Thorn picked up an onyx lizard and hurled it across the library. “Blood-red eggs and fireballs!” she shouted. “I’m going to flay that dragon alive!”

“Won’t your Outclaws save us?” Sunny asked, wading through the papers to the desk. She ran her talons all over it, but there were no drawers and no place for a hidden extra key.

“If they’re smart, they’ll fly for the hills the moment they hear that Burn is coming,” said Thorn. “They’ll expect me to run and meet them at the Scorpion Den. Act smart, stay alive, stick together but don’t be an idiot — those are our basic rules.” She picked up a scroll and ripped it furiously down the middle.

“All right, so we do that,” Sunny said. “We figure a way out of here. I know we can.” She twisted to look around the library, searching for anything she could use to pick the lock. Not that she had any idea how to do that, but she’d read about someone doing it in a scroll once.

There were no windows, so no way to call out for help. The light came from a small chandelier of hanging oil lamps high above them. The ceiling was tall but made of solid stone. The door was the only way out.

“What about your SkyWing friend?” Thorn said. “Might she guess what’s happened and come looking for us?”

Sunny shifted her wings and shook her head. “I doubt it. If she hears Burn is coming, I’m sure she’ll free Scarlet and run, too.” She stepped back and stared at the door. The wooden door. “But if she could burn down this door, we should be able to do the same thing, right?”

“Wait!” Thorn cried as Sunny drew in a breath. She spread her claws at the mess around them. “It’s not safe. If you set the door on fire, it could spread to the papers in here. The whole room could be in flames in a heartbeat, and we’d burn to death before we made it out.”

That was a horribly good point. Sunny guessed that that had occurred to Smolder as well. He was more cunning than he looked, perhaps as cunning as Blister. He’d also cleverly found a way to separate them from Peril.

“Well,” Sunny said, “I suspect I’d rather burn to death than end up stuffed in Burn’s collection. But I think I can do it carefully — I’m pretty good at aiming small flames. Let me try, all right?”

Thorn hesitated, then nodded. Sunny was pleased. She was pretty sure her friends wouldn’t have trusted her to do anything this risky.

She swept papers away from the door with her tail until it was surrounded by a half circle of clear stone floor. Then she leaned forward, opened her mouth, and hissed, letting fire build up in the back of her throat. It felt fierce and hot, like she’d swallowed the sun, and she never liked using it for long. Aiming carefully, she breathed a small jet of flame in an arc around the lock.

The thick wood turned black where the fire touched it, and smoke curled from the gash left behind. Nothing burst into flames … not yet anyway.

Sunny did the same thing again, trying to trace the same line, over and over, four more times, until she saw a glimmer of light on the other side. She jammed her claws into the blackened wood and twisted them around, digging and slashing until the whole lock came loose and thumped into her talons.

“I did it!” she whispered to her mother as the door swung a few inches open.

Sunny turned and found her mother holding a folded square of thick papyrus paper, with the word Thorn scrawled across the front in black ink.

“There is a letter for me,” said Thorn curiously. “He wasn’t lying about that part. How odd.” She flipped it over and opened it.

“Mother, we really have to go,” Sunny said, but her voice trailed off as she saw the expression on her mother’s face. “Mother? Thorn?”

“It’s from him,” Thorn said, glancing up at Sunny. “From your father. Listen: ‘Dearest Thorn. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t use my powers for the NightWings any longer, or I’ll lose myself completely. So I’m running away, and I’d like you to come, too. Meet me at Jade Mountain. I’ll wait for you as long as I have to. I love you. Stonemover.’ ” Her voice trailed off.

“Jade Mountain!” Sunny cried. “There’s supposed to be a dragon who lives there — maybe it’s Stonemover! Oh, maybe he’s still waiting for you, after all these years! Isn’t that romantic?”

“That frog-faced blob of camel spit!” Thorn shouted abruptly, making Sunny jump. She crumpled the paper in her front talons, threw it to the ground, and smashed it with one of her feet. “All these years? He’s alive, he’s not a prisoner, and he’s known exactly where I was this whole time, but he never once came to look for me or tried to contact me?”

“Well,” Sunny faltered, “maybe he thought you got his letter but didn’t want to be with him.”

“So send me another letter!” Thorn cried. “Try a little harder! Don’t be a jerboa-head!” She stomped past Sunny and into the hall, checking in both directions. “Come on, let’s run for it. I saw a courtyard this way.”

They bolted down the long stone corridor and swerved to the right at the end. Sunny could see a patch of blue sky up ahead, beyond a wall of dark red columns. She started to unfold her wings as she ran.

“The prisoners!” a voice shouted behind her. “Prisoners escaping!”

Sunny’s heart plunged.

“Uh-oh,” Thorn muttered. They skidded up to the courtyard and found several SandWing soldiers milling about there, preparing their weapons as if they were getting ready for battle.

The soldiers all turned and stared at them.

“Go!” Thorn shouted, flaring her wings. Startled, Sunny hurtled into the sky. One of the soldiers roared and leaped after her; she felt the wind of his talons slashing just short of her tail. She twisted away and looked back in time to see her mother blast the soldier in the face with a burst of flames. He shrieked and plummeted to the ground.

The other soldiers were slower to react, and faster to catch on fire when Thorn blasted the rest of them as well.

