So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible. -- Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

Abi stared up at her grandmother. Her grandmother glared back at her. Over her grandmother's shoulder she caught sight of her grandfather giving her a glare of his own. Abi thought of the assassin. Of Ilaran's death. Of her trip through his memories and into the Land of the Dead. Of Irímé as a dragon. She paled.

"Hello, granny and granddad!" she exclaimed with a false attempt at cheer. If she pretended she hadn't a care in the world maybe they would believe it. "I was just--"

"There's a dragon outside," her grandfather interrupted.

Abi's force smile began to slip away in spite of her attempts to keep it in place. "Oh. Er, is there? I mean, yes. Yes. Of course there is." She kept trying to smile while she internally yelled at herself to stop babbling nonsense.

"Shizuki tells us it's your fiancé."

Abi's smile completely disappeared. She searched for an explanation. How could she tell her grandparents "I raised a corpse, an assassin tried to kill me, the corpse killed Ilaran, I brought him back to life, and while all this was happening Irímé turned into a dragon"? It was impossible.

"Well?" her grandmother asked, tapping her foot against the floor. "Doesn't he know what a spectacle he's making of himself? Why is he a dragon and why hasn't he turned back yet?"

Abi looked everywhere except at them. "That's the problem. He doesn't know how."

A very uncomfortable silence fell over the room. She knew without looking that her grandparents were staring at her in horror.

"He doesn't know how?" her grandfather repeated faintly.

Luckily someone else came along at this point to take the situation out of Abi's hands. The sitting room door opened and Ilaran poked his head around it.

"It's a long story," he said, which was both an understatement of incredible proportions and suggested he must have been listening right outside. "In short, he transformed without meaning to and in a moment of panic. We've all heard of such things happening before."

The memory of that story about the lawyer turning into a rabbit popped into Abi's mind. It took a great deal of effort not to burst out laughing.

Ilaran continued, "But I think Shizuki might be able to help."

"He'd better," Raivíth said grimly. "Before everyone remembers what happened the last time a dragon was on the loose in the city."

Abi barely heard that part. She was much more preoccupied by worrying about whether or not anyone could tell what had happened to Ilaran. She stared at him intently. Was he paler than normal? He had always been so pale that it wasn't really noticeable. Was his wound visible? No, he had his hair draped over his left shoulder so it concealed his neck. All the same she waited on tenterhooks for someone to ask if something was wrong with him. No one did. She only really relaxed when her grandparents left the sitting room.

So far so good. Now they just had to worry about Irímé.

Shizuki was not impressed when he heard he was expected to teach Irímé how to turn back into an immortal.

"But I like him as a dragon!" he complained. "I've always wanted to meet a dragon."

Siarvin did not actually close his eyes and count to ten, but it was a near thing. He kept smiling even though he wanted to groan. "Yes, but you wouldn't like to be stuck as a snake all the time. Once he learns to control his powers Irímé can turn into a dragon whenever he wants to."

Shizuki continued to look mutinous. Irímé raised his head and growled very faintly. Siarvin glanced warily at him. He didn't think Irímé was the sort of dragon that would breathe fire at anyone who annoyed them, but he also wasn't quite at ease being so close to something ten times bigger than him with very sharp teeth.

Shizuki turned and pouted at Irímé. "Why do you wanna turn back? There's nothing great about immortals."

Irímé growled again.

"All right," Shizuki mumbled, sounding like he had just agreed to make a great personal sacrifice. "I'll teach you if you want to know so much. But you have to take me flying some day! A really high flight! I want to see if clouds are as solid as they look!"

Irímé looked at Siarvin. Siarvin looked at Irímé. Both of them understood exactly what the other was thinking: Over my dead body!

Kiriyuki arrived at Gihimayel Palace just in time to run into a large crowd of disgruntled tourists coming through the gate. There were so many of them that they filled the entire road. No one could possibly get past unless they wanted to literally fight their way through. Kiriyuki squeezed herself against the hedge and waited for the herd to go past.

All of them were busy complaining to each other. She couldn't help overhearing parts of their conversations, even though their accents combined with the sheer volume of so many voices at once made it difficult to understand everything.

"So rude--"

"Why can't we see it?"

"--most excitement since the Prime Minister broke his neck--"

"Where did it come from?"

"Mummy, can we get a pet dragon?"

At last they passed by. Kiriyuki approached the gate. She was promptly stopped by the guards.

"Sorry, Your Highness, no one's allowed in. Her Majesty's orders."

Kiriyuki only just suppressed a groan. "What's happened? Is there really a dragon?"

Both guards nodded emphatically.

"It's as big as a house!" one of them said.

"No, you idiot, it's as big as a castle!"

Kiriyuki watched in mild bemusement as the two of them got into an argument over just how big the dragon was. Of all the things they could be worried about, that was really at the bottom of the list. There were much more important questions to ask. Questions like "where did it come from" and "who brought it here".

"It's very easy. You just think of being an immortal and then you become one." Shizuki turned himself into a snake, then into a boy, then into a snake again to demonstrate. "See? Now you try!"

