“This isn’t all of it!” Sunny cried, whipping around to face the scavengers. “Where’s the Eye? Why isn’t it here?”

They stopped chattering immediately and jumped away from her, holding their paws up in the air. Fluffy pointed at the sack and yibble-yibbled frantically.

“You must have it! Where else could it be?” Sunny started pacing back and forth. She could feel smoke rising from her snout, and she knew she was probably scaring the scavengers, but they didn’t run away. “I need the Eye of Onyx. It’s my one chance to end the war!” She stopped and faced them again. “How am I supposed to end the war without it?”

“Yibble?” Holler said tentatively. “Yibble … yibble?”

“Well said,” Sunny said to her. “That’s very helpful.” She sat down and frowned crossly at the pathetic pile of treasure.

“Ribble yibble,” Fluffy said to Holler.

“Urble YOBBLE,” she snapped back.

“Someone else must have it,” Sunny said, thinking aloud. “If you had it, you’d have brought it to me, because you were worried about Holler. You wouldn’t keep the one thing I need, when I’m sure scavengers prefer shiny little things like all of this. So you don’t have the Eye of Onyx, which means it’s … somewhere else in Pyrrhia.”

She sighed, and then stopped herself mid sigh so she wouldn’t sound like Stonemover.

Her first theory was probably right, and some other dragon had stolen most of the treasure. Perhaps they had the Eye of Onyx and didn’t realize what it was or what it could do. But that didn’t help Sunny, who had no way to track down the real thief.

She felt something touch her talon and looked down. Holler was standing in the curve of Sunny’s wing, patting her talon in a way that seemed to say “don’t worry” and “it’s not the end of the world.”

“You’re brave and cute,” Sunny told her. “I wish I could keep you. If Glory can have a sloth, I don’t see why I can’t have a scavenger or two.” She glanced at Fluffy, who was edging closer, glancing up at her warily. “But it’s too dangerous. I’d feel terrible if one of you got hurt.”

She gave Holler a thoughtful look. These small, breakable scavengers were brave enough to fight or ride a dragon who could eat them in three bites.

Could I be that brave? Like, for instance … could I try to stop a war? Even if I don’t have a magical jewel or a mystical prophecy to back me up. Even if my friends decide not to help. Could I still do it?

Isn’t it important enough?

Why shouldn’t I try? So what if there’s no foretold destiny saying I have to. Shouldn’t I do it anyway, just because I want to?

But how? She tapped her claws on the ground, thinking.

“Yibble robble fnob?” Holler said. She pointed to Sunny’s shoulder again.

“Sorry, Holler. I don’t have time to take you for another ride,” Sunny said regretfully. “I have to go.” She shook out her wings and reached to scoop all the treasure back into the sack. She was a little bit tempted to let the scavengers keep it, but she had a feeling she could find some use for it — giving it back to the SandWings, perhaps.

“I’m going to find my friends and see if they’ll help me,” she informed Fluffy and Holler. “And then … then I’ve got a war to stop.”

She patted them each gently on their heads before gathering her wings to take off. As she sailed into the sky, she looked back and saw them waving. She wondered if she’d ever see them again. Maybe she could come back and look for them after the war was over.

The weather was with her this time, and she flew through the mountains much faster than she had on the way out, when she’d had to stop every time the NightWings rested or ate. She always ate light, so it didn’t take long for her to pause, catch and eat a squirrel or a lizard once a day, and keep flying.

So it was only two days later when she cleared the mountains and saw the rainforest ahead of her, illuminated by the rising sun beyond it. It looked so vast and green and peaceful. Sunny found herself caught by a moment of longing, a wish that she could just dive into those leaves and stay there forever. There would be enough to do, helping Glory rule the rainforest and organize the NightWings. It was beautiful and there was always enough food, and the RainWings were easygoing dragons to share a tree with.

The war would come here eventually, she told herself. Even the RainWings aren’t safe — we already know that from what the NightWings did to them. And between Scarlet and the three sisters looking for us, we probably aren’t safe anywhere either.

No hiding in caves. That’s my promise to myself. No hiding at all. When the world is all wrong, I’m going to be a dragon who does something about it.

Her nerves started to get the better of her the closer she got to the RainWing village, though. She kept picturing her friends’ faces — doubtful, kind but condescending, all “really? you, Sunny?” and “that is sweet, but now let’s be serious.” Her stomach was doing flips and spirals by the time she spotted the treehouses on the outskirts in the early afternoon, and she was almost tempted to turn around and fly away again.

What if they’re mad at me? she suddenly thought with another stomach lurch. What if everyone’s furious at me for running off? It had occurred to her to use the dreamvisitor while she was traveling, but she’d decided against it — she wanted to explain everything to her friends face-to-face.

