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When Alys awoke, Selendrile was gone, but it was clear that he'd been there, and recently. The stew from the night before bubbled over the fire, and there was bread and cheese on the table, and water. The pitcher of water was still cool from the dark bottom of the well; she had only just missed him, it seemed.
When she was finished eating, Alys quickly rinsed the bowl and spoon with a bit of water from the bucket outside, then moved to her small workbench by the door. Tools and scraps of tin in varying sizes were scattered in disarray. She picked up her pliers and the beginning of a cup; best to begin while the fire was hot.
It had been nearly a month since she and Selendrile had escaped from St. Toby's. The first night, Selendrile had flown her to a cave—for all she knew, it was his lair—high up in the mountains near the village, and she'd been so exhausted she'd actually fallen asleep on the cold stone floor. But it was obvious she couldn't sleep in a cave forever, and the next day Selendrile brought her here, to a small, abandoned cottage he'd found on the other side of the mountains. It was near enough to dragon-territory that most people probably wouldn't bother them (Alys guessed this was why the cottage had been abandoned in the first place), but Alys could still walk to the next village if she wanted.
Alys took all this in while Selendrile waited, a few steps behind her. Finally, she turned around and said, "I'll need some things."
He didn't so much as bat an eyelash when she told him what she'd need: hammers, tongs and snips, a soldering iron, some tinplate. She didn't know whether he thought it perfectly normal for her to ask for these things, or whether he simply didn't care; in any case, she wouldn't have been able to explain to him why she wanted them. She was grateful for his help, knew that without it she'd be dead, but—it couldn't only be him. She had to do something for herself, even if it were something small, even if—and she had to swallow her pride at this—she needed his gold and silver to do it.
Then, of course, there was the fact that if she didn't practice her tinsmithing, there was little else she could do to fill her time. Selendrile had made his surprising offer, and she had accepted, but since then—nothing. He'd given no indication of his plans, if indeed he had any. Did dragons think about the future? What did they do when they weren't terrorizing villagers and striking bargains with unlikely maidens? Alys didn't know what he wanted from her, and the more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed that he could want anything from her. Maybe he regretted his impulsive offer; maybe he was already bored with her. Maybe one day he would fly off and never return. Alys tried to push the thought from her mind—why would he save her life more than once only to abandon her?—but, after all, there was still so much she didn't know about how his mind worked. He knew all about her: her history, her fears and loves, her dreams; but his hopes and desires were opaque to her. If dragons did make plans for the future, she doubted they involved lurking around farmhouses keeping young human girls company. So what did he want?
In any case, Alys was not used to sitting idle for days at a time. It was nice not to be running away from anything, to have time to breathe, but she needed something to keep her occupied or she thought she might go mad. When she tried to remember what she'd seen other women do during the day, all she could think of was sweeping, cooking, washing, and looking after children. She didn't have any babies to tend, and the idea of herself keeping house for a dragon—as if he would care about a clean house, or eat the food she cooked—was ridiculous enough to make her laugh out loud.
So every morning, after breakfast, she sat at her workbench and practiced the only craft she knew (contrary to what the people of St. Toby's might believe). There was so much she'd never had the chance to learn from her father, and she made mistakes more often than not; even so, she could tell she was getting better. The work brought a sense of peace to Alys; somehow, with her hands guiding a piece of metal into the shape of something new, she felt closer to the memory of her father.
She worked until her neck started aching; after a quick lunch of bread and cheese, she decided to go for a walk. Other than working, exploring the area around the cottage was one of the only things for her to do during the day. A short distance from the cottage, she broke into a run; the feeling of the wind rushing past her face reminded her a little of flying. She ran until she reached the edge of the forest at the foot of the mountains, then slowed, careful of roots underfoot. The late-afternoon sunset shone through gaps in the trees, dappling the forest floor in alternating patterns of light and shadow. Alys stood still for a moment, joy and sorrow at odds within her. It was so beautiful, but she suddenly felt lonely. She wanted someone to share it with—or to share it with someone (her heart whispering that they were not the same things).
And just when had she stopped thinking of Selendrile as "it" or "the dragon" and started thinking of him as no less than a person? He didn't think or feel the same as a human, but he did think and feel; she couldn't deny that. He had a name, and it suddenly occurred to her to wonder who had given it to him. Dragons must have mothers and fathers, mustn't they? Did Selendrile have a family somewhere, a family that loved him the way her own father had loved her? Did dragons love each other?
