Page 64 of Backpacking through Bedlam

“How’d they take you?” I asked.

Sally sighed. “Needle to the arm. Stung, then everything got blurry. Then I was in a van, and my pizza was gone.” Her expression turned sour. “I really wanted that pizza.”

“Well, if they’ve lost it, I have the Lactaid now, and by the way, you’re not going anywhere unsupervised ever again.”

“Going to be hard when I want to date.”

“So we just make sure you date someone I approve of as proper supervision.”

The women I wasn’t in the process of choking out were starting to look more and more confused. One of them stepped forward, frowning at me.

“You know the representative of our cousins?” she asked.

I blinked. “This is genuinely outside my usual wheelhouse. Sally, you know these women?”

“I don’t know any of my biological family, and that includes your cousins,” she snapped, eyes on the woman who had spoken. “I’m not anybody’s representative here.”

“Sorry, miss, I think you have your familial relationships wrong,” I said, as politely as I could manage. “If you’d just give her back, now . . .”

“But we saw her leave the Westerner’s Nest!” protested one of the other women. “They allowed her inside! They allowed you inside, and you match them, gold and blue! They would never have allowed her inside if she weren’t representing our cousins!”

Oh. Oh, no. This was starting to make sense. I loosened my hold on the woman who’d attacked me, looking at the quartz placed all around the room with new eyes. There was so much of it, and of course the most impressive pieces had managed to catch my attention first, but most of it was nowhere near as eye-catching. There were cardboard boxes of broken spires under the little tables and on the bottom shelves of the display cases, and even a few jars of what I guessed was probably quartz dust.

I turned my attention back to the woman who’d spoken first. “I know you,” I said, trying to keep my tone respectful. “I know what you are, and I am so, so sorry.”

Her face fell for a moment before snapping back into a mask of stern disapproval. “Why are you sorry? Our bloodline is as strong as any other. We never needed fire to hold our territory.”

“No, you didn’t,” I agreed. “And I’m sorry because Sally’s presence doesn’t mean what you think it does. You have to have realized by now that she’s as human as my friend and I.”

“I’m not technically human anymore,” said Mary amiably. I had almost forgotten she was there. “Side effect of being dead. I still qualify as a person, but when you’re taking the census of humanity, I get shunted into a footnote.”

The women were looking more and more confused. The one who seemed to have elected herself their spokesperson scowled.

“Of course we realize the girl is human. They still allowed her to enter their Nest. She must be affiliated with our cousins.”

“She’s not, though. She’s mine,” I said, almost apologetically. “My name’s Alice Price.”

The change in their demeanors was immediate. All of them looked panicked, and the one I was holding started to squirm for the first time, forcing me to tighten my hold if I didn’t want her to break free.

“Price?” hissed their spokeswoman. “As in, a servant of the humans’ foul Covenant?”

“Not for a few generations now.” I let go of the woman, shoving her away from me. She staggered, nearly falling down, and ducked behind the others while she caught her breath. “We’re more into conservation these days. We’ve been working with the dragons to help them navigate the current situation in the city. Am I guessing correctly that you’re yong?”

The spokeswoman narrowed her eyes. “Do not speak our name,” she snapped.

“Fine. Korean dragons, then, if you’d prefer it.”

She stood up straighter, still glaring. “We are a Clutch of same,” she said. “We stand for what has been destroyed.”

“Well, right now, you stand as kidnappers and wasters of pizza, and I’d like Sally back, if you don’t mind terribly.”

“They let her inside.”

“That seems to be where I’m losing you.” I didn’t know how much the yong knew about the situation with the dragons, but given how open a secret William had become since Verity discovered him, I was reasonably sure they had some idea what was going on. I took a deep breath. “I’m guessing you’ve been watching the Nest because you know they found a male.”

“Their extinction is delayed while ours yet looms, and by what right? They were the ones who failed to contain the danger in its infancy, when it might still have been stopped from traveling to our lands and slaughtering our husbands,” snapped the spokeswoman. “If anyone deserves to find a mate for their Clutch, it’s us.”

“I’m sure every breed of dragon left in the world feels that way,” I said. “I know a laidly worm who would give anything to find a male of her species. She’s living with the European dragons in Southern California, helping them negotiate the purchase of a husband for their Nest.” I paused. “Laidly worms are a lot closer to European dragons than yong are. If she can’t share a mate with the dragons around her, you couldn’t either.”