self-rocking cradle, but it seemed like a good idea. A clockwork version that could be set to rock for a certain length of time.

“You know it’s too dark for most people to see to write, don’t you?” Sardelle sounded tired but also amused.

“Yes, ma’am. But I’m odd. Rysha tells me so.”

“You don’t mind being called odd?”

“No, she likes odd boys.”

“I see.”

“And it’s not like the label was a surprise to me.”

Trip had called Rysha odd, too. Or at least alluded to it. He thought that made them a good match. He just hoped none of the fallout that might come from Lockvale’s accusations—gods, would the story be in a newspaper in the morning?—would damage her reputation or that of her family.

“In my time, my original time, you would have been called special or even remarkable, not odd.”

“Would a nobleman have made up accusations about me to get me in trouble?” Trip asked glumly, caring little about labels and more about the possible avalanche rolling down the side of a mountain toward him.

“The referatu didn’t place themselves above mundane humans, but we did have our own government and judiciary system, so if one did, we would have dealt with it in house.” Sardelle sighed, gazing at the dark houses they rode past. “But it’s unlikely a mundane, even a noble, would have dared falsely accuse a mage. Even a true accusation would have been unlikely to surface.”

Trip looked at his list, then tucked it away, letting it remind him that there was at least some good news. They’d visited seven of his little siblings, and they and their surrogate mothers had all been doing fine. The women had been scared during the attack, naturally, but none of their homes had been damaged.

Still, seeing how much damage the rest of the city had undergone—and he knew it would look even worse when the sun rose—had left Trip more determined than ever to find a solution, to protect the babies and everybody here in Pinoth.

As they neared the turnoff for the Zirkander house, Trip sensed dragons there. They were shape-shifted, with their auras dampened, or he would have detected them from much farther away.

“Ma’am, were you expecting visitors? Dragon visitors?”

“You mean Phelistoth?” Sardelle must have stretched out with her senses, too, because she added, “Oh. I see you don’t. Those are the bronze dragons from the king’s meeting.”

Trip nodded. “Shulina Arya’s parents.”

He nudged his mare into a gallop. Even though he wanted to believe any relative of Shulina Arya’s would be a friend and ally, he didn’t know much about these two dragons yet. So far, he’d had nothing but bad experiences with bronze dragons. Telmandaroo had been the best of the bunch, wherever he was now, and even he had wanted to make Trip a minion.

Sardelle’s mare also picked up the pace, and they soon rounded the corner that led to her house. Moonlight gleamed silver on the surface of the pond at the end of the street, and Trip thought the clear sky and pleasant temperature a poor match for how the night had gone so far. Storms and torrential rain would have been more appropriate.

Lanterns burned in all the rooms in the house, the soft yellow light visible through the curtains. A brighter light streamed out through the living room window, a warm golden glow.

Trip raked the house with his senses. Tylie was inside, as were the babies, Sardelle’s newborn and Zherie. Her toddler was also there, sleeping up in the children’s room. The two younger students that lived here since their parents weren’t local slept out in the small bunkhouse in the back.

“Nothing seems… amiss,” Sardelle said, no doubt doing a similar check. “Other than those two unexpected guests.”

Trip tied his horse to a railing and jogged for the door. Since Tylie sat in the living room with the dragons, he assumed—hoped—that meant she was monitoring whatever they were doing.

They’re disassembling one of the stasis boxes, Jaxi said dryly. You didn’t notice that in your perusal?

No, Trip replied. And, uh, why?

Don’t ask me. I can’t read dragon minds. Or Tylie’s mind, either. Though I am chatting with Wreltad, and it seems like ‘scientific curiosity’ may be the answer.

Tylie’s soulblade? Trip had sensed the magical sword on previous visits to the house, but didn’t think he’d ever had a conversation with him.

Tylie’s soulblade. He’s another old soul from Cofah. I believe he and the stuffy Azzy chat when you come to the house for lessons. I’m sure they get along fabulously, though Taddy is more interested in nobly slaying enemies than consuming fine wine and food. I understand he’s upset nobody took him along to do battle, but Tylie is becoming more of a healer and animal handler than dragon slayer. Also, someone had to stay and babysit.

As Trip and Sardelle entered the house, a familiar male voice said, “It is one of the same ones. Look, there’s the maker’s mark.”

