Dad was not happy with me. "You could have been killed." The table shook as he slammed his hand, palm down on the scarred wood.

The table split with a loud crack, spilling books and files onto the stone floor. "Dad, come on. I'm okay. I want to talk about the bounty."

Fire crackled from the metal barrel in my cell, the Crown's only acknowledgment that keeping me here during the dead of winter was a hardship. I was a little surprised he'd broken the table. Even in his scrawny human form, Dad was still a dragon, but he was old. I leaned over and scooped up the papers ignoring his swirling eyes.

They were reddish, and glowed like dying embers. In a dragon, that meant rage. "I'll talk to the Crown."

"I doubt it will matter. Brian's dad keeps coming back with excuses not to ratify our treaty." I tossed a book onto my cot, and then opened another. It was filled with tiny script, the ink fading, the words jammed together in an illegible scrawl. "You can read this?"

Dad leaned forward, snatching it from my grasp. "Of course I can. It's a law book."

I hated the patient, slow way he talked. "I know that. Where are the pictures?"

"Focus, Son. We were talking about last night."

My teeth rubbed against my lower lip as I scowled. "Here we are, waiting on a treaty, and they go and revoke our endangered species status."

"Which you didn't help any by posing as your 'Cousin'. How many dragons are there now?"

"Uh, oh. I didn't think about that. Besides," I added, "They didn't know about my cousin when the set a bounty on dragons."

"Only on dragons raiding off their reservation. It's always been that way with endangered species."

That surprised me. "It has?"

"When they're members of a predator species, yes."

"So, why didn't anyone ever tell me this before?

"I never raided. I was too old and crippled to fly, so it never came up until you transformed. Then we were knee-deep in a war with the Dragon King."

"And, they didn't enforce the bounty on him because he ate the human king and usurped the throne. That's beginning to sound like an option, Dad."

He shook his head. "We don't have enough dragons to take on their entire government. The Barons would come after us, and the Elves as well."

"So, we just put up with this?"

"For now. If we win this trial, we can sue for false imprisonment, and insist the treaty be ratified."

"Then what?"

His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

"You don't know?" I stood up, knocking over the cot.

"I ... just give me a few more days, Son. I'll get them to post bail. We'll sue the Greenfields, first for monopolizing the wine trade and denying you the opportunity to collect your dragon's hoard, then for copyright infringement, for stealing Jacques' recipes."

"So, what good will that do us? They'll either bribe the judge or get a law passed."

"Farquarte, one more week. Give me time to think."

Time. If I had time, I could get Mimi and her people the hell out of this country. "Okay, Dad. For now."

Dad scooped up his books and papers. "You'll see. I have a brilliant motion I'm going to file tomorrow. Just, no more raids for now."

"Sure." I sank onto my cot and looked at the barred windows on my cell. I had some planning to do. A crow looked back at me. Its black winked, and with a flutter of wings, it took off. "Dad?"

Dad paused, halfway through the open cell door.

"There are an awful lot of crows this year. Did you notice?"

"You'll be fine, Son. Just try to focus in court today." The door snapped closed behind him, dislodging a small mirror someone had tacked onto a wall in my cell. It shattered, littering the stone floor. My green eyes, shadowed by dark smudges beneath, looked back at me from fragments. The room glowed red at the edges as the fire in the barrel heated the cell. Winter's faded sun was a patch of blood in the sky, just over the wall outside my jail. Water dripped from somewhere, echoing down the hallway, and I thought about the quiet in the Royal Jailhouse.

"No prisoners here, except for me," I told the Farquarte images on the floor. "Is it because I'm so dangerous, or because they execute everyone instead of locking them up?"

I already knew the answer to that one. Sighing, I glanced at the sun. "It's gonna be a long day."

A low murmur greeted me as I shuffled into the courtroom. My chains clanked and rattled, and the iron cuffs around my ankles scraped the tile. Dad rose, his wig slipping to the left, his jaw clenched.

The guard behind me prodded my left shoulder and I stopped, turning to glare at him. He stepped back and clutched the shaft of his spear, shaking it at me.

"Oh, please." I walked over to Dad, who pulled out the wooden chair behind our table.

"I think we have a problem, Farquarte."

I met his eyes. "What? Another one?"

"The head judge denied all of my motions, so I filed the next round. He's gonna rule on them today."

"And?"

"He's gonna rule on them. Today. The same day I filed them."

I sank into the chair, shrugging and looking up at him.

"It takes weeks to do that. I expected him to set bail on you and then say that he hadn't gotten through the first batch of motions, but he denied them. Luckily, I had a few extras. Now, he's ruling on the second batch, only hours after I filed them. I haven't got any more prepared, Farquarte. He's wiped me out."

"So, what do we do now?"

"We're gonna have to cut a deal with the Prosecutor."

"Uh, uh, No way! We do that, and it's good bye, equality. The Crown will use this as an excuse to void our treaty."

His chair groaned as Dad slumped into his seat. "Farquarte, as much as it pains me to say this, we may have to. There will be other casinos, Son."

"Dad, geez. They won't shut the casino down, they'll take it over."

"So?"

