“WHERE ARE THEY?!”

Tsunami bolted awake out of a nightmare about the last egg slipping through her claws and smashing on a coral reef. She blinked and checked under her wing. Sunny was still curled neatly around the egg, keeping it warm. The little SandWing lifted her head as if something had woken her up as well. What was it?

“WHERE ARE THE DRAGONETS? WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER? WHERE IS MY EGG?”

“Up here,” called an unfamiliar voice with a weird hiss to it.

Tsunami leaped to her feet. A shape was coiled in the cave entrance, watching them. Glittering black eyes met Tsunami’s. A poisonous tail barb flicked up and down. White-gold scales marked with black diamond patterns caught the glint of sunlight now trickling through the canopy.

The storm had passed.

And there was a SandWing watching them sleep.

Tsunami didn’t have to remember the illustrations in their scrolls to guess who it was. She poked her friends with her claws.

“Wake up, you lazy snoring manatees,” she hissed.

“You’re a lazy snoring manatee,” Glory mumbled with her wings over her head. “And you smell like one, too.”

“You’re going to feel very silly in a minute,” Tsunami whispered crossly.

“Oh, if you insist,” Clay muttered, mostly asleep. “I suppose I could eat one more hippo.”

“Clay!” Tsunami yanked on his ears, and he sat up with a bewildered look, shaking his head.

“Aww,” he said, his wings drooping. “What happened to the hippos?”

“Look,” Tsunami whispered, pointing toward the cave entrance.

Her friends all went silent as they saw the SandWing in the shadows.

“Well, hello,” said the stranger with a sly smile. Tsunami shivered without quite knowing why. “So nice to meet you. I’m Queen Blister. They’re up here,” she called again. “Staying dry out of the storm, I presume,” she went on conversationally. “Very wise. I would have done the same thing.”

A flurry of wingbeats announced Queen Coral’s arrival on the ledge behind her, followed by Anemone and three SeaWing guards. The queen poked her head into the cave and saw Tsunami.

“Where is my egg?” she demanded, eyeing the other four dragonets.

“Safe. And warm, like I promised.” Tsunami stepped aside and let her see Sunny coiled around the egg.

Queen Coral hissed and lashed her tail. “You never said anything about a SandWing touching my egg.”

“Oh, but think about it, Coral,” Blister interjected. “These are not ordinary dragons. These are the dragonets of destiny. If they can’t be trusted with our future, who can?” She smiled again, but Tsunami couldn’t shake a weird feeling of uneasiness.

Queen Coral took a deep breath, then turned to Blister with outstretched arms and wings spread wide. “Queen Blister, my friend,” she said. “You got my message! I’m so glad you came. I knew you’d want to hear right away that we found the dragonets.” She waved her tail at Tsunami and her friends.

Tsunami squashed a flare of irritation.

Blister clasped Coral’s front talons in hers and quickly let go. “I was thrilled to hear it,” she said. “And one of them was your beautiful missing daughter, as we always suspected.”

“I knew the Talons of Peace must have sent Webs to steal her,” Queen Coral said. “Tsunami, say hello to my ally, Queen Blister.”

“We’ve met,” said Tsunami. She felt her friends behind her: Starflight frozen in fear; Sunny craning her neck for a better view; Glory studying her claws as if she wasn’t that interested; Clay curious but mostly trying to keep his stomach from growling too loudly.

“Then introduce your friends,” Coral ordered, smiling at Blister again.

“Clay, Sunny, Starflight, Glory,” Tsunami said, flicking a claw at each of them as she said their names. Queen Coral frowned at her.

“Marvelous,” said Blister smoothly. “All so brave and clever-looking. I heard you weren’t a SkyWing, Glory, but that doesn’t bother me. SkyWings are overrated, don’t you agree?”

Glory’s wings twitched, and a ripple of dark pink shifted across her stone-gray scales.

“You ‘heard’?” Tsunami demanded. “How? Nobody knew that except our three guardians. They didn’t even tell the other Talons of Peace.”

Anemone gazed at her from behind Coral’s wing, her blue eyes wide. The SeaWing guards shuffled on their feet ner vously.

“Hmmm,” said Blister. Her eyes flicked to Tsunami and away. “Let’s just say I have friends. NightWing friends.” She slithered up to Starflight and brushed one claw slowly down his neck. “So I’ve heard a lot about you.”