She soared up out of the shrieking and mayhem and smoke and circled Sunny. “What are you waiting for?” she called. Thorn banked around and headed for the main courtyard. Sunny followed close behind her.

“I hope they’ll be all right,” Sunny said, glancing back at the flames.

“I hope we’ll be all right,” Thorn said. “Oh no! Moonlickers! Six-Claws, you idiot!” She swerved suddenly sideways and Sunny saw what she was aiming for: a cluster of battling SandWings on the stones below, with Six-Claws and Qibli in the center of it.

She heard Six-Claws roar, “Where is Thorn?” And then Thorn snatched a loose brick from the nearest wall and lobbed it past his head, clocking the dragon behind him in the snout.

“I’m right here, snails-for-brains!” she bellowed. “Let’s go!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Six-Claws and Qibli and twenty other dragons leaped aloft, kicking off their opponents and swinging their deadly tails wildly behind them.

“Where are the others?” Thorn called to Six-Claws as they all veered south, flying as fast as they could.

“Fled already,” Six-Claws said tersely. “Cowards.”

“Following orders,” Thorn reminded him. “As you should have done.”

“We weren’t leaving without you,” he growled.

“Yeah,” Qibli piped up. “I didn’t trust that Smolder dragon. I knew there’d be trouble! Didn’t I say so? Can’t trust a royal, that’s what I always say.”

“Because you’ve met so many royal dragons in your life, have you?” Six-Claws demanded.

Thorn shook her head, but didn’t argue, saving their breath for flying.

Sunny risked a glance back, but nobody was chasing them yet. She guessed the stronghold was disorganized chaos right now, with no one sure whether they were still in a surrendered stalemate, whether Peril was still lurking around to kill them all, whether it was really Burn on her way, or whether Smolder was still in charge.

She could see the wing of dragons in the distance, approaching the stronghold — too close, only minutes away from finding out what had happened — and she was pretty sure the hulking shape in the lead was truly Burn.

Her eyes scanned the horizon. Had Peril made it out safely? Or would Peril always be safe, because no one could get near her with talons like hers?

She spotted two small shapes winging away to the north, glinting orange and gold in the sunlight. Peril and Queen Scarlet, now free. Sunny shuddered. If Queen Scarlet really did know where the dragonets were, how long did they have before she came for them? What kind of revenge had she planned, all those nights in the horrible tower?

A feeling of dread climbed into her chest and squeezed; for a moment she couldn’t breathe.

Clay — Tsunami — Glory — and poor wounded Starflight.

“Mother!” she called, beating her wings to catch up to Thorn.

Thorn grinned toothily at her. “I’ve been called lots of things in my life, but that’s the strangest and the best at the same time.”

Sunny brushed her mother’s wingtip with her own. “I have to return to my friends,” she said. “I need to warn them — I’m afraid they’re in danger, now that Queen Scarlet is free.”

“Probably,” Thorn agreed. She hesitated. “Couldn’t I send a messenger instead? I wanted to bring you back to the Scorpion Den — I still haven’t heard about your life and what you’ve been doing all these years.”

“I know,” Sunny said. She wished she could stay with her mother, with those warm strong wings close by to keep her safe. For the first time, she could imagine life without the prophecy. She could be a normal dragon, living in the Scorpion Den with her mother instead of worrying about saving the whole world. But prophecy or not, her friends were her real life, her whole life. She couldn’t leave them in danger. “But this is really important. I’ll come back to you soon. Or — you could come with me?”

Thorn sighed and shook her head. “There might be retaliation from the stronghold. I have to fortify the Den, prepare my dragons, make sure everyone’s safe.”

That was true. Thorn had risked a lot, bringing her Outclaws into this dangerous rescue mission. Sunny touched her wingtip again. “Thank you for coming to get me.”

“Always,” Thorn said fiercely.

“I’ll see you soon,” Sunny said, tilting her wings.

“Sunny!” Thorn called. “Be careful!”

“I will,” Sunny called back, already soaring toward the mountains.

“No, I mean —” Thorn swooped out of the formation for a moment, catching up to her and circling her in the air. “I mean, if you go see your father. I know you’re thinking about it.” She nodded at the line of mountains, where the jagged peak of Jade Mountain towered darkly over the rest. “Be careful with Stonemover. If all that is true about being an animus … well, I saw him do a lot of magic. We don’t know how much soul he has left.”

“Are you going to go see him?” Sunny asked.

“Someday,” Thorn said with a small flicker of anger in her eyes. “Apparently he’s in no hurry, so I’ll take care of my dragons first.”

“I should do that, too,” Sunny said. “With my dragons, I mean.”

Thorn smiled at her. “See you soon, daughter.”

Sunny watched as the Outclaws soared away across the desert, all their wingbeats together stirring up small sandstorms below them. Then she oriented herself toward the mountains again and flew, beating her wings as fast as they would move.

She couldn’t use the tunnel to the rainforest; she couldn’t risk the trip past Burn’s stronghold to get to it. It would be safer, if longer, to go over the mountains. But she should have a head start on Peril and Scarlet, who had flown the other way and who didn’t know about the tunnels. I hope, she thought. I don’t think there’s any way they could know.

Her breath seemed to come more easily with every wingbeat, even as the forest and the mountains came closer and closer. She was leaving the desert — but she was going back to her friends at last.