My thnik linked me to Glisselda; another connected her with Kiggs. During that fruitless fortnight, she kept me apprised of when his ship would arrive. I haunted the docks the morning it was due, getting underfoot of fishermen and stevedores. I had just bought myself lunch and was wholly occupied with keeping it away from the bold and saucy seagulls when I heard someone cry, “Garegia!” which is Porphyrian for Goredd.
A sloop had entered the harbor and was drifting slowly west in search of its berth. It flew a purple and green flag, adorned with a prancing rabbit, the emblem of the Royal House of Goredd.
I tossed my eggplant fritters to the gulls and was running toward the western docks in two heartbeats.
I followed the ship, dodging haggling merchants, crab pots, and heaped fishing nets, skirting cargo piles and gaggles of bearded sailors, trying to keep the mast and flag in sight. I reached the right berth, out of breath, just as the mariners lowered the gangway. I scanned the faces on deck and spotted the familiar hawkish nose and jowly chin of Ardmagar Comonot, deposed leader of all dragonkind.
He spotted me from the prow and cried out a greeting. He’d already relaxed into a darker complexion; his hair had been powerfully slicked down but was curling back up at the fringes. Comonot waved vigorously, with no thought for the safety of those around him. “Seraphina!” he called, elbowing seamen aside in his haste to maneuver down the gangway. He wore a long blue robe, pleated and embroidered in the style of a Porphyrian gentleman. As he drew nearer, I saw something new: a pale scar along his jawline.
Comonot kissed me effusively on both cheeks in the Porphyrian style, bizarrely grabbing my ears as he did so. I struggled not to laugh; he tried harder than most dragons, but there was always some nuance of human behavior that eluded him.
He stepped back, looked me over, and said in more typical draconic fashion, “Your nose is burned, but you look like you’ve been eating well.”
I smiled, but I was craning my neck, looking for Kiggs in the crowd. I saw Goreddi sailors and the Ardmagar’s retinue of saar secretaries and human bodyguards. “Where’s Prince Lucian?” I asked, a nervous knot in my stomach.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Comonot, tapping a thick finger upon his lips. He turned to a sailor standing patiently behind him. “Did the prince disembark, or did we throw him overboard during that awful storm?”
I looked at the sailor and saw a stranger, his face framed by a thin travel beard, his hair a bit too long, his smile a bit too … No, I knew that smile. My heart knew it, even if my eyes were too stupid to understand what was right in front of them.
“I believe the prince considered throwing himself overboard during the storm,” said Kiggs earnestly, his brown eyes laughing. “In the end, he decided it might be worth the effort to hang on.” All cleverness failed me. “I’m glad to see you, Prince.”
Kiggs stepped up as Comonot had done and kissed my cheeks without the ear pulling. I managed air-kisses at the edge of his silly little beard. He smelled of salt and musty ship innards and himself.
I felt suddenly shy. The months had made strangers of us.
The Ardmagar inserted himself between us and took my arm. “I joked—did you notice? I said I didn’t know, when in fact I did, and then I pretended to wonder—”
“Indeed, Ardmagar. Well done,” I said.
“He’s been testing jokes on me since we left Lavondaville,” said Prince Lucian Kiggs, smiling over Comonot’s head. “It only took me a week to notice they were jokes.”
“Old saar, new tricks,” I said, smiling back.
“Don’t imagine I’m as slow to recognize mockery as I once was, either,” said the Ardmagar, but he didn’t seem angry. He was gazing wide-eyed at the harbor crowds, the ships, the warehouses. Months of close dealings with humans had done nothing to diminish his naked fascination with human variety.
Kiggs excused himself to have words with their retinue, who seemed to be in some confusion over baggage and porters. Comonot, at my shoulder, said quietly, “So. After trying everything else, it’s down to Eskar’s plan after all. Sneaking in the back door while my Loyalists feint south. This is all assuming I can persuade the Porphyrians to let me break a centuries-old treaty and travel up the Omiga Valley.”
“And that they’ll let the exiles go,” I said. “I’ve met a few already. Eskar has been preparing your way, it seems. Do you know where she is?”
“She’s here,” Comonot said. “You just said so.”
