Malta sighed, defeated. Well, if he would not hide himself, then she would make his ransom value obvious. Might not pirates be more gentle with valuable captives?

She bowed low. “You are right, of course, gracious one. Pardon the foolishness of a simple woman, I beg you.” She threw the rejected sailor garb out into the companionway. Back in their chamber, she selected the most resplendent robes she could find and took them to the Satrap.

A sudden shock sent her crashing against the bed. She caught her breath and then held it, listening. The sounds on the deck above had changed. The tread of feet and angry shouts and wild cries. Had they been rammed? Were they being boarded even now? She snatched a breath. “Lordly one, I think we were wise to hurry.”

“Very well.” With a martyred sigh, he pushed his blankets aside. He held his arms out from his sides. “You may garb me.”

TINTAGLIA SHOOK HIM. REYN OPENED HIS EYES, AND SAW THE WRINKLED shimmer of dark water far below him. He cried out in terror and clutched wildly at the claws that held him.

“That’s better,” the dragon proclaimed mercilessly. “I thought you were dead. I had forgotten that humans are not so well attached to their bodies as dragons are. When you venture too far from them, you can lose your way back.”

Reyn clung sickly to her claws. He felt dizzy, cold and small, but he did not think it was the effect of the flight. He suspected he had been unconscious. He tried to reach back to the last thing he could remember. It eluded him. He stared down, and suddenly made sense of what he was seeing. “Are those galleys down there Chalcedean? What are they doing, where are they bound?” There were seven of them, moving southward in formation like a V of geese.

“How can you expect me to know such things? Or care?” She glanced down almost idly. “I have seen many such ships moving southward through these waters. I chased them away from Bingtown, as I agreed to do. But there are far too many for one dragon to disperse them all.” She seemed offended that he had forced her to admit this. She diverted the topic. “I thought all your concerns were for Malta?”

“They are,” he said faintly. “But those ships…” He let his words trail away. He grasped what he should have seen all along. Chalced’s move was not just against the Rain Wilds and Bingtown. Chalced had been heavily involved with the New Traders against the Satrap. That they had turned on the New Traders meant only that Chalced was treating allies as it always did. Now Chalced was moving against Jamaillia, in force. Bingtown was but a stop along the way, a place to cripple and occupy so that Chalced would not have an enemy at its back while it went after bigger prey. He stared down at the ships. Many like those, Tintaglia had said. Jamaillia’s sea power had been declining for almost a decade. He did not know if Jamaillia could wage war against Chalced, let alone win such a struggle. Could Bingtown survive the disruption to trade that such a war would wreak? His mind spun with the implications of all he saw.

Tintaglia was annoyed. “Well. Did you find your mate? Could you tell where she was?”

He swallowed. “Somewhat.” He sensed her impatience with his answer. “A moment,” he begged her. He took deep breaths of the cold air, hoping it would restore him while he tried to make sense of the fragmented dream-memory. “She was on a ship,” he told the dragon. “A deep-hulled ship, from the motion, not a galley. Yet she said it was Chalcedean.” He knit his brows. “Did not you sense that also?”

“I was not that attentive,” she replied carelessly. “So. A Chalcedean ship. A large one. There are many like that. Where?”

“Bound for Jamaillia.”

“Oh, that’s helpful.”

“South. Fly south over the Inside Passage.”

“And when we fly over the ship she is in, you will simply know it,” the dragon continued skeptically. “And what then?”

He stared down at the water below his toes. “Then, somehow, you will help me rescue her. And take her home with us.”

The dragon made a rumble of displeasure. “A foolish and impossible errand. We waste time, Reyn. We should go back now.”

“No. Not without Malta,” he replied adamantly. To her silently simmering anger, he retorted, “What you ask of me is just as foolish and impossible. You demand that I slog through the Rain Wild swamps and somehow locate a city engulfed Sa alone knows how many years ago, and that I then somehow rescue any cocooned dragons buried deep within it.”

“Are you saying now that you can’t do that?” The dragon was outraged.