A movement distracted her from her thoughts — something shifting, out of the corner of her eye, but when she looked she couldn’t see anything but dangling vines and bright orange flowers. Immediately she ducked and rolled, so the tranquilizer dart shot right past her and thudded into a tree trunk, startling several shiny blue frogs.

“It’s me!” Sunny shouted, twisting to wave her claws at the leaves around her. “It’s Sunny! I’m Queen Glory’s friend!” She held out her talons and spread her wings wide, hoping one of the hidden RainWings would remember her.

A face materialized on a nearby branch, his scales shifting from brown and green to dark purple. The dragon blinked a few times, looking more wary than most RainWings Sunny had ever met.

“The queen was looking for a little gold dragon,” said a voice behind Sunny, and another dragon emerged, this one shifting to the clementine orange of the flowers. “This could be her.”

“Shouldn’t we knock her out anyway?” asked the purple dragon. “Just to be safe? You know the queen keeps telling us to be more careful.”

“She means about the NightWings,” said the orange dragon blithely. “This one’s not a NightWing. I’m sure she’s fine.”

On the one talon, Sunny certainly didn’t want to be shot with a dart. She wanted to be wide-awake when she saw her friends again. On the other talon, she was afraid she could imagine this exact conversation if, say, a smoldering vengeful SkyWing happened to show up in the rainforest looking for them. “Oh, she’s not a NightWing? Well then, let’s take her straight to the dragonets, no worries.”

“I am Glory’s friend,” she promised them, deciding to worry about Scarlet later. “I need to see her.”

“The queen … let’s see, she might be in the audience treehouse,” said the orange dragon thoughtfully.

“Or the healers’ hut,” said the purple dragon. “She’s there a lot.”

“Or visiting the NightWing camp.”

“Or checking on the progress of the school.”

“Or reviewing —”

“All right,” Sunny interrupted. “I’ll just look for her. Thank you.”

They both flicked their tails and bobbed their heads, and their scales immediately began shifting back to camouflage as Sunny flew on.

The healers’ hut, she decided. So I can see Starflight.

But before she got there, she spotted the mahogany-brown scales of a MudWing stretched out on one of the sleeping platforms.

“Clay!” she yelped happily. She barreled up to him and nearly flung her wings around him before she realized it wasn’t Clay at all. It was some other MudWing dragonet, who jumped back with a startled expression and hid something behind his wings.

“Whoa,” Sunny said, skidding to a stop on the wood. “Who are you?”

“Who are you?” he responded rudely.

Sunny usually liked everybody, at least at first, but something about this dragon immediately rubbed her the wrong way. “Where’s Clay?” she asked.

“How should I know?” he demanded.

Sunny frowned at him, then turned to fly away. If he didn’t want to be helpful, she didn’t need to bother with him.

“Hey!” he called. “Come back!”

Sunny ignored him. She had noticed the angle of the sunlight and realized that it was the RainWing sun time, when most of them would be sleeping high up in the treetops, recharging their scales. She wondered if Glory was up there, too, or if she ever let herself sleep.

Just then she spotted the healers’ hut — and coming out of it, opening his wings to fly, was Clay, definitely Clay this time, every wonderful brown scale of him.

Sunny dove into his wings, nearly knocking him backward, except that he was big enough to catch her. He made an “oof!” noise and then realized who she was.

“Sunny!” he roared. “It’s you! You’re alive! You’re all right!” He seized her and swung her around, her tail flying out behind her, and then quickly put her down. “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously. He touched her wings and checked her talons. “We thought something terrible had happened to you. We’ve been searching and searching. Come, come in.” He dragged her into the hut before she could say anything. “Starflight! Sunny’s back!”

Two black dragons turned their heads in unison toward the door. Sunny recognized Fatespeaker, the NightWing who had been one of the alternate dragonets, raised by the Talons in case they needed a spare set to fulfill the prophecy. She was crouched beside a nest of leaves, where Starflight was lying with his wings spread out.

Sunny flinched at the sight of the burns all along Starflight’s dark scales. Some kind of silvery ointment glistened over the wounds, and she saw a little of it on Fatespeaker’s talons as well, as if she’d been helping to put it on.

“Sunny?” Starflight said in a hoarse voice. “Really?”

Sunny realized with a stab of guilt and horror that Starflight’s eyes were covered with a mask of leaves, carefully plastered in place. “It’s me,” she said, hurrying over to his side. She nudged his shoulder gently with her snout, trying to share her warmth with him. “I’m here.”

Starflight let out his breath. “Are you all right?” he said anxiously.

“Better than you are,” she tried to joke.

“I told him you were fine,” Fatespeaker interjected in a helpful voice. She patted the edge of the leaves where Starflight lay. “I had a vision! I mean, it was fuzzy, but I was pretty sure you were fine.”