The NightWing dragonet really looked as if he might turn to stone and never move again. Tsunami would have kicked him if she’d been closer. Don’t be so impressed by her. We’re the ones with the power. According to the prophecy, we choose the next SandWing queen, and she knows it!

Blister glanced down at Sunny, who was frowning. “Sweet,” she said, chucking Sunny under the chin. “And you must be the burly one,” she said to Clay. She reached out and squeezed one of the muscles in his forearm.

“I guess,” Clay stammered.

“I’m sure you’ve heard things about me, too,” Blister said, returning to Queen Coral’s side. Her tail slid across the cave floor like a snake, the poisonous tip rattling on the stone. “But you can’t always trust rumors and propaganda, especially when it comes to a big responsibility like the prophecy. So ask me anything you like. I’d be delighted to help you make your decision — although of course I hope you’ll choose me.” Her glittering eyes swept over all of them again and back to Coral. “So, Coral, what’s for breakfast?”

“Let me guess,” Glory muttered. “Fish.”

Clay blinked at the queen hopefully.

“Yes, what a good idea. Let’s go eat,” said Queen Coral. “And then you can tell me the latest updates from the war. We hear something odd is going on with the SkyWings. Anemone, Tsunami, come.”

Tsunami’s gills flared. She was not a baby dragonet to be ordered around. And she had no intention of leaving her friends alone again.

“Let the others come, too,” Blister said before Tsunami could speak up. “I’d love to get to know them better.”

Coral wrinkled her snout at the dragonets. “All right,” she said doubtfully.

“You can leave that here,” Blister said, nodding at the egg.

“No!” Coral and Sunny said at the same time. The SeaWing queen gave the little dragonet a surprised look.

Sunny hugged the egg closer. “No way,” she said. “It stays with me.”

Blister shrugged, and Tsunami suddenly wondered how she felt about new dragonets who might threaten her ally’s life. Maybe it was in Blister’s best interests to make sure no one survived to challenge Coral. She certainly seemed sinister enough to be the assassin.

But Blister couldn’t breathe underwater, so she couldn’t get to the Royal Hatchery. She might be involved, but she couldn’t actually be committing the murders. It had to be a fellow SeaWing.

The feasting hall was two levels above the kitchens, so the smells of pickled fish and roasting seagulls (“in honor of our SandWing guests,” Queen Coral explained) surrounded them as they arranged themselves around the long, low oval table. Queen Coral’s seat was higher than everyone else’s, but Blister’s, right beside her, was not much lower.

Starflight was seated to Blister’s right, with Tsunami next to Anemone on her mother’s left. On Tsunami’s other side was Whirlpool, who played with his hoop earring, slurped loudly as he ate, and droned on about Coral’s latest book even when nobody seemed to be listening.

SeaWing guards were arranged around the perimeter of the floor, interspersed with SandWing soldiers who had arrived with Blister. The SeaWings stamped their talons and swished their tails, casting dark looks at the SandWings.

Tsunami spotted Snail and Herring among the guards. Their eyes darted anxiously from side to side, as if they were wondering how they were still alive.

Because Mother wants to make a spectacle of them, Tsunami guessed. Coral was probably waiting for the right moment to punish them in public, the way she’d punished Tortoise.

Well, two can play the spectacle game, Your Majesty.

“MOTHER!” Tsunami declared dramatically as the waitstaff set bowls of soup in front of each dragon. Beside her, Whirlpool jumped and nearly tipped his bowl onto himself. Even Queen Coral looked startled.

“I have something DREADFULLY SHOCKING to tell you!” Tsunami announced. She wanted this to be loud, so every dragon could witness it.

“Oh?” said Coral. “Could we discuss it after breakfast? In a civilized fashion?”

“NO,” Tsunami said, louder than before. “This is TOO SHOCKING.”

Even SeaWings not invited to the feast were starting to peer out of their caves and poke their heads out of the lake to hear what was going on.

“Well, perhaps —” Coral started.

“WOULD YOU BELIEVE,” Tsunami said, “that my friends — the DRAGONETS OF DESTINY, remember — were CHAINED UP? And STARVED? In YOUR CAVES? By YOUR DRAGONS?”

“What?” Coral said, flapping her wings. She looked thoroughly alarmed, but Tsunami couldn’t tell whether that was because the news actually surprised her or because she was being confronted openly with what she’d done.

“I KNOW!” Tsunami practically bellowed. “It’s UNBELIEVABLE. I’m sure you didn’t know anything about it, of course.”

