She saw them, there at the edge of her city. She frowned.
“What are you looking at, Dragonwitch?” Gleamdren cried, her chirpy voice setting Hri Sora’s teeth on edge. “Have they caught poor Glomar?”
“We have more visitors,” the dragon replied.
“Really?” Gleamdren could not have been more delighted. “I knew they would come at last! How many? Oh, I do wish I had a mirror and some sort of comb. I’ll be such a wreck by the time they get here! I can’t wait to see their dear faces when they realize what peril I am in. Such a battle it will be! I do hope Eanrin has come along so he can put it all down in verse.”
“It is the poet,” said Hri Sora. Her eyes were mere slits as they pierced the distance. “I recognize him, for he came to me in the Wood and nearly saw through my glamour. By some miracle, that selfish rat has now entered my world. But who . . . who is that with him?”
“Might be Sir Danu. He pretends indifference, but I know he’s quite mad about me. A girl always knows. Or it could be young Rogan, such a favorite—”
“It is a woman.”
“A what?”
Hri Sora hissed, and smoke twirled in the air as it rose from her nostrils. She studied the maid crouched on the stone beside the poet. She took in her clothing, her skin, her hair. And when the girl raised her face and seemed to look across the long miles, straight at Hri Sora, the dragon gasped.
The girl was from the Hidden Land.
“Silent woman!” Hri Sora snarled. Fire dripped from her tongue.
All was red stone around them. At first, Imraldera could have sworn she and the poet had landed inside a deep red canyon. But when she blinked the water out of her eyes, she saw that the rocks formed towering buildings, windows and doors and spires and balconies, all stretching to the seared sky as though they would touch the heavens. The stone blocks of which they were made fit so seamlessly together that each structure might have been chiseled from a single huge boulder. Carvings of feathers and wings in patterns more complex than she could discern wrapped around each tower and formed the banisters of stairways and balconies.
Imraldera had never seen anything like this place. Her mouth moved in a soundless prayer to some unknown god. Then, with a moan, she covered her face with her hands. The air was so hot that her wet skin and hair steamed. Her clothes shrank and shriveled as they dried, smelling almost as bad as the sodden cat.
“Well,” said Eanrin, “I must say I’m relieved.” He didn’t look relieved. He looked a sight. Even when he took his man form, his appearance did not improve. His bright red cap had lost all shape, and his cloak and clothes looked uncomfortably damp in that sultry air. He fumbled with the buckles and let the cloak drop to the stone cobbles, all the while looking about him. His nose twitched as he sniffed. “I was uncertain what to expect at that gate. This place was once known as the City of Wings, and the Sky People lived here. They had wings sprouting from their shoulders, if you can believe it. Wings! Great, shimmering feathers. Or so I’m told. I never saw them. And naturally, being winged, they flew everywhere. I half wondered if Cozamaloti Gate would open into empty sky . . . which would have been the worse luck for us today. We’d have had a hard landing!”
Imraldera wiped her face, now wet with perspiration. The city, as far as she could see, was dry. Nothing had grown here for decades.
The poet-cat added his outer doublet to the discarded cape, leaving only a thin white shirt and breeches beneath. “All my beauty stripped,” he sighed with a forlorn shake of his head. “What has my life become? But all and more for the sake of my beloved! She owes me a new hat.”
He shook his hair one last time. It was nearly dry already and standing out like straw all around his face, which made him seem quite wild. But he smiled and strode over to Imraldera, offering his hand. “Up, up, my girl. Hymlumé spare me, but you smell a fright! We must away ere darkness falls. These streets will be perilous at night.”
Imraldera accepted his hand but frowned at his words. The sky was red, not with sunset but with burning heat, as though it had been wounded by fire and never recovered. It was hard to imagine night falling in a place such as this.
She turned to the cat-man. “You jumped to save me,” she signed.
“Stop all the hand waving. It looks perfectly ridiculous, and you know I don’t understand.”
Imraldera bit her lip uncertainly. In all the terror that was her life, she must cling to those few good things: to memories of a little girl wrapping skinny arms around her neck; a house on a hill; and a gray lurcher standing in the yard, eyes fixed on the road, waiting for her mistress. The good things were so rare, so precious.