As the guard guided them up the marble stairs leading to the great physician’s asclepieion, Miles peered suspiciously at the back of Celest’s head, wondering if her whole speech about love and the two of them getting married was all a farce. She had been so sure and impassioned, and inspiring, and yet, on the turn of a coin she had just offered herself to some soft-handed brat.

Celest turned over her shoulder and grinned at him as though she had read his thoughts, but offered no word of solace. That was fine. She was free and could do whatever she so desired. Celest didn’t belong to Miles. Even though they had been friends for twenty years, but who was counting? Not Miles; he didn’t care.

But still, did all that talk about love and marriage mean nothing to her? Celest was always a romantic, and the more Miles’ thoughts consumed him, he suspected she was plotting something that would get her out of her impulsive betrothal. Celest wouldn’t bear being a boring noble’s arm-anchor.

Reaching the clinic’s lapis foundation, the guard drew the huge door open to the foyer where bands of light came in through the holes cut from the ceiling. Mosaic walls and floors depicted healing herbs. On the farthest wall, a huge slab of translucent alabaster, was carved an enormous healing scroll detailed with the ancient tongues and “M E N D” inscribed in wide letters.

The guard disappeared into the room with the burnt-orange door to the right, then returned and beckoned. Miles followed Celest inside.

The hospital room was circular, a toss in length in every direction from its center, and the dome ceiling opened with a small port to let the high noon sun in. Uneasily, Miles shifted in place. Giant glass tubes, some as tall and wide as himself, stood equally apart from each other around the room. A lime-green embalming fluid filled each one, and bulbous organs – from clockwise his position: a four-chambered heart, a talon, a wing portion, part of a fibrous lung, and yet others – floated cryptically within.

Dragon harvesting.

In front of a man-sized vat stood the notoriously grey-haired doctor and Lord Eckles, his left hand braced against the small of his back rubbing his thumb white against his forefinger betraying an otherwise calm exterior.

As Miles and Celest entered, the two distinguished members of society paused their conversation and turned, appearing agitated from their seemingly unwelcomed presence. As they stepped aside, the big glass tube was revealed and floating inside, at first appearance, looked to be a naked young woman.

Entranced, bewildered, and morbidly enthralled, Miles and Celest walked side by side toward the vat. Celest was the first to reach out and touch the cold glass, followed then by Miles as his heart raced.

The world seemed to just disappear around him. The woman in the tube was human-like, and seemed not dead, but merely sleeping, dreaming perhaps, with a subtle smile on her face.

Though the liquid inside was slightly green, her features were clear. Her long blond hair, like thousands of glistening spider threads, floated subtly in the fluid’s currents. Her ears, telltale of northern Fairy-elves, were pointed and attached at the lobes. The sharp features of her nose, cheeks, and chin, were pretty and perfectly symmetrical. As Celest had ascertained and espoused at breakfast, the Fairy-elf seemed perfectly preserved, not having been chewed or digested by the dragon wherein she had been unrooted.

Except for her back, which, as Miles circled the corpse, he discovered half a dozen holes going from the base of her neck to just above her buttocks. Otherwise, she seemed more a painting or sculpture than a being. Her shapes and proportions could not be lusted for, only admired as a layman would stand dumbstruck beneath a work of art.

From which end of the world had she been carried, and how so did she come to be entombed inside the belly of a beast?

Lord Eckles spoke stiffly, his dark eyes shifting aggressively between Miles and Celest. “I hope you and your gardener there understand the need for secrecy in this matter.”

“Errand boy, actually,” Miles replied with self-import. He was neither of those things, but it made Lord Eckles’ eyes narrow at him. The irony was that Miles had planted several of Lord Eckles’ citrus trees some years ago. Miles was never able to get friendly with the wealthiest few houses. It’s one thing for nobles to think they are better than common folk, but another thing entirely to think they are better than even other nobles. The fact that Lord Eckles had considered marrying off his son to a lower family, like Celest’s, was nearly an historic event.

