I felt better after talking to Alanna. It had been a productive conversation; I’d gotten to know her a little better, and she’d silently hitched the wagon of her hopes securely to my star. And I hadn’t promised her anything I wasn’t happy to give her, either. From everything I’d seen and heard, and from what Mak had sussed out from her own conversations, Alanna was good people. Who her grandpa was didn’t change that. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what more I needed from her to fully trust her, but I’d know it when I saw it. Then we’d welcome her into the fold with open arms.

  She looked like she felt better, too, when I left her. When I got there, the smile she’d given me was fragile and uncertain. The one she wore when I left was bright and hopeful, and she outright told me that she was looking forward to my next visit. I was pretty happy about that. I’d done some good.

  The Nahasia patriarch had been the last thing we talked about. “I met with my grandfather yesterday,” she’d said. “In my capacity as your liaison. He is… he’s not pleased about that appointment. He’s very worried about me.” She’d smiled then, just a little. “I was terribly worried that he’d be angry with me, you know? That he’d see it as a betrayal? But he wasn’t! He’s not best pleased with the lord commander, I can tell you that, but me… Mercies, this was the first time since I was a little girl that I actually felt like he was my grandpa.”

  “That’s nice,” I’d said. I would have preferred her to just get to the point; anything to do with that man soured my mood, if just a bit. But she looked so honestly happy remembering that I didn’t want to rush her.

  “Yeah,” she’d said with a soft chuckle. “It really was. I can’t remember the last time I had half an hour with him. And he remembers so much more about me than I would have expected. Oh, but you don’t care about that.” She gathered herself, her face becoming more serious as she said, “I presented your request to him for a meeting. I told him that you wanted to see if there was any mutual ground for the two of you to build a cordial relationship on… and I also told him that you wanted an apology. He… he didn’t like that. He didn’t lash out, or anything, but it was easy enough to tell.”

  “So? Did he refuse?”

  “Not outright. He’s willing to meet, in public or in private. He suggested this very rooftop, actually, since there’s precedence. The apology, though… I wish I could say that there was a real chance, but I don’t see it.”

  I huffed. I was not at all surprised. But the apology had never been the important part. “Well, a meeting will have to do, to start,” I told her. “Thank you, Alanna. Can you arrange something?”

  “Maybe? But when will you be back?”

  “For this? It’s a bit of a flight down here, but I figure it’s important enough. Tell him that if we can narrow it down to a day, then I can wait for him here while you send for him. That, or we’ll have to wait until I’m properly back in the city.”

  She’d looked very doubtful about the outcome, but I was sure that she’d try at least, and that was more important to me than the meeting itself. I could wait if I had to.

  After taking to the sky I circled a bit, thinking about what to do next. That, and quickly checking in on Mak and the others. I chose Mak because I didn’t want Herald to sense that I was having a peek; she’d scold me for being a worry-wart.

  They were fine, playing some kind of game where you had to tell a story together by stringing together words beginning with consecutive letters. It sounded fun, and like something I’d be absolutely shit at in any language.

  Satisfied, I decided to check on the people at the inn. I started by looking through Barro, but he was at the market looking at accessories outside a silversmith’s. So, I’d have to go to the inn myself. I didn’t want to go there openly, just in case I drew an angry crowd or something, but I did want to make sure that all was well. Luckily I had an easy, if roundabout, fix for that.

  The first step was to disappear mysteriously over the cliffs. North of the city was the sea cave through which parts of the city’s sewers drained. It was no harder than it had ever been to Shift and make my way in through the muck, which I could blessedly neither smell nor touch in my shadow-form. From there I made my way to the storm drains via the overflow channels, and then it was a quick and easy route to the passage that Mak had opened from our cellar into the drains.

  When I got there, of course, the hatch was shut. Nor did I have room to Shift in the drain so I could open it. The drain being so narrow was intentional, to prevent anyone from easily climbing up to remove the grate and getting in, but the hatch being shut was a regrettable oversight on my part. Not one I could be mad about, though; there were plenty of rats in the drains, after all, and I was large enough that I couldn’t even Shift comfortably in the drains anymore. My one attempt ended with me blocking a whole tunnel, barely able to breathe and with my wings pressed painfully against my sides.

  The fact that I spent a chunk of the energy in my Heart on my seldom used ability, to enchant the darkness of the drain so that it became practically invisible to anyone passing by, was out of sheer practicality; it had nothing to do with me being pissy about having to take a detour. It wasn’t a problem I couldn’t get around, after all. I’d just have to play some hide-and-seek with the good people of Karakan.

