He’d skipped the usual lecture about cost or price. Whatever she could see through the wing he had fastened across her eyes was all that he could see. “Can you lower the wing?”

That, he could do. Without the wing, she expected to see nothing: no light, no illumination, possibly normal Dragon eyes. She was wrong. Whatever it was that now lay across her hand was solid, hard; her fingers closed slightly at its weight, because the weight was increasing.

But what she saw without Hope’s wing was...a word.

It was a word very like the words that now spun slowly around her arms. Whatever Mrs. Erickson saw, Kaylin didn’t expect to see—but she hadn’t expected this. The word in her hand, heavy as it was, was very like other True Words she had touched before. It matched the color of the floating marks of the Chosen almost exactly.

“Whatever you’re doing,” Mrs. Erickson said, “keep doing it.”

“I’m just...holding out a hand.”

“You must be doing more than that. I can see...” She shook her head. “I think we’ll have your Dragon back soon.” She then looked away. “You mustn’t do to Kaylin what you’ve done to that poor Dragon Lord. She is trying to help you. We both are—but none of us know exactly what’s needed.”

The word shivered against Kaylin’s palm. Kaylin glanced past the word to Sanabalis. “Hope?”

He returned his wing to her face with a little more force than necessary; she looked through that wing to Sanabalis’s eyes. They were murky now, but the white that occupied their center was less brilliant, less all-encompassing. As she watched, color returned to the eyes—a crimson, unlidded red, moving from the edges until it once again covered everything but pupils.

The weight across her palm didn’t increase during this transition. The number of words did. They were similar in shape and size, but didn’t seem connected to her eye. They had an unusual complexity, very different from most of her own marks, as if they were meant to describe entire worlds. Tiny, delicate worlds.

“Are they—are they still talking to you?” Kaylin asked the old woman.

“Yes, dear—but very quietly now. They aren’t crying or screaming anymore.”

Kaylin had her eyes on an enraged Dragon. “Sanabalis?”

His voice, when it came, was an unintelligible rumble.

“They’re very sorry,” Mrs. Erickson said. Had Kaylin let go of her hand, she would have moved to stand in front of Kaylin.

“Teela?”

Teela stepped forward, inserting herself between the Dragon and the civilian. Terrano, however, moved to stand in front of Kaylin’s outstretched hands, his brow wrinkled in a blend of curiosity and confusion. “What do you see?” he asked.