Cast in Peril. Michelle Sagara

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      Only when they were gone did the Arkon resume his seat; he also, however, indicated that Kaylin could grab a chair and join him—at a reasonable distance from the table that contained his work.

      To her surprise, the first question he asked when the doors had closed on the two departing Dragons was “You are well?”

      The small dragon had settled back onto her neck like a scarf with talons. She blinked. “Pardon?”

      “While I have often heard various members of my Court and your Halls threaten you with bodily harm, strangulation, or dismemberment, you have seldom been a victim of an attack within the confines of your own home. If I understand the nature of the attack correctly, you now no longer have a home, and I am therefore attempting to ascertain your state of mind. Are you well?”

      She told him she was fine. Except the words she used were “No. I’m not.” Closing her eyes, she said, “It’s the only real home I’ve had since my mother died. Every other place I’ve lived belonged to someone else, either before I moved in or after.” In the fiefs, there were no laws of ownership. At least not in the fief of Nightshade. It wasn’t that hard to eject a handful of children from the space in which they were squatting so that you could squat there instead.

      She opened her eyes. “I’m happy to be alive. I am. But—it doesn’t feel real.”

      “Being alive?”

      “Being homeless. When I leave the Library, I don’t get to leave the Palace.”

      “You are a guest, Private, not a prisoner.”

      “Tell that to the Emperor.” The small dragon lifted its head and rubbed its nose along the side of her cheek. “Yes, yes,” she whispered. “I’m getting to that part.”

      The Arkon raised a brow, and she reddened.

      “Bellusdeo believes that the egg wouldn’t have hatched without the bomb, so—I have the hatchling.” She hesitated. “Would someone really kill me over it?”

      “Not if they understood its nature.”

      “What about its nature?”

      “It is, in its entirety, yours.”

      The small dragon’s eyes widened; it swiveled its head in the Arkon’s direction and opened its delicate, translucent mouth. There was a lot of squawking.

      “Umm, did you understand any of that?” Kaylin asked as the Arkon stared at the dragonlet.

      “No.”

      Kaylin had, in her youth, engaged in staring contests with cats—she’d always lost. She had a suspicion that the Arkon in his age was beginning to engage in a similar contest with the small dragon—and given large Dragons, and the inability to pry the small one off her shoulder, she could see a long, sleepless night in the very near future. She therefore reached up and covered the small dragon’s eyes with her hand—something only the very young or the very suicidal would ever try with the large one.

      “Can we get back to the entirely mine part?”

      The small dragon reared up and bit her hand—but not quite hard enough to draw blood.

      “Fine. Can we get back to the part where I’m entirely its?”

      The Arkon snorted.

      “And also the stories where Sorcerers destroyed half a world in order to somehow create or summon one?”

      “Yes. Understand that those stories are exactly that: stories. They are not reliable or factual. There may be some particulars that suit the current situation, but many more will not.” He turned and readjusted the mirror, which made Kaylin wince; in general it wasn’t considered safe to move active mirrors, although Kaylin had never understood why. Angry Leontine was more than enough incentive.

      “By the way, what is a Sorcerer?”

      “For all intents and purposes? Think of a Sorcerer as an Arcanist but with actual power.”

      Since her apartment was now mostly a pile of smoldering splinters, Kaylin thought his definition of “actual power” needed fine-tuning. “Any less arrogant?”

      “There was purportedly one extant in my youth, but there was never confirmation of his—or her—existence. Given that people who possess power frequently decide what qualifies as humility or arrogance in a way that allows little dissent, I will offer a qualified no.”

      “Fine. Arrogant and very powerful.” She looked pointedly at her shoulder. “How, exactly, is a small dragon of great use to an arrogant and very powerful Arcanist?”

      “Bellusdeo implied that the ‘small dragon,’ as you call it, shielded both of you from the brunt of the damage the Arcane bomb would have otherwise caused. It is almost a certainty that you would not have survived otherwise. Further study is warranted, but it is clear to me that Bellusdeo would have been, at the very least, gravely injured. She was not.”

      “If a Sorcerer is actually more powerful than the Arcanists, I don’t think some form of impressive magical defense would be beyond him—or her. I understand why the familiar might be helpful to someone like me, but I didn’t exactly destroy half a world to get one.”

      “Ah, I think I see the difficulty. If you are referring to this story,” he said, tapping the mirror so that the image immediately shifted, “the Sorcerer didn’t destroy the world to, as you put it, ‘get’ a familiar; he destroyed half a world as a by-product of his attempt to produce—or summon—one. I’m afraid the original word could mean either, so the meaning is not precise. It was what you would consider collateral damage. And if you fail to understand how that damage could occur—”

      She lifted a hand. “Not stupid,” she said curtly. “I know why the egg happened. I know what kind of magical disturbance produced it. Given the total lack of predictability of the effects of that magic, I can understand the how. I’m just stuck on the why.”

      The Arkon nodded in apparent sympathy. “Dragons were not, to my knowledge, Sorcerers.”

      “Meaning?”

      “It makes no clear sense to me, either; the stories that we have are fragmentary and somewhat conflicting. The story that I am currently considering—and you may look at the mirror images if you like, but you won’t be able to read the words—doesn’t reference the practical use of the creature. It does, however, make reference to its astonishing beauty.” He lifted a brow. “This story implies that the familiar was winged, but of a much more substantial size.”

      “Oh?”

      “Yes, apparently its owner could ride on its back, and did. On the other hand, the use of the word summon is more distinct and implies something demonic in nature.”

      “Demonic?”

      “It’s a religious story.”

      “Do any of the stories imply the familiars were a danger to their owners?”

      The Arkon took minutes to answer the question. “…Yes.”

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