No good telling himself he should have foreseen it. In the split second he’d had to make his decision, he’d been thinking only of his own survival, not looking ahead to see how that survival might impact the lives of humans.

As a walker, he was supposed to have as little effect on human lives as possible—a rule he’d effectively scuttled years ago when he had started on this disastrous enterprise. Since then, he’d ended up entangled in more human lives than he wanted to think about.

“It’s like one of their blasted round dances,” Draconas grumbled to himself as he ran down the street, his long braids flying out behind him. “You start out with one human and things are going fine, then suddenly the music changes and you’re handed off to another human, then another after that, and before you know it, you find yourself a long way from where you want to be.”

As if fate were determined to prove him right, Draconas’s need to race home caused him to burst into the house without first doing what he would have normally done—taken a careful inspection of his surroundings. If Draconas had been paying attention, he would have seen the monk loitering in the street, and he would have known immediately that this night he should not go home. He should have let the humans worry.

As it was, Draconas was in too much haste to notice. He arrived to find that Rosa was out, and he had time to chop the carrots and the onions, ready to add to the meat that was already in the stew pot, when Rosa opened the door.

“It’s good to come home to a warm house and supper already started,” said Rosa, taking off her scarf and giving the girl a hug. She gazed at Draca and added, with a frown, “But what have you been up to? You look as though you’ve spent the day crawling about in a cave! I trust you washed your hands before you started the cooking.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Draconas, exhibiting hands and arms that were clean to the elbow, if not much beyond that.

“Your face is filthy and you’ve even got dirt in your hair,” said Rosa, scandalized. “You had best go wash up before Anton comes home. Though, poor man”—she sighed—”I think it likely he’ll be late again this night.”

Draconas thought so, too, since Anton was helping to make the weapons of war that the dragon army would carry into human lands. As he poured water into the crockery bowl the family used for washing, he thought of the daughter that Rosa and Anton would never see again, and he thought of the hideous grandchild that she had borne them—a grandchild that resembled the daughter they loved except with clawed feet, or perhaps wings and a tail.