Winter didn’t have a chance to tell the others his theory about Pyrite that day; as it turned out, she was not only a very nervous dragon, but she was also extremely clingy. As soon as Cirrus and Riptide were out of sight, she attached herself to Winter’s tail and followed him around as though he were made of delicious bear meat.

Why he’d been chosen for this particular honor, Winter had no idea. Kinkajou and Qibli were much nicer to Pyrite than he was, and yet she got all flappy and anxious whenever they talked to her. Maybe she was simply used to having an IceWing watch out for her.

And maybe Cirrus knows exactly what she is, Winter guessed. Maybe that’s why he’s so interested in her whereabouts. Maybe he’s planning to use her power for something.

But what? What sort of sinister plans could a lone IceWing be hatching, brooding among the dwindling numbers of the Talons of Peace?

Was he planning to deliver her to the IceWings — an animus to replace their long-lost Prince Arctic? In exchange for letting him back into the tribe?

Cirrus didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get back to the Ice Kingdom, though. There must be a reason he left.

What was he up to?

It was also strange that Pyrite could possess such enormous magic and not be more sure of herself. Didn’t she know she was an animus? Had she ever used her power? How often, and what had she done with it?

He glanced over his shoulder at where she was flying, barely a wingbeat behind him, casting fearful looks at the mountains below them. The first animus he’d ever met. She was not at all what he would have expected.

“So, Pyrite,” Qibli said in a friendly voice, swooping up on her other side.

Pyrite jerked away from him and nearly bowled Winter out of the sky. Her wings thwacked around his snout for a moment, and once again he got that twisty, ill feeling.

He shoved her off him and righted himself. “Watch it,” he snapped.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she mumbled. She flicked her tail at Qibli. “You startled me.”

Qibli made a “what is wrong with this dragon?” face at Winter. “I was just wondering how you ended up with the Talons of Peace,” he said. “You don’t exactly seem like the type to desert your wing and strike out into the wilderness on your own, looking for a band of rebels to join.”

“Oh, no,” Pyrite said. “No, I’m not like that at all. I’m completely loyal. I would have kept fighting for Queen Scarlet as long as she needed me.” She stretched her long neck and scanned the ground below them again, then twitched her wings to steer them a little more westward. “But when Ruby took the throne, she made everyone swear an oath to her, and I couldn’t do that, you know? I’m completely loyal to Queen Scarlet. Always and always and always.”

Winter noticed that Moon was frowning at Pyrite as if she were a book written in the language of narwhals. Had she also figured out that Pyrite was an animus? Could she see it in Pyrite’s mind?

But if Scarlet had a “completely loyal” animus under her claws, why didn’t she use her to win the war?

“So I left the Sky Palace and joined the Talons of Peace.” Pyrite sighed. “Sometimes I have dreams about Queen Scarlet telling me to come to her. But Cirrus always says to ignore them. He says it isn’t safe for me to go flapping around the continent looking for a dragon in exile, and that dreams don’t mean anything.” She smiled hopefully at Winter. “But this isn’t a wild-scavenger chase. You really think she’ll be there, right?”

“I do,” Winter said, suddenly wondering if this was a terrible idea. Bringing Queen Scarlet a pet animus? How many ways could that go horribly wrong?

Would Pyrite get in the way if they tried to save Hailstorm? What would she do if she knew that was their goal?

They stopped to rest for the night in a valley dappled with clumps of small white flowers that made it look as though someone had been tossing down snowballs from the peaks around them. Qibli started a fire and cooked the squirrels Moon caught, while Winter got himself a fish from the stream and ate it raw. He couldn’t quite understand why anyone would want to scorch up their food before eating it, although it still sounded more appetizing than the wild cherries and plums Kinkajou had for dinner.

Pyrite picked halfheartedly at her squirrel, her scales glowing in the firelight. Every time Winter looked over at her, he was sure she’d edged a little closer to him. She didn’t say much and barely seemed to be listening to Qibli as he told the story of the dragonets defeating Burn and Blister and giving the SandWing throne to Queen Thorn. He’d been there and seen the whole thing, and he was a compelling storyteller, too. Moon and Kinkajou were rapt, although they must have heard it all before.

Finally everyone curled up to sleep, including Pyrite. Winter volunteered to keep the first watch, which was a concept that seemed to endlessly puzzle Kinkajou. Why did anyone have to stand guard, she’d asked the first night. Who would attack sleeping dragons? What did they have to fear, now that the war was over? And other such inane, typically RainWing-type questions.

Darkness lay quietly over the valley. One of the moons was a sharp crescent just over the peaks, while the other two were a little more full and higher in the sky. Winter waited until Pyrite’s breathing was slow and steady, and then he carefully eased himself around the others to gently nudge Moon.

