Scirye

Scirye wondered what Bayang was brooding about. The woman had looked somber enough before this, but she had been a bubbling fountain of happiness compared to her face now.

The girl felt her legs cramping, but as she changed position, her foot touched the bundle of axes. When her mind had been clouded by grief and rage, punishing the dragon had seemed like the right thing to do. However, now, aloft over the Pacific Ocean with her enemy perhaps only a few feet away, she was beginning to have her doubts. Her anger was cooling and reason was taking its place, and with its return her task was appearing to be more and more impossible.

Perhaps she should undo the bundle and lead the attack before she completely lost her nerve.

She was glad to postpone the decision when Koko held up a piece of wire that he had found. “Hey, guys and gals, why don’t we check the luggage? Roland might have hidden the ring in his suitcase rather than carry it on him. After all, he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t be searched. If it was in a bag, he could always claim it was planted there.”

Reluctantly, Leech looked away from the window. “Good thinking, but we just hunt for the ring. Don’t take anything else.”

Koko gave him an irritated frown. “What’s wrong with a guy taking a few souvenirs?”

“It’s called theft,” Kles said. “We’re already in enough trouble for stowing away, not to mention violating a stack of traffic laws back in San Francisco.”

“Okay, okay, look but don’t touch.” Koko cracked his fingers. “Just let me limber up the old digits then.”

Bayang took the wire, twisting it back and forth until it broke. “I’ll help you.”

“Ha!” Koko said skeptically. “Just don’t get in my way.”

They took down the empty crate and one by one climbed over into the rest of the hold. However, every bag they opened only contained clothes and toiletries. What surprised all of them was how adept Bayang was at picking locks, as well. It turned into a kind of competition with Bayang clearly in the lead, much to Koko’s annoyance.

Kles’s left hindpaw squeezed Scirye’s shoulder and then his right did the same. It was their signal that they needed to talk, so Scirye made a point of searching the hold as far away as she could from the others.

As she started to untie a rope, she whispered to her griffin. “What is it, Kles?”

He leaned his beak close to her ear. “I knew there was something familiar about her smell, but I couldn’t put a claw on it until we caught up with the thief back at that seaplane terminal. Her scent’s real close to his.”

Scirye’s eyes widened. “You mean—?”

Kles nodded. “She’s a dragon.” He clicked a claw against his beak. “I’d trust this anytime over your eyes.”

Scirye felt a thrill. She had never expected to meet a dragon in the flesh. Dragons were notorious for avoiding humans, disdaining them in the same manner that humans ignored mayflies who might live just a few days. It certainly explained some of Bayang’s arrogance.

So it was odd to have a dragon disguising herself as a human, let alone taking a job that brought her into contact with so many of them—though it was true that the dragon thief worked for Roland and also took human shape.

Scirye studied the elderly woman bent over the steamer trunk, wishing with all her heart that she could see Bayang in her true form at least once.