As it was, Alys had had to fight for every bit of information she knew about Selendrile; it seemed unlikely that he'd just tell her the things she wanted to know. More likely than not, he'd be annoyed with her for asking. Alys sighed. Getting a dragon to talk about himself was harder than shaping even the most stubborn piece of metal.
She was so absorbed in this line of thought that she didn't notice the failing light until the sky was already tinged with purple. Startled, she realized it was nearly twilight; she had better turn back if she wanted to reach the cottage before it was too dark. Selendrile, too, would probably return soon.
But as she approached the cottage, Selendrile was nowhere in sight. Well, Alys thought, maybe he already changed to human form. But there was no one inside the cottage either. She frowned, but it wasn't as if Selendrile had never left her guessing before. He'd come back whenever he felt like it, she was sure, and probably be infuriatingly mysterious about just what he'd been up to.
But as the night grew deeper, and he still didn't return, worry began to gnaw at her gut. He'd never been this late before. What if he'd been hurt? Killed? She was hard-pressed to think of anything that could give a dragon much trouble; but then, wasn't that what all the legends and songs of brave knights were about? And hadn't he nearly died at Atherton's hand, only a few short weeks ago?
Outside, a wolf howled, and Alys shivered. What if he hadn't been injured, but had simply decided not to come back? She told herself that if he didn't care, neither did she. She could take care of herself; she certainly didn't need him any more than he needed her—But her heart leapt into her throat at the sound of beating wings, and she couldn't even feel embarrassed at the relief that flooded through her.
She determinedly did not run to the door to see him approach, but waited inside while he landed and transformed. A few moments later, he came through the door, wearing pants and a shirt that had somehow survived their adventures.
"What took you so long?" Alys asked, trying to keep the worry she'd felt out of her voice.
"I visited St. Toby's." At her alarmed look, he added: "Not as a human, of course. As a bird."
"Oh," Alys said. "But why?"
He shrugged. For a moment Alys thought that was all she was going to get out of him, and she wanted to shake him—as if he'd visited the place where she'd nearly been burned as a witch with no reason in mind! But then, to her surprise, he continued:
"I wanted to see how the town was doing after you got away," he said. "To hear what the townspeople were talking about."
"After we got away, you mean," Alys pressed.
He shrugged again, but didn't contradict her, which Alys counted as something. "And?" she asked. "What were they talking about?"
"It seems that after your second escape, the townspeople decided to focus on something other than witchcraft. Gower..." he trailed off, looking at her.
Alys swallowed. "Go on," she said.
"Gower is still making wheels, but he spends less time in his workshop and more with his family. Una never did run away. And Etta...well, she seems the same."
"I see." Alys was silent, taking in what he'd told her. "I'm..." she started, but she didn't know what she wanted to say.
Selendrile raised an eyebrow. "Happy for them?" he suggested. He sounded skeptical.
Alys thought. "No," she said. Then, more firmly, "No. It isn't fair. It isn't fair that they killed my father and tried to kill me, and now they still have everything and Etta gets to have a mother and father—" And, no, she wouldn't cry, she wouldn't let Selendrile think she was any sillier or weaker than he already did—but his expression didn't change as she blinked back tears at the memory of everything she'd lost. She thought she'd suppressed this grief, but at the mention of St. Toby's it came rushing back, stronger than before.
Calming herself, she felt the anger and hurt cooling in her chest. "No," she repeated. "But nothing I can do can bring my father back, so—so it's better that no one else gets hurt."
"Hm," said Selendrile.
Alys narrowed her eyes at him. She'd gotten better at interpreting his silences and noncommittal noises, but he was still frustratingly hard to read most of the time. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He shrugged, and Alys sighed. It seemed she wasn't going to get any more out of him that night.
"Well," she said, "it's getting late. I'm going to bed." She turned around and headed for the inner room of the cottage.
"Good night."
Alys whirled around, surprised. He'd never said that before, and she couldn't tell if he was being sincere or not.
"Good night—" she began to reply, but he was already gone. Alys frowned. Maybe she'd been imagining things. Unbidden, the memory of how she'd first taught him that phrase floated to the surface: What do people say when they're about to go to sleep together? She flushed and chastised herself for thinking of it.
"Stupid," she muttered to herself, as she tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable on the straw mattress. He wasn't even in the same room, and she was still letting him make her uncomfortable!
She was starting to think she had a bigger problem than boredom on her hands.
