When the eighth long ring chimed, it didn’t stop on the sixth note. The timbre turned from the bells of the highest carillon to the raw or piercing double trumpets you only heard in the cliffs⁠ ⁠—⁠ because of course the cliffs lacked the restraint and poise of sky music. And yet, the sound closed in like a coming doom. The trumpets remembered the carillon’s melody inf repetition, and they melted, culleted and reglazed it in the logic of the Frinan anthem: Mlaen’s anthem, the one she’d commisioned only days after taking the throne. It shone out, because you always heard Dwylla’s anthem blaring at Dim-Fflamio games or being played out of key somewhere in the Moyo-Makao. Above, the doom drew closer. I looked up; everyone did. The trumpeters flew in a skein behind three dragons who pulled your gaze like the wind. On the left, a small dragon in prim black and gold; to the right, a hurricane of colors that made me dizzy just looking at them; and leading at the skeinhead there flew a dragon wreathed in red and gold robes as ornate as any I’d seen in the cliffs. Landing in our cordoned off patch of road, in the emptied out center, orbited by the various crowds of guards around the alley and cliffwall, the trumpeters were in a circle around the three: all were dressed in black, and it smelt deliberate, like a way of accentuating the colorful dragons. A caesura, and then they blew a great final chord⁠ ⁠—⁠ and we felt it, even away from the road, all the way by the cliff. That chord hung in the air, vibrating and fading glacier-like. The long release of the sound hinted at some unseen, resonating chamber. When the circle of trumpeters kneeled, they revealed the secretary Cynfe, and the treasurer Bariaeth, and the faer Mlaen-sofran. “Blindness,” swore a voice across from me⁠ ⁠—⁠ the Dynfderi adviser. He had looked up from the card game we were playing (a game I wasn’t losing, necessarily) and he said, “This can’t bode well.” I opened my mouth, but a high, eager voice interrupted: “It’s the faer!” Beside me, Digrif leapt and landed in a kneel. Two guards⁠ ⁠—⁠ the pink guard, Ceian, and a plain-dweller... Jarce?⁠ ⁠—⁠ smiled or clicked at him. Looking at the rest of the guards, though, they all watched the new arrivals with frowns or lines: it was all focus and seriousness, but no surprise. Had they expected this? I glanced back at the adviser. “Do you know what they’re doing here?” I whisper-asked. “With this much fanfare, I glimpse we’ll find out.” So he didn’t. I peered at the new arrivals. Having arrived together is about all was in common. Cynfe⁠ ⁠—⁠ whom, despite myself, I looked at first⁠ ⁠—⁠ looked around steady, scoutingly, her fangs out. I saw guards scowling back, and the blue-green wiver met their gazes unfaltering. Bariaeth, in discordant counterpoint, smiled beatifically, and his glance could mollify the guards whom Cynfe had put on edge; but it wasn’t dramatic: some looked neutral or skeptical, and only a few actually smiled back. And Mlaen-sofran was a mix of the two; yet it seemed less, and not more, because of it. She didn’t smile or scowl, only watched, despite her ever-clouded brilles. It was as if all of her reactions were kept to herself, and she offered up nothing to the world. That one moment, with all of us watching the arrivals in dewing anticipation, dragged on and on. The trumpet’s chord, still ringing out, made the interval felt; it was time hanging in the air. Like that, Bariaeth’s beatific smile became small and ambient; and even Cynfe’s scowl faded. The faer continued to watch, cloudily, and the moment dragged even further on. And then faer flared her wings, and she must have unclouded her eyes⁠ ⁠—⁠ if only instantly⁠ ⁠—⁠ because there was something intense in her gaze for a glance that wasn’t there before or after. Whatever it was, she kept it from her face, which relaxed and waited, and her tone, which simply asked: The question was, “Is this my guard?” Trumpets had struck silence, and the faer’s words lay there in it, for a moment. Mlaen had returned to her neutral, cloudy-eyed watching. With her mouth set in a thin line, you knew she wouldn’t be the one to clear the silence. And whoever did would have the attention and judgment of the all the guards. Mlaen had crafted the delivery of her question, giving the words a sense of deep, officious importance, and whoever dared respond would be thrust to that same standard. