At first, all Peril felt was cold limbs, cold scales, cold wings slamming into hers.

The shock knocked the breath out of her for a moment, and they tangled in startled freefall.

And then Winter started screaming, and Peril shoved him away, and he plummeted toward the ground with smoke already rising from his scales, falling as hard and fast as Peril’s heart.

Three moons, what have I done?

“Oh my,” said the NightWing in the air above them. Peril had forgotten about her. “Firescales! I haven’t seen that in a long time.”

“Get help!” Peril yelled. She plunged after Winter, who missed the arch and tumbled to the hard rock below it. At the last minute he managed to spread his wings so it wasn’t a crash landing, but as he did Peril saw the ropes of black burns smeared across them. He was burning, burning up everywhere she’d accidentally touched him.

He landed heavily and collapsed, writhing in pain.

“I’m sorry!” Peril cried, landing beside him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I was trying to get away! I didn’t mean to burn you, I really didn’t! I’m here to help your friends stop Scarlet! Stop dying and listen to me!”

He’s going to die. Winter is going to die and Clay is never going to speak to me again. I’m going to be alone forever.

She took a hopeless step toward him, but there was nothing she could do — touching him would only make it worse. Not that it could get worse. Except he’d die faster, and maybe that would be a mercy.

Look at him. I am as bad as everyone thinks I am. I’m the one who did this, me and my monstrous claws.

Peril had never cried; she wasn’t sure if she could. But she had felt vast emptiness like this before, opening up inside her … when Osprey died, when she had to leave Clay the first time, when she found out her mother was dead, and worst of all, when she saw the dragonbite viper sink its fangs into Clay’s leg and she thought he would die and she would lose him and the world would not be worth living in anymore.

This emptiness, though, had freezing winds shrieking through the darkness — shrieking, “This is your fault, your fault, your fault … you deserve to be the most hated dragon in Pyrrhia … your fault, your fault … ”

“Moon,” Winter gasped. “Tell Moon —” He closed his eyes, folding into himself.

“Winter!” a voice shouted from the sky. “Winter!”

Of course they were here, just in time to see what Peril had done — to witness her monstrosity. She jumped back out of the way as Moon, Qibli, and Turtle thudded down and surged into a crowd around Winter.

“Winter,” Moon cried again, grabbing his front talons in hers. “Oh no, oh no, oh no —”

“It was an accident!” Peril said. “I didn’t mean to burn him! I didn’t!”

“What are our options?” Qibli said frantically. “I know — Winter, frostbreath your scales! That should numb the injuries long enough to get him to the river. Isn’t there a cactus sap that heals burns? Winter, come on, don’t pass out. We can fix this!”

The silver dragon lay limply on the rocks in front of them, shuddering in agony. He didn’t respond to either Moon or Qibli. Peril couldn’t bear to look at him — at the black scorch marks imprinted all over his snow-white scales. That had to be too many burns to survive. He was probably going into shock, if he hadn’t already.

She couldn’t look at Turtle either. He was clutching his head and pacing around Winter’s tail, and she knew if she met his eyes she’d see how much he must hate her now.

“What can we do?” Qibli asked Moon, and when she didn’t answer because she was crying too hard, he whirled on Peril. “What can we do?”

“I don’t know!” Peril cried. “I’m the problem, not the solution!”

“Use this,” Turtle said, scrabbling in the pouch around his neck. His voice sounded weird, like it was being mangled as it came out of his throat, and his expression was closer to terror than anger, now that Peril could see it. He yanked the grayish-white river rock from the pouch and held it out. Nothing could have looked more ordinary or useless.

“What?” Qibli said, blinking back tears.

“A rock isn’t going to … ” Peril started, but she trailed off as Turtle pushed Qibli aside and placed the rock on top of one of Winter’s burns.

Winter let out a yelp of pain at the sudden contact, and Moon reached toward Turtle’s talons — then stopped.

Below the rock, the burn looked as if it was evaporating.

The blackness disappeared, and the scales smoothed over, silver and untouched again.

Turtle moved the rock, sliding it gently over the burns all along Winter’s torso and wings. It looked as though he was sweeping snow along behind it; every injury disappeared, every wound knitted itself back together and vanished.