  Frankly, the idea excited me. Being out and proud meant that it had been a long time since I snuck around the streets in broad daylight. I still snuck around at night sometimes, but it just wasn’t the same. It wasn’t a challenge. Darkness and shadow was my element, and made hiding effortless. That, and there was almost no one out and about.

  The middle of the day was a whole other game. With the sun shining, I was blind outside whatever small patch of shadow I was hiding in. It became my whole world. I had to rely on my ears to figure out if it was safe to move, or on risky Shifts to take a peek, then push the shadows across the street until it connected with the other side and I could flow across.

  Yeah. The idea was exciting. Nostalgic, in many ways. I even had a favorite drain in an alley near the inn to crawl out of.

  It turned out to be almost disappointingly easy. I was bigger now, but that made little difference. At the same time I had more practice, and my shadow magic was stronger, especially with all the Rifts I’d consumed. As I slid across streets and through alleys, I didn’t hear so much as a curious word. And the shock on the face of Lina the maid when she opened the cellar door to my knocking was… okay, that made me feel a little bad. She didn’t deserve that.

  She got points for quick recovery, though.

  “Lady… Lady Draka,” she gasped, leaning against the wall by the door for a moment before straightening out. “We didn’t expect you. Thought the kids would warn us, at least.”

  “They’d have to spot me first,” I said mysteriously as I squeezed past.

  There was a long pause followed by a “...Right,” before she closed the doors.

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  “How are things? Any trouble?”

  “No, Lady Draka. Well, there was a minor brawl last night, but Mister Dorten calmed them down before it got out of hand.”

  “Yeah? No outside trouble at all?”

  “None that I know of. Should there be?” she asked worriedly.

  “There shouldn’t, no. Won’t stop it from happening. How’s security?”

  “Security? There’s the guards, but… Lady Draka, wouldn’t you rather talk with Master Reben about this? Or Mister Barro?”

  “Perhaps. But Barro isn’t here, is he? And Reben… I’m sure he’s great at running this place, but I always get the feeling that he only tells me what he thinks I want to hear.”

  “And I don’t?” she asked. And not with any kind of embarrassment or anxiety. She sounded more curious like anything, like she really wanted to hear my thoughts on her sincerity.

  I liked Lina. She was usually polite, but I never got the feeling that she was trying to handle me. Maybe she was brave. Maybe she was just too careless with her words for her own good. And maybe she wasn’t exactly neurotypical; I really wasn’t qualified to say, but she did rub her fingers together a lot whenever she got stressed. Whatever it was, I found it rather endearing.

  “Lina,” I told her, “if I remember correctly, the first time we met you told me that I was a ‘damned dragon’ and asked why I was ‘so damned polite’. So, no. I don’t think you’ll tell me what you think I want to hear. I think you’ll tell me what you’re thinking. You think things are all right?”

  “Well, yes, Lady Draka. No worse than in my years here. A few less guests than before Lady Drakonum bought the place, but that hasn’t changed for months now.”

  “Then I’ll believe that everything’s fine,” I stated.

  I was rewarded with a pleased smile before she said, “Then, is there anything else I can do for you, Lady Draka? Only, Sana and Memmy are cooking up a fury in the kitchen, and I was supposed to bring them a sack of beans.”

  “Go. Bring them your beans. Let people — our people, not the guests — know that I’m here, and send Barro down when he shows up. I’ll be here for a while.”

  “As you say, Lady Draka.” Lina started toward the shelves, then stopped and turned back. “Lady Draka…” she said hesitantly.

  “Yeah?”

  “You said ‘our people’. Are we really your people?”

  “Of course you’re my people!”

  Lina’s smile grew a bit wider, and she gave me a little closed-mouth giggle before saying, “Okay!” and going about her work. Which took some accommodation on my side; I really had to keep track of all my bits to not make finding and retrieving those beans impossible.

  I wasn’t sure what to make of that last little exchange. She sure was in a good mood as she hauled her beans up the stairs, though, so I didn’t feel any need to question her. If she was happy about me putting her in the same ill-defined group as myself, more power to her.

  And it really seemed like she’d been forthright with me about nothing being terribly wrong. Old Reben and his daughter came down with Dorten almost as soon as Lina had left, to pay their respects and to tell me pretty much the same things she had: a fight or two, but nothing serious.

  I spent most of my afternoon at the inn resting, looking through the eyes of my servants — the only one involved in anything remotely exciting was Onur, and only then because he was in the middle of a shouting match with someone, seemingly a head housekeeper of some sort, about security arrangements at House Parvion’s city estate. Repairs were in full swing on the parts that Herald’s spot of arson had damaged, but most of the place was still livable; Onur was not best pleased with, as he put it, “any whoreson with two bricks and a hammer” being allowed inside. Apparently no one had waited for him to vet the construction crews before work started.

