“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.”

“If not years,” Rory said, lowering the oars. “Can I get in the boat now, or is that dragon-stinking man going to poke me with the iron stick?”

I poked him. “Rory, don’t be impolite! Maester Napata, my apologies. What will you do now?”

Kemal gestured toward the building. “I inherit the position as headmaster. That was always His Excellency’s intention.”

A shape like the void of night thumped down to the shore. I felt as with the skin of the grass that crushing weight, the ancient fire of its soul, and the spark of a new being about to shed the husk of its old form.

Bee’s flow of words was the leash on which she led the beast to water. “I do not mean to sound inconsiderate or ungrateful, but I do think it most unfair that I should risk so much and yet be told so little. I realize human people are of little interest to your kind except insofar as we hinder your lives or aid you. But, for example, I would wish to know who that very old man was who kissed me and then died! Was he one of your kind, for I am sure he must have been. Why did he say he was waiting for me? He called me his death!”

Because of the cloudy light chasing along its black scales, she was able to see us standing by the pier. She waved cheerfully, looking not one bit frightened.