Unevenly, his fingers trailed along the wood, and unevenly did the Silver obey him. Narrow streaks of gleaming Silver-polished wood followed his touch. Where he had not touched it, the Silver darted about, formed itself into balls and danced nervously, uncertainly on the surface of the rough plank.

‘Try it again,’ Carson suggested, his voice barely a whisper.

Alum looked up at him and then back at the wood. ‘Look how narrow the stripes are. It would take forever to …’

‘Don’t say it!’ Carson interrupted him hoarsely. ‘Don’t suggest anything we don’t want it to do.’ He stared at the beaded dancing Silver as if it were game he were stalking.

‘Add your beauty to the wood; give it your gleaming strength.’ Harrikin had gone a bit pink on his cheeks but he spoke on. ‘Like a shimmering, gleaming pond of shimmering, gleaming, beautiful, still water. Please be like that. Let me see how you can make your beauty part of the lovely, pretty, smooth wood.’ He looked up suddenly at the others, his eyes desperate. A thin line of polished wood was following his awkward touch.

‘You are like the moon’s shimmering path on a still pond,’ Thymara suggested. Harrikin nodded tersely.

‘Let your beauty on the wood be like the moon’s shimmering path on a still pond.’ He spoke to the Silver, and another narrow streak of gleam joined the first.

‘The glorious strength of molten iron running in a steaming stream,’ Carson muttered.

Harrikin nodded and spoke again to the Silver. ‘Add to this wood your glorious strength, like the smooth running of molten iron in a steaming stream.’

‘I’ve got one!’ Alum said softly. ‘The beauty of a woman’s hair, unbound and falling down her bare back before her lover’s eyes.’

‘Lucky for you that Leftrin’s not here,’ Carson muttered. Alum flushed pink under his pale-green scaling.

Thread by thread, compliment after compliment, the Silver was persuaded to merge with the wood. When the final dancing drop was stilled, Harrikin rocked back on his heels. He heaved a sigh. He drew the glove off slowly and offered it back to Thymara. She took it carefully. He stood, flexing his back and shaking his head. ‘Alum was right. Look how long it took to persuade one gloveful of Silver to bond with the wood. There it is, a stripe that’s barely a finger wide. It’s going to take days to finish that well cap!’

‘Seems likely,’ Carson replied thoughtfully.

‘And it seems likely that if we do it, it may last a hundred years,’ Tats added.

Thymara was gazing around at the city. ‘How did they do it? How did they raise it all?’

‘Very slowly,’ Carson replied. ‘And not with magic alone.’ He seemed to be thinking something through and then he added, ‘I don’t think they used it because magic made it easier or quicker. I think they used it to do things that otherwise couldn’t be done. Then the effort would be worth it.’ He scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘Obviously, we’ve a lot left to learn.’

Malta looked up from perusing the empty beds of soil. Through the glass panels overhead, she could see the sun venturing toward the horizon. Another day gone, and no word from the dragons or any of the keepers. How many times a day did she stop whatever she was doing and scan the skies? The rooftop hothouse offered her a view in every direction, but the skies remained stubbornly empty of dragons.

‘I’m sorry,’ Alum said as he shut the glass door behind him. ‘Am I disturbing you?’

‘Not really,’ Malta said. ‘As long as we speak softly. Phron is sleeping.’ She nodded toward him. She had spread an Elderling robe out on one of the hothouse benches and put him down there. He looked a different child. He was still not the chubby pink infant she had dreamed of cradling, but she suspected that, for an Elderling’s child, he was very healthy. Tintaglia’s influence was more obvious on him than it was on her or Reyn. His scaling was a decided blue, as were his eyes. His body shape was more lithe than rounded. She did not care. His eyes were bright; he slept deeply, ate eagerly, and stared at her with wide trusting eyes while he nursed. Every day he grew, and every day she wished his father were there to see it.

The tall youth advanced hesitantly and then perched on the edge of a bed. ‘I thought we didn’t have any seeds to plant?’ Alum studied the soil Malta had loosened in one of the long, narrow beds. She realized that, with Skelly gone with Tarman, he was probably as lost as she was.

‘We don’t,’ she admitted. ‘But it’s something we used to do in our gardens back in Bingtown in springtime. We loosened the soil in the beds and renewed it before the seeds were planted or the young plants set out.’