“Yes. I will get water now. This will take ten or twenty minutes. There is a seep. It is not far, but it is necessary to be cautious here when crossing open ground.”
“Why?” he asked. Then, more sensibly—for there were many reasons the open might be dangerous—he asked once more, “Where are we?”
“Lóng Jia.” Her black eyes were remote, as if she looked out on some private vista, one that held great meaning. Then her gaze sharpened and flicked to him. “In English, you would call it Dragonhome.”
THREE
“IT’S what?” Lily stared at her friend, incredulous.
“The place dragons come from. Their home realm.” Cynna leaned her head against the wall behind her and closed her eyes. “That’s what they tell me anyway. The ones who speak English, that is, which is a really small group. Two, I think. Though the guards know a couple words—‘come’ and ‘stay.’”
Alice Báitóu, aka Alice Whitehead, had been right. The cell was primitive. Not some horrible, slimy dungeon, however. They were on the second floor of one of the stone buildings she’d seen—the one called the Justice Court. They even had a window slit in the stone exterior wall to let in air and light, though that light was dimming now. It was late in the day, edging into evening.
But the cell was small for one person, seriously cramped for two, and unfurnished save for two buckets—one with a lid that she bet was their toilet; one with a tin cup for drinking.
In addition to the buckets, there were three paperback books—A Tale of Two Cities, Huckleberry Finn, and The Norton Anthology of Poetry. There was also a sleeping mat. Cynna was sitting on it. She was barefoot and wore dull black pants a lot like those the short warriors had worn. They were too short for her. Her mud brown top, on the other hand, was too large, but a tie at the neck kept it from slipping off her shoulders.
Her face was pale beneath the ink. She seemed thinner, as if she’d lost weight in the time they’d spent in Dis. Her right arm was in a sling. It had been splinted.
She had not been happy to see Lily, judging by her reaction when the guards delivered Lily to the small cell. “Oh, shit” wasn’t her usual greeting. Lily had said something about Cynna not being very glad to see her here, wherever “here” was. And at last got an answer to that question.
“I saw a dragon in the sky, but I never thought—it didn’t occur to me—” Lily stopped before she said something about Reno. She didn’t think their captors knew about the green dragon, and she wanted to keep it that way. “This is the dragons’ home realm?”
“Yeah. Sit down,” Cynna said. “I’ll tell you what I know. You’re hurt?”
“Sprained ankle. I banged my head, too, but it isn’t serious. Is your arm broken?” Lily limped the few feet between the door and Cynna’s mat and lowered herself to the floor . . . the scrubbed wooden floor. The cell might be primitive, but it was cleaner than she was.
Cynna nodded without opening her eyes. “You ever had a broken bone?”
“Not since I was five. Broke my wrist when a tree ejected me.”
“This is my first. Everything about it is deeply damn annoying.” Cynna drew a shaky breath and opened her eyes. “Let me get through this, then you can ask questions. I know you’ll have questions.” The ghost of a smile touched her lips, then vanished. “They’ve been watching for you because I told them you might show up.”
Lily nodded. “I thought you might have.”
Cynna stared. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
“They were clearly expecting me. That might be accounted for by some kind of magical alert, but it seemed likely they’d been watching specifically for me—maybe through magic, maybe just with eyes on the ground. They knew who I was, though, so it was me they were watching for, not just random intruders. And they didn’t ask the questions they should have. What about Rule? Cullen? The others?”
“What?”
Cynna seemed too staggered to think. More gently Lily said, “Did you tell them about the others in our party?”
“I . . . in a general way. You were the only one I figured might make it here, though.”
“You had a reason to tell them.”
“You could say that.” Cynna’s face twisted, a swift, unhappy clenching of mouth and jaw. “They killed a little boy. Broke his neck. I didn’t answer fast enough, and one of them snapped his neck. I heard it break. He went all floppy and . . .” She shuddered. “Hell. I was going to tell this in order.”
Lily leaned forward and grabbed Cynna’s good hand—the one not connected to a broken arm—and squeezed. “Those sons of bitches. They threatened to hurt him if you didn’t answer?”
Cynna’s fingers tightened on Lily’s. “They had a soldier grab three kids off the street. Zhu Kongqi—he speaks English—”
“I met him.”
“He asked the questions, but it was Dick Boy . . . his name is really Dìqiú, which sounds like ‘dickah,’ not ‘dick boy’—”
It did the way Cynna said it anyway.
“—but I like Dick Boy better, so that’s what I call him. He’s the one who killed the boy. I didn’t answer fast enough, and he just . . . he’s like a living lie detector. It’s not mind magic—more like the kind of physical sensing a healer does, I think. Kongqi told me they’d kill the kids if I didn’t cooperate, then he asked how I got here. I hesitated, trying to work out a way to tell the truth without giving them everything, but . . . but I didn’t answer fast enough. Dick Boy waited maybe five seconds. He didn’t give a warning, he just—” She stopped suddenly, squeezing her eyes closed.
“You’re wrecked.”
“I fucking am.” Tears leaked from beneath those tight-shut eyelids. “He looked about four years old. Maybe I’m wrong about that. Maybe he was older. Everyone here is short, so he might’ve been older. Not that that would make it any better, but he was so damn little . . . the other two are still alive. At least I think they are. A girl and another boy. I think the second boy was the little boy’s big brother. He cried and cried, but so quietly . . . I keep thinking about how I’m going to kill them. The two dragon spawn, but especially Dick Boy. I think about it a lot.”
Lily didn’t know how to respond. After a long moment she said, “Just before my ninth birthday, a pedophile snatched me and a friend. Ginger Harris’s sister, actually. Her name was Sarah. He raped and killed Sarah in front of me. She was screaming and crying and he wanted her to be quiet, so he squeezed her throat while he . . . it surprised him when he realized she was dead.” She’d never forget the look on his face. Startled, then embarrassed, like a kid who’d knocked over his milk glass and made a mess. “The cops came before he could do it to me. For a long time I thought about ways to kill him. It comforted me.” Her mouth twisted. “Didn’t comfort my parents.”