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Kit was still having problems coming to terms with the fact that he was having a conversation with a dragon. But then, he had done as much with his Lady in her altered form, and that had been no easier at first. Or now, for that matter.

He therefore steeled his mind and started climbing.

Only to stop a short time later, utterly appalled at what he’d found.

He suddenly understood exactly how much trouble they were in and turned to look at the dragon, fighting to keep his voice steady. “I swear to you, p’on my honor, we did not know.”

“I gathered that.” The voice was a deep rumble out of the creature’s chest, and it almost sounded . . . amused?

Kit decided that he had been wrong; he didn’t understand anything.

“What is it?” Gillian demanded. “Show me!”

But Kit didn’t have to. The three miscreants he had discovered hiding in a cleft of the stone realized that the jig was up. And poked their snouts, their very green, very scaley snouts over the edge of the rock to peer down at her.

“Oh!” She covered her mouth with her hand, and stared up at them, her lovely eyes suddenly enormous. “Oh!”

Kit was just as lost for words. Well, you wanted to see dragons, he reminded himself. And made a promise to be very careful about what he wished for, from now on.

Because the three lively young faces now pushing past each other, eager to meet their new friends . . .

Were the tiniest of babes.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Kit stared at the three new arrivals, and realized that his position was even worse than he had thought. For they were so newly emerged from the egg that they still vaguely bore the shape of it. They were shorter than him, if only slightly, and their roly-poly bodies were very round, with wings so small that they could in no way have lifted those meaty hindquarters, even if they hadn’t been tucked close against their backs. And tails that were tiny, stumpy things shorter than their legs and curled under.

“Ah, healthy, curious hatchlings,” Rathen said, looking at them approvingly. “Who will doubtless one day be as strong and bold as their mother. I have known her long, and she is a fierce guardian of these mountains.”

One of the babes fell over onto its back at this fine speech, and began biting its own toes, and another smiled sloppily at Rathen, its tongue lolling out of its mouth as it had no teeth yet.

He sighed. “One day.”

“They are beautiful,” Kit said, as he had no idea what else to say. And because it was true. Even in their current, decidedly unbaked state, there was something compelling about them.

But it seemed that he had the right of it, for he received the first look of approval that the massive creature had shown him.

But no additional time.

“The mother left to look for food to bring back to her nest,” Rathen said. “But she will not be gone long with ones so young. This is not the time for dragon watching.”

“No,” Gillian whispered, staring upward, and yet she didn’t move.

Rathen’s eyes, once so fierce, softened somewhat. “But since you are here, would you like to see them up close?” Gillian looked at him with shining eyes. “Just for a moment,” he cautioned.

She nodded. And when his great hand lowered and opened in front of her, she stepped into the palm with no apparent fear at all. He lifted her up beside Kit, who was still clinging to the stone because the babes had no way down.

Except for climbing, he thought, staring at the bronze daggers on the ends of their small fists. He assumed that was how they had gotten up here, for their cave was a good distance below. He wondered how long they had been watching he and Gillian, in the same way that the two of them had come up to watch their kind.

Eternal curiosity for the other, only this other was far more interesting.

Gillian had been right about their coloring, which was a dull green that had none of the showy display of their mother. But she appeared utterly enchanted nonetheless. And then had an idea and began scrabbling in her purse, only to emerge with a paper spill full of comfits in the form of sugared almonds.

“Elinor loves these,” she explained. “I keep them with me for when we go out, to stop her from eating everything in the market!”

Kit almost told her that she should let her servants do the marketing for her, that it would be safer, but held his tongue. This wasn’t the time. And if this was the kind of risk that Gillian was accustomed to taking, no wonder she wasn’t afraid of the Circle.

They rather paled by comparison.