Karen poked her head around the door of Sarah Tyler’s room and cleared her throat. “Aunt Sarah?” She hesitated and then added. “I can call you Aunt Sarah, can’t I?”

“Of course you can, Karen.” Sarah looked up from where she was sitting by Mela’s bed. She looked pale and tired. She must have been draining her reserves to support the mergirl. “What is it?”

“Could I have a word?”

“Of course, but do you mind doing it here? I don’t want to leave Mela unsupervised.”

“Yes, of course.” Karen stepped fully into the room. “How is she?”

“Stable,” Sarah replied, “but I still don’t know what’s going on with her. It’s similar to what happens to us without our heart bracelets, but she isn’t leaking energy and I have no idea what she’s using it for. She sleeps, wakes long enough to eat like a horse and then goes back to sleep. That’s what Speakers do when they overstress themselves, but…”

“But she’s not recovering?” Karen sighed. “Which means she’s still doing it. Even though she’s sleeping most of the time. What the hell?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Sarah said. “Now, what did you want?”

Karen chewed on her lip. “I’m worried about Hannah. She was behaving oddly just before school closed and her family have been getting closer to the Lavernes. If you’re right about us, she’s in terrible danger.”

“Yes, Jay’s mentioned that he’s worried as well.” Sarah sighed heavily. “She went through her maturity in May, so she knows and she’s kept her mouth shut.”

“That explains why she was behaving oddly,” Karen said. “And at least if she knows she can keep her head down, but…” She trailed off.

“I’ve got people keeping an eye on her, but there’s only so much they can do given how vicious the Lavernes can be. We don’t need a war-”

“Perhaps we do,” Matthias said from the door. “We’ve been letting the hunter families get away with slaughtering us for too long.”

“But can we win?” Sarah said.

“I hope so. I’ve got some ideas.”

“Oh?” Sarah gave him a curious look.

“I’ll tell you later. Do you mind if I let Halia take a look at Mela? She may have some ideas.”

“Your supposed healer dragon?” Sarah asked. “Sure, if you can keep her under control. I want to see how she does it anyway. If the council doesn’t mind that is.”

“Oh, good. I already cleared it with them.” He shut the door behind him and closed his eyes. “Halia! Attend me!”

There was a barely audible pop and then a collared dragon in human form appeared. She dropped to one knee in front of Matthias. “How may I serve you, master?” Halia’s tone was utterly neutral, and yet Karen could sense her resentment.

“You remember Mela, don’t you? Something is wrong with her and we don’t know what. Find out and fix it.”

Halia turned towards the bed and Karen had to suppress a gasp at the dragon’s startling resemblance to Alaryia. Then again the goblin was silver-eyed, so it was very possible they were related.

The dragon knelt down by Mela’s head and placed a hand on her forehead. After a few moments she gave a puzzled frown. “Is her aunt around? I’d like to ask her a couple of questions.”

“I’ll send for her,” Matthias said.

***

Unsurprisingly, Lorelei eyed the dragon nervously when she came into the room.

Halia gave her a gentle smile. “Don’t worry; even if I was inclined to eat you, the dragon lord would never let me.” She cocked her head. “But your niece, did she have this tendency to alternate between sleeping and eating and not much else when she was younger?”

“What?” Lorelei frowned at her and then looked startled. “Yes, for a couple of weeks when she was small. The clan healer couldn’t find anything wrong and Sirin refused to call in an outsider. I was about to insist when she got better on her own.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.” Halia looked at Matthias. “If I boost her up will you feed me afterwards?”

“What?”

“She needs to get her screen back up, master, and she hasn’t got enough energy. I can boost her energy levels so she can do it but I’m liable to collapse again and you ordered me to stop pushing myself that far.” She paused. “Once her shield is back up, she should recover on her own. She’s subconsciously trying to respond to something, and the effort is wearing her out. When her shield is up it can’t reach her.”

“I see. Well, I guess I’ll have to then. Do you know what she’s responding to?”

Halia shook her head. “Whatever it was, it latched on to the changes in her essence as useful. When her shield went up it blocked it, but it’s gone now.” She placed the tips of her fingers on Mela’s temples and looked at Sarah. “I’ll give her enough energy to function. Call your brother now to show her how to put the shield back up. He’ll only have a few minutes before she wears herself out again.”