Tsunami dropped three cauldrons on the cave floor — one packed with fish, one with clear water, and one with a seaweed-mushroom salad. She’d found them on the kitchen level, unguarded, so she thought they might as well go to the dragonets.

Sunny seized the salad cauldron and shoved her nose into it. Starflight peered at the fish, and then, without even asking the others if they’d mind, he shot a burst of fire into the cauldron, which left all the fish blackened and smoky tasting.

“Hey,” Tsunami protested. “I like them raw.”

“Overruled,” Glory said. “Raw fish is gross.”

“Raw fish is awesome,” Tsunami insisted.

“You have unreliable taste,” said Glory. “You think your terrifying mother is awesome.”

“She is not terrifying!” Tsunami said. “She’s a wonderful queen!”

“That is what all the scrolls say,” Starflight pointed out through a mouthful of charred fish.

Tsunami looked up at the cave ceiling and shifted from talon to talon. “Er,” she said. “Well. Apparently she . . . wrote a lot of those herself.”

“Really?” Starflight blinked in astonishment. “She’s a writer? I had no idea. That’s so — I mean, I wish I — do you think she’d read something I —” He stammered to a stop and fidgeted for a moment with the cauldron. “It’s cool, is all,” he mumbled, shoving a fish in his mouth.

“Anyway, it’s not just the scrolls. Her subjects think she’s a great queen, too,” Tsunami said loyally. Most of them. I think.

“Compelling,” said Glory. “Except for the part where she’s kill ing off all her daughters.”

Tsunami stared at Glory, too shocked to respond.

“Well, wait,” Clay said. “That’s just a theory.”

“A good theory,” Starflight observed. “With her daughters dead, and no sisters either, no one will ever be able to challenge her for the throne. She could be queen for a hundred years and die peacefully in her sleep instead of in combat.”

Sunny pulled the egg closer to her and patted it reassuringly.

“No!” Tsunami blurted. “You’re so wrong! She would never — you haven’t seen how protective she is. I mean, look at how she takes care of Anemone.”

“Like a crazy dragon,” Glory interjected, waving a smoky fish at Tsunami.

“It’s a good way to make herself look innocent,” Starflight offered. “Besides, think about when the murders started.” He waited, with an “ isn’t it obvious?” look on his face.

“Oh dear,” Clay said, rubbing his head. “Did we really study this?”

“I don’t know either,” Sunny whispered to him.

“Starflight,” Tsunami growled. “Just tell us.”

“Very well,” he said. “It was right after the only challenge Queen Coral has ever faced. Her first clutch of eggs had one female in it —”

“Orca,” Tsunami guessed.

Starflight nodded with a pleased expression. “You do remember! She challenged the queen almost the moment she was full grown. I’m sure Coral was more shocked than anyone. Especially when Orca almost killed her. Queen Coral only won by accident, impaling Orca on that narwhal horn she has on the end of her tail.”

“So?” Tsunami said. “Why would that make her murder all her future daughters?”

“Seriously?” Glory scoffed. “She saw how close she could come to death. She realized if she let any of her female children grow up, she might be dead within seven years. Much easier to kill them all in their eggs, or as little dragonets, before they become a threat.”

“Stop it!” Tsunami clutched her head. It couldn’t be true. “She’s not like that. She loves her daughters. When she found the other egg broken —” Tsunami paused, realizing how much they didn’t know. She backed up to tell them all about the Council, her mother’s scrolls, the mysterious dragon who’d tried to kill her in the tunnel, and the way Queen Coral had reacted when Tortoise failed her.

“So you see,” she finished, “it can’t be her kill ing off the female dragonets. She wants them alive more than anyone.”

“Someone tried to kill you?” Clay said. “Are you all right?”

“I’d like to know what would have happened to us if they’d succeeded,” Glory said angrily.

“Are you saying Sunny’s in danger now?” Starflight demanded at the same time. “Because of that egg? Why would you do that to her?”

“I don’t mind,” Sunny said, cuddling the egg to her chest. But she looked paler than usual.

“No, listen,” Tsunami said. She took a step back toward the cave entrance. “Don’t you see? We’re doing a good thing by keeping this egg alive. And now Queen Coral has to take care of all of us, because we’re protecting her daughter. She can’t chain you up and not feed you anymore — if that was even her idea in the first place.”

Glory and Starflight exchanged “yeah, right” glances. Tsunami frowned at them.

“And if we find the real assassin,” she hurried on, “then we’ll be heroes.”

“Not if it’s your mom,” Glory said firmly. “Which it is.”

Tsunami wanted to kick her. “It can’t be my mother,” she said again. “The dragon who attacked me in the tunnel didn’t have a dragonet attached. Where are you suggesting she stashed Anemone while she came after me? And how could she have broken one of her eggs when Anemone is with her at all times?”

“She could have sent someone else,” Starflight said. “Or the attack on you could be unrelated to the princess murders. Perhaps there’s another reason someone wants you dead.”

“Ooo, I have a few guesses,” Glory said.

“I think it’s Shark,” Tsunami said, ignoring her. “Tortoise pointed at him before she died. He was at the Deep Palace before the rest of the Council. If I’m right and there’s a secret entrance to the hatchery, he could have snuck in to kill the dragonets without anyone knowing. And he could have attacked me in the tunnel, too. Queen Coral thought she’d sent him on ahead already, so nobody knew where he was exactly.”

“Tsunami,” Clay said, nosing her with his snout. His forehead crinkled worriedly. “It doesn’t sound like you’re safe here. Maybe we should go.”

“Or at least we should go,” Glory suggested. “You can stay here if you really want to. We could leave now, while no one is guarding us.”

Tsunami hesitated. It was so much harder to fit in with the SeaWings than she’d expected. And she didn’t like seeing sides of her mother that scared her. She preferred the image in her head that she’d dreamed about her whole life — the loving queen from The Missing Princess.

She fingered the pearls around her neck, thinking of how Coral had given them to her the moment she saw her, and how happy she had been.

“No,” Sunny said unexpectedly. “I’m not leaving this egg until it hatches.” She rested her talons on it protectively. “And we can’t split up. We have to fulfill the prophecy together.”

“I agree with Sunny,” said Starflight. “I don’t love it here either, but we have to stay until we meet Blister. That was the whole point of coming here.”

Not for me, Tsunami thought. She’d forgotten that Blister would be coming to meet the dragonets. She was not at all sure that was something to look forward to.

“Then I think you should stay with us,” Clay said, taking Tsunami’s talons in his again. “So we can keep one another safe.”

That was what Tsunami had planned to do anyway, but hearing it from Clay, and seeing Sunny nodding vigorously behind him, made her feel much better. They couldn’t hate her too much if they wanted her to stay with them.

“All right,” she said as if he’d convinced her. “Then I can help you protect the egg as well.”

“You’d better,” Starflight muttered, glancing at Sunny with a worried look.

They curled up together to sleep, sheltering the egg in the middle of their pile. Tsunami rested her head on Clay’s shoulder and listened to the rain pattering on the canopy far above them. Last night she’d slept underwater on seaweed, and it had been the most comfortable sleep she’d ever had. But even though she was back in a cave, something about the rise and fall of Clay’s deep breathing under her snout was more calming than any seaweed bed or pearl-studded underwater palace.

It wasn’t until she was almost asleep that she remembered she’d forgotten to tell the others about Kestrel.