She stretched her front talons and made a soft noise in her sleep, curling farther into her wings. He felt an almost unbearable longing to press himself against her scales and fall asleep with her star-speckled wings over his.

“Moon,” Winter whispered, shaking her shoulder again.

At last she opened her eyes and sat up, yawning. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

“Is Pyrite truly asleep?” he asked as softly as he could.

She listened for a moment, then nodded. Winter beckoned for her to follow him out of earshot of the others, to be safe. They stopped below a tree wrapped in blooming vines of moonflowers, pale ghost petals shivering in the breeze.

“I think Pyrite is an animus,” Winter said, coming straight to the point because he was afraid of what else he might say to Moon alone in the dark.

“Oh … that’s interesting,” Moon said. “If she is, she doesn’t know it, or she never thinks about it. Wouldn’t that be strange? To know you have the most powerful magic in Pyrrhia and not think about it once all day? I’d imagine an animus would constantly be thinking, ‘I could just enchant this one thing and it would make my life easier.’ And, ‘but what if I go too far and lose my soul? Is this one thing worth it?’ All day, I would think, it would go back and forth. Maybe that’s just what my brain would do, though. In any case, I didn’t hear anything like that in Pyrite’s head.”

“What do you think of her?” Winter asked.

“Well … I feel sorry for her,” Moon said. She ran one claw lightly down the vine-wrapped trunk of the tree. “Her brain is very odd. It’s like her thoughts are stuck in a circle. I don’t know if she’s been hit on the head really hard or something, but they just go round and around: I’m completely loyal to Queen Scarlet. I’m not very good at anything. I’m glad I’m a SkyWing. I’m clumsy and not very bright and generally useless. And then back to, I’m completely loyal to Queen Scarlet.”

“Maybe she isn’t very bright,” Winter suggested.

“Or she’s worried about the same things so much for so long that her thoughts have worn grooves in her mind, where they keep spinning and spinning,” Moon said. “I don’t know. I haven’t read anyone like her before. It’s very … okay, this sounds weird, but it’s very shallow in there.”

“Really,” Winter said. “You’ve been surrounded by RainWings but never met anyone shallow before?”

Moon poked him with her tail. “That is a really narrow-minded view of RainWings,” she said. “You must have noticed that Kinkajou and Glory are anything but shallow.” She paused, then added with a small laugh, “Well, all right, there’s Coconut. I suppose he isn’t much deeper than Pyrite. But it still feels unusually weird in her head.”

“Maybe because she’s an animus,” Winter said. “Maybe she’s using some kind of magic to hide her power from other dragons.”

A flurry of snowy petals swirled down from the tree and over their wings. Moon shivered. “That makes her sound very ominous,” she said.

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about.” Winter reached out and brushed a petal off Moon’s shoulder. “What if she’s a lot more dangerous than she seems? What if she can hide even from you? How can we trust her?”

They both turned to look back at the slumbering shapes beside the fading embers of the campfire.

“Beware one who is not what she seems,” Moon whispered, sending a trail of ice along Winter’s wings. “Could that be Pyrite?”

“We need her help, though,” Winter said gruffly. “It’s not like we can just fly off and ditch her.” He was starting to wish they could, though.

“I guess we just have to be careful,” Moon said softly. She tilted her head to the side. “We should tell Qibli and see what he thinks.”

“I’ll tell him,” Winter said, hoping he didn’t sound as ungracious as he felt. It was true it would be smart to get the observant SandWing on the case, keeping an eye on Pyrite. But he found himself picturing Qibli standing here, under this tree with Moon, and it made him feel hollowed out, like an ice cave. “When I wake him for the next watch. You can go back to sleep.”

“All right,” Moon said. She hesitated, then took a step closer to Winter so that their wings were nearly touching. He felt his breath catch in his throat. She was made for moonlight, all silver and ebony, or moonlight was made for her. He could imagine her in the Ice Kingdom, silhouetted against the vast whiteness, dark as the ocean and glittering like the moonlit snow.

Except if she set one talon in the Ice Kingdom, someone would probably kill her, or at the very least throw her into Glacier’s dungeon, where the cold would take care of her just as thoroughly.

And his family would do the same, no matter where she was, if they had any idea how Winter felt about her.

He would never let that happen.

“Go on, sleep,” he said, his voice coming out rougher than he meant it to. “We might need you to find Scarlet tomorrow.”

She dropped her gaze. “Thank you for telling me about Pyrite,” she said. “Good night.”

And then she was gone.

Winter took the second watch as well, knowing sleep would be a long time coming for him tonight.