Only in fragments. Blood had been involved, she knew that. Had there been more, the giving of a physical token? A scale? There was something back there, an elusive memory that swam at the very edges of her recall.

“Sintara.”

She had been thinking too deeply. She had not even noticed Mercor’s quiet approach. She tried to appear unsurprised as she turned to him. “What is it?”

“Are you aware of the changes your keeper is going through?”

She stared at him for a moment and then asked distantly, “Which keeper?”

He was unruffled. “The one who is what the humans would say ‘heavily touched by the Rain Wilds.’ Thymara.”

“I have not paid a great deal of attention to her changes, though she is more scaled than she was when we began our journey.”

“So her other changes are not deliberate? They are not gifts from you?”

What other changes? “She is scarcely worthy of any gifts from me. She is both arrogant and disobedient. She fails to praise me or to be grateful for my attentions. Why would I choose her for a gift?”

“It is a question I am asking of any dragon whose keeper seems to be undergoing obvious changes. Although Relpda has announced her intention, I would not have been surprised if others had quietly chosen such a path.”

“And have they?” She was suddenly curious.

“Only Relpda has offered a blood change to her keeper.”

She considered his words for a time, then said, as if merely confirming a thought rather than asking a question, “Of course, there are other paths to creating an Elderling.”

“Yes. They are more time-consuming and in most cases, less radical. They are no less dangerous if one is careless with the human.”

“She was careless, not I. When she removed the rasp snake from me, some of my blood spattered on her face. Perhaps in her mouth or eyes.”

Mercor was silent for a time. “She changes then, a blood change. If you do not guide it, it could be very dangerous for her.”

She turned away from him again. “It seems strange to me that a dragon should care about what is dangerous for a human.”

“It is strange,” he admitted. “Yet it is as I told you all, and as Relpda’s new abilities show. One cannot change a human without being changed by her. Or him.”

He waited for a time, but when she neither looked at him nor made any response, he moved quietly away.

SIMPLE PLEASURES. SIMPLE human pleasures. Hot food and drink. Warm water to wash in. Soothing oil for his abused skin. Clean clothing. He hadn’t even had to talk much. Carson had handled all the questions and told their story in a much abbreviated yet embellished form to an appreciative audience while Sedric had focused his entire attention on the platter of steaming stew and the mug of hot tea placed before him. Even the rock-hard ship’s biscuit had, when soaked in stew gravy, seemed almost delicious.

Leftrin had been there, and Alise, looking guilty and remorseful. She had sat down at the table with him, saying little after her initial embrace at their reunion, but watching him intently as he ate. She had been the one to measure out water and put it to warm for him, even bringing the steaming bucket to the door of the room for him. When she had tapped, he had opened the door for her and let her bring it in.

“I’m sorry there’s so little water to spare for bathing. When the river goes down more, we should be able to dig sand wells again. For now, it’s so murky still that all we get is mud soup.”

“It’s fine, Alise. It’s more than enough. All I want to do is sponge myself off and get some salve on my scalds. I’m glad to see that you’re safe. But I’m so weary right now.” His words skipped across the top of their relationship, refusing to engage her any more deeply than if he were speaking to Davvie. Not now. He needed to be apart from all of them for a time, but especially her.

She did not miss the distance he set between them. Her words were full of courtesy, but she still tried to reach him. “Of course, of course. I won’t bother you just now. Make yourself comfortable first. But afterward…I know you are tired, Sedric, but I need to talk to you. Just a few words before you rest.”

“If you must,” he said in his weariest voice. “Later.”

“As you wish, then. I am so glad you are alive and found again.”

And then she was gone. He’d sat down on his bunk and let himself relax. Strange, how his little musty, fusty room could seem almost cozy after all he had recently experienced. Even the rumpled pallet looked inviting.