“Are you living here?” I glanced around, but it was just a typical shop: shoes on display, shoes packed onto shelves, and a small polishing station to help protect against the red dust that touched every part of Flamecrest.

“Where I live is none of your concern.” She waved us into the back room, which was cramped with stores of leather and cotton and all manner of equipment. There was nowhere to sit, aside from a single stool, so we all remained standing. “I’ll get you into the summit,” she said, “but I need to hear everything about how Seven died.”

“No.” It was too uncomfortable of a topic, partly because it was my fault Seven had died, and partly because the events revealed too much about my connection with dragons. She was a spy, after all. She worked for the Algotti Empire. Information about Seven’s death was one of the few things I had to bargain with. “I’ll tell you after the summit.”

Her gaze was steady. Dark. But at last she nodded. “Very well. But I must know what he told you regarding events in the Fallen Isles. How much do you know about our purpose here?”

We glared at each other for a moment while I considered what she could use against me later, and finally I conceded. “I thought you’d come to see what your empress had bought with the Mira Treaty,” I said, “but Seven claimed you came to investigate the disasters.”

“That’s right.” She began rifling through a box sitting on one of the tables. “Our empress wanted to know how your problems would affect us. We may be far from you, but waves originating from the Fallen Isles have touched our shores.” She frowned, as though we’d personally done that to her. “But instead of mere geological activity, we’ve found evidence of a civil war brewing.”

“Anahera,” I murmured.

She pulled a pair of trousers from the box. There seemed nothing special about them, but she nodded to herself. “Here.” She tossed them at Aaru. “Put these on.”

Aaru paled, but Nine didn’t look ready to offer him another place to change to protect his delicate sensibilities, so he edged around a pile of crates, and I turned my back.

“It seems,” Nine said, digging through the box again, “the high magistrate intends to keep this island planted firmly in the sea by collecting all the dragons he can find.”

“That’s my theory as well.” I caught the trousers she sent flying my way. “Our holy books tell us that the dragons are the children of the gods, and that they entreat the gods on our behalf. The Great Abandonment is because of a broken covenant: we haven’t taken care of the dragons, and so there are too few to speak for us.”

“I know.” She threw a shirt at Aaru. “I’ve read all of your holy books.”

“You have?”

She scoffed. “Of course. You don’t expect me to come here, knowing nothing about your culture or society, and try to remain invisible, do you?” She found another shirt for me. “So he gathered all those dragons to the ruins, believing their presence would save Anahera.”