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rippled glass, feels the cold seeping through the panes to meet the warm draft rising from the rooms below. He shivers. For some weird reason, he’s wondering how his mama’s doing.
    He hears footsteps, and one of the witchy women appears at the bottom of the stairs, not the healer but the shorter, older one with the earth-colored dress and the really intense voice. He thinks her name is Rose. She’s smiling up at him like she knows everything he’s going through, so like, there’s no point in even bringing it up.
    N’Doch can’t help but smile back. A grin, really. Kind of weak and sheepish. “Here I am,” he says.
    “Indeed you are,” replies Rose in her accented, faintly formal French. “And are you coming down, or spending the afternoon on the stairs?”
    N’Doch likes her already, though he’s damned if he’s gonna let her know it. “Thought I might just hang, y’know? ’S nice here.” He nods at the intricately carved beams above his head. “All this old-timey wood and stuff. You folks really know how to build back here in 913.”
    “Actually, this part of the house was built at least twohundred years ago.” Rose’s mouth quirks. “Even before my time . . .”
    “Hey, not as much as before mine.” N’Doch likes that he doesn’t have to explain himself to her. Probably the girl has done that already. He wonders what kind of stuff she’s said about him. Mostly bad, he suspects. He knows how she doesn’t approve of him. He studies Rose’s face, to see if she looks old-timey, too. Certainly her clothes do. Even her shoes look handmade. But aside from her funny accent, she walks and talks like a regular person. N’Doch is so relieved, he doesn’t even bother to be surprised.
    Rose sets one foot on the bottom stair and leans amiably against the railing. “How does it feel to be on your feet again?”
    He readies his usual smart-mouth answer, then swallows it in a puff of breath and feels it settle like gas into the pit of his stomach. Her compassion is ready and genuine, and her eyes go straight to his gut. Already he’s tired of listening to himself. “A little shaky,” he says instead.
    Rose nods. “Well, when you’re up to it . . . there’s a certain dragon outside eager to see you alive and well.”
    “Yeah. I know.” N’Doch notices how the word “dragon” comes out of her mouth without a hitch, like it’s nothing new, she’s known of such things all her life. He wishes he could say it so easily. He squints at the wall beside him, strokes a finger across the fine stippling of bumps. His own dark hand is like negative space moving against the plaster’s whiteness. Downstairs, all the faces he sees will be white. “Did they bring the old man?”
    “No.”
    N’Doch glances back at her. “No? Hey, why not?”
    Rose holds his gaze steadily. “Why don’t you ask her?”
    He remembers the old man asking him that, in the very same tone.
She’s witchy
, he reminds himself. Just like Papa Dja. They talk to you like they know everything about you. “Why don’t you?” he blurts, and then he’s sorry for it.
    Especially when she says, “Because I cannot talk to dragons. That is, not without a lot of trouble I’d rather not go to just now. Talking to dragons is your gift. That’s why you’re here.”
    And that’s about the only reason, N’Doch tells himself. For sure that’s why they brought me back to life. He knowshe’s carrying this stubborn thing far beyond sense, but he can’t quite let it go. Maybe it’s his last chance. He’s been waiting for the dragon’s siren music to come up here after him, into his brain like she usually does. But so far, she’s left him alone. Announced herself, then let him be. She must be busy. Too busy to bother with him. “What about the girl? She talks to ’em better’n I do.”
    “Erde went with Raven and Doritt to feed the animals in the Grove.”
    Since none of this information means anything to N’Doch except the