---
It rained the next day, so Alys had little choice but to stay inside. She decided to try her hand at making a simple candlestick, the way she'd seen her father do, but no matter what she tried the metal stubbornly refused to do what she wanted it to. By the end of the day, she had several failed attempts and a headache; frustration combined with the dreary weather to put her in a foul mood, and Selendrile was late again.
She wasn't worried this time, but she was beginning to grow irritated by his mysterious behavior. Why had he asked her to come with him if he was just going to leave her alone all the time? Maybe dragons were different; maybe they liked being by themselves, and didn't care for the company of other dragons. But Alys thought that sounded like an awfully lonely way of living, especially for thousands of years.
It was only when she was startled awake by the sound of wings that she realized she'd dozed off at her workbench. She sat up, rubbing at her eyes. A few minutes later, Selendrile appeared in the doorway, wringing water from his hair.
Alys didn't want to let him see that his absence bothered her, but irritation and impatience won out in the end. "Well?" she said. "What kept you this time?"
If he noticed anything out of place in her tone, he didn't show it. "I was visiting the town on the other side of the mountains."
Alys stared. "What? Why?"
He shrugged and sat down in a chair near the fire. Exasperated, Alys didn't know what to make of his non-answer. Since when was he so interested in human towns? Was he looking to see if there were any fat sheep—or fat farmers—to devour?
The silence stretched between them, broken only by the patter of rain falling outside. Suddenly, Selendrile swung his gaze from the fire to her face and said, "Don't you want to go back?"
Caught off guard, Alys stammered, "I-I don't know." She'd felt a pang of homesickness, to be sure, when Selendrile had told her about St. Toby's; but she knew that that home wasn't something she could ever return to, and she tried not to think about it too much.
"There's nothing for you here," he continued, strangely insistent. "Shouldn't you want to be with your own kind, living like they do?"
"Why are you asking me?" Alys nearly yelled, suddenly irritated. "Do you want me to go back?"
He was on his feet in a second, eyes narrowing. "Maybe I do," he said. He took a step towards her, and Alys's stomach clenched.
"Make up your mind," she retorted, sounding braver than she felt. "First you want me to stay, then you want me to go. Which is it?"
She gasped as she suddenly found her back against the wall, with an angry dragon looming over her. Oh, I really don't know when to keep my mouth shut, she thought. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for him to grab her arm, shake her, shout. Her heart pounded. Was she still this afraid of him, after all?
The last thing she was expecting him to do was kiss her.
He grabbed her shoulders in his hands and pressed his lips, hard and angry, against hers. Alys stiffened in shock; her hands flew up to his shoulders, but whether to push him away or pull him closer she didn't know. This was nothing like the light, quick kiss she'd given him when they'd both thought it might be the end. His kiss was slightly off-center, obviously unpracticed, but with all the intensity of one of his fire-blasts. Alys shivered.
Maybe dragons didn't know about kisses, but he always had been a fast learner.
Selendrile finally pulled away, dropping his head to rest in the crook of her shoulder. "I think," he muttered, "you really are a witch."
Alys tried to slow down her whirling thoughts enough to grab hold of a reply. "What are you talking about?"
"You've done something to me," he said, and Alys thrilled to the sound of it even without understanding what he was confessing to.
"...do you want me to go?" she ventured finally, when it didn't seem like he was going to say anything else.
"No."
"What do you want me to do?"
He pulled away, not looking at her, and didn't answer at first; he seemed to be debating within himself. Alys waited patiently until, seemingly resolved, he met her gaze.
"Come with me."
Alys looked at him flatly. "I already did," she reminded him.
"I mean somewhere else," he said. "Somewhere far away from here."
Alys sucked in a breath. "How far?"
He gave her a calculating look. "Have you ever seen the ocean?"
"You know I haven't," Alys said, trying not to betray her excitement at the very thought; already her imagination was soaring high up in the sky and far, far away from the confines of St. Toby's or Griswold or any other town or village.
Selendrile smiled faintly. "Well, then," he said.
---
When Alys awoke the next morning, Selendrile was waiting for her outside. The early morning sunlight reflected off his scales so that Alys had to shield her eyes to look at him.
"Good morning," she said.
He inclined his head in response.
"Well," Alys said, stepping into the circle of his claws and feeling them close around her waist. "Let's be off, shall we?"
Selendrile flapped his wings once, and they were above the treetops; a second time, and the cottage dwindled to a speck. Alys laughed, spreading her arms out like wings, and then they were flying in earnest, rushing to meet the rising sun without looking back.