Trip spotted the speaker, Bhajera Liv, in the same oversized suit jacket and goggles that he’d worn in the king’s meeting. The lenses of the goggles were down and in use as he peered at a panel. He sat cross-legged on the floor near his partner, Wyleenesh, who was examining a bronze plaque. Disassembled parts lay all around them.

Tylie sat on the end of the huge wrecked-flier-parts couch, reading a book and taking notes. She looked more like a supervisor—or babysitter—than someone involved in their project.

“Good evening,” Sardelle said, sounding serene though she had to feel distressed by the mess on her floor.

Some of those tiny screws and pieces would be painful to step on when barefoot if they weren’t all cleaned up. Trip knew this because he’d often disassembled things on his grandparents’ living room floor—and heard the subsequent cursing when he hadn’t picked up all of the pieces.

“Greetings, human female,” Wyleenesh said, raising a hand in a vague greeting. “We heard about the half-dragon creatures from a past millennia and had to investigate.”

Sardelle looked at Tylie, who merely lifted a hand, palm toward the ceiling. Trip took that to mean she hadn’t invited them; they’d just shown up. And it wasn’t as if one could say no to dragons coming into the house.

“We were among those who worked on the stasis technology back then,” Wyleenesh said.

Trip leaned forward, suddenly much more interested. “You were alive thousands of years ago? When the babies that were in those chambers were originally born?”

“I should say so, yes. We were quite young and exuberant, much like Shulina Arya is now.”

“I was never like Shulina Arya is now,” his partner said dryly.

“I didn’t know you then, but I do believe that. You’re rather stodgy.”

“I’m practical.”

“Stodgily practical.”

Bhajera Liv sniffed and went back to examining the plaque. Trip couldn’t imagine why a dragon would need magnification goggles or whatever those were—Azarwrath had once shown him how to augment his vision with magic—and assumed they were an affectation.

“At the time, our kind were worried about changes to the climate we witnessed occurring,” Wyleenesh said, nodding to Sardelle, whose interest also seemed to have perked up.

She came around to sit on the couch and face them. It was the first time Trip had seen her touch that couch.

“Dragons invented the stasis technology,” Wyleenesh continued, “because we feared the world might grow inhospitable for our kind, but we believed if we could hibernate for a thousand or two thousand years, the climate might change and become more palatable again. As it does over time. But it turned out to be a brief trend toward cooler temperatures, and none of our kind felt compelled to enter the chambers. Until an illness came along that our kind did not know how to cure. It killed many dragons, and those afflicted started placing themselves in stasis, in the hope of coming out one day, in a time when a cure had been discovered.”

“That’s how Phel came to be here in our time.” Tylie closed her book and leaned forward.

“Did you know Agarrenon Shivar?” Trip asked them. “Or—there was a bronze dragon who convinced the elders to force him to go into stasis and then sabotaged his chamber so that he eventually died. Did you know…”

The two dragons looked at each other, and Trip stopped talking, realizing he had no idea what the name of that bronze had been. What information he did know, he’d seen in a vision from the past. What if that deceitful dragon had been one of Shulina Arya’s parents?

If it had been, Trip wouldn’t feel any resentment toward them. Everything he’d learned about his sire suggested that his death had been a good thing for the world.

“We did know Agarrenon Shivar,” Wyleenesh said, “though I cannot say it was an honor to have made his acquaintance.”

“He was a buffalo’s left ass cheek,” Bhajera Liv said.

“Fortunately, you seem to be nothing like him,” Wyleenesh said. “We were pleased to hear from Shulina Arya that you rejected Drysaleskar’s suggestion that you talk her into accepting him as a mate.”

Trip’s breath caught. Sardelle and Tylie looked curiously at him. He hadn’t realized Shulina Arya had been aware of that exchange. He felt guilty because, for however brief a time, he had contemplated Drysaleskar’s suggestion. Was she aware of that? Or only that in the end, he hadn’t done it?

“Drysaleskar is a buffalo’s right ass cheek,” Trip said,

Bhajera Liv threw his head back and laughed. “Most golds are some manner of ass cheek.”

“Goodness,” Wyleenesh told him, “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“What?”

“Laugh.”

“I’m not that stodgy.”

