Gasping, Kira got to her feet. She washed out her mouth and splashed more water on her face, then looked at herself in the mirror, wondering who the wild-eyed girl looking back at her was. Opening the coat she was wearing, Kira flinched at the sight of the vertical slits torn in the lower part and top edges of her shirt by the tips of the dragon's claws and the red bloodstains along some of those slits where her skin had been sliced open. It looked horrible, but it didn't hurt much, and the bleeding didn't seem to be too bad since the fabric of the shirt was sticking to the cuts and serving as bandages. A cautious look inside one of the rips showed only a shallow cut.

She closed the coat again and walked out of the bathroom to find Jason waiting with an anxious and awed expression.

"Kira, that was a dragon, wasn't it? I tried to distract it."

"You were very brave to try, but no one can distract a dragon that has its eyes on its target," Kira said. "Jason—"

"You fought a dragon! You were bleeding. Are you okay?"

"I know I fought a dragon. It's just shallow cuts. Don't say okay. I'm fine."

"You threw up—"

"A dragon just tried to eat me! I'm a little queasy! Now listen, Jason. We stirred up a huge ruckus out there. People are going to hear, and a lot of people were looking at me, so someone may have recognized me. Getting out of Ihris may not be an option. There's no telling how much time we have left." She paused to control her breathing again. "I need to somehow calm myself and focus enough to try that spell soon."

Jason nodded, his eyes on her. "What do you need me to do?"

"Jason, that was the perfect thing to say." She looked around the room, lit well enough by the sunlight streaming in from a couple of windows. "That chair. Put it in the corner facing that little table. Get the junk off the table and lay the drive on it. I'm going to need you to stand a little bit behind me, and not say anything, and not make any noise."

He was already moving the chair. Jason brought the chain holding the drive over his head, looking down at it, then laid it on the table.

Kira sat down as Jason retreated to a spot behind her. With the chair facing a corner, all she could see was the little table with the drive on it. She didn't touch the drive, only looked at it, breathing slowly and carefully, remembering how her father had described creating spells like the one she had to manage.