Liett was heavily built compared to a human male, though slight relative to other lyrinx, male or female. Her shoulders were wide, the torso long with a small indentation at the waist. Her hips were broad, her short legs muscular, her feet wide. The wings were folded flat against her back.

It was her skin that most distinguished her from every other lyrinx. On them it was leathery, with hard plates that protected the genitalia and vital organs of the belly and chest, and more flexible plates elsewhere, while its chameleon pigments completely concealed the soft second skin beneath.

On Liett the outer skin was thin and completely transparent, like a layer of jelly spread over pale-grey inner skin. Even the parts covered by her undeveloped skin plates were visible. She looked almost human, if the wings were discounted.

‘How is it …?’ Tiaan thought better of it.

‘I am incomplete,’ Liett said with a sideways twist of her mobile mouth. ‘I have to wear clothes outside.’ She used the word as if it were a depravity, or a fatal weakness. Perhaps it was, to them. ‘And I cannot skin-change!’

‘Why does that matter?’

Liett cracked a wing at Tiaan’s face. ‘It matters!’

Tiaan jumped backwards, knocking over the stool and landing hard on it, legs asprawl. ‘Ow!’ she yelped.

Liett effortlessly lifted her onto the stool. Tiaan rubbed her back.

‘Skin-change is speech and reply, fear and curiosity, and an embrace with a lover. It is half our lives. I am blind without it.’

Tiaan had often noted Ryll’s colour-changes without realising that they were a form of communication. ‘Tell me …’

‘To work!’ Liett said abruptly. ‘Take up your devices. Try to follow what I am doing.’

She placed her hands on a cage which had wire bars instead of glass. The creature inside snapped at her fingers. Liett put a larger cage over the first and closed her eyes.

Tiaan felt that familiar fizzing. She gladly took hold of the amplimet, closed her eyes and allowed her mind to drift into the one pleasure of her life, her romantic daydream about Minis. It was an escape she used more and more, though worrying that he was becoming an obsession.

‘Well?’ Liett said sharply.

Tiaan opened her eyes to find the lyrinx looming over her, one ebony nipple staring at her like an accusing eye. She started and nearly fell off her stool.

‘Can you see what I am trying to do?’

‘Not yet,’ Tiaan said guiltily. ‘It’s hard …’

‘Hmpf!’ Liett went out.

Shortly Ryll appeared, carrying three cages suspended by cords. Sliding them onto the bench he came around the side, stopping abruptly when he caught sight of Tiaan in her sheet.

‘Where are your clothes?’

‘Liett was in a hurry,’ she said tersely.

He spun on one leathery foot and went out, soon returning with her garments. Tiaan dressed in haste. She had just finished when Liett reappeared. She stood in the doorway, tension evident in every muscle. Her claws were extended. She growled at Ryll in their language.

‘How can she work if she’s … thyllxish?’ he hissed back.

With a toss of her head Liett stalked to the bench, her toe claws clacking on the floor. The sound was irritating.

Tiaan bent over the amplimet but could not concentrate. She could feel something in the air, a tension she had not felt with Ryll before. Looking sideways, she saw him staring at Liett’s buttocks. She had not noticed previously, but it was an obvious difference between the sexes. Ryll’s were muscular but flat whereas Liett’s were extremely fleshy and prominent.

Tiaan could see the smouldering sensuality in her, and the desperate ache in Ryll to mate. It made her uncomfortable.

Liett put down the caged creature she was working with and bent over to pick up something from the floor. It was a display; a tease or a taunt. Ryll let out an involuntary groan.

Liett spun around. ‘What are you …?’ She broke off, as Ryll turned his back.

‘Never!’ Liett raged in Tiaan’s language. ‘Not in a hundred eternities would I allow you, wingless one!’

Ryll’s crest coloured red, then purple. Bright spirals shimmered across his chest plates, gorgeous patterns that could only have been a reply to her taunt. He stood in a loose-limbed crouch, the colours so intense that they lit up the dim room. Tiaan had never seen anything so beautiful, futile or sad.

‘Think you that I would mate with you?’ he spat. ‘Better no mate at all than one as naked as a human. One with no colour at all. One who cannot skin-speak.’

Liett’s wings flashed out to full size, spanning half the bubble-room. They were beautiful, like pearly, translucent milk. She looked majestic. It made Ryll’s lack all the more evident. Extending one hand, waist-high, she slid her claws out like oiled machinery. ‘Open your groin plates again! I will neuter you this minute,’ she hissed.

Tiaan ducked under the bench and pulled the stool in front of her. She could imagine the ruin if they fought. Fortunately, before it could begin another lyrinx entered the room, head and shoulders bowed to pass through the opening. It was the old female, Coeland, matriarch of the spire clan.

‘How are …?’ As she took in the attitudes of Ryll and Liett, her cheek plates hardened. ‘What is it?’ Her voice was a file rasping against steel.

Ryll hung his head, his crest dulling to the colour of his skin. Liett glared at him but would not meet Coeland’s eyes. Neither answered.

‘Well?’ Coeland roared. ‘We are at war, remember?’

As the silence lengthened, it became clear that neither could reveal the source of their disagreement without losing face.

‘Very well,’ said Coeland, ‘when this is over you are both sentenced …’

She broke off, noticing Tiaan cowering under the bench. ‘Ah, human. Come out. Explain the problem.’

Tiaan remained where she was, holding the stool in front of her like a shield. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Ryll staring at her. She knew what he was thinking. Don’t reveal my shame!

Crossing the distance between them in two quick strides, Coeland caught Tiaan by the wrists. The claws dug in as she dragged Tiaan from her hide and tossed her on the bench. The huge eyes seemed to see right into her head.

‘How do I know what lyrinx fight about?’ Tiaan said, trying to evade the eyes.

‘You weren’t so coy the day you arrived.’ Coeland’s hand squeezed until Tiaan thought her wrist bones were going to splinter. Blood ebbed from the claw punctures. She cried out.

‘You may speak,’ said Ryll. ‘I would not have you harmed on my behalf.’

‘Ryll is desperate to mate,’ Tiaan gasped. ‘Liett too. But neither wishes to mate with another who is flawed. Liett flaunts herself, taunts him, and then threatens to neuter him if he approaches her.’

‘Is this true?’ Coeland asked.

‘Yes!’ Ryll said in a choked voice.

‘Yes, Wise Mother!’ said Liett. Her eyes flashed fire at Tiaan and Ryll.

Coeland sprang at Liett, striking her so hard across the flat of her forehead that the small lyrinx went tumbling across the room to land with her backside in the air. Picking Liett up, the Wise Mother held her out at arm’s length.

‘You will work with him without complaint,’ she said through bared teeth, ‘or I will have Ryll neuter you!’

‘But I am your daughter!’

‘All the more reason to do your duty,’ Coeland said coldly.

‘He is nothing but a beast.’ She tried to spit in Ryll’s direction but it merely dribbled down her chin. ‘He has no wings!’

‘And you, my unfortunate child, have skin like a human, a far worse handicap. You cannot skin-speak, and you cannot go outside without skin paste, or clothes. You have never proven your worth. Ryll, wingless though he may be, is a hero who has given everything to bring this treasure to us. You will work with him or he will neuter you at my command. Will you?’ She lowered Liett until her feet touched the floor.