“It doesn’t make sense,” Lilah said, pacing her room.

On the holoscreen, her best friend from home, Sam, held up one red-stained hand. “Back up. The dragon?”

“He’s uninjured,” Lilah started, ticking things off on her fingers. “Has shown no ill effects from being in space, which implies he wasn't outside a ship for long, but we didn't see any traces of one nearby. We found him in a human suit. Alone. He won’t say why for any of it. Barely talks about himself, besides the amount that’s normal for pleasantries.”

Sam ate three more pomegranate seeds. “To be fair, if I were alone in space with a bunch of strangers you wouldn’t get much out of me. I’d probably have been dragged out there kicking and screaming. No clue why you like it out there.”

“Nobody wants to kidnap you, Sam, you’re too irritating.”

“You think he was kidnapped?”

“I think I want you to poke around down there and see what you can find.” Lilah paused her pacing, scooped up the holoscreen, and dropped onto her bed, holding it above herself. “Talk to people. You’re good at that. See if anyone knows anything about a dragon who’s gone missing. I don’t know if he was kidnapped, but maybe a stowaway for some reason? See if any ship has reported something like that. But keep it quiet if you can, I’ve already talked to my boss about this and she doesn’t want media getting a hold of this before we’ve figured out what Ekhazyrnkh’s deal is.” There, she was pretty sure she’d gotten the name right this time.

“I’m media.” Sam held up the empty peel with a look of distaste and wandered out of the frame, whether to get another fruit or wash his hands Lilah wasn’t sure.

“You don’t count,” she said to the empty room. “You like me better than you like good stories.”

“Sure about that?”

“If it’s not true I’m not bringing you back something from Eridani.”

Sam reappeared in the frame, face half hidden by a mass of black fur and a notebook. “You’d better. Pickle wants a new toy from his favorite auntie.”

“I think Pickle wants you to put him down.”

“Pickle loves me.” Sam hoisted the cat up to his shoulder, then sat back down. Pickle promptly turned and jumped from Sam’s back to the couch and disappeared. “Anyway, yeah, I think I might have an idea of where to start. What else can you tell me?” He flipped open the notebook. “And how do you spell Ehazirinh? Does it have a chet in it somewhere?”

Lilah rolled over, still holding the holoscreen, and told Sam everything she knew.

Ekhazyrnkh sat on a box in the hold, the only place ce could be alone on this too-small ship with its metal walls and cold hard floors, and wrapped cir wings around cirself and cir tail around the base of the box.

They were gone. They were all gone.

Ce wanted to keen cir grief to the world, as dragons did back home, singing cir loss to the skies where, now, they should have been dark with a night that stretched for months. But this was not home, and how could ce sing to the sky when the sky as ce knew it was gone too? All was dark, the glimmering lights outside the ship’s windows looked wrong, and it was all too warm.

Ce couldn’t stay quiet, not when ce was the only one who knew they were gone and could sing their spirits to rest. Ekhazyrnkh pressed the edges of cir wings together and began to sing softly. The humans couldn’t know.

Ce sang their names, and though ce hadn’t known any of them particularly well, ce sang of what ce did know. Jezdrylyn’s love for the plants ce had discovered in the too-hot tropics. Andrltykhir and ryz stories, which rie shared parts of every day. The way Nerikhynnl had tried to find a bright side for everything. But now Rylyn’s plants would die, Khir’s stories would never be told, and Neri’s bright eyes were forever dim.

Ce didn’t know how long ce sat there, singing quietly for no ears but cir own, only that, eventually, there were no words left to say. Taking a last shuddering breath, ce fell silent.

The whispers in cir mind had faded. They were on their way to rest.

Ce opened cir wings and took cir time folding them over cir back neatly, then ran cir hands through cir spines, quick-preening them to make sure they lay flat, and dabbed at the scales on cir face to smooth those too. Ce took a breath and turned, tail lifting slightly for balance.

Captain Lilah was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. Nir— her— arms were folded over her chest, an expression on her scaleless face Ekhazyrnkh couldn’t read without spines to watch.

Ekhazyrnkh felt cir spines flare. “Captain,” ce said, keeping cir tone even. Ce gave a shallow bow. “Is all well? If you were looking for me, I do apologize for my disappearance, I did leave a note…” It had even been in English!

Lilah shook her head. “Not any of that, no worries. But…” Her brow furrowed. “I heard noises.”

Ekhazyrnkh took a breath and decided not to worry about keeping cir spines flat; it wasn’t as if a human would notice the same signs of agitation as a dragon. “Erm.”

How clever.

“It sounded like something might be dying,” Lilah observed. “Except it was doing so remarkably quietly.”

Ekhazyrnkh smiled the human way, with teeth, and raised cir hands near cir chest, spreading cir fingers like ce’d seen humans do in movies to show innocence or indicate not knowing something.

Lilah rocked on her heels like she was about to take a step back, then stopped herself and raised one eyebrow. “So you don’t know anything about the noises?”

Did she know how difficult a question that was to answer? Dragons could lie, technically, but rarely did. Since dragons had a sixth sense for when they were being actively lied to, very few of them got enough practice doing it to successfully fool anyone.

“I was taking time to myself,” Ekhazyrnkh said carefully. Ce shrugged, settled cir spines, and added, “I miss my home. This place is much warmer than I am accustomed to.”

“Well,” Lilah said, starting to turn as if she expected Ekhazyrnkh to follow her, which ce did, “my crew would be awfully upset if we turned down the thermostat to accommodate an arctic dragon, but if you’d like, we can find a space to chill? There’s…” She tapped her cheek. “We might be able to cool the hold down sometimes. Or there’s the hatch, we’d just need to be careful when you’re in there, make sure you’re suited up and tethered just in case. I think those are the only options until we reach Eridani….”

“Thank you,” Ekhazyrnkh said. “Truly. But you needn’t go to great effort for my sake.”

“I’ll go to what effort I like, thank you very much. I’ll talk to Julie about cooling down the hold tomorrow. I’m not sure how long we can keep it cold, but it’s sure to be better than nothing.”

Ekhazyrnkh cocked cir head and blinked cir third eyelid. “That’s most kind of you, Captain.”

Lilah shrugged and turned away so Ekhazyrnkh couldn’t see her face. “One desert summer when I was nineteen, now I think air conditioning should be a basic right afforded to everyone. Go figure.”

Guilt tugged at Ekhazyrnkh’s heart, sinking and twisting into a ball in cir stomach. Cir tail twitched. It felt so wrong to deceive one who seemed so kind.

But dragons could not trust humans. Hadn’t they proven so time and again? Elves could trust humans, certainly. But not dragons. And even if Ekhazyrnkh had been able to trust Lilah and her crew, cir first loyalty was to calen and country, and ce had sworn to secrecy.

Ce smoothed cir spines down again and followed Lilah to the dining area.