Which meant we needed Empress Apolla to like us. We needed her to be willing to take in thousands—potentially tens of thousands—of refugees.

“You have a point.” Ilina leaned on Hristo’s shoulder and sighed. “But I don’t like it.”

“I’m sorry. But I do have good news. You and I”—I nodded to Ilina—“are going to the dragon park tomorrow morning to see if we can help make the dragons there more comfortable until Paorah’s ships arrive.”

Ilina closed her eyes and exhaled. Her father was with the dragons Paorah had sent. She’d get to see him, at last.

“You might enjoy Empress Apolla,” I told Ilina. “She’s . . .” I considered all the ways one might describe the empress, and which ways she might not mind overhearing. Where the high magistrate ruled through fear, Apolla ruled through a careful display of power, promised security, and fear disguised as awe. “She is formidable,” I said at last. “And I know it won’t make much of a difference in your feelings about where dragons belong, but she does seem to like them.”

“Clearly.” Gerel motioned around the public parlor. “All these little dragons, that pair of obsidian titanuses outside—none of us thought she put those up for our arrival.”

Finally, an opening. I leaned forward. “Those are the least of her dragons. You should have seen her throne room. She has dragon bones.”

Everyone went still. Then breathed, as though remembering all at once they were being observed. Aaru squeezed my hand. ::First dragon?::

::Yes.::

“What kind of dragon bones?” Zara asked. “Do we need to worry about those two?” She pointed at LaLa and Crystal, swaying together as they gazed at the sky, though the light sigils must have obscured all the stars.

“It was one of the biggest dragons I’ve ever seen.” That was a lie. She’d been the biggest dragon I’d ever seen. “Truly, it was an impressive display of Empress Apolla’s power.”

“And now what?” Gerel yawned. “You want a huge dragon skeleton, too? Imagine how Paorah would tremble.”

“Exactly.”

“I’d like to see that skeleton,” Ilina said. “If someone found those bones here, they must be very, very old, probably from the Sundering itself.”

“That sounds likely.” Chenda looked at me. “Could we arrange a viewing? I think we’d all like to see it, if possible.”

“We should ask.” I put on my best Hopebearer smile. “Empress Apolla seemed quite accommodating, and perhaps she’d like to know more about the skeleton, too.”

Ilina raised an eyebrow—did I mean to say I wanted the empress to know about the first dragon?—and said, “You know I’m happy to talk about dragons until ears fall off. Don’t tempt me to bore anyone, though. I wouldn’t want to get kicked out of the empire because people don’t want seven-hour lectures on the correlation between wingspan and the number of vertebrae.”

“Anyone should feel honored to hear you speak.” I grinned. “All right. That’s our plan. Tomorrow, Ilina and I will visit the dragon park, and we’ll ask about everyone viewing the dragon skeleton before the ships leave. We have another decan before we should start expecting Paorah to get here, so everyone who remains here should use that time to make allies among Empress Apolla’s court. We’ll need all the friends we can get, if we can’t find anywhere to take our people.”