“That makes sense,” Alise said quietly, recalling what she had heard of an excavated room called the Crowned Rooster Chamber. “The place where Tintaglia hatched was a chamber with large doors and heavy glass panels. It would have admitted sunlight year-round, but been a shelter from the rains of winter. It has been speculated that there was a great earthquake or other disaster, and some of the dragon cases were dragged into the chamber for protection. Instead, when the city was buried, the dragons were interred with it.”

“So.” Leftrin’s brow was furrowed. “What do we have here? The buried remains of a city? Kelsingra?”

“No.” She was decisive. A thrill shot through her. She knew, really knew what this was. “The platform the dragons are warming themselves on is below water level, but I think it’s plain that the water rose to cover it. And it isn’t covered deeply at all. If we anchored here and searched, I daresay we’d find other signs of Elderling habitation—the remains of old stone foundations, and perhaps more dragon-warming spots. But this wasn’t a city. Kelsingra was a place of many palatial stone buildings, fountains, courtyards, towers. If this were Kelsingra, or even the outskirts of it, we’d see the remains of those building still, for the dragon-warming spot is scarcely covered at all. No, Leftrin, we are at the site of an Elderling habitation, but not Kelsingra. Sedric! Wake up. We need to take measurements and make notes. Before the light is gone, we need to survey as much of the area as we can.”

“I’ll be making notes of my own on my charts,” Leftrin observed. They were grinning at one another as Carson came alongside them in another small boat. The hunter’s face was flushed with excitement.

“There are other ruins here. I pushed back into the reeds and looked around a bit. Just downstream from here, there’s a long structure that might be the remains of a stone pier that ran out into a river or lake. It’s underwater now, but you can feel the shape of it. Exciting, eh?”

Alise was surprised by the answering grin on Sedric’s face. “This is why you wanted to come on this expedition, isn’t it? To find something like this?”

“It’s a start,” the hunter replied. “But now that we’ve seen this, it makes the possibility of finding Kelsingra more real to me.” He glanced up at the darkening skies, and Alise followed his gaze.

More stars were appearing. The simmering river water was giving off a ripe green smell. The unearthly bluish light limned the dragons against the gathering night and changed their colors. Eyes closed and heads drooping, they looked more like statuary than real creatures. “Are they going to cook themselves there all night?” she wondered aloud.