She brought her head in close. “Just between rider and dragonelle, so to speak, you did well. I’ve had riders in saddles who almost tipped off, and there you were hugging tight as a scale nit even without a saddle. Be proud of that, and thank Ottavia and the cooks for the strength in your legs.”
Ileth realized she’d left the blanket Galia had brought her back on the beach. She couldn’t face the long walk down to retrieve it. She just couldn’t.
Too tired to even take the extra hundred paces to the kitchens, she went straight to bed.
You look terrible, Ileth,” Ottavia said as the other dancers rose the next morning. “I’m excusing you from drill today, to spare myself from facing a jury on a charge of witchcraft for reanimating the dead. There’s ash everywhere. You smell like the sampling lounge of a tobacco house. Get rid of the shambles you’re wearing, then wash your body, hair, and linen. Report to me this afternoon when you’re fit to be seen in public as one of the Serpentine’s dancers.”
Ileth decided to eat at Joai’s house. Joai wasn’t the best of company; the sudden onset of winter, as if to pay back the warmest Feast of Follies in recent memory, had brought with it a cold. Her face was red and her nose even redder as if her nose considered the coloration of her face a challenge it had to answer by doubling.
“Word is you rode old Taresscon. Bare-skin,” Joai snuffled.
“You make it sound like a circus attraction,” Ileth said.
“Ooo, I don’t. Are-choo! It’s just overturned half the apple carts in Jotun, you might say. There’s rules and traditions about when to ride dragons, as you’re no doubt about to learn.”
Joai limited the rest of her communication to sniffles and sneezes. Ileth walked back to the Beehive and her interview with Ottavia feeling that she’d planted both feet in the muck. Again.
“Am I in jeopardy?” she asked, as soon as she passed through the curtain and entered the Dancers’ Quarter.
Ottavia smiled from her little desk, where she folded and laid down a note.
“I wouldn’t call it jeopardy, Ileth. I wish you’d spoken to me before doing your death vigil down on the lake; I would have happily excused you and made sure you had warm clothing for winter’s arrival. As it is I can’t find fault with your instructions, other than missing drill. You were assigned to the Lodger, after all, and you carried out your assignment. But remember, we dancers are a team. You can’t just go off on your own hook like that, despite your grief. But I’m ready to let the matter be forgotten. It was a mad night, with the feast and the fire and the Lodger’s death. Just communicate your needs to me in the future.”
“And Gorgantern.”
Ottavia’s dark brows came together. “Gorgantern? What does he have to do with it?”
“He’s the reason the fire started. He was in the Cellars. He meant murder.”
“You mean arson, no—oh, I see. Well, rough justice, then. The fool.” She shuddered. “I’ve a horror of being burned. Strange for someone who works around dragons, I know, but that’s the Wheel of Fate.
“Oh, more sad news. You missed Peak’s farewell. We had our winter rice pudding with brandy-raisins early. Santeel ate your portion. She claims the drills are famishing her. Peak told me to tell you good-bye. She said she’d never forget your memorable entry to full womanhood with your skirt over your head in a horse stable. She meant it as a compliment, I believe. I shall miss her brass more than her skill at dancing.”
The wheels in Ileth’s brain stopped turning. “Santeel was at . . . the drills?”
“Yes, she joined us. I made it strictly probationary. We’ve never had a society girl, much less a Name like Dun Troot. What is her family going to say, I wonder? You and I know what goes on here, but that’s not how they see it in Sammerdam or Asposis. Not yet, anyway. But the good news is the next time Preen eats too many of those cat’s-catch-of-the-day disguised as sausages from the dragon kitchens, you don’t have to clean up. You had a quick spell as scour. Assuming our new scour Santeel doesn’t fall out, then you’re back to scrubbing out the sluice.”
Ottavia ended the interview by informing her that she needed to visit Caseen, the Master of Novices, in his office after dinner. If she wished, she could take her dinner privately in the Notch or anywhere else she might find convenient.
“A final word: sorry about the Lodger, young lady. I heard you two were a fine match. Taresscon herself spoke to me. She was quite moved by the way you stood by him, in bad times and good.”
Ileth polished herself in the washroom to the best of her ability. She noticed a new bed partition, Santeel’s, obviously, and a special lacquered sort of carry-all that she’d seen carpenters and such use filled with brushes and soaps and balms in the washroom. One of the cases in it was beautifully inscribed silver.
Clean with her singed hair clipped even closer to the scalp—she took care to remove any of her own hairs and rinse off Santeel’s brush before she returned it—and with a scalp glowing from the gentle caresses of the quality bristles, she dressed in the better of the two shirts she owned (they were always swapping places as they wore down) and her mended overdress. She steeled herself for another encounter with the Master of Novices.
She had to wait; he was dealing with two boys who looked as though they’d been in a fistfight. The cat that prowled the hallway took the opportunity of her waiting to leap into her lap. She idly scratched it.
The boys left and she made her presence known.
“Nothing unpleasant today, Ileth,” Caseen said. “Please sit down.”
Ileth took her little seat opposite the desk. The room smelled like boys and blood. They’d dripped a little on the floor.
“I’m sorry for this loss. I understand you quite liked working with the old dragon,” Caseen said.
“He enjoyed my dancing. I enjoyed learning from him. I wish . . . I wish we’d had more time.”
“Remember what I told you about time at the door? About nothing on earth being able to retrieve a lost hour?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry you had to learn the lesson this way.”
They looked at each other in silence for a moment before he spoke again.
“You’ve also had your first flight, earlier than most. How did you like it?”
“Joai said there would be some trouble about me riding Taresscon?”
“Ah. Well, no harm you knowing that’s the sticking point before you walked in here. Yes, some trouble, but not—don’t look at me with those eyes. No need for tears, girl. I’m not going to reprimand you. If the dragons ask you to do something, and you can do it, you can’t ever go far wrong here following their instructions. Awful as that night was, I know the Lodger had a horror of just going to sleep in his room and never waking up. We weren’t going to cut him up no matter what, though. To tell you the truth, the plan was to just seal off that room of the Cellars and turn it into his tomb. This whole place wouldn’t have been built if it weren’t for him, so his bones might as well lie in it. Still, he went the way he wanted. Few enough of us have that privilege. Do I have to tell you that little of this would have existed if it wasn’t for him?”
“He didn’t talk about himself much. I know he took pride in the Beehive. Why did he live in secret?”