s nothing lik

e she hoped never to meet, had rendered dragons in the same basic shape. Wings like cathedral arches. Neck long and serpentine. Fire visible in the thro

tside the cathedral, and Lyra revi

light, no thunderclap, no slow unfolding of wings from a standing human form. One moment he was a man walking toward the far edge of the courtyard. Then the air around him si

one amber eye the size of a cartwheel, and she understood without

pproa

holds in scales that were warm to the touch and faintly ridged like cooling volcanic rock. She reached the

e before she fini

scattered sparks, and the cold came in from all directions at once, sharp and absolute, the kind of cold that does not ask permission

passed beneath

ving way to the broad flat sprawl of the Greyne through Cassenthor, and then the black mirror of the Drethian Sea visible briefly to the east before mountains rose and blocked ev

t the centre of

o intentional in its vertical lines. Then the scale resolved and she realised the entire peak had been carved. Not built upon. Carved from, the palace emerging

n moonlight. It absorbed the dark around it and gave nothing back, and the overall effect was of a structure t

n without folding his wings, and Lyra climbed down on legs that had gone unreliable with cold and sustained

that spe

id, with the warmth of a man

not human. Lyra catalogued this quickly and without reaction, having decided somewhere over the Greyne that reacting visibly to things she did not understand would only cost her. The ser

inside with

atively. What she found instead was a place of severe, considered beauty. Ceilings that soared. Corridors lined with something that was not quite glass and not quite stone, dark and fa

ould sleep six, a sitting room with a fireplace already burning, and a narrow adjoining room that held a bath alrea

ed at the rooms wi

appeared in

e said. "The east wing is yours. You w

window she had been

se I s

That is a preference

"This palace has areas that are dangerous to humans who do not

no books, no work, no purpose here.

said, "comfortably and temporari

d respond, which she su

essional satisfaction, the way a person notes a structural beam is holding under unexpected weight. The situation was bad in ways she had not finished coun

ked for

in the bedroom faced a sheer drop to mountain rock eight stories down. The sitting room window looked onto a narrow interior courtyard, dark, with other windo

led th

was also a resource drain. Then she sat in front of the fire that was burning wood that produced no smoke she coul

something that had happened to her body rather than just to her memory. A recognition. That was the only word that fit. Not a thre

know what

going to

t quite a roar and not quite a scream, low and resonant, more felt in the ch

at ver

t precisely one inch, and listened to the corridor

the palace. Two sets. Then a third, heavier, and she would have known t

kly toward whatever

idor wen

r, the coin cold in her closed hand, and began to understand th

seeing something Draven was

she needed

the rest of the way and