The IceWing’s breathing became slower and less ragged. He opened his eyes and watched the progress of the rock, his face a mask of confusion and awe.

Within a few moments, Winter was completely healed.

Everyone stared at Turtle, who very much looked as though he wanted a deep ocean chasm to hide in. He stepped back, awkwardly twisting the rock in his talons as though it was a strange growth that had just appeared. “Did I get all of it?” he asked.

“What —” Moon said. She shook her head and crouched beside Winter, gently running one talon over a patch of smooth scales on his torso. “Turtle, what … ?” Her voice faded away, swallowed by the disbelief swooping across her face.

Winter sat up, holding out his talons with an awed expression. His wings cautiously expanded to their full width, then closed again. The burns were really gone.

“Turtle,” Qibli said carefully. “Why do you have a magic healing rock? No, wait … HOW do you have a magic healing rock?”

Peril couldn’t put her thoughts in order. She couldn’t wrap her brain around Winter surviving what she’d done. She couldn’t even feel relieved yet; it was too immense and strange and impossible. There wasn’t any room in her head for all her new questions about Turtle. She pulled her wings in as close as possible, watching Winter’s perfectly unharmed scales shift and half expecting him to suddenly collapse into a pile of ashes anyway.

“It’s an animus-touched object,” Moon said to Turtle. “Where did you get — OH.” Her eyes suddenly went as wide as the moons she was named after.

Qibli got it a second later. “You didn’t find it somewhere,” he said, sounding awestruck. “You made it! You’re an animus dragon!”

“That’s your secret,” Moon breathed. She had an expression like someone who’d just managed to finally alphabetize a million scrolls exactly right. “An animus.”

That’s why he thinks he can handle Queen Scarlet, Peril realized.

“Oooorg,” Turtle said, shivering his wings. “I’ve never heard anyone say that out loud before. Nobody else knows. Actually, can we not talk about it? It’s really not a big deal.”

“NOT A —” Winter suddenly chimed in, then cut himself off with a growl, lashing his tail.

“You could have told me,” Peril said to Turtle. Wasn’t that what friends did? He hadn’t told her about Moon’s power because it was “her secret,” but he could have told her this.

“I was thinking about it,” Turtle said to Peril. “I mean, so we’re not so different, you and I. Right?”

Well, I never had the option of hiding my “gift,” Peril thought. That’s a pretty big difference.

“Would anyone else like to make a dramatic confession?” Qibli asked. “Who else is hiding magic powers? Winter, anything we should know? A secret IceWing ability to kill dragons with a sneer?”

“No. Trust me, I’m nothing special,” Winter growled.

“Same here.” Qibli glanced around at Moon, Peril, and Turtle. “At least that makes two of us.”

“When did you make this rock?” Moon asked Turtle. “Are you all right? How much have you used your power so far?” She rubbed her forehead, her wings flickering like moths around a candle.

“Don’t worry, my soul is fine,” Turtle said, waving at the air. “I haven’t enchanted very many things. I mean, I didn’t want anyone to notice I can do this, obviously.”

“But why?” Winter exploded. “Why would you hide your power? You could have served your tribe during the war! Your queen needed you! You could have won the war easily, with a gift like that!”

“Well,” Turtle said, shying away from him. “Um. Exactly?”

“Wait, so it would be all right with you,” Peril said suddenly to Winter, “for his queen to use him as a weapon, but it was the most unforgivable crime in history for my queen to use me as one?”

An awkward silence dropped over the group, like a dragonflame cactus full of guilt-suspicion-distrust-judgment-superiority instead of thorn seeds. Nobody would meet Peril’s eyes, not even Turtle.

“I get it,” Moon said finally to Turtle. “You should be the one who decides what to do with your abilities, not your queen or anyone else.”

Now she glanced at Peril quickly, almost as if she were throwing out a tail for Peril to grab.

Me? Peril thought. Did she mean that for me, too? I never get to decide anything. If I did, I’d probably mess up and nearly kill or really kill someone else.

“Would that rock work on Kinkajou?” Qibli asked. “Could we heal her, too?”

