“I ken not the truth of that, but I did see him fly every day, twice at times, when we were traveling.”

“That’s far too often. Huh, I should have a word with him about it, a warning, like.”

“Think you he’ll listen?”

“Alas, I do not. Now, speaking of dragons, did you know that you have a stepmother and a stepsister of that scaly tribe?”

“I didn’t! Ye gods, here I did think that dragons be only the fancies of priests and storytellers, and now I do find that my own clan be full of them.”

“Priests?”

“Father Colm, the priest we did know back in Alban, did tell me once an old tale, that a dragon did eat a bishop—that be somewhat like a head priest, you see—but she did eat a bishop some miles to the south of where we did dwell. But I believed him not.”

“I have the horrid feeling that this Colm might have been right.” With a slight frown Salamander considered something for a moment, then shrugged the problem away. “Ah well, the dragons are sleeping the morning away in the sun, but when they wake, I’ll introduce you. In the meantime, Wynni, come with me, and let’s meet some of the ordinary folk.”

“Ordinary” was not a word that Berwynna would have applied to the Westfolk. With their cat-slit eyes and long, furled ears, they fit Father Colm’s descriptions of devils, yet she saw them doing the same daily things that the people of her old world did: cooking food, mending clothes, tending their children. They greeted her pleasantly, and some even spoke the language she now knew as Deverrian. Several woman told her how sorry they were that she’d lost her betrothed. Not devils at all, she thought. Most likely Father Colm never actually knew any of them.

One odd thing, though, did give her pause. Now and then she saw a person talking to what appeared to be empty air. Once a woman carrying a jug of water tripped, spilling the lot. After she picked herself up, she set her hands on her hips and swore at nothing, or at least, at a spot on the ground that seemed to contain nothing. Another person, a young man, suddenly burst out of a tent and chased—something. Berwynna got a glimpse of an arrow traveling through the air, but close to the ground and oddly slowly. With what sounded like mighty oaths, the man caught up, snatched it from the air, and aimed a kick at an empty spot near where he’d claimed the arrow.

“Uncle Salamander?” she said, pointing. “What does he talk to?”

“Hmm? Just one of the Wildfolk.”

“Oh, now you be teasing me.”

“You don’t see the Wildfolk?” Salamander spoke in a perfectly serious tone. “I would have thought you could.”

Wynni hesitated on the edge of annoyance. With a smile, he patted her on the arm.

“Don’t let it trouble your heart,” Salamander said. “Ah, there’s Branna. Let me introduce you.”