Everything came rushing back.

Clay Clay Clay Clay, Peril’s heart sang. How could she have forgotten about him? How could any spell do that?

She looked around at the circle of watching SkyWings, orange and red heads peering over the balconies and wingbeats bringing in more — Ruby and Cliff trapped under Scarlet’s claws — the guards watching her warily …

Is this what I become without him? I go right back to being a monster?

She held out her talons. Wisps of smoke were starting to rise from them again.

The firescales aren’t what make me dangerous. Even without them, I was as bad as ever, because I was willing to follow her.

Peril lowered her claws and advanced on Scarlet.

“You stay away from me,” Scarlet hissed. “Get back. Do you hear me? I’m your queen, remember? You are my champion. You do what I tell you to do.”

“Not anymore,” Peril said. She reached toward the scarred ex-queen and Scarlet leaped off Ruby with a shriek. Her orange wings flailed in the air as she backed away from Peril.

“Have you ever wondered what it felt like?” Peril said. “What you made me do to all those dragons? Because it’s over now. You are the last dragon I will ever kill.”

“Wait,” Ruby said suddenly. “Peril, stop.”

Stop? Scarlet was so close … and Peril finally had the courage to do what she should have done a long time ago … and this was the right moment, with everyone watching to cheer her on …

But Ruby was her new queen, and if Peril wanted to prove she could be trusted — if she could ever be trusted again — she should start by listening to her.

She stopped, keeping her wings spread so Scarlet couldn’t escape. “Yes, Your Majesty?” she said to Ruby.

There was a stunned little pause, dappled with growls and hisses from Scarlet, and then Ruby collected herself.

“Don’t kill her,” Ruby said. “You shouldn’t have to. This is my fight.” She gently moved Cliff behind her, tucking him back against the wall, and then stood up tall. “Queen Scarlet of the SkyWings, I hereby challenge you to a duel for throne and kingdom.”

A gasp scattered around the hall like leaves in a windstorm.

“You don’t have to do that,” said one of the nearby guards, very bravely, Peril thought. It meant he’d be the first one in flames if Scarlet ended up winning. “You are the queen we want, Queen Ruby. Just order us to kill her for you.”

“Or me,” Peril offered. “Order me to do it.”

Ruby shook her head. “I want to take my throne the right way, the way I should have done before if I hadn’t been such a coward. I’m going to follow SkyWing tradition, and when I win, no one will be able to question my position anymore.”

Scarlet chuckled, smoke billowing from her snout. “When you win? How thrillingly hilarious. After all the challengers I’ve killed, you think you stand any chance at all? My mousy daughter who can barely speak in a room with more than two other dragons in it.”

“Let’s find out,” Ruby said, flexing her claws. “Maybe I’m not who you think I am.”

Queen Scarlet started to laugh. She laughed and laughed so much that Peril was extremely tempted to set her on fire just to shut her up.

“Very well,” she cried finally. “I accept your challenge. Come at me