Turtle squirmed. “We could try,” he said. “But I’m afraid I enchanted it to heal scales and muscles, not internal organs or bones — it was only supposed to help me feel less sore after flying all day. I know, I was an idiot, I should have made it more useful.”

“And more obvious,” Peril said. “What a dopey thing to enchant. It looks like every other rock in the world. If you drop it while you’re leaning over a river one day, you’ll never find it again.”

“It might work on your scar, though,” Turtle said to Qibli. He held out the rock and Qibli jumped away from it.

“No way!” he said, touching his snout. “I like my scar! It’s part of who I am! Get your magic nonsense away from me.”

“Hey,” Winter interrupted suddenly. “Where’s Foeslayer?”

“Who?” Moon asked.

“I was traveling with a NightWing,” he said. “Where’d she go?”

Peril glanced up and realized the big NightWing was no longer in the sky above them. She tried to remember when she’d last seen her — right after the fight? Before Turtle and the others showed up?

“Uh,” she said. “I might have told her to go get help.”

“Or she might have decided I was dead and left before the same thing happened to her,” Winter said bitterly. He stood up in one quick coiling motion. “We needed her! She was going to help us find the lost city of night!”

“The what?” Peril said.

“Hey,” Moon said to Winter, trying to nudge him back down. “Maybe don’t make any sudden movements until we’re sure you’re all right. Also, I’m glad you came back, by the way.”

“I’m all right,” Winter said, stretching his wings and neck again. “It’s like it never happened.” He turned accusing eyes on Peril, who felt them like little blades of ice stabbing her own eyeballs. “Except that it did. This monster threatened you and then claimed she was here to help you.”

“I didn’t threaten anyone!” Peril protested. “Not … I mean, not really.”

“She is here to help us,” Turtle said at the same time. “At least, I think so.”

“You think so?” Peril cried, wounded.

“I mean,” he said anxiously, “I guess I wish you hadn’t burned Winter, is all … ”

“It was an accident!” Peril said. “I was trying to get away from him and we crashed —”

“It looked like a fight from what we saw,” Qibli said accusingly.

“Beware the talons of power and fire,” Moon said softly. “Maybe it is her.”

Peril looked from one face to another, her heart pounding. “What are you talking about?” she said.

“Moon had a vision — a prophecy,” Turtle said.

“About me?” That couldn’t be a good sign. If Moon saw Peril in a vision doing terrible things, then maybe Peril’s bad side really was going to win out in the end. Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe she shouldn’t even try to fight it.

But Clay said … Clay believes in me … he can’t be wrong, can he?

“Not specifically about you,” Moon said. “I couldn’t see any dragon’s faces in the vision. But there was one line at the beginning —”

“Excuse me,” Winter said. “Are we really going to tell the villain everything we know about their evil plan?”

“I don’t have an evil plan!” Peril said, starting to panic. “All my evil is spur-of-the-moment! Turtle, tell them how bad I am at planning.”

“Maybe if she knows about the prophecy, she can do something different,” Moon said. “We can change the future, you know.” She turned to Peril and said, “Listen.

Peril looked from her to the others. Moon’s eyes were glowing as though she was delivering a message from the stars themselves. Her voice got all low and shivery and it was decidedly creepy.

“Well?” Moon asked. “What do you think?”

“You think that first part is about me?” Peril said. Was that what Turtle thought, too? Was he just keeping an eye on her in case she started scorching the ground and knocking over mountains? “I don’t stalk anyone’s dreams. And I’m exactly what I seem like on the outside. Also, sure, I have talons of fire, but no power whatsoever. If I did have any power, my life would be pretty different from what it is now, believe me.”

“Death is a power,” Winter said. “You carry death in your talons.” He lashed his tail, shooting a hard look at Qibli and Moon. “Is this really your new ally? I leave for five days and you start working with a mass murderer?”

“You left pretty firmly,” Qibli pointed out. “You said you weren’t coming back, so why should you get a vote? Also, she just showed up with Turtle.”

“And I can just leave again, too!” Peril cried. It felt as if the thorns were still there, digging under her scales. It felt like another crocodile in the face. If what she had with Turtle was friendship, and this was what came with it, then friends were so not worth it. “I don’t need this! I don’t even want to work with any of you! I can find Scarlet on my own — that’s what I wanted to do in the first place anyway!”

