He gave her a humbled smile. Every now and then, a spark of the old Etta showed through, like coals gleaming in a banked fire. “Probably not,” he conceded. “Malta was born dancing, I believe.” Watching the ecstasy on her face as Reyn spun her in the dance, he added, “I suspect that a dozen children from now, she will still display her feelings as plainly.”

“What a shame,” Etta consoled him dryly. She was silent as the couple spun again, then asked, “Do all in Bingtown disdain dancing as you do?”

“I do not disdain dancing,” he answered with surprise. “I was learning the basic steps, and accounted graceful enough, before I was sent off to be a priest.” He watched Reyn and Malta a few moments. “What they are doing is not that impressive. It is just that they are able to do it both swiftly and gracefully. And that they are a well-matched couple.” He frowned a moment, then admitted, “And that incredible dress she’s wearing.”

“Do you think you could dance like that?”

“With practice, perhaps.” A sudden thought came to him. He coupled it to the discovery of how stupid he still could be. He leaned toward her. “Etta. Would you care to dance?”

He held his open hand out toward her. She looked at it for a moment, then looked aside. “I do not know how,” she replied stiffly.

“I could teach you.”

“I would not be good at it. I would only humiliate myself, and my partner.”

He leaned back in his chair and spoke softly, forcing her to listen carefully. “When you fear to fail, you fear something that has not happened yet. Dancing is far less difficult than reading, especially for a woman who can run the rigging and never miss a step.” He waited.

“I… not now. Not in so public a place.” She built up to admitting it, as admitting any desire was difficult for her. “But someday, I would like to learn to dance.”

He smiled at her. “When you are ready, I will be honored to partner you.”

She spoke very softly as she added, “And I will have a dress to surpass that one.”

THE STARS GLITTERED COLD IN THE BLACK SKY OVERHEAD. BY CONTRAST, THE yellow lights of Jamaillia were warm and close. Their reflections snaked like serpent backs over the rippling water of the harbor. The sounds of merriment and music from the distant festivities wafted thin in the cold spring night. Across the dock from her, Ophelia shifted in the darkness. She was an old-fashioned liveship, a blowsy old cog. A moment later, she rattled a large dice box at Vivacia. “Do you game?” she asked invitingly.

Vivacia found herself smiling at the matronly figurehead. She had not expected to find the company of another liveship so convivial, especially one who professed to have lost all dragon memories. Ophelia was not only good company but a veritable fount of Bingtown gossip.

Even more important to Vivacia were her detailed accounts of all she had seen and heard in Trehaug. The cocooning banks were far upriver, beyond the reach of a ship of her draft, but Ophelia was an adept meddler and an avid listener. She had contrived to know not only every fact but every rumor about the serpents’ progress. The news she shared with Vivacia had been bad as well as good, but knowing the fate of her serpents was a kind of peace in itself. She served her kind best by remaining in Jamaillia for now, but the suspense had been difficult to endure. Ophelia had understood her thirst for information about the serpents. Since she had arrived in Jamaillia City, her detailed accounts had been a great comfort to Vivacia. Still, she shook her head at Ophelia’s dice box. “Althea seemed to believe that you cheated when she played with you,” she observed lightly.

“Oh, well, that’s Althea. Nice girl, but a bit suspicious. Not the best judgment in the world, either. After all, she chose that renegade Trell when she could have had my Grag.”

Vivacia laughed softly. “I don’t think your Grag ever had much of a chance. I rather suspect ‘that renegade Trell’ was chosen for her by Ephron Vestrit a number of years ago.” At Ophelia’s affronted expression, she added kindly, “But Grag doesn’t seem to have missed her for long.”

Ophelia nodded in satisfaction. “Humans have to be pragmatic about these things. They don’t live that many years, you know. Now his Ekke, she’s a fine girl, knows how to seize life and make something of it. Reminds me of my first captain. ‘Don’t expect me to stay ashore and have babies for you,’ she told him, right here on my foredeck. ‘My children are going to be born on this ship,’ she said to him. And you know what Grag said? ‘Yes, dear.’ Meek as milk. I think he knows he’d better get to it if he’s going to have a family. Humans only have so much time, you know.”