“Of course,” Coral said in a hurry. “I would never treat any dragonets that way! Especially my dearest daughter’s dearest friends. Who are part of the prophecy and every thing.”

“And I’m sure you’ll want to punish the dragons who disobeyed you by treating my friends so terribly,” Tsunami said. “Right? Like, for instance, the one who lied to you about keeping them well fed?” She shot a glare at Lagoon, who froze with a sea snail halfway to her mouth, suddenly realizing what was going on.

“Absolutely,” said the queen. “Guards! Throw Lagoon in one of the underwater dungeons!”

“But —” Lagoon said. “But I was only —”

“Next time you’ll obey my orders,” said the queen. A stripe quickly flashed under her wings, but Tsunami spotted it, and it was one Riptide had taught her.

Silence.

Oh, Mother, Tsunami thought sadly.

“Can’t I even —” Lagoon said, reaching wistfully for her cauldron of soup as the guards pulled her away.

“No breakfast for you,” the queen ordered. “Think about how that feels as you sit in my dungeon.”

Tsunami was fairly sure Lagoon wouldn’t actually suffer very much. Queen Coral would have her back at Council meetings before long. But Tsunami wasn’t done.

“And GUESS WHO ordered your guards to chain up Clay?” Tsunami demanded. She flung an accusing talon toward Shark. “COMMANDER SHARK! Of all the dragons who should obey you in every thing! Is that not UTTERLY SHOCKING?”

“It is,” Coral said. Tsunami thought she might be grinding her teeth, but she hid it well. “I find it quite hard to believe.”

“Imagine the distress the poor guards felt,” Tsunami said, “when I explained to them that you would never have ordered those chains on Clay. To have to choose between their commander and their queen! Naturally they chose you, of course. That’s why they gave me the key to Clay’s chains. Because they understood that’s what you would have wanted them to do. Right?”

Queen Coral gave Tsunami an appraising glance. Beside her, Blister was eating her soup with an amused expression.

“Very good,” Coral said slowly. “It sounds like those guards are practically heroes.”

“And Shark —” Tsunami prodded her.

“To the dungeon with him as well,” the queen said with a wave.

Shark didn’t protest like Lagoon had. He snarled at the guards who approached him, shot Tsunami a look full of hatred, and headed off to the dungeon without another word.

Splendid, Tsunami thought to herself. It didn’t guarantee that Snail and the other guards would be safe, but surely that had to make it more difficult for Queen Coral to punish them for last night.

Not only that, but with Shark in the dungeon, even for only a day or two, Tsunami felt like she and her friends and the egg would all be a lot safer.

“Such excitement,” Blister said. “If we’re quite finished with our morning theatrics, I would love to ask you brilliant little dragonets about the prophecy.”

“Starflight can recite it for you,” Tsunami said. “He’s really good at memorizing things. And then repeating those things over and over, especially when no one cares to hear them.” She shot a grin at Starflight, wishing he would relax. He looked too petrified to eat.

“How splendid! How impressive!” Whirlpool said from beside her, in a voice of sincere admiration. Tsunami wrinkled her snout at him. He probably would get along well with Starflight, now that she thought about it. But Starflight was not even remotely as awful or annoying as Whirlpool.

“I assume you have a plan about how to fulfill this prophecy,” Blister said. “I mean, you must, right?”

A tense hush fell over the feasting table. Ears were pricked all over the palace. Every dragon in Pyrrhia wanted to hear the answer to this.

Tsunami felt like bees were crawling under her scales. Of course they didn’t have a plan. They’d only recently escaped from under the mountain and then the SkyWing palace. They’d barely had time to stop and think, or even a safe place to do that. And nothing they’d ever been taught had prepared them for what they had to do. Thanks for that, too, Talons of Peace, she thought bitterly.

But they couldn’t admit that to all these dragons . . . especially the ones who were counting on them.

“We’re working on it,” she said. “Obviously we can’t say too much.”

“This is the information-gathering phase,” Glory offered unexpectedly.

Blister gave Starflight a significant look.

“Um,” he blurted. “But. We think you, of course — I mean, obviously you — er — you’d make a great, uh, queen. Of the SandWings. That is. The other two — hardly any competition — really, it’s, um, a clear, so to speak, sort of, um, choice.”

“Starflight,” Tsunami said sharply. “What are you doing? You don’t speak for all of us.”

