Given that the kindest thing he could say about most myths and legends was close but not quite—the Court wasn’t particularly hung up on gender, their own or anyone else’s—the lack of young men could only be considered a good try. Then he realized all the gesturing had a purpose and that two of the young women were deaf. The third wore wax earplugs. That got them two thumbs way up for paying attention to the important bits. Bare hands tracing words in the air, they didn’t seem bothered by the temperature; although if they were locals, October weather was nothing on the winters they’d already survived.

He thought they might be scientists or folklorists or something-ists. Serious about capturing myth in a way that the cell phone holders weren’t. He almost felt bad about what he was about to do to their data and wondered how they’d react if he told them about the asteroid.

Maybe if they couldn’t stop the asteroid, he’d find these girls again and tell them about the Courts. And the Gales. And dragons.

Still wrapped in shadow and breathing heavily, he moved up to the left of their equipment and stared out at the river.

City lights danced across the light chop, gleaming or sparkling depending on the source, without doing a thing to make the water look less cold and nasty. Granted, a Siren wouldn’t feel the cold, but if he hadn’t known what he knew and he’d heard what sounded like a girl singing in that river at this time of the year, his reaction would be more you have got to be kidding than oh, yeah, baby baby, I’m on my way.

At eleven on a Tuesday night, the city had gone quiet enough he could hear the water lapping at the shore. It sounded a little like dragon wings. Like the song of the air slipping over and around and . . .

Actually, it didn’t sound anything at all like dragon wings.

It sounded like water.

The girl-shape sitting on the rock-shape in the center of the river shrugged. “Can’t blame me for trying.”

“Yeah, I can.” If he’d had pockets, he’d have shoved his hands into them. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She combed her fingers through her hair, the emerald-green strands falling around her in a shimmering curtain. “You’re not my prince, Dragon.”

“So the Court keeps saying.” The three young women were frantically adjusting their equipment, hands flying in what, to his untrained eye, looked like profane gestures. Technology and sorcery didn’t mix and the first thing Jack had ever learned to do with his, as he crawled out from under the shelter of his mother’s wing, was hide. Even exhausted from the speed of his flight, he’d barely noticed the effort needed to extend the concealment out over the Siren. “You killed two people.”