Astrid glanced at Dev, mildly startled to be reminded that he was there. Then she stood and took a few steps into the covered courtyard, the ceiling of which was the sagging second floor of the palace that connected the four corner towers. “Even the gold is gone,” she said. “I suppose it was only a matter of time.”

She was right. The bulbs at the top of the towers had been stripped of the gold that had plated them. The warm, bright colors had muddied, faded, and peeled off, and heavy mold grew in patches on the stately facade.

“Do you think someone stole the gold?” Dev asked. That made the most sense to a person like him. He might have tried the same thing, had he known about it and possessed the proper tools to extract it.

“Likely. Pirates, I suppose.”

“The Revinir has gold,” said Dev suspiciously. “A lot of it.”

Astrid shook her head. “I doubt it was her. She’s only been around for a short time. I expect this happened sometime after the war. It’s been… many years.”

“Forty, I think. Will you tell me about it, please?” Dev asked for the third time. He could see she was working hard to come up with the details.

Astrid kept walking slowly toward the center turret, like she was trying to identify the different parts of the property that she remembered from long ago. “It’s been so long since we spent any time around here. Since the meteors hit. Forty years wandering around in the cavelands, waiting,” she said. “I almost can’t believe it’s been that long.”

“Waiting… to die?” asked Dev.

“Waiting to die,” Astrid confirmed.

There was silence for a moment. Astrid peeked inside a broken window in the tower and sniffed. Then she began a longer answer to Dev’s question.

“Once upon a time,” she said, “two black-eyed families and a council of dragons ruled this land in peace and abundance, and everything was good.”

Astrid Remembers

The Taveer family ruled in Grimere,” said Astrid. “Maiven Taveer was the queen and commander of the army there, and a smart army they were. Precise and beautiful and full of life—oh, my dear boy, you should have seen them shine with pride as they marched the road to the square. The leading dragons in formation along with them. I can still picture it. And Maiven—I’d forgotten about her until we arrived here. What a noble queen! But I’m afraid she’s been dead for many years. No one has seen her since the uprising.”

“She’s alive,” Dev said breathlessly. He felt a rush of joy to bring such news to the dragon. “She was in the dungeon of the castle all this time! I fed her with my own hand. And now I believe—at least, I think—she has escaped. There was a fire in the castle recently, you see, though I don’t remember it because the Revinir had most of us black-eyed children under her mind control. But Thisbe—she told me a few things about what happened.”