“Telryn,” Wyleenesh said, looking at Trip again, “this was all long, long ago for us, but I did know Grenkolin, the bronze who built some of the large dragon-sized stasis chambers during that particular era. It seems he built smaller ones too. His mark is on that plaque, and likely on the insides of all the other chambers that those babies came out of. He was a bit of a—what is the term you humans use?—mad scientist. We also believe he was responsible, at least partially, for the building of the Portal of Avintnaresi, that which many of us were tricked into using to leave this world. I was actually consulted on the Agarrenon Shivar matter since it was a… delicate situation.”

“Planning the murder of gold dragons often is,” Bhajera Liv said.

“I believe I may have known your mother as well. There was a human woman who was a gifted engineer, especially given what a primitive time that was among humans, so she was known to many of us who considered ourselves scientists and engineers. I worked with her on a project once and saw her not long before Agarrenon Shivar was placed in stasis.”

Trip found himself hanging on the dragon’s words, his chest tight at the idea that someone might exist today who had known his mother, his birth mother, thousands of years ago.

“For a human, she was very bright,” Wyleenesh said.

“Do you know—” Trip’s voice was hoarse, and he cleared his throat before beginning again. “Is there any chance you know about her, uhm, relationship with Agarrenon Shivar? About how I came to be? I’ve worried that it wasn’t…” He paused, not comfortable talking about those precise worries in front of dragons he barely knew.

“Hm, yes, Agarrenon Shivar had quite the harem, did he not?” Wyleenesh looked toward his partner.

Bhajera Liv, his attention back on studying the parts, waved a dismissive hand. “I paid no attention to his animal conquests.”

Trip winced.

“The engineer—ah, what was her name?—Amilda of Songwater was likely too smart to be wooed by Agarrenon Shivar,” Wyleenesh said. “Even if he poured magic into his request, she would have found a way to fight him off. Besides, she was a little older, I believe. I do have a difficult time telling human ages, but she was not like his usual full-bosomed young conquests, as Bhajera Liv called them.”

On the chance the dragon had the name correct, Trip burned it into his memory. Amilda of Songwater. Maybe some history texts somewhere would mention her, and he could learn more.

“She probably wooed him,” Bhajera Liv said, picking up another piece of the device to study.

“Hm, yes, that is quite possible,” Wyleenesh said. “For a time, it was trendy for human women to seek out powerful male dragons for mating. The humans hoped they would have powerful offspring. I remember being a touch miffed that those women always seduced the gold dragons. They should have prioritized intelligence and sought out bronze dragons. Never is there love in the world for bronze dragons.”

“You’re not going to feel sorry for yourself again, are you?” Bhajera Liv asked.

“Is this not a suitable moment for it?”

“No.”

“That’s disappointing.”

It is an interesting thought, Sardelle spoke privately into Trip’s mind. I know you’ve been concerned that you were born out of a forced union. These two don’t know for sure it was otherwise, but perhaps it’s true that your mother sought out a dragon because she hoped to have a remarkable baby who would grow into someone who could change the world.

Trip knew she was trying to be encouraging and offer him hope, but since he’d done precious little to change the world, he mostly found this new idea daunting. If his mother had hoped for some super baby… he didn’t think he was it. At least, he hadn’t been yet. Perhaps there was still time to do something, to come up with some idea that could truly make a difference in the world.

I’d like to check on Zherie, Trip told Sardelle, wanting to make sure his little sister was all right, but also wanting an excuse to go off and find someplace quiet to think about these revelations.

Do you think she’ll want to add something to your list?

Given that she’s four months old, probably not. Trip smiled slightly. You could make a request.

You’ve already made us numerous things. Ridge is pleased with his coffee maker. Thus far, it’s proven simple and durable, unlikely to be destroyed by even dragons.

That was the goal.

Come. Sardelle rose and headed for the stairs. We’ll check on them together. Olek is up there too. I’ve been gone a few hours, so they may be hungry.

Trip had been trailing after her, leaving the bronze dragons to their studies, but he faltered.

I’ll wait until you’ve left the room to start the buffet, Sardelle said dryly, glancing back. I know witnessing breastfeeding makes you uncomfortable.

Just when it’s my commanding officer’s wife doing it. Or women I don’t know. Or women I do.

So, if men were doing it, you wouldn’t be uncomfortable?

Disturbed maybe, but not uncomfortable.

I see.

As Trip followed her up the stairs, he started mulling over what he could do to help Iskandia with the dragon problem, and what he could do to be the man his biological mother may have dreamed he would be.