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that when the response finally came, it was Rhyfel the younger chuckling and saying, “Well, it sure isn’t Bariaeth’s guard.” It wasn’t that his joke was particularly funny, as much as it was an excuse; Mlaen had everyone wrung near their limit, and the drake’s timing shattered the tension like glass. There was laughing⁠ ⁠—⁠ not everyone, but enough that it would be weird if you weren’t even smiling a little; Adwyn was laughing. I was clicking a little, but not so much that I missed the calm glare that leapt from Bariaeth’s face right at the high guard. The treasurer’s lips moved in a murmur, and of course I couldn’t hear it all the way at the cliff wall. But it was one word and free to guess: ‘Yet.’ Besides Bariaeth⁠ ⁠—⁠ and beside Bariaeth⁠ ⁠—⁠ were the two dragons who also weren’t laughing. The faer might have quirked her lips, but her head was turned away, looking at the high secretary: and she, on the other foot, wore an expression that was more teeth and fangs than lips. She growled, and she said, “Whoever you are, you’ve failed. Each and every one of you.” Her wings had flexed a bit, not quite spreading. “Whenever the thieves decide to do something more destructive than mere stealing, I loathe to see what becomes of this town.” The faer was shaking her head, and touched a wing to her secretary; and that was enough for her to relax her face and fold her wings back at her side. The faer’s was the calmest response I saw, besides Digrif’s confusion. Among the nicer reactions from the guards were half growled jeers along the lines of, “Spit off,” or “Don’t you belong in a tree somewhere?” or “What the ash are you doing here?” The treasurer smiled. “With that said,” he opened, “one may note that some of us have failed you more than others. After all, how much can we do on flawed orders? Can we trust leaders who know scarcely more than we do?” There were guards nodding, there was Adwyn frowning, but I only pouted. It wasn’t even subtle. Meanwhile, the faer yawned. When she was done, “Indeed we cannot,” she slowly said. “This is why I remain faer. I was notified of the thieves’ escape less than two rings ago. On my orders, the inquirers recovered another ape corpse and captured the remaining thief. Two inquirers did what one⁠ ⁠—⁠ two⁠ ⁠—⁠ three⁠ ⁠—⁠ four skeins of my guards could not. This is a disgrace.” The faer’s look grew pointed. “Rhyfel-ychy, is this my guard?” The scarlet dragon glanced up to meet what must have a desert of a gaze, and said, “Yes. But I reason you would’ve had an easier time hunting these louts when surprise ain’t on their side.” The words were careful, balanced to remove emphasis from any particular part of that sentence. He added, “Adwyn’s reports said thieves. Scent it like we did. A dragon can’t fly carrying weight like a corpse⁠ ⁠—⁠ should we have expected just thieves to afford peak quality gliders?” He shook his head. “I know two alchemists in this whole town, both purportedly loyal⁠ ⁠—⁠ should we have expected alchemy?” Rhyfel the younger whipped out a wing. “This shot straight out of nowhere. No one saw this coming.” “I can see it, but I am not content with failure.” Mlaen paused, then said, “As embarrassing as this episode was, and is, this endeavor remains recoverable. We have a single task that will allow us to call this a victory, which I shall entrust to the best among you. For the sake of yourselves and this town, succeed.” “Mlaen is taking this far more seriously today. I wonder what changed.” I glanced at the orange drake sitting across the playing card strewn boulder. “This is a matter of Frinan security,” I echoed, “isn’t it?” I clicked my tongue before adding in a different tone, “Last night it was just humans, now it’s dragons working against us, too. That changes a lot.” Adwyn rolled his head. Maybe it was indifference, maybe it was me saying things he already knew⁠ ⁠—⁠ but he had asked. “I know Mlaen,” the adviser said. “Even thieves of this caliber wouldn’t be enough to startle her; she would trust Rhyfel the younger to ground them. But summoning the inquirers? Deigning to give this speech? She is worried. I glimpse there’s something more to this, something she for now only suspects.” He licked his eyes. “But she has a certain intuition. We can assume there’s depth to it.” I flicked my tongue. “Hinte thinks the Specters are behind this.” “They very well may.” The military adviser looked at me. “We’ve had our fill of speculation, for what evidence we have. Now, we should act.” “What are you going to do?” I asked. “What can I do?” “You can go home,” Adwyn said without smirking. “I know you don’t want to be here, and I can tell you have no investment in what we are doing. You can go home.” “But I do have investment! My friends are in this⁠ ⁠—⁠ they might get hurt.” “Then you should find Hinte and ensure she does not get hurt,” he said. “Or gets anyone hurt. Explosively.” There was the smirk. I rolled my head and gazed searching off toward the butte that Hinte had disappeared from. Beside me I heard wings unfurling, claws scraping gravel, and then Digrif speaking: “What are you going to do, Sofrani?” “Glimpse what I can of Mlaen’s suspicions, and whatever brings the treasurer here,” he replied. “And perhaps, a little scheming.” I dropped my gaze to watch the military adviser take off and glide toward the ring of black-cloaked trumpeters, leaving me with Digrif and the guards some strides away. “And then there were two,” I said to Digrif. “What are we supposed to do now? I feel a little useless.” “Find Hinte, like Adwyn suggested?” “She can take care of herself. I don’t know why she ran away, but she’ll come back when she’s ready, won’t she?” I looked away from Digrif. “Why don’t we find some way to help the guards? Show Adwyn that I am invested?” “Well...” Digrif started. His tone reached and searched for something, and I glanced back at him. “What if Rhyfel is right?” “About what?” “Well, no one saw this coming.” Digrif scratched the ground. “Adwyn-sofran is a military adviser, and that makes him a strategist, right? And well, Ushra is like, the best, cleverest alchemist? They say he can bring the dead back to life. Well, together, they’re the smartest dragons in the cliffs. Or well, there’s Anterth’s scarlet snake⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I mean in Gwymr/Frina.” The handsome gray drake shook his head. “What I’m saying is, they’re the smartest, and neither of them saw this coming. Adwyn-sofran thought it was just humans, and Ushra thought it was some other stronghold. It makes you wonder what we’re up against.” “It was a surprise,” I said. “It’s not going to work twice.” “Still, that bluish-green wiver was right. The guards failed⁠ ⁠—⁠ we failed. The thieves were right beside us and we still couldn’t stop them. Maybe we really don’t belong here.” The warm-gray dragon kicked a rock, and between his sad frown and the sour tinge in the air, you’d think this all was some personal failure. I brushed an alula over his shoulder. “Digrif, don’t blame yourself for this. I’m the one who failed, not you. You did everything you were supposed to.” “We were both right there,” he said, nudging me away. “You flew after them, I just stood and gawked.” “So did all the other dragons around us, even Gwynt and Adwyn. It doesn’t mean anything that I was the one looking right at them, wondering why they were so tense. It could have been any of us.” A sudden drawl from behind me, some dragon saying, “So you’re the one who chased after those thieves?” I spun around, and there was Jarce, running an alula over his twisted horns. “Um, why do you ask?” “Just been reasoning about things, after the faer’s little speech a ring ago.” He frowned, and said, “Tell me, what even is a human, anyways?” “Well…" I scratched my cheek. “Do you have sloths down in the cliffs? …No? Well, they’re like uh, rats, except a lot bigger, without any hair.” “That’s it?” the plain-dweller drake said, tossing his head. “And why in Dwylla’s name is the yawning faer spitting up this much fuss about hairless rats?” Jarce was glancing around, and as you followed his gaze, you saw Gwynt and Ceian leaning in. By them stood the cliff-dweller perfect over whose ashcloak a red sash sat clashing, Adwyn’s spy (who’d returned), and a plain-dweller wiver bigger than any other guard. “Just riddle it,” Jarce was saying. “The sleeping faer for once deigns to flap outside her hall, riles up the bleeding inquirers, and gets everyone dripping about some critter no one’s ever heard of.” They pause for a breath cycle. “Just riddle it. What’s really going on?” Digrif spoke up, voice a little flat. “But humans are real. There are stories about them. They say there used to be a town on the other side of Anterth, down in the valleys. Banti/Gorphon. Used to be. They fought with a bunch of humans and⁠ ⁠—⁠ lost.” The big plain-dweller lifted her head, held it aloft. “This is Gwymr/Frina, hatch. You think some mighty town-destroying creatures going to be coming at us, through the fires, in the gray season? It don’t fledge sense.” I clicked, saying, “Do you think something from the other side of Anterth is going to know what a gray season is?” Jarce dismissively waved a wing. “All I’m saying is, this all smells funny.” “And I was there when Hinte fought the humans in the first place!” I said to the fool. “I know how everything happened.” The white-cloaked guard⁠ ⁠—⁠ the prefect⁠ ⁠—⁠ licked their eyes. Peering, they said, “Hrm. Aren’t you rather young to be sifting? Thought Mlaen didn’t let hatchlings into the lake anymore.” “I am twenty-two gyras old!” “You don’t look it.” “At least I don’t look like the wrong side of a tortoise!” I spun around again, huffing. When I caught Digrif’s eye, I asked, “You want to go find Hinte?” And like that, we were striding away from the throng of guards, toward that butte. * * *