“No one will destroy Kelsingra,” Rapskal said suddenly. He had been so silent that Tats had thought he was hiding from Alise’s disapproval by pushing Thymara to the fore. But now, when he spoke, he sounded so certain that even Alise was silenced by his words. “We won’t let them,” he added. “Because it is our heritage. Kelsingra is an Elderling city. Yes. But it isn’t a dead thing to be studied. Leaving the city as it is now would be as big a neglect as tearing it apart to try to discover its secrets. Alise, you only have to be open to the city to know that it does not want to keep secrets from you. Everything you want to know, it is willing to tell you. It wants to share itself with you. The city is alive and waiting for us to return to it. The presence of the dragons woke it. I do not know what Sintara did that Heeby had not done before; perhaps she recalls more of the city and how it is supposed to function than my Heeby does. Perhaps she recalled for the city what it needed to know to awaken. I cannot say for sure. But the city did awaken and it waits for us.

“Let me tell you what we found there, Thymara and I. I want you to know every bit of it. Write it all down, if you will, even though there is no need. I want you all to know what we know now! And we know so much more than cold stone walls and broken tools can tell you! There is a building that was a bathhouse for dragons. Inside, the rooms are warm, and the beds are soft. We found clothing that seems to shape itself to our forms. Thymara and I may be hungry, but we are clean and warm right now, something I haven’t been for weeks. And when our dragons soaked in the hot water, they grew again, just as they did when they found the get-warm spot in the river on the way here. This morning, when Sintara awoke, she took flight and went off to hunt. She hunts for her own meat now, as a dragon should, and she flies, as a dragon should.”

It was not only the keepers drawing close in rapt silence to hear Rapskal. The eager listening of the dragons was almost palpable.