  I didn’t care much about his troubles; they didn’t affect me. What I did care about was that he seemed in roaring fine form, and entirely recovered from getting knifed in the gut. And that the Parvion patriarch, the new lord mercantile, was apparently moving to the city to be closer to the Palace; obvious in hindsight, but good to have confirmed nonetheless. You could never know when you’d need to sneak into a councilor’s home in the dead of night to turn him into your adoring servant.

  I mean, I hoped to avoid that, but still: nice to know.

  Otherwise, people were mostly being normal and, frankly, bloody boring. The northern adventuring party were still travelling, unmolested from what I could tell. The Tesprils were doing bookkeeping of all things, and not even for anything tawdry or illegal; they were going through their perfectly legal, perfectly boring trading business, looking at how much money the war was costing them in lost trade. And Barro spent far more time looking at jewelry than I ever had when I still wore it. I left him when he started looking at barrettes and hairpins, despite never having used one as far as I’d seen; I suspected that he was looking for a gift, most likely for a girl, and his private business was just that.

  The hypocrisy of deciding that while literally looking through his eyes was not lost on me, but if I let myself lose sleep over my moral failings I’d never feel rested again.

  Ah, but then I came to Tammy. When all else failed, I turned to my least favorite thrall, the woman who couldn’t even bring herself to apologize to Kira for making her life hell for years because she wouldn’t mean it. And when I did, I found myself stuck. It was a sort of horrified fascination that kept me with her, much the way your average reality show kept an audience; I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing, but neither could I tear myself away.

  Tammy was evangelizing.

  It was quite limited, in the sense that she wasn’t approaching the public. Instead she was in the hidden lounge under the Tesprils’ estate, speaking to a near dozen of what I assumed were Hardal’s foot soldiers. And though her Karakani was not great, her Happaran was… also not great but better, and Happaran was very similar to Karakani. It didn’t seem to hold her back, though. Despite speaking what was literally the language of the enemy, nobody looked pissed. Not everyone was on the edge of their seat, either, but most of them were listening or taking part in the conversation, asking questions or even engaging in some friendly ribbing. Frankly, Tammy seemed well-liked, which I’d never have expected.

  And what were they listening to? Well, she was evangelizing, which in Tammy’s case meant that she was singing my praises and extolling the benefits of swearing oneself to the service of a dragon. Because of course she was. This was Tammy after all, and I had severely overdone it when I turned her.

  I had once heard an old fella preaching on the street, before presumably being cautioned and sent on his way by police. He told anyone within hearing of how he’d been a sinner, and how Jesus had personally come to him to lead him to a virtuous life. Tammy was a bit like that, except she was talking about a dragon who’d broken something fundamental inside her and then sent her to spy on her former comrades.

  This did not bother Tammy, because as far as she was concerned, I could do no wrong. In her own words, “Before Great Lady show me truth, I live for small cruelty. I hate life. I hate myself. Only to hurt ones weaker make the pain stop for small time. Then Great Lady come. I understand. I see what I have done. I have shame. Much shame. But now I know, if I serve Great Lady, perhaps I can forgive myself.”

  She went on to describe my mercy, generosity, and wisdom, citing herself and Zabra as prime examples. The fact that I had personally gone to destroy the gang that attacked the Tesprils and killed what I assumed to be several friends of her audience was very well received by almost everyone, except two in the back who may have been survivors of that very gang. We’d “recruited” anyone who didn’t get away fast enough, after all. I could only assume that none of the others were personally acquainted with the large number of Zabra’s people that I’d also killed.

  Her effusive praise for me aside, what really stayed with me was how fulfilled Tammy seemed. She had the certainty and conviction of any zealot, but it was more than that. When she spoke of me, it wasn’t with fear. Despite how I’d broken her, despite how I’d stripped away her pride to leave her a begging, babbling mess, every time she mentioned me it was with nothing less than love and gratitude. And while some of the people in the room with her made fun of her for it, it never came across to me as meanspirited, and she didn’t seem to take it that way, either.

  In a word, Tammy seemed happy. And I was reminded of what she’d told me right before I sent her back to her company, how she’d never really felt like one of them. Kira had told me the same thing. She’d said that Tammy was as bad as the rest and did what she was told, but never fit in. Now she had a true purpose — to serve me to the best of her ability — and she was surrounded by people who seemed to enjoy her presence.

  And all it had cost her was her entire life up until the point she met me, and her independence. What a bargain.

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