The great physician took a step forward. “And because we must retain secrecy until the dragon and this Fairy-elf are investigated, we would like to know who told you about all this, Miss Realta.”

Without taking her eyes from the floating woman, Celest answered, “A little bird said so.”

A blatant and brave defiance. Her father was going to hear about it.

“What are these wounds on her back?” she asked, and ran her fingers down the glass.”

When neither man immediately answered, Celest added, “Won’t Stauffer be disappointed when I tell him his father frightened me out of our wedding?”

Miles watched as though a minstrel act were unfolding before his eyes, and had a sudden craving for toffee peanuts. Apparently Lord Stauffer, Eckles’ son, wanted Celest so badly he would do anything, including shun his own father, if she even hinted the marriage had fallen through because of him.

The physician momentarily eyed the lord, whose jaw was now clenched with anger, then answered, “It is not known, yet.” Coming beside Celest and studying the scars on the Fairy-elf’s back, he continued, “Although, there were tubes extending from each site: as though she were an organ herself. She had to be cut free.”

Little more was explained for the simple fact of collective ignorance. A female Fairy-elf had never been seen, and the few males who occasionally graced the city with their presence weren’t exactly easy to converse with, they even ignored invitations to dine with the Kyle family.

Miles fondly recalled the four words once spoken to him by a blue-cloaked elf on the golden shores of Lymric Beach: out of my way. He’d cherish that phrase to his grave.

Of course, there seemed to be more to Doctor Galen and Lord Eckles’ hypothesis, but at this point, any wild speculation, regarding the origins of either the dragon or the Elf, could be equally weighted. There just wasn’t enough known about the world. Already, Miles was mentally sifting through any of his acquaintances who may be in a position to keep him updated on any of Galen’s findings.

Then there was a snap that echoed through the burnt-orange door that had come from the foyer. The doctor and lord, finally at ease in their conversations with Celest, paused, and all eyes went to the door.

Either a wall or a door in the foyer sounded as though it shattered, and the walls trembled. Everyone in the room crouched, and Miles anticipated a quake, though momentary silence followed.

Another crash came alongside the trembling walls, then silence. The sun still shone through the hole in the roof, so it wasn’t thunder. No alarm bells signaled another monster attack. Miles shifted between each person in the room, and each looked to him as if they all were asking one another for an explanation.

Finally, the guard secured his helmet, and without a word slowly began to open the door. He paused with it open just a crack, and peeked through. Hs brows furrowed as though in confusion, then all his tension laxed as he opened the door and spoke across the threshold. “I don’t know you.” He pulled his sword, took a step from sight into the foyer, then invisibly gasped, “Oh, god!”

His body came flying through the threshold, shattering the vial across the room and spilling the dragon lung and embalming fluid across the floor.

Before Miles consciously controlled himself, he had rushed against the door, slamming it shut, and bolted the lock.

“What in the void!” Miles shouted. Even though his hands were shaking with terror, he recalled Jamison’s parting gift. Pulling the scroll from the small of his back, its warmth soothed his jittering fingers. He spoke Protection over Celest, himself, and Lord Eckles. There was no power left after that.

The door exploded into fragments behind Miles. His breath was locked inside his chest, and even though shards of polished wood were lodged in his back, all things considered, he felt whole and unbroken even as he lay against the floor.

Craning his neck and peering through the dust and smoke, Miles first found Celest on the other side of the room, holding her head and sitting against the wall, but conscious and breathing. At the center, a person cloaked and hooded in deep crimson stood staring at the Fairy-elf in the preservation tube.

Wordlessly, and without a weapon or scroll raised against it, the vial cracked, spider-veining all around with tiny tinkles, then shattered. Amidst the sudden flow of fluid, there was another snap and the blue shimmer of a teleportation scroll flashed. Yet, after Miles picked himself up, feeling like a porcupine with shards impaling his skin, there was no call of “Ether!”, nor were there any used scrolls of power from the intruder littered on the ground. The cloaked figure, and the Fairy-elf, were gone.