Tacras fell back a step and Dargan looked uncertain. The other Cordans stirred uneasily. Moon knew one reason why they were suspicious. To their eyes, Jade was a woman alone facing an angry crowd, but she wasn’t the least bit afraid of them.
Almost sounding as if he were trying to be reasonable, Dargan said, “But you aren’t telling us everything. Even if there was a settlement nearby, why would they send only one of their number on such a dangerous journey?”
Jade started to answer, but Ilane shouted, “She lies! I told you, she looks like him. Her skin has the same pattern as the Fell that was among us.”
“You should know!” someone in the back of the crowd yelled. Moon was pretty certain that was Fianis, who Ilane had replaced in Ildras’ tent.
Ilane tossed her head, angry at the barb. “I speak the truth!”
Jade grimaced, and Moon snarled under his breath, annoyed at himself. Damn, didn’t think of that. He and Jade had the same pattern to their scales, but he hadn’t thought Ilane had caught more than a glimpse of him in his other form. But she saw you after she gave you the poison. She must have sat there in the tent and watched him, while Selis slept and Moon lay in a drugged stupor, the pattern appearing on his skin. It made his flesh creep.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jade tried, folding her arms. “I think that woman’s mad with... something.”
Dargan didn’t seem pleased by Ilane’s interruption, but he said to Jade, “Then tell us why you came here alone.”
Selis had reached the side of the elders’ tent, waiting for a chance to slip through the entrance. The people sitting outside it hadn’t moved. Moon stepped forward. Letting his voice carry, he said, “She’s not alone.”
Everyone turned. A confused murmur rose from the people on the far edge of the crowd who couldn’t see. But the group around the elders stood still, stunned into silence.
“It’s him!” Ilane shouted, ducking behind Ildras. “I told you!”
Moon shifted and leapt into the air. Everybody screamed and scrambled to get away. He spread his wings, flaring his spines and frills, and landed next to Jade. She gave him an annoyed look and said in Raksuran, “I assume this is a plan.”
“Selis is in the elders’ tent,” he told her.
“Good.” Jade shifted and flared her wings out with a violent snap.
More Cordans screamed and ran. Arrows flew, but Moon ducked and twisted away. Jade charged the archers and they scattered. She leapt to the top of a tent, flaring her wings again to draw everyone’s gaze.
Ildras ran at Moon with a barbed spear. Moon caught the weapon and yanked it out of his hands. Careful to pull the blow, he used the hilt to slam Ildras in the head. Ildras staggered backward and collapsed.
Selis bolted out of the elders’ tent. Moon shouted, “You’ve got it?”
“Yes!” She held up a woven bag.
Moon shot forward, caught her around the waist and jumped into the air, snapping his wings out to take flight. Jade followed right behind him.
Selis shrieked and grabbed his shoulders, her face buried against the flanges protecting his collarbone. Moon said in her ear, “Wrap your arms around my neck.”
After a moment she loosened her grip enough to do it, winding her arms carefully between his spines.
Moon banked toward the flying island, its shape outlined against the starlit sky. They needed a chance to talk and to look at what Selis had managed to steal.
If the Cordans were still watching, they might see them land there, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it.
He lighted in an open court, with a long, vine-choked pool and crumbling pillars. He set Selis down. She stumbled to the pool, sitting heavily on the edge to splash the stale water on her face.
Jade landed beside Moon, folding her wings. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”
“No. Maybe.” He had to point out, “You’re a terrible liar.”
“Yes, I realize that.” She shook her ruffled frills, still irritated. “I was going to leave them a ring to make up for it, but if that’s the way they’re going to behave, forget it.”
Still leaning over the water, Selis waved a hand at her. “Don’t waste your gems. Those dungheads aren’t worth it.” She sat up, dug in the bag, and pulled out a rolled bandan leaf and a small wooden jug with a clay stopper. “I hope this is what you need. I just pulled the page out of their simple book. They had jugs of the stuff all made up, a dozen or more.”
Moon shifted to groundling, and sat down on the moss-stained paving as Jade took the leaf. Jade unrolled it, angling it so the faint starlight would fall on it. In Altanic, it read, Three-leafed purple bow, boil until blue, strain liquid, boil again...
“Can we get this in the west?” he said. He had never heard of purple bow, three-leafed or not.
Jade thought for a moment. “If it’s what I think it is. A flower that grows inside the boles of spiral trees?” she asked Selis.
“Yes.” Selis frowned at the leaf, squinting to see it in the dark. “From what I could tell, it’s just a simple, boiled down over and over again.”
Moon took the stopper out of the jug and cautiously sniffed it. It had only a faint, weedy odor, but a familiar one that he was unlikely to forget. “This is what they gave me.”
“Good.” Jade sighed in relief, resting her head in her hand. She looked at Selis. “I take it you don’t want to go back to your camp.”
“No.” Selis shrugged, resigned. “I suppose I should take this as a sign. I’ll go to that mountain city you mentioned.” She stopped, suddenly appalled. “By go there, you mean fly there, don’t you?”
Moon gave her a look. “No, we’re going to walk. It’ll take half a turn, at least, and—”
“Fine.” Disgruntled, Selis flicked a hand at him. “Just don’t drop me.”
Because time was short, they left that night, taking Selis with them and flying toward the mountain city. Moon had a few ideas about preparing Selis for the flight, from his experience of being carried in groundling form by Stone. They cut up a blanket to wrap inside her Cordan sandals, turning them into warmer boots, and cut another piece for her to use as a hood and scarf. Since all Selis had was a light cotton tunic, they gave her all their clothes, which amounted to Moon’s pants and shirt, and the rough smock Jade had gotten at the caravanserai. The woven silk of the Raksuran fabric did the most to protect her from the cold wind during flight, but it still wasn’t easy for her, and they stopped periodically to rest and let her recover a little.
It was late afternoon when they arrived on the opposite side of the pass from the city. Moon and Jade shifted to their other forms, took their clothes back, and Selis bundled up in the remaining blankets. Then they walked up the road to the city’s bridge. Selis was exhausted and pale under her light green skin, but triumphant at making it there alive.
They took a space at the caravanserai for Selis. Moon and Jade meant to stay there only long enough to rest and stock up on food for the balance of the flight through the mountains. Moon had been trying to think of a story to explain their reappearance with Selis, but Selis had supplanted anything he could have come up with by airily telling the proprietor, “They’re helping me leave my family, who are all dungheads.”
They had arrived in time to catch the Serican traders before they started their journey back down the pass toward the Kishan territories. The Sericans were taking several passengers already, including a local family, and two women of the small-statured groundling race with the little horns. Moon sat with Selis while she bargained for her passage, but she did a good job of it, especially considering it was her first time.