Starflight coughed awkwardly, as if he’d been trying to avoid talking about Fatespeaker’s visions for days. Sunny remembered what Stonemover had told her — that no NightWing had had prophetic powers or mind reading for generations. So was Fatespeaker lying? Or did she believe her own wild stories? She didn’t seem cruel enough to deceive Starflight about whether Sunny was all right — but then, Sunny didn’t really know her at all.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to take care of you,” Sunny said, touching one of Starflight’s wings gently.

“I took care of him,” Fatespeaker said.

Sunny felt a flash of something odd. Like she wanted Fatespeaker to shush and go away. Jealousy? But wouldn’t that mean … that I like Starflight the way he likes me?

Did she? It would be nice if she could love him back. It would make him happy — and she did care about him. Plus he was a real hero — he’d just saved the entire NightWing tribe from extinction.

We don’t have time for mushy romance right now anyway, she told herself sternly. Whatever’s going to happen with me and Starflight, whatever we are — we’ll figure it out after we stop the war.

She glanced around the room and noticed that Webs was still there, asleep in a corner, although the venomous scratch on his tail looked almost completely healed. There were a few RainWings as well, four with injuries that might have happened during the attack on the NightWing island, and two others whose breaths rattled in their skinny chests as they slept. Sunny guessed they had been prisoners and were still recovering from their treatment at the talons of the NightWings. She could see spots on their snouts and ankles where iron bands had rubbed the scales raw.

The only other dragon occupying a bed was the SkyWing, Flame. He’d grown up with Fatespeaker among the Talons of Peace, as another possible alternate for the dragonets. She could tell that the healers had applied the cactus-milk antidote to the wound that slashed across his face, but it would still leave a nasty scar. She wondered if his face had looked that furious before he was injured; she suspected yes. He was awake, glaring around the treehouse with trails of smoke coming out of his nose and ears.

“So where were you?” Clay asked, bumping Sunny’s wing with his own. “Tsunami thought maybe you’d been kidnapped, isn’t that crazy?”

“Well, I kind of was kidnapped,” Sunny admitted. Starflight and Fatespeaker both gasped. “But I got away. Except then I got caught again, and then I was a prisoner in Burn’s stronghold for a while.”

“What?” Starflight tried to sit up and nearly fell off his bed. Clay’s eyes were wide and shocked.

“I’m here now, though, aren’t I?” Sunny said. “It all turned out fine. I’ve taken care of myself. Mostly,” she added honestly. “It was a little crazy. But I should tell you all at the same time. Where are Tsunami and Glory?”

*  *  *

Tsunami was drilling RainWings in evasive maneuvers, although apparently what that actually meant was a lot of yelling things like “Pay attention!” and “Leave that toucan alone!” and “Why are you pink? Stop being pink!” and “THREE MOONS, ARE YOU EATING AGAIN?”

Sunny half hoped that meant she’d be all yelled out, but of course it didn’t. Tsunami had plenty of yelling energy left for Sunny.

“Where have you BEEN?” she roared. “Do you know how WORRIED we’ve been? How could you DO that to us? I was so sure the NightWings did something to you that I nearly threw them all back to the volcano! We’ve had search parties out every day, but not ONE SIGN of you ANYWHERE! Not even Deathbringer, well, he said he smelled you over to the west, but who trusts him, NOT ME IS WHO. I haven’t slept in days, Sunny! DAYS!”

She grabbed Sunny and wrapped her wings around her in a fierce hug. Sunny felt her own anger melting and realized she’d been furious with Tsunami ever since overhearing the conversation in the Obsidian Mirror. She may not take me seriously, Sunny thought, but she really does love me.

“I’m sorry,” Sunny said, muffled, into Tsunami’s shoulder. “But I swear I was doing important things. I’ll tell you all about it. Where’s Glory?”

“Checking on the NightWing camp,” Tsunami said, relaxing her grip on Sunny but keeping one wing around her. “She is kind of awesome with them. All scary and tough and royal, like a real queen. Do not tell her I said that.”

Sunny grinned up at her. “Are they behaving?”

“For the most part,” Tsunami said. “They were all absolutely starving, so just giving them enough food is making them a whole lot happier and easier to deal with. Glory’s letting them hunt and eat as much as they want, except for the sloths. Those are off-limits, apparently. I guess being a giant sucker for cute furry things is a RainWing genetic defect.”

“I wouldn’t eat them either,” Sunny pointed out.

“Well, but that makes sense,” Tsunami said. “You practically are a cute furry thing.”

Sunny debated getting riled up about this, but Tsunami was already turning to one of the RainWings — all of whom were staring nosily at Sunny — and ordering him to fetch Glory.

“Tell her to meet us in the healers’ hut,” she said. “And NO DAWDLING. If you stop to admire so much as one beetle I will seriously bite you.”

“All right,” the RainWing said affably and flew off in a way that probably counted as a hurry for a RainWing, but was only marginally faster than your average snail.

