‘Yes! We sighted them coming on the river, not long after the dragons had their quarrel.’

‘Dragon quarrel?’ Alise interrupted in alarm. ‘Was anyone hurt?’ She must have been tightly focused on the city to have remained unaware of that!

‘No, no injuries among the keepers. It happened in the air, downriver. We couldn’t see much of it, but we did see Mercor give Spit a good tumble. But Spit rose again, so he couldn’t have been much hurt, and then the whole flock of dragons moved farther away down the river. So we still don’t know what that was about. But shortly after that, we spotted Tarman!’

Alise’s hands flew to her hair. Then she laughed at the instinctive gesture of a Bingtown woman. It would be silly to fuss over her appearance. Leftrin knew the conditions she’d been living under! Well, at least he would find her in better circumstances than when he had left. Since the keepers had moved across the river and into Kelsingra, they were all cleaner and better groomed. Nonetheless, she found herself pulling the precious few pins she still possessed from her hair and letting it down. She shook it out as she hurried after Sylve. Her hands moved as she strode along, smoothing the stubborn red ringlets, re-braiding it, and then pinning it back up. She wondered what it looked like and then discovered that, truly, she didn’t care. And if Leftrin did, well, then he wasn’t the man she thought he was. She found herself smiling confidently. He wouldn’t care.

‘I wonder what upset the dragons. Was it the beginning of a mating battle?’

‘I don’t think so. Didn’t you hear them? There was a lot of trumpeting from Spit, and then the others came to see what he wanted. That was what caught Carson’s eye, all the dragons converging. At least six of them went to Spit, in a big circling swarm. Then I saw Mercor clash with him! Why, we don’t know and they haven’t been paying much attention to us since then. But Mercor went up under him as Spit was diving down and then he just tipped Spit off sideways. We saw him fall and then the trees were in the way and everyone was terrified that he would land in the river. Well, except a few of us who were rather hoping the little beast would get a good cold dunking. But then we saw him come up again. I still have no idea what it was about.’

Her voice dropped on her last words and Alise heard the hurt in it that Mercor had not spoken to her since the fray. Since the dragons had become capable of feeding themselves, they had taken little interest in their keepers. Of course, any dragon might still summon a keeper at a moment’s notice for special grooming, but few of them made daily contact with the young Elderlings. Some of the keepers seemed as affronted as snubbed lovers over this. Others, like Sylve, were sad but resigned to their loneliness. She and Boxter seemed to take the abandonment the hardest. Some of the others, notably Jerd and Davvie, seemed relieved to be free of their demanding dragons. Last night, as the keepers had shared a sparse dinner in the back room of the dragon baths, Sylve had bravely spoken the truth that the others preferred to ignore.

‘Nothing’s changed, really. They feel about us as they always have. From the beginning, they were honest. They wanted to get away from Cassarick and become dragons again. They tolerated us because they needed us.’

The keepers gathered around the ancient table had grown still, food forgotten.

‘And now they don’t. So, they tolerate us still, but they prefer their own kind. Or they prefer their solitude.’

She was right, but it had not lifted the gloom that had fallen over the company since the dragons had achieved flight. Alise could sympathize. She recalled how heady it had been to be the subject of Sintara’s attention. And when the dragon had taken the trouble to cast her glamour over her? She smiled and swayed slightly at the thought of it. It had been all-encompassing. The delight and joy of being the object of a dragon’s attention had been surpassed only by the giddiness of her infatuation with Leftrin, and then the swirl of excitement at realizing he reciprocated her admiration. Now that was something no one ever got from a dragon!

When she had first met the blue queen, she had felt light-headed each time the dragon deigned to speak to her. She had been willing to do anything, any task, no matter how menial, to keep that regard. She had felt such a sense of loss when the dragon had recognized that Thymara was a better provider and had chosen the girl over her. If Leftrin had not been there to cushion the blow, she probably would have been devastated to lose Sintara’s regard. She smiled now as she thought how well he had distracted her.

In the days since the dragons had stopped paying attention to their keepers, some of them seemed to have chosen similar distractions for themselves. She had watched, uncomfortably, as Thymara swung between Rapskal and Tats. She pitied all three of them; yet at the same time, she reflected that each of the young men knew of his rival. Thymara did not deceive them as Alise had been deceived. Thymara respected her suitors and struggled to treat them well.