She launched herself into the sky.

“Peril!” Turtle shouted. “Wait!”

That was what she’d wanted him to say, but it wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough even if he could catch up to her — which he couldn’t — and even if he apologized for his awful friends and promised he didn’t think she was some predestined sinister bad guy.

Which he wouldn’t.

Maybe if he told me he’d leave them and just be friends with me …

But he wasn’t going to do that either.

She wasn’t nearly as important to him as his precious winglet.

Well, that was just fine. She’d wasted enough time on him. Now she could get on with finding Queen Scarlet, killing her, and going back to Clay.

Peril set her course for the Claws of the Clouds Mountains, soaring directly over Possibility and beating her wings to fly as fast as she could.

She did not look back to see if Turtle tried to follow her.

Well, maybe once. But he wasn’t, so it didn’t matter.

After some time, though, when Possibility was well in the distance, she became aware of the sound of wingbeats behind her. It seemed highly unlikely that any of those inferiorly winged dragonets could have caught up to her, but she swung around with her dangerous face on just in case.

“Oh!” said the SkyWing behind her, catching air below his wings to stop and hover. And then he smiled. He SMILED. That never happened, not when dragons first met her. WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT?

“What do you want?” Peril demanded. She was pretty sure this was the SkyWing who had flown out of Possibility to meet her, but had run away again once he saw Winter and Foeslayer. Had he been watching for her? Waiting for her to leave them?

“Uh,” he said. “Nothing?”

Peril hovered in the air, scrutinizing him. He was big, a lot older than her, with warm orange scales and amber eyes. No scars that she could see, which was unusual for a full-grown SkyWing under Scarlet’s reign. Huge powerful wings, long horns with faint golden markings on them. He also looked wealthier than the average SkyWing; there were gold rings on three of his claws, a black necklace with gold spikes circled his throat, and an armband wove like a snake all the way up one of his front legs, with tiny rubies glittering like eyes at one end. He also had a kind of black metal sheath fitted tightly across his chest with a padlock on the outside, perhaps containing more treasure.

She was reasonably certain she’d never seen this particular SkyWing before, although it was equally possible she had and just didn’t remember him. Was he one of Queen Scarlet’s generals? Maybe he’d been away overseeing soldiers in the war. But then surely he’d have a war wound or two somewhere.

“You’re Peril,” he said. “Right?”

“You say that like there’s actually a chance I’m someone else,” Peril said.

“Well,” he said, “there’s always a chance. Isn’t there?”

That was a weird thing to say. She tilted her head at him. “I have no idea who you are.”

“My name,” he said importantly, “is Soar.”

“Oh,” Peril said. She thought for a moment. “Really? That’s … unusual.”

“Is it?” he asked, deflating.

“Well, yes,” she said. “Not very, um — aspirational, I guess.”

“But it’s a very SkyWing name, right?” he said.

“Why?” she said. “It’s not like we get more sore than other dragons. It’s probably the other way around, since we’re built for flying longer distances —”

“Wait,” he broke in. “No, no, no. Not SORE. SOAR, S-O-A-R, like flying high over the kingdom. Oh, good grief. Have other dragons been thinking my name is Sore all these years?”

“Probably,” Peril said.

“Why are you the first dragon to say anything?” he demanded.

Peril thought for a moment. “Because I’m not polite,” she said finally. “No one ever taught me to be. I don’t care what dragons think, because they won’t like me even if I say all the right things and bow the right way and smile until my snout hurts, so why should I bother?”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “You can do and say everything exactly the same as everyone else, but if there’s one thing different about you, that’s all they care about.”

“I assume so,” Peril said. “I’ve never actually tried acting like other dragons.”

“Well, it doesn’t work,” he said. Something was glowing in his eyes, an old, old anger. “Trust me. You still end up banished from your own home.”

Peril looked at him in surprise. “You were banished from the Sky Kingdom, too? When? By Ruby or by Scarlet? What for?”

“It’s a long story,” he said. “I’ll tell you all of it someday. But the short answer is — for being myself. Because I had no choice, back then.”

For a moment, Peril wasn’t sure whether he felt familiar because she actually knew him, or because he sounded so much like herself.

