Emberly Soupwell's tail knocked over the salt crock before she'd served the first bowl. She was a red dragon, tall enough to duck under her own rafters, and she ran a soup kitchen because no one else fed the dragons who wandered into town. The crock rolled across the flagstones. A young drake caught it in his claws and set it back on the counter without a word. Emberly nodded thanks and stirred the pot. The stove roared behind her, its little carved dragon grinning down from the chimney. A pot of stew bubbled on top, thick with carrots and barley. Dragons filled the long dark-wood tables in her hall, waiting. A jar on the counter clinked when a copper dropped in. She didn't look to see who paid. She'd stopped tracking months ago. She lifted two bowls and turned toward the tables. Her tail swept behind her, low along the floor. It caught a stool leg. The stool tipped. A bowl of hot broth tilted off the end of a bench and splashed across the flagstones, missing a hatchling's foot by a hand's width. The hatchling squeaked and jumped back. Emberly froze. The broth steamed on the stones. If the tail had swung a foot wider, she'd have scalded a child in her own kitchen. "Sorry," she said. She refilled the bowl. She always refilled the bowl. But refilling wouldn't fix a burn. She set the ladle down and looked at the room. Benches crammed close. Narrow aisles. Pots stacked in a heap by the back wall where she'd shoved them that morning, her tail curled around the pile as she dug for a lid. Every path through the kitchen was a trap her own body would spring. "Move the tables," she said. The dragons blinked at her. "Stand up. Push them to the walls. Leave me a lane down the middle." They stood. Claws scraped wood. In a minute the long tables lined the sides of the hall and a clear path ran from stove to far door. Emberly walked it once, tail dragging behind her. Nothing tipped. Nothing caught. She walked it again with two full bowls. The tail followed straight, like a rope pulled taut. She set the bowls down in front of the hatchling and its mother. No spill. The hatchling sniffed the broth and started eating. Emberly kept serving. Bowl after bowl, down the lane and back. Her shoulders eased. The stew held out. The jar clinked twice more. But when she looked at the pushed-back tables, dragons sat elbow to elbow, wings folded tight against their neighbors. A grown drake had no room to lift his spoon. Two more waited by the door, saw the crush, and left without eating. Emberly watched them go. She'd made a safe kitchen. She'd made a hall too small to hold the people she meant to feed.

By noon the hall was full and the doorway was empty of the wrong kind. Emberly served bowls down her safe center lane without a spill. But two grown drakes had ducked their heads at her door, seen the crush of wings inside, and turned away hungry. A third, too broad in the shoulder to fit, sat outside on the flagstones and waited for someone to bring him something. No one did. He left before she noticed. Emberly set down her spoon. Her kitchen was shaped like a great silver cauldron with a stone base, and its door was sized for people, not for dragons who had grown past the size of a cart. She could not knock out the wall today. She could not stretch the roof. But she had a yard. She stepped outside. The patch behind the kitchen ran flat to the edge of a grove of tall trees hung with vines and small flowers. Sun fell on the grass. There was room for six dragons wingtip to wingtip, and more if they lay down. "Help me carry," she said to the drake who had caught her salt crock the day before. They dragged a long dark-wood table out through the back. Then the matching chairs, carved with little faces along the backs. Emberly set the table under the shade of the grove. She hauled out a smaller round table too, the one with the bright cloth, and set two chairs beside it for smaller guests. A young ember-scaled dragon curled up at once on the warm flagstone beside it and fell asleep. She went back inside. "Anyone too big for the benches," she called, "come around the back. There is a table under the trees." Three dragons stood. Wings unfolded that had been pressed flat for an hour. They filed out the front and around. Emberly followed with the stew pot balanced against her hip, ladle in her free claw. Her tail swept the grass behind her and caught nothing. She served them at the outdoor table. The broad-shouldered drake who had sat on her step that morning came back, drawn by the smell, and she waved him to the end seat. He fit. He ate two bowls. The jar was inside on the counter, but he came in after to drop a coin in it, ducking low through the doorway. By evening she had fed everyone who came. The hall stayed full. The yard stayed full. Nothing spilled. Then the wind shifted. A cold gust rolled down off the grove and lifted the cloth on the round table. The sleeping ember dragon stirred and tucked his nose under his tail. Emberly looked up at the sky. Grey was moving in fast over the trees. She had seated her biggest guests under open sky. She had no roof for them. And the first fat drop of rain hit the back of her hand.