text: "Well, wasn't that miserable," said Tarcuna, as she scooped a bowlful of spiced snails from the zeppelin buffet on the way back. "Oh, light of Curset, these are going to be a pain and a half to eat one-handed, aren't they?"
  
  "I'll shell them for you," said Bthera, also looking subdued.
  
  "The apartments are miserable, you mean?" asked Dr. Grauzeng. "They were erected in a hurry, is all, I think. And of course they have to have walls and guards. We can't trust the wormridden to stay nicely away from uninfected people until we find a general cure."
  
  Bthera broke a snail shell with her thumbs. "I'm thinking what it must be like to live there. There's nothing to do, except tend the cattle that your worms will be feeding from. The only people around are just puddles of wormridden misery like you. And guards who think you're a half-legendary soul-devouring monster."
  
  Prof. Wulpmegarn nodded. "And they're not exactly wrong about that part."
  
  Tarcuna stabbed her snail on an official Trestean Army snail-stabbing fork and waved it to punctuate her words. "I'm thinking it's utterly doomy! First you lose your life and your free will to a worm... then, as punishment, they throw you in jail for the rest of your life. Except that your worm is under a death sentence, if they can figure out how to kill it, so you're going to have to try to escape. Past armed guards. Terrified armed guards. Who will kill you if they can, or Llredh will probably kill them if you escape."
  
  I hissed, "So go tell Llredh to let them go. You're on that kind of terms with him." I seem to be a bit jealous or something.
  
  Tarcuna menaced me with the fork, so I ate the snail off of it. (spicy!) "I know what he'd say. He'd say, 'If you have a better way to keep the worms out of the population at large, please tell me now.' Also you owe me a snail."
  
  I shucked a few more snails for her with my claws, working next to Bthera. "No, he'd say something like, 'The better way for confining the hateful worms — if you have her, give her to me!' He's not a drake who likes the word 'please', for one thing."
  
  Tarcuna giggled at the imitation, and the professors grinned. The rest of the hovens obviously do not pay enough attention to their master's mannerisms and idiosyncracies.
  
  Tarcuna menaced Prof. Wulpmegarn with her next snail. "And when will you figure out a cure for the hateful worms?"
  
  Wulpmegarn did not take the bait. "I have no idea. Llredh is not helping much. He insists that there must be an herbal remedy for it, so we must look for one first. I think that we are wasting time and effort with that, but I am not really willing to argue with Llredh very much."
  
  "Can't Ythac find one? He's good at finding," I said.
  
  "He tried. There's nothing currently prepared in Hove that's a cure," said Prof. Wulpmegarn. "She explained that, for example, if there's no tincture of blethany anywhere in the world, and that were the cure, her spells wouldn't notice that blethany plants could be tinctured to give a cure. So have my students and less-skilled assistants and various new hires preparing all manner of tinctures and potions, hoping that one of Ythac's spells picks one out. I should be on expedition to the Godaxle, collecting parasitic forkworms and their hosts. Finding vulnerabilities in their life cycle! Figuring out how to extract them from their animal hosts! That is where the scientific value surely lies. You may tell that to Llredh, if you can somehow pound it into his exceedingly armored skull. I cannot."
  
  "So, no time soon, then?" asked Tarcuna.
  
  "I cannot reliably predict the timing of scientific revelation," said Prof. Wulpmegarn. "In this matter I am not particularly optimistic. Our research is just getting started, in only a handful of laboratories so far. It must be performed on live patients — and, indeed, patients who resist the experiments with amazing violence. Many of my colleagues consider the problem to be imaginary. I suspect that some of those are themselves wormridden. The issue is unlike any other in the history of science. Ten years would be optimistic. Twenty or thirty does not strike me as unduly pessimistic." He glanced at me. "I suppose that the dragons might speed the matter up somehow, as well as interfering. Ythac might come up with the answer tomorrow with her spells."
  
  "His spells," I corrected. "Ythac is a boy."
  
  "Ythac is...? But is not Llredh the male?"
  
  "Tarcuna, you explain about Llredh and Ythac. You know more about it than I do." Serves her right for, well, knowing more about it than I do.
  
  The revelation did not improve Prof. Wulpmegarn's opinion of Llredh any. Nor of Tarcuna, unfortunately.