'The midwife didn't know my father had followed her. I was not their first child, but I was the first one to be born alive. Da says he just couldn't stand to let go of me, that he felt I deserved a chance. So he followed the midwife and he brought me back home, even though he knew a lot of people would say he was doing wrong.'

'Doing wrong? Why?'

She looked back at him, wondering if he were teasing her. He had pale eyes, blue or grey depending on the time of day. But they never glowed. Not like hers. They looked at her without guile. His earnest look almost exasperated her. 'Tats, how can you not know these things? You've lived in the Rain Wilds for, what, six years? A lot of Rain Wilds children are born, well, touched by the Wilds. And as they grow, they become even more different. So, well, people had to draw the line somewhere. Because, if you're too different when you're first born, if you already have scales and claws, then who knows what you'll grow to be? And if the ones like me married and had children, well those children would likely be even less close to human when they were born, and might grow to be Sa knows what.'

Tats took a deep breath and blew it out, shaking his head. Thymara, you talk like you don't think you're human.'

'Well,' she said, and then stopped. For a time, she chased words around inside her mind. Maybe I'm not. Did she believe that? Of course not. Well, maybe not. What was she then, if not human? But if she was human, how could she have claws?

Tats spoke again before she could find words. 'You don't look that much stranger to me than most of the folk in the Rain Wilds. I've seen people here with a lot more scales and fringe than you have. Not that it bothers me now. When I was little, when I first came here, you were a pretty scary bunch. Not any more. Now you're just, well, people that are marked. Just like Tattooed were marked.'

'Your owners marked you. To say you were a slave.'

He flashed white teeth at her in a grin that denied her words. 'No. They marked me to try to make people believe they owned me.'

'I know, I know,' she said quickly. It was a difference that many of the former slaves insisted on. She didn't understand why it was so important to them, but it obviously was. She was willing to let him explain it however he liked. 'But my point is that someone did it to you. Before then, you were just like everyone else. But me, I was born this way.' She turned her hand over and regarded her black claws curving in toward her palm. 'Always different. Not fit for marriage.'

She lowered her voice and looked away from him as she added, 'Not even fit to live.'

He didn't reply to her words. Instead he said quietly, 'Your ma just came out and looked up here at us. She's still down there, staring at me.' He shifted a tiny bit, ducking his shaggy head and bowing his shoulders in toward his narrow chest as if that would make him invisible. 'She doesn't like me, does she?'

Thymara shrugged. 'Right now, it's me that she really doesn't like. We had a, well, a family disagreement earlier. My Da and I came home from gathering, and my mother said that someone had made an offer for me. Not a marriage offer, but a work offer. So Da said I had work already and, well, she got angry and wouldn't even say what the offer had been.' She sprawled back on the branch and sighed. The Rain Wilds night was deepening around them. Lamps were being kindled in the little dangling houses. As far as she could see, the scattered sparks of the upper reaches of Trehaug sparkled through the network of branches and leaves. She shifted onto her belly and looked down; there, the lights were thicker and brighter in the more prosperous sections of the tree-built city. The lamplighters were at work now, illuminating the bridges that spanned the trees like glittering necklaces strung through the forest. Almost every evening it seemed there were more lights. Six years ago there had been a flood of Tattooed to swell the populations of Trehaug and Cassarick. And since then, more and more outsiders had come. She'd heard that the little trading villages downriver had grown as well.

The light-sprinkled forest below was beautiful. And it was hers, yet it would never be hers. She gritted her teeth and spoke through them. 'It's frustrating. I've got few enough choices, and my mother is holding one back from me.' She glanced up at the skinny boy who shared the branch with her.

Tats' grin, always startling in how it changed his face, suddenly broke through. 'I know what your offer is. I think.'

'You know what?'

'I know what the offer was. Because I heard about it, too. That was one of the reasons I came up here tonight, to ask you and your da what you both thought of it. Because you've seen more of the dragons than I have.'

She sat up so suddenly that Tats gasped. But Thymara knew she was in no danger of falling. 'What was the offer?' she demanded.

His face lit with enthusiasm. 'Well, there was a fellow that was posting notices at every trunk market. He tacked one up and then read it to me. According to him, the Rain Wild Council is looking for workers, young, healthy workers, "with few attachments". Meaning no family, he said.' Tats paused suddenly in his excited telling. 'So I guess that couldn't be your offer, could it? Because you've got family.'

'Just tell,' Thymara demanded brusquely.

'Well, here is the gist of it. The dragons are getting to be too much trouble over at Cassarick. They've done some bad stuff, scaring people and acting up, and the Council has decided they have to be moved. So they're looking for people to move them away from Cassarick. They need people to herd them along and get food for them, that sort of thing. And resettle them, and keep them from coming back.'

'Dragon keepers,' Thymara said softly. She looked away from Tats and tried to imagine what it would be like. From what she had seen of the dragons, they were not easily managed creatures. T think it would be dangerous work. And that's why they're looking for orphans or people without family. So that no one complains when a dragon eats you.'

Tats squinted at her. 'Seriously?'

'Well . . .'

Thymara!' Her mother's sharp call broke the night. 'It's getting late. Come in.'

She was startled. Her mother seldom called her name in public, let alone desired her presence. 'Why?' she called down to her. Perhaps her father had come home and wanted her. She couldn't recall that her mother had ever called her back into the house.

'Because it's late. And I said so. Come inside.'

Tats eyes had widened. He spoke in a whisper. 'I knew she didn't like me. I'd better go, before I get you in trouble.'

'Tats, it's nothing to do with you. I'm sure of it. You don't have to go. She probably just has some chores for me.' In truth, she had no idea why her mother would suddenly summon her back to the house. She knew she should probably go down to where their small dwelling swung gently from the branches that supported it. But she wasn't inclined to go. When her father wasn't home, the little rooms seemed uncomfortably small, filled with her mother's disapproval. A sudden obstinacy, very unlike her usual subservience to her mother, suddenly filled her. She'd go, but not right away. After all, what could her mother do? She'd never come up on the flimsy branches where Thymara and Tats now perched. Her mother disdained even the tree-ways in this part of Trehaug. The Cricket Cages, as this district of tiny homes perched high in the upper reaches of the canopy was called, relied on lightweight bridges and fine trolley lines to ferry its populace from branch to branch. Her mother hated living in such a poor section of Trehaug, but the dangling cottages were affordable. Almost everything was cheaper up here in the higher reaches of the canopy.

'Aren't you going in?' Tats asked her quietly.