Swarge ran a big hand through his hair, pushing the lank strands back from his face. “It’s all agreed to, Cap. You told us before and we haven’t forgotten. Nothing for you to worry about here. Good luck.”

“Squeeze those bastards dry,” Hennesey suggested, and Big Eider’s broad face cracked wide in a grin of agreement.

The others were nodding. Leftrin nodded back, and he felt their confidence in him as both armor and liability. There was a lot depending on him this time, much more than merely getting their pay for a journey accomplished. The councils were notoriously tightfisted, he thought as he returned to his stateroom. His grin looked like a snarl; he’d always wrung his contract money out of them before, and he’d do it this time, too. The signed document that had sent him and his ship on the expedition up the river was already snugly stowed in a waterproofed tube. He hefted it approvingly. They’d live up to their terms of the bargain; they wouldn’t like it, but he’d hold them to their written words, and they’d pay out the coin they’d never expected to spend.

Malta Khuprus sat before her mirror, drawing her comb through the gleaming gold streaks in her softly curling hair. Then she twisted it and slowly began to pin it into place. As her hands worked, almost by themselves, she stared at her reflection in the glass. When would the changes stop? Ever since she’d first come to the Rain Wilds, her body had been changing. Now the gold in her hair was literally gold, not the glossy blond that some folks called gold. The nails of her fingers were crimson. The rosy skin of her face was as finely scaled as a little tree lizard’s belly and as soft. The scarlet “crown” above her brow gleamed.

Her scaling was edged in red; the creamy skin of her childhood still shone through the nearly translucent scales on her cheeks, but her brows were layered rows of ruby scales now. She turned her head, watching the light move over her face, and then sighed.

“Are you well?” Reyn crossed the small room they had rented, covering the distance between them in two strides. He laid his hands on her shoulders and stooped to look at her.

“I’m fine. A bit tired, that’s all.” She set her hands to the small of her back and pressed on her spine. Her back ached abominably, as it had all day. The pull of the weight in her belly could no longer be eased, not by sitting or standing. Yesterday at the negotiation table with the Tattooed diggers had been a day of torment. She’d come back to their rented room hoping to sleep.