“I swear,” Tsunami muttered through her teeth. “Sunny. You’ll probably be shocked to hear this, but I don’t think I’d make a very good RainWing.”

Sunny laughed. “I missed you,” she said, and meant it.

It wasn’t long before they were all gathered around Starflight’s bed. Sunny felt a rush of joy as Glory swept into the room. Here were all her friends, all together in one place like they were supposed to be.

“Sunny,” Glory said, and the relief in her voice was matched by the bright yellow of her scales. She even reached out and squeezed Sunny’s front talons, which was more affection than Sunny would have expected from her. “Thank goodness you’re alive. Because now I can totally behead you. Starflight, what’s our official policy on beheading right now?”

“Our constitution says no beheading Sunny,” he said loyally.

“Let’s amend that,” Glory said, flicking her tail. “To I can behead anyone who worries me half to death like this.”

“I know you’re probably mad,” Sunny said. Glory’s ears and wings were starting to shade more red than yellow. “OK, definitely mad. But there were — lots of — stuff happened, and —”

“It had better be wildly important ‘stuff,’ ” Glory growled. “You know what I don’t need in my first week as queen, in addition to a whole new tribe of pretty much the worst, most unhealthy, most annoying dragons ever? I don’t need to also be freaking out because one of my best friends has disappeared. I don’t need to be using my best dragons on patrols searching for you when they should be helping me run a brand-new experimental two-tribe kingdom.”

“That’s me,” Deathbringer said, poking his head in from outside. Sunny jumped. She still wasn’t used to seeing any NightWings in the RainWing village, apart from Starflight. “When she says her ‘best dragons,’ she’s talking about me.”

“I am not,” Glory said, a little too indignantly, Sunny thought. “Quit stalking me.”

“This is not stalking,” he objected, sliding into the room as if he were perfectly welcome. “This is protecting you.”

“Nobody invited you to this private conversation,” Tsunami said bossily.

“Hey, I’m just making sure the queen is safe,” he said, spreading his wings.

“The queen can take care of herself,” Glory pointed out. “Out of the two dragons in question, the queen happens to be the one with camouflage scales who can shoot venom. What can you do again? Sit in the dark, is that it? Guess what, I can do that, too.” Inky black spilled across her scales and she looked down her snout at him.

“I can stop dragons from killing you,” he said. “Three assassination plots so far, Your Majesty. No one’s better at stopping assassins than the world’s best assassin.”

“You poor dragon,” Glory said. “If only you had a shred of self-esteem.”

“What?” Sunny cried, dismayed. “NightWings have tried to kill you? Three times already?”

“So he says,” Glory observed. She didn’t look remotely scared or even ruffled. “Apparently he’s my bodyguard now. Not that anyone asked him to be, ahem.”

“It’s true, I did have to fight my way past a whole pack of volunteers,” he mused mockingly. “Oh, no, wait. It’s just me. The only dragon who cares if you live or die.”

“He’s just trying to make his list look longer than mine,” Glory said to Sunny. “We’re keeping track of who has saved who more often. I say it doesn’t count if you have to save me from your own dragon-murdering self, and he says I shouldn’t get credit for sending him away before the IceWings got him.”

Sunny couldn’t help but notice that Deathbringer was apparently allowed to know where the RainWing village was, and to roam around it freely. So whatever she said about him, Glory really must trust him, certainly more than any other NightWing.

“If you two are quite finished jabbing at each other,” Tsunami said, rolling her eyes, “I’d like to hear what Sunny’s been doing for the last week.”

“Me too,” Clay said fervently, sidling up beside her. Sunny twined her tail around his, relieved that at least one of her friends wouldn’t be mad at her, no matter what she’d done or how worried he’d been.

“Well,” she said, “I found my parents. And I met Burn’s brother. And I saw Peril again, and Queen Scarlet is alive, oh, and she’s maybe coming here to kill us, although I hope she doesn’t really know where we are, although she said she did.”

Glory cleared her throat quietly, but everyone turned to look at her anyway.

“Um,” she said. “So. Yes. Actually, she does know where we are.” She squinted at the skylight, rubbing the back of her head. “She maybe visited me in a dream. With a dreamvisitor. And saw where I was. So. Yes.”

“That seems like something worth mentioning!” Tsunami yelled.

“I was going to tell you all,” Glory said huffily, “but then Starflight disappeared and I became queen and I got a little … busy.”

“Anyway,” Sunny interrupted before the two of them could start one of their interminable arguments. “So she was in Burn’s stronghold, but she’s not anymore.”

“Could you start at the beginning?” Starflight asked. “I’m a little confused.”

“Me too,” Fatespeaker chimed in. As if anyone asked you, Sunny thought, then felt incredibly guilty for thinking it.

“All right,” Sunny said. “It started with these three NightWings grabbing me….”