happen once more.
'Lady Hedare,' the captain said with some surprise. He didn't lower his sword. 'This young man says you've had an intruder and a couple of-'
'Captain, the woman is the intruder. I expect you'll take my word for it.'
His sword dropped by a hand's length. 'As you say, saer.'
'She assaulted me!' the half-elf cried. 'You're in her home,' Veron said.
The captain cleared his throat. 'Do allow my asking, saer, but what are you doing so far from the North Ward?'
Tennora began to retort, but the familiar sound of flapping wings made her fall silent. She watched as Aundra Blacklock once more climbed in through her window, her massive, bone white wings trailing behind.
Aundra looked Tennora over, examining her burned face and bleeding shoulder, the bruising that swelled up over her collarbone. She jerked her head back and took a small flask off her belt, setting it into Tennora's hands without a word. Stalking into the kitchen, she picked her way over the burned books and the scraps of wood that had once been Tennora's table. In the middle of the kitchen she squatted, nudged aside a few tatters of paper and bits of trash, and plucked out the case with the golden mask. She set it on the bureau. Everyone stared at her.
'What are the Watch doing here?' she said.
The captain recovered himself. 'Goodwoman Blacklock, your, ah… Lady Hedare reported someone came in and, well, seems to have destroyed the place.'
Aundra looked at the half-elf. 'Are you the perpetrator?' 'I perpetrated nothing,' the half-elf said.
'She was here when I arrived,' Veron said. 'Her master and others helped a dangerous criminal escape.'
'Ah,' Aundra said. She turned her lamplike eyes to the Watch. 'It sounds like she is your problem now.'
With much staring and apologizing, the Watchmen took custody of the half-elf, shackling her arms and leading her down the stairs. As she passed Tennora, she smirked, as if she had gotten exactly what she wanted. No one spoke until the Watch's footsteps had faded.
'It seems everything went according to plan.' Aundra glanced around the damaged room without so much as blinking. 'More or less. I expected it to be quieter.'
'What?' Tennora cried. 'What plan were you going by?'
'I have my mask.' Aundra laid a covetous hand on the case. 'And you have come out alive.' 'You don't understand! The antiquary's shop was a dragon hoard. The dragon came here and they… they fought, and he… He took Nestrix!'
Aundra turned a cold yellow eye on her. 'Yes, I know. I know all that.'
Tennora fell back a step. 'You knew he was a dragon? You sent us in anyway?'
Aundra took the mask out of the box and held it up to the candlelight. The light danced over the edges of the feathers. 'What's the best way to fight a dragon?' she said dreamily.
'A casting of… meteor swarm?' Cassian ventured as if it were a test. Aundra turned and frowned at him, as if she were only just noticing he was there.
'Another dragon,' Mardin said, folding his arms over his chest and frowning.
'Yes, Goodman Eftnacost. Why put yourself in harm's way, when their pride and rage will take care of it for you? At least one of them will no longer be a factor. One is easier to deal with than two.
Especially when that one is wounded.' She looked at Tennora again, with a jerky nod of her head. 'And I appreciate your help in that, Lady Hedare.'
'How could you?' Tennora said, too battered and exhausted to stop the tears that welled up in her eyes. 'She asked for your help.'
'How could I not? They are, neither of them, paragons of virtue. How could you bring one into my building?' she said. 'You brought vultures into this city.' '
Tennora met her cold eyes. 'We brought the vultures out'-for the first time, Aundra's flat expression flickered-'for good or ill, and that is better than letting Dareun plot under everyone's noses. She just wanted her life back.'
'So she can murder and steal and manipulate us all?' Aundra clicked her tongue. 'You are young still and haven't learned to see past the lies they all tell. The dragon can't escape her true nature. No one can.' 'What do you know about her nature?' Tennora cried. 'All you know is that her scales were blue.'
'Tennora, calm down,' Mardin said.
'Blue dragons can be reasonable,' Aundra said, 'but they're volatile creatures. You cannot trust them in the end, any more than a green or a red or a black or a white. They all hunger for destruction. Between the two of them they would tear this city's heart out if they could. Drink your tonic.'
'You judge her too harshly!'
Aundra's feathers swelled, but she gave no other sign of her anger. 'This is my home as well, girl. I do what I must to protect Waterdeep.'
'She's part of Waterdeep,' Tennora said. 'She came here, didn't she? Same as you, same as any of us.'
'That doesn't mean she's welcome.'
'Who are you to decide that?' Tennora surged to her feet. Veron caught her arm.
Aundra picked up the case with the mask in it and shifted her hands over it in a complicated pattern. It vanished with a soft pop.
'A better judge than you, my dear,' she said sadly, and crossed back to the window. 'Oh yes.' Aundra looked back over her shoulder. 'She offered you a ritual? One that would improve your magical abilities?'
'She did,' Tennora said warily.
Aundra smiled. 'It doesn't exist.'
With that she leaped into the night with a great flap of her wings, and Tennora collapsed onto her mother's trunk.
Mardin cleared his throat. 'I'll make some tea.'
'There, there,' Cassian said, sitting down beside her. 'I'm sure we can clean all of this up in no time at all.'
Tennora ignored him and turned to Veron. 'What are we going to do?'
He shrugged. 'Wait her out.'
'And what about him?'
'What about him?'
'We have to do something,' Tennora said. 'If either of them needs to be taken out of the city, it's Dareun.'
Veron shook his head. 'We don't know anything about him. It's too risky.'
'You'd rather leave a pair of warring dragons-one of whom is clearly up to something-'
'I told you before, it's a spellscar. She isn't a dragon.'
'She breathed lightning!'
'And it's probably her spellscar,' Veron said. 'Or a spell she learned.'
There were spells for that, but Tennora had never seen one throw out such a huge amount of lightning or seen anyone do it who wasn't a wizard through and through. And she'd never heard of a spellscar that gave the afflicted so many powers. She thought of the look in Dareun's eye when Nestrix entered, of the way he'd said he didn't want Tennora.
'The other dragon recognized her,' Tennora said. 'Why would he take her if she's just spellscarred?'
Cassian patted her hand. 'That was a man, not a dragon.'
'Men don't smell like chlorine,' she said. 'He's a dragon. He's the taaldarax!' Suddenly the pieces fell together in Tennora's mind. 'Oh gods.'
'What?' Veron said.
'He's…' She looked up at Veron. 'I know what it means. Taaldarax. The man with the copper caps called Nestrix a player and Nestrix said… Dareun is a xorvintaal dragon.'
'Xorvintaal is a myth,' Cassian said gently. But Veron's countenance became thoughtful.
'They say the dragons who play the great game take pains not to be seen,' he said. 'Whatever he is or isn't, this fellow walked right into your apartment and tried to kill you. Fairly obvious.'
Tennora shook off Cassian and stood. 'I spent a few short songs with him, and I know he's an arrogant hawksnarl and was ready to kill me over being robbed of a trinket. And Nestrix called him a wyrmling. He might be
