“Please, Kemal. You don’t need to challenge him. Turn back into a man, and I’ll give you a kiss.”

“That will work,” said Vai, his mouth against my ear.

It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t being sarcastic.

The black dragon inhaled so deeply that the sparks and smoke swirling around us were sucked into its nostrils in a prelude to a fresh attack. Hail peppered down. Vai took the brunt of the impact but uttered not a sound.

The hail ceased, leaving the ground covered with iron pebbles. Vai rolled off me, rubbing his head and cursing under his breath.

The gleam of the black dragon’s scales cast a hazy light over the two figures on the gravel drive. Kemal had become a man again. He knelt, head bowed, his left arm and leg streaked with blood.

“Come with me,” Bee said coaxingly. She helped him to his feet and toward us along the drive. Their shuffling progress spun in the mirrors of the dragon’s eyes as it watched them go.

I would have run forward but Vai held me back. “Catherine, there are times when you must stop and think and not just leap. If you rush out there, your movement or whatever scent you have of the spirit world may startle it into attacking.”

“Thank Tanit!” Bee staggered up. She listed heavily to one side with Kemal leaning on her. “Help me. He’s injured, and stunned.”

Vai got an arm around him, and Bee let go.

“I was so frightened!” I hugged Bee so hard she grunted.

“Ouch! Cat! Let me go. Where’s Rory?”

“We sent him ahead to secure the rowboat.”

The dragon bellowed so loudly we all cringed. A horn cry answered, followed by a second and a third. Drums pulsed from the heart of the city. Was the Treverni prince raising his militia?

“Will the mages be foolish enough to attack?” I asked. “Can weapons hurt a dragon?”

“Best not to find out,” said Kemal. “My people are few in number. He has now ingested the seed of five males. We must coax him to the river. Once in the water, he will crown. Once he becomes a female, he will dive for the Great Smoke.”

“Very well.” Bee boldly walked onto the drive. “Your Excellency, a part of you must surely still be the headmaster. I need that part of you to listen attentively. Soldiers are coming. You must depart. Otherwise the soldiers will attack the academy with the hatchlings in it. You are a rational and educated man. You can’t want all those young ones killed. So let us move.”

“She’s magnificent!” Kemal breathed.

“Or insane,” muttered Vai under his breath. “Are you sure she’s safe from him?”

Kemal grimaced. “We do not eat people. They smell bad and are not at all nourishing. Among the lore of my kind, it is said humans are poisonous. Cold mages most of all.”

“How have you cut the threads of my magic?” Vai asked.

“I know nothing of such secrets. Why would I?” Bitterness shaded his expression but then, remembering what he had just done, he smiled.

After a hesitation, Vai spoke. “My apologies for any discourtesy I showed you the first time we met, Maester Napata. I’m not just saying that because you saved our lives.”

Kemal staggered along between us, looking unaccountably cheerful for a man who had taken several gashes to the flesh. “My thanks, Magister. Be assured I am accustomed to such treatment from cold mages. Although to be honest, your arrogance had a particularly memorable flair that made it all the more striking.”

I glanced past Kemal to Vai, not sure how he would react to this gentle sarcasm.

“My thanks,” he said with a slight flutter of his eyelashes. I wasn’t sure if he was suppressing a sneer or a laugh. Then he smiled. “I often practiced for many hours in front of a mirror to be sure of bringing it off to its full effect.”

Both Kemal and I laughed.

We hobbled around the kitchen wing. In front of the pier, guarding the rowboat, we discovered Maestra Lian holding a burning lamp in one hand and in the other a poker with which she was threatening Rory. He had an oar in each hand as he tried to dodge past her.

“Maester Kemal!” she cried. “This person steals the boat!”

He let go of us and limped to her. “Maestra Lian, let him pass. His Excellency is about to depart.” He took the poker from her to use as a cane. “Some ruse must be devised to confuse the soldiers and send them away. I fear for the hatchlings.”

“Tell them I wove the illusion of a dragon with cold magic as we were escaping,” said Vai. “Their belief in my exceptional abilities will trouble them for months.”