“Oh?” said Blister. She narrowed her eyes at Starflight. “Then who does?”

“We each speak for ourselves,” Glory said before Tsunami could answer.

“Yeah,” Sunny piped up.

“And we haven’t decided anything,” Tsunami said firmly. She wished she were close enough to kick Starflight and make him shut up.

“I’mjustsayingshe’dbeallright,” he mumbled, subsiding. Blister looked mildly disgusted.

“You’re quite right, NightWing,” Coral said, patting Blister’s talon. “She’s an excellent queen.”

Blister smiled, but Tsunami noticed that she moved her talon away as soon as she could. She also noticed that Blister called her mother simply “Coral,” while the queen of the SeaWings kept referring to her ally as “Queen Blister.” Tsunami wasn’t sure she liked the way they acted around each other.

Tsunami wanted to trust her mother’s choices. She wanted to like Blister. It would be uncomplicated to choose Blister as the SandWing queen. Then the dragonets could stay safely in the Kingdom of the Sea and support the SeaWing side of the war.

So why didn’t she want to do that?

What was it about Blister that felt so . . . wrong?

“Oh,” Queen Coral said. “Queen Blister, I meant to tell you, the strangest thing happened. We found a dead SkyWing in our territory the other day.”

Oops. Tsunami still hadn’t told the others about Kestrel. Something new for them to be mad at her about. She sighed.

“Really,” Blister said. “That sounds like good news to me.”

Coral laughed. “You’re right, that’s true. But what’s really strange is she’d been poison-stabbed by a SandWing. Why would a SandWing and a SkyWing be fighting all the way out here?”

Tsunami hadn’t known about the SandWing poison. She only remembered the blood pouring from Kestrel’s neck.

Her tail uncoiled as she realized — I don’t have to worry, then. Mother will know it wasn’t us who killed her. None of us could do that, not with Sunny’s useless tail.

At the same time, questions began pounding in her head. What SandWing would want to kill Kestrel? She scratched her gills, puzzled. Had Burn found her and punished her for what happened to Queen Scarlet? But why would either of them be in SeaWing territory?

Blister shrugged, resettling her wings. “That is very peculiar,” she said.

“I wonder who she was,” said Queen Coral. “She had these odd burn scars on her palms —”

Tsunami reached over Whirlpool and grabbed for Sunny’s forearm, but it was too late to stop her gasp of horror.

“Oh, no!” Sunny cried. “That sounds like Kestrel! Tsunami, what if it was Kestrel?” She pressed her claws to her snout, her eyes welling with tears.

A heavy silence fell over the table. Every SeaWing in the entire palace seemed to be staring at Sunny and Tsunami. Queen Coral was giving Tsunami a particularly intent look.

Across the table, Glory and Starflight both had their mouths open in shock.

“Tsunami?” Coral said slowly. “Is there something you want to tell us?”

“All right,” Tsunami said, squirming. “Yes. I’m sorry. I saw her. It was Kestrel.”

Sunny let out a sob and buried her head in her talons. Clay patted her on the back awkwardly.

“Your SandWing seems surprisingly distressed about this SkyWing,” Blister observed.

“Kestrel was one of the guardians who raised us,” Tsunami said. “Although she wasn’t very nice, Sunny. She doesn’t deserve your grief.”

Sunny’s wings trembled, and she didn’t look up.

“So,” Coral said, leaning toward Tsunami. “Explain this to me. You recognized this SkyWing — a SkyWing I have now been wondering about for days — and you chose not to tell us who she was. Why is that?”

“I didn’t think knowing who she was would explain anything,” Tsunami said. “I knew her, but I have no idea why she was out here or who killed her.” She glanced at Glory and Starflight and Clay apologetically. “And I wanted to tell my friends first. Kestrel wasn’t a good parent, but she was one of the only parents we ever knew. I thought they should know — and I just haven’t had a chance to tell them.”

“I understand perfectly,” Blister purred. She stroked Coral’s talon with one claw. “Forgive her, Coral. It can be very shocking, seeing the dead body of a dragon you know. Especially when you’ve probably wanted to slash her throat yourself once or twice in your lifetime — right, Tsunami? I know I felt that way about my mother most of the time.”

Tsunami looked up slowly, her green eyes meeting Blister’s cold black gaze.

How did she know?

Queen Coral had only said that Kestrel was stabbed by a SandWing. Tsunami clenched her talons under the table.

So how did Blister know that Kestrel’s throat was slashed?