“Brajon?” she whispered.
Her cousin flung open the door, yanked her inside, and slammed it shut behind him.
His grin was as bright as the desert sun. Even Mele looked happy for once.
“You got through!” Brajon said. “There’s buzz all over the city about the fierce masked racer and who she is under the disguise. How does it feel, water dragon racer?”
Silver tried to force a smile, but her insides were shriveled. Everything she’d imagined about winning was different. Instead of triumph, she felt shame.
“Even better,” Brajon went on, “now you can get one more race over with in the morning, march into the palace, demand Kirja back, and we can go home. By dinnertime, I’ll be sitting down to my mother’s warm spiced beans. Mmmmm.”
“That’s nice for you,” Silver blurted. “What about me?”
Brajon exchanged a look with Mele. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.
“All right, Silver. Tell me. What about you?”
Silver dropped her pack and slid to the ground. The stone floor felt cool. She rubbed her wrist slowly, feeling the roughness of her healing scar. The one she was sure looked just like a coiled water dragon.
“I spend almost every waking moment wishing I was chasing glory, wanting to be on the water, enjoying the dust and noise and excitement of Calidia,” Silver said. “This is where I belong, this is what I was made for. And I’m worried that I’m going to lose that somehow.”
Silver thought of Hiyyan’s growl and fought back tears. She shook her head. It was time to be honest.
“No, that’s not it. I think I’ve lost Hiyyan. And lost sight of what matters, too. Something happened during the race earlier. If you thought I was driven to be a water dragon racer before … now it’s even worse,” she said. “I feel the pull so strongly that I’m sure I’ll die if I don’t listen. And listening to that made me get into a big fight with Hiyyan.”
Silver licked her lips. Salt had dried them out, and they hurt. If she were home in Jaspaton, her mother would track down the most soothing ointment and apply it with the gentlest of touches. She missed her mother. Her father, too. But most of all, she felt guilty.
“We came here to save Kirja from Sagittaria, and to race Hiyyan so I could claim him and save him, too. But I abandoned you and Kirja when you needed me most, and I told Hiyyan I didn’t care how he felt. All for the win. I’ve been so selfish.”
Mele cleared her throat, then stepped forward to take Silver’s hands.
“I understand that feeling,” Mele said. “But with your bond, you’re not the only one you have to think about. You and Hiyyan are a team. Nothing can change that—not even your dreams. Why do you think I work here, cleaning up after ungrateful guests? Bonds mean sacrifice.”
“Your heart was in the right place,” Brajon said. “You just got lost in the moment. But you probably shouldn’t keep upsetting Hiyyan. He’s big enough to gobble you in one bite.”
Silver laughed quietly. “The best thing I can do for Hiyyan right now is get Kirja back, and that means we have to race again.” Her eyes flicked to Mele. “Unless…”
“Oh no. Keep me out of this,” Mele said.
“I’ve heard there are underground pools, but I don’t know how to get to them,” Silver said. “This boy I met—another racer—said he’d show me after the Winners’ Audience. If we can even get that far.” Silver shook her head. “I just don’t know if Hiyyan’s up to racing again. But if there’s a local who has her own connection to the water dragons…”
Mele shook her head. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want to be involved? Everything you’re doing is dangerous. You think the races are just a game, but I’ve heard things! I know the lengths people go to in order to win … I know the things they bet, the things they lose. Not just things. Lives! And those are the lesser racers. The royals’ water dragons are a whole other game. One I don’t want to touch.”
“But the water dragon we’re looking for isn’t a royal dragon,” Brajon said. “And we don’t want to get involved, either. We just want to get what we came for and get out of here.”
He’d looked pointedly at Silver when he said we, but Silver couldn’t meet his eyes. She stared at the ground instead.
“I’m not going to get rid of you until I help you, am I?” Mele groaned, then narrowed her eyes. “Unless I turned you in. That would sort things out—and fill my pockets.”
“Mele, please.” Silver held her hands out, palms up. “We need your help. The dragons need your help.”
“If you didn’t know about my … situation with my water dragon, I probably would help. But I can’t risk my secret, either.” Mele sighed. “The Royal Pools are on the south side of the palace. They’re most likely fed by the Sonflir River. There are underground springs, which probably connect to the river, in the caves. I suppose you could access them through the south orchards. I used to go down there all the time when I was little.”
Silver and Brajon looked at each other with bright eyes. If there was anything they knew, it was underground river caves.
“I’m going to get Hiyyan,” Silver said. “Mele, can you show Brajon how to access the Sonflir River? If I can win tomorrow and get a Winners’ Audience while Ferdi creates a diversion and you two are approaching the Royal Pools from underground … we’ll have the best chance to get Kirja out.”
AFTER BRAJON AND Mele left, Silver paced Mele’s room, trying to decide the best thing to say to Hiyyan. I’m sorry seemed too small for what she’d done. How she’d taken advantage of him.
Even though she ached to see her water dragon immediately, she knew she had work to do first. Before she could even apologize and ask Hiyyan to race one more time, she had to do everything possible to make the race comfortable for him. He deserved that.
In Jaspaton, the communal bread oven was the center of the city’s social world. It was also swelteringly hot, and busy enough that a girl her size could slip in and out of the area unnoticed. Surely, Calidia had a communal oven, too. What kind of desert city would it be without one?
Even though the sun had dipped past the horizon some time ago, the city glowed with light: ornate Calidian metal lanterns on every street corner and in the hands of many; sizzling sparkler wands carried by the children; and, over the harbor, fireworks blooming pink, blue, and green. Silver pressed her scarf over her face and kept to the shadows, always looking left, right, and over her shoulder for people who might be following her.
Silver wished Hiyyan were with her. His keen sense of smell would pick up the location of the ovens immediately. Instead, she sniffed alone. A few more steps, and there it was: the lingering scent of freshly baked bread.
She darted down lanes and around corners until she came upon the largest clay oven she’d ever seen. There were several wide openings to allow for many hundreds of loaves to be baked at once. Now, though, only a small section of the oven was being used.
Silver sat in a quiet, shadowy spot next to the oven opening farthest from the road and pulled the remaining camouin and wool out of her bag. Just as Hiyyan needed Kirja, Silver was realizing that she also needed her parents, and the skills they’d taught her, too.
Silver pressed the camouin into small pins with holes on either end. Her first attempts were a mess—it was a difficult metal to work. But she thought back to what her father had taught her about observing the properties of different metals. This one needed heat to keep it stable. So she wove chains with the wool and wrapped the camouin around the chains. Then, when the bakers weren’t looking, she pushed one end of wool into the oven fire, waited for the fiber to light, then pulled it out again. Heat traveled through the core of every camouin pin, solidifying them into hollow and lightweight, but strong, pieces of metal. In this manner, Silver created a sort of rough chain mail to drape over Hiyyan’s flanks. The pins allowed for movement, so the chain mail would conceal his wings but not suffocate them. It would, hopefully, keep him comfortable while they raced. At least until they could safely reveal his true nature.