“No, she was here. She’s been missing for almost a month,” I said, adding the last fortnight to Lalo’s reported two weeks. “You don’t keep better track of your operatives than that?”
“I don’t worry about them, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Comonot. He pulled a mass of gold chains out of the neck hole of his robe and sorted through their pendants for the right thnik.
Kiggs was returning to us through the harborside crowd. “We sent a runner ahead to House Malou,” he called, “and they’ve hired some bearers to—” He cut himself short at the sight of the Ardmagar’s jewelry. “Don’t dangle your thniks,” he said, hurrying to block Comonot from the prying eyes of passersby.
“Porphyrians aren’t alarmed by dragons,” I assured him.
The Ardmagar rolled his eyes at the pair of us. He’d found the communicator, a silver oblong, and spoke into it: “Eskar. Where are you? Report at once.”
We all strained to hear over the milling crowd, the washing sea, the screams of two gulls fighting over a fritter—possibly one of mine—but the thnik didn’t peep. Comonot shrugged. “Silence proves nothing. Maybe she can’t answer at the moment. She’ll get back to me as soon as she can.”
I felt the dizzying rush of panic postponed. “Orma’s gone, too.”
“Ah. Well, in that case, I’d guess that the Censors got wind of them and they had to go deeper into hiding,” said the Ardmagar, turning away. One of his secretaries came running up to lead the old general to the litter they’d hired for him.
“Doesn’t the Tanamoot’s treaty with Porphyry forbid the Censors from coming after exiles here?” I asked, dogging his steps. Kiggs followed right behind me.
“Only registered exiles,” said Comonot over his shoulder as he reached the boxy conveyance. A bearer held open the purple-and-white-striped curtain as the Ardmagar clambered clumsily inside. “Your uncle would not have been registered.”
Kiggs, at my elbow, said quietly, “Don’t worry, we’ll find out what’s happened.”
I nodded stupidly. The effervescent fear was back, the rush under my ribs. I had pushed down my worries about Orma, but Comonot’s talk of Censors brought it gushing to the surface. I took a tight breath and gestured at the litter. “Where are you going now?”
“House Malou. They’re expecting us,” said the prince, making no move to get in after Comonot, but studying my expression. His own held a mix of concern and regret. The breeze tossed his hair around and blew through the gap between us.
The Ardmagar popped his head out of the striped curtains. “Quit lollygagging, Prince. You have Agogoi to meet, and a nation to represent.”
“Give me a minute,” said Kiggs, waving a hand irritably at Comonot, his eyes never leaving my face. The Ardmagar snorted and pulled his head back inside the litter.
Kiggs leaned in; my breath caught foolishly. He said, “Selda has kept me apprised of your progress here. She’s worried that you’ll feel you’ve failed.”
I looked down at the sea-beaten stone pier; his eyes were too much for me.
“And she told me,” he continued doggedly, “ ‘Lucian, you are to take good care of her, for she may be feeling fragile. Tell her we love her just the same, and we’re so pleased she tried, and it’s going to be all right.’ ”
I had not been aware of fragility, but his words brought a raging tide of emotion to my shores. I had failed to find Orma, to protect Abdo from Jannoula, to gather the ityasaari. The garden I’d longed for was here, and I couldn’t have it; the prince I’d longed for was here, and the answer was exactly the same. For a moment it was too much. I waited until I trusted myself to answer. “She is very kind. Kinder than I deserve.”
“We will discuss your deserving,” he said, and though my eyes were still lowered, I could hear the smile in his voice. “We’ll have plenty of time.”
“Yes, you will!” cried Comonot behind us, popping his head out again like some impatient turtle. “Prince, now. Seraphina, come to House Malou tonight. There’s to be a welcoming dinner; they won’t mind one more. Say whatever you need to say to each other then.”
I met Kiggs’s eyes at last, all full of hope and worry. He pulled himself away and climbed into the litter. The bearers hefted it up and trundled slowly away from me, up the hill, toward the colorful marble facades of the western heights.
I watched it go, wondering if Kiggs and I would indeed be able to say all we needed to say to each other, and how long that would take. High above me, a gull laughed.