It was all very well for him to say it was easy. He'd never had to learn how to change forms. Irímé followed his instructions without much hope of success. He'd been wishing to become an immortal again for ages and it hadn't worked yet. Nor did it work this time. He was still a dragon.

Shizuki blinked up at him in confusion. "What went wrong?"

Irímé tried to shrug and almost fell over. Suddenly having wings had a very bad effect on his balance.

The only thing preventing this from being a complete catastrophe was the fact Shizuki was now the only witness. Everyone else had politely decided not to watch Irímé's attempts at shapeshifting. They'd all gone to the main entrance hall of Gihimayel Palace. His pride would never have recovered if they were still here to watch this.

He tried to remember what had happened when he first became a dragon. He'd wanted to scare the policemen away. The next thing he knew he was staring down at them from a great height, and they had suddenly become very small.

Shizuki frowned thoughtfully. "Are you using magic to change back?"

Irímé nodded. "Of course."

"You shouldn't! You don't have to!"

Now it does seem like he could have said that earlier.

Irímé consciously pushed his magic away. He thought of being an immortal. I want to change back, he thought very hard.

The next thing he knew he'd overbalanced and was lying face down on the grass. He sat up and found that either he'd shrunk or everything around him -- the palace, the garden, and even the trees -- had grown. In the background Shizuki let out an excited shriek.

"It worked! Now turn back! And learn how to fly this time!"

Irímé studied his hands. He grabbed a fistful of his hair. He pinched his arm to make absolutely sure he wasn't dreaming.

"Come ooooooonnn," Shizuki whined, doing his best impression of a puppy begging for treats. "Turn back!"

"Absolutely not," Irímé said firmly. "I've had enough of being a dragon to last me a lifetime, thank you very much."

Ilaran was used to hiding all sorts of things from people he was forced to make small talk with. This wasn't even the first time he'd had to conceal an injury. It was just the first time he'd had to conceal a fatal injury. He suppressed the urge to adjust his collar. The bite-mark was stitched up and hidden beneath a bandage, which in turn was hidden beneath his high collar and further hidden by his hair. Even so he kept expecting someone to comment on it.

There should be pain with such a horrible injury. He knew it had hurt when the corpse first bit him. But now he didn't feel so much as a dull throb. The only discomfort from it was when he moved his head too far to the side and pulled on the stitches. Even that wasn't really pain.

I hope that's not serious, he thought while he offered Emperor Ninuath another cup of tea. How could I explain this to a doctor?

By general and unspoken consensus no one had mentioned anything to do with the events earlier. They hadn't even told their guests about the assassin. There was no point. Ilaran was fine, he was alive, and there was absolutely no point in stirring up trouble.

From time to time he pressed his fingers against his wrist to make sure his heart was still beating. It was. He was still breathing. He could still drink tea and eat biscuits, so there was little chance of him turning into a monster that craved human flesh.

So why did he feel like something was very badly wrong somewhere?

All things considered it was a relief when Shizuki walked into the hall, accompanied by an undragonified Irímé. At any rate it gave everyone something else to focus on, so there was less chance anyone would pay attention to Ilaran.

The kingdom of Gengxin was relatively new. It had formed over thirty thousand years ago, one of many kingdoms to rise from the ashes of the Dan Chi Federation. King Shi Zheng was only its second king. His father had been a general who proclaimed himself king. In his pursuit of a crown he'd married his daughter to Seroyawa's Crown Prince in exchange for foreign support. Since then Gengxin had very little trouble with its neighbours.

All of its troubles came from within.

After sending the letter to his sister Shi Zheng paced around his office for a long time. Zi Xiao had been young and healthy. No plague should have killed him so quickly. Now the Second Prince was sick too. Strange how both princes were constantly surrounded by their servants yet no one else had so much as a high temperature. There was something suspicious about this.

Then there was the Ninth Prince. Poor Zi Yao. He'd never been strong. If he caught this mysterious disease it would finish him for sure.

Thinking of Zi Yao inevitably brought Shi Zheng's thoughts round to his youngest son's healer. No one in the palace liked that man. He was a foreigner, which was never a recipe for popularity, and a very odd foreigner into the bargain. But he could keep Zi Yao alive and relatively healthy. None of Gengxin's physicians had been able to stop the seizures.

Perhaps he could cure this disease as easily as he cured Zi Yao.

Shi Zheng sent a eunuch to summon the healer. He arrived within ten minutes.

"How is the Ninth Prince today?" Shi Zheng asked.

"He is well, your Majesty," Lian replied, bowing. Like all foreigners the healer had some unpronounceable name in his native language. No one had ever bothered to learn it, so within weeks of arriving he had adopted a Gengxinish name. Now he was known as Lian. "He played with the Eighth Prince for an hour this afternoon."

"He doesn't have a temperature?"

"No, your Majesty."

Abruptly Shi Zheng said, "I want you to check the Second Prince. See what you think is wrong with him."

If Lian was surprised or annoyed at the order he didn't show it. He bowed again as he said, "Yes, your Majesty."

"You're dismissed."

The healer left. Shi Zheng went back to worrying about the strange plague. So far it didn't seem to be contagious. But what if that changed?

Perhaps he shouldn't have asked his nephew to visit after all.