Concentrating on Draconas, Anora had unwittingly left her mental processes open to Grald. She slammed shut the door to her thoughts and refused to answer him. He couldn’t understand her strategy anyway.

It is difficult to take a dragon by surprise.

While a dragon is conscious, he can easily defend himself. Dragons must sleep, however, and when they sleep, they sleep deeply—for years at a time. There was the chance that another dragon or some enterprising human might slay the slumbering dragon. Thus, over the centuries, dragons had developed a means of self-protection. The moment Anora launched a weapon at Draconas—magical or otherwise—his dragon being would act to take defensive measures and fight back. Her plan was to reveal herself to him, let him see that the human he’d known all these years as the holy sister, was, in truth, the Head of Parliament, a venerable dragon he had long respected and trusted. She calculated that the shock of seeing her, of knowing—at the last moment—that she was going to be his doom, would suck all the fight out of him, leave him breathless, winded, amazed. Then dead.

She was quite close to Draconas now.

He was preoccupied, tense for the kill. He didn’t hear a sound, didn’t sense her presence.

“Draconas,” said Anora gently, in her human voice.

He jumped, startled, and looked over his shoulder.

“Get out of here, Sister,” Draconas told her roughly. “This is none of your concern.”

“Ah, but it is,” said Anora.

In that moment, Draconas knew. She saw the knowledge in his eyes as she saw her own reflection, the shadow of the dragon, rising up behind the holy sister, extending its wings and its claws.

The colors of Draconas’s mind came crashing down around him.

“I don’t understand . . . ,” he gasped.

“I know, Draconas,” said Anora softly, and her colors were gray ash. “The pity is—you never will.”

Lightning crackled from her jaws . . .

1

MARCUS EXTENDED HIS HAND, POINTED BEHIND HIMSELF TO THE buildings that stood at the entrance to the alley. The magic rolled out of him, rumbled through the earth. Stone walls shook and trembled, and with a roar like an avalanche, the two buildings collapsed. Marcus heard screams and cries and guessed that at least some of his pursuers had been caught in the cascade of rock and debris. He dashed out into the alley, with Evelina at his side, and it was then he felt the weakness.

It came over him suddenly, unexpectedly, a sensation of being exhausted, drained of energy. He could not catch his breath. His legs and arms and hands tingled. He stumbled and nearly fell.

Evelina caught hold of him.

“What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”