Her mouth stayed parted for a moment more, a question heavy on her tongue, but she shut her lips and swallowed the words. This was a new place with many new customs to learn and people to meet. Yenni didn’t want to seem rude or ignorant, so she was having a hard time coming up with a way to ask Harth Raynee Duval why his skin was green.

He wasn’t a vivid green, only greenish, darker at spots like his elbows and knuckles. His hair, now that was vivid green, and pulled back in a short horsetail. His eyes were friendly and shone like polished jade.

“Back at you, en?” he said. “So, Yenni Ajani, you are easily the most interesting person I’ve seen in a while. Where are you from?”

“The Moonrise Isles!” cried Zui. “Isn’t that something?”

“Oho! So it is. What brings you all this way?”

“I—I wanted to be the first woman of the Moonrise Isles to study in Cresh,” she said. It was best not to tell people about Orire N’jem, should they inadvertently intervene in a way the Sha deemed unfit.

Harth looked impressed. “A pioneer! I must ask, what are these white markings? They’re very striking.”

Yenni laughed. “Your wife said that exactly.” She briefly explained her runes. “And I could say the same for you. Are you also from Minato?”

He looked astonished. “Of course not! I’m Creshen through and through. What would give you that idea?”

Yenni faltered. “You look similar, so I thought . . .”

They looked at each other and spoke as one. “We do?”

“Yes. Your coloring . . .”

“But I’m blue and Harth is green,” said Zui, as if one just happened upon blue and green people as a matter of course.

“We’re both dragons, if that’s what you mean,” said Harth.

Yenni stared at him. Blinked. “I’m so sorry, but my Creshen is not very good. I thought I heard you say you were dragons.”

“Your Creshen seems fine to me, and yes, I did.”

Yenni’s mouth worked as she tried to form a sentence. “I—I didn’t realize . . .”

Harth burst out laughing. “But how could you? We blend in so naturally with everyone else, en?”

Yenni narrowed her eyes at him, anger rising up her throat like bile. She did not like being ridiculed, made to feel ignorant. After all, it wasn’t her fault there were no dragons left on the Sha Islands.

Zui glanced at her face and smacked her husband on the arm.

“Ow!”

“Don’t mind him,” she said. “There aren’t any dragons on the Islands are there?”

“Not for three hundred years,” said Yenni. She cut her eyes at Harth. “Our dragons were exterminated by Cresh during the Colonial War, after all, so I have never met a dragon in person.”

Harth cleared his throat. “Ah. Yes. Then you couldn’t have known. Understandable.”