“You don’t need those other dragons,” he said. “The ones you were just with. They can’t understand you. But I can help you find what you’re looking for.”

“Oh, really?” Peril said. “Do you even know what that is?”

“I think so,” he said. He flashed around her suddenly, heading for the mountains. “Follow me!”

That wasn’t terribly convincing, but it wasn’t as though Peril had a particularly clear alternate plan anyway.

“I don’t like following anyone!” she called. With a flick of her tail, she spun herself around and caught up to fly beside him. “Hey, why haven’t I ever met you before?”

“An excellent question,” he said. “The only answer I’ve been able to come to is that Queen Scarlet prefers to keep her toys separate from each other.”

“I’m no one’s toy,” Peril hissed, curling her claws in. Why did dragons keep saying that about her and Scarlet? “Anyone who tries to play with me will find that out very fast.”

He tipped his head in a conciliatory way. “My apologies. I confess I don’t see myself that way either. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say Scarlet didn’t want her most powerful friends joining forces against her.”

Peril snorted a laugh, sending a little burst of flames into the sky. “You’re one of her most powerful friends? What can you do? Pay enemy dragons to run away?”

“Well,” he said, “I doubt Scarlet would consider this useful, but among other things, it appears that I can father dragonets with firescales.”

Peril blinked at him. He stared back at her, his amber eyes almost twinkling. He seemed to be waiting for her to collapse in a fit of joy or run around shrieking with delight or something.

“Oh, really?” Peril said. “Do you mean me? Was that your idea of a heartwarming revelation? You’re my father?”

“Yeeees,” he said carefully. “You don’t seem very excited about that.”

“Why should I believe you?” she demanded. “Where have you been my whole life? Why haven’t you ever talked to me before? What are you trying to get out of me now? What made you suddenly decide to say hello?”

“Hey, hey, calm down,” he said.

“Yeah, all right, that certainly sounded patronizing enough to make you my dad,” Peril said. “Do it again. Tell me you know what’s best for me. Say something about how I don’t really understand the world and you’re here to guide me and teach me and help me grow up, because I couldn’t possibly do that on my own.”

“Listen,” he said. “I didn’t know you were alive. I’m usually away doing … things for the queen … so I missed the entire episode where Kestrel tried to escape with you and your brother. By the time I returned, Queen Scarlet told me you were dead. She said none of Kestrel’s dragonets had survived, and that Kestrel had gone to join the Talons of Peace. Everyone was forbidden to speak of Kestrel, and I had no idea … I mean, I knew you existed, the dragonet with firescales, but I didn’t know you were my daughter until a few days ago.”

“Well,” Peril said. “I bet that came as quite a disappointment.”

“Not to me,” he said. “My daughter is powerful and amazing and terrifying. Who wouldn’t be proud of that?”

Peril sort of wished he’d left the terrifying out of that description, but still, it was a weird feeling to be featured in a sentence anywhere near the word “proud.”

“So how did you find out?” she asked.

“A, uh … a friend told me.”

“A friend?” Peril echoed. “He certainly took his time about it.”

“He didn’t know either,” Soar protested. “His name is Cirrus. He’s with the Talons of Peace. And when he told me, I had to — I mean, I immediately came looking for you. If I’d known sooner … ” He trailed off.

“You would have what?” Peril asked. “Saved me from the arena? Told me the truth about the black rocks? Stopped Queen Scarlet from using me? Stopped Ruby from banishing me? Could you actually have been useful ever in my life? I’m guessing no.”

“I could be useful now,” he said. “I can change everything for you.”

“I doubt that,” Peril said. She twisted into a spiral, arrowing for the gap between the first two mountain peaks. The wind buffeted her wings, trying to knock her off course, but she stayed straight and true through the pass, sweeping up into a mossy valley dotted here and there with doomed sheep.

As the sheep stampeded in alarm and Soar caught up to Peril, she spotted movement in a cluster of trees higher up the slope.

Her breath caught in her throat. She knew that color orange, knew it like a bloodbath of fear and awe sweeping through her.

With slow, majestic wingbeats, a glittering dragon rose out of the trees and plunged toward them.

It was Queen Scarlet.

Peril had found her — or she had found Peril — at last.