"So, look at what happened with the Dwarves. They were forced to mine your old cave in the Dragonsteeth Mountains. We cut a deal now, and all the Elves helping us will be turned into slaves, running the casino while the Crown steals their profit." A cold, hard knot formed in the pit of my stomach. "No deal."

"Farquarte, if we go to trial, we'll lose. That judge is working with the Crown."

I turned in my chair and glanced behind me. "Where's Mimi? Brian and Jacques? Rick? All I see are strangers."

"Rick is flying Brian to Royal City. Brian is gonna try and talk to his dad."

"I thought you said there wasn't anything the King could do."

"He's gonna ask for a royal pardon."

With a fluttering of robes, the head judge rushed into the courtroom. His shoes clicked on the tile, beating a rapid tattoo as he crossed the front of the room and climbed onto the podium. "Sorry, I'm late," he said in a raspy, breathless voice. "The clock in my office stopped."

Three clerks came in behind him, arms filled with folders which they dumped on a little table beside the podium.

"My briefs."

"Dad, I'm impressed."

He sat a little taller, and grinned. "Of course, Sirrah helped."

"Still..."

I never finished my sentence. The head judge slammed his gavel down on the top of the podium and barked, "Denied!"

The Prosecutor stood, and straightening the cleat in his sable robe, said, "If it pleases the court, we have a few motions of our own."

"Denied!"

"But, I haven't even filed them yet."

"Denied!" The gavel banged.

"Your honor..."

The judge leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. "De-nied. We will commence the trial."

"But ... I ... am not entirely prepared to."

Dad leaned back. "Here it comes."

"You have one hour." The judge rose and stomped out of the courtroom.

The Prosecutor shook his head, blinking. "What the bloody hell?" He looked over at us. "Okay, we deal."

"No deal," Dad told him.

The Prosecutor took a step backward. "But, you have to deal, Dragon. I'm going to win this case."

"Maybe, but it won't be easy. I'm gonna make you work for it."

"Oh, really? We've got him cold."

"You don't even have a body," Dad said. "How are you going to prove the Ranger is dead?"

"Farquarte was soaked in blood!"

"We have experts that can prove it was cow blood."

"Yes, yes. You have experts, so do I."

"Do you have them here? In this courtroom?"

His eyes widened. "Of course not. No one ever really calls experts, Dragon."

Dad leaned forward. "You don't have a case prepared, do you?"

"Of course not."

"Have you ever actually tried a court case?"

"Well..." He looked down, studying his shoes. "Everyone always cuts a deal."

"We're not."

He looked up, his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed.

Dad continued. "I think this trial would be the perfect opportunity to tell our story to the people. Farquarte is a war hero, yet he's been oppressed, endangered and incarcerated. Hell, there's even a bounty on his cousin. Dragons have a legal right to raid and pillage, yet he is denied there rights." Dad leaned back, grinning.

"So we go to trial?" The Prosecutor's voice rose an octave.

Dad flashed his teeth in the biggest smile I'd seen in days.

I watched the Prosecutor wheel, stomping out of the courtroom. "Dad, are you ready for this?"

"Yes, but the Prosecutor goes first. Besides, I need to get our experts lined up." He rose and followed his opponent out. I looked over at the guard and clanked my chains suggestively, but he ignored me.

"Psst! Farquarte!"

Sirrah slid into the chair next to me. "I talked to your father in the hall." His reedy, old man's voice carried, and the guard looked around. He leaned forward, his white hair brushing my collar, and whispered. "Are you healed up?"

I nodded, rattling the chains.

"Good. I talked to Jacques. He told me about the recipe, and we filed a law suit this morning, before he left with Rick."

"Where's Mimi?"

"She's visiting some old gypsy woman in the city. Something about your picture falling of the wall, and the glass breaking."

Picture? Oh, yes. "Mimi did my portrait a month back. It was a small one, but she did a nice job. Then she got weird and framed it."

"She said it was a death omen. You know, like clocks stopping, and crows and owls and stuff."

A cold fist punched me square in the gut. "Crows and owls, huh? And mirrors breaking?"

"No, that's supposed to be bad luck, I think." Sirrah looked at the table of briefs. "I can't believe he denied all of our motions."

"Dad says we're going to trial."

"Are you serious? No one goes to trial, Farquarte. There hasn't been a trial in Tenesmus for over a hundred years."

I felt the cold pit in my stomach ease slightly. "You do know how old Dad and the Elves are?"

"Of course. Jacques' age is the basis of our law suit."

"So, Dad was around when they still did trials." Things were looking up. "Hell, he may be the only one in this courtroom with any experience."

"Maybe. Did you ask him?"

"No, but he sure sounded like he knew what he was talking about."

Sirrah patted me on the back. "Your Dad could bluff his way through it, even if he wasn't a lawyer back then. Anyway, he says there are experts in the city, but I have my concerns. If he tries to use the State Scientists, they might lie."

"Sirrah, Dad is talking about himself and Mimi. They both smelled the blood while it was still on my clothes."

"Ah. That could help."

"Besides, Dad says the Prosecutor goes first."

Sirrah started laughing.

"What?"

"If you Dad challenges the state scientists, it ought to be very enlightening."

I bugged him, but he just laughed and, rising, walked away.