Donovan walked back down the dusty path. Once the shock of having a double handful of dragonscale in his possession wore off something he had just seen began nagging at him. The dragon, when she had thrown the bag. She'd thrown it with her right hand. During their entire conversation, she'd kept her right side turned slightly away from him. He'd thought nothing of it, but now... He'd seen as she tossed the bag a flash of slightly different textured gold from the rest of her scales. It had looked like a little golden bracelet. And there was something familiar about that bracelet, he'd seen it before somewhere.

He reached the town and went to the inn, still lost in thought. He sat down at his usual table. A distant commotion caught his ear. Serali's mother in the kitchen was chewing the girl out for arriving late and for being gone all day without telling her where she had gone.

Poor girl, he thought, having had many such lectures when he was younger. Shortly the girl came out, bringing his usual mug of ale. She plunked it down on the table and turned back to the kitchen, but not before Donovan saw something that made his jaw drop. Serali was wearing a gold bracelet. A gold bracelet in the form of a dragon biting its own tail that might have been the twin to the one the dragon had worn. He sat there with his mouth open, thinking furiously. She can't be a dragon. She's a human girl, for heaven's sake. The innkeeper's daughter! But then, he answered himself, she's obviously adopted. No, he countered. These people would never have let me come here if they knew they had a dragon for a daughter. But must they know? How could they not? And yet, her gold hair, the exact same color, and that bracelet! He shook his head, and then realizing that he must look like an idiot, he closed his mouth and looked up. His eyes met Serali's across the room. She looked at him, grinned, and then winked a leaf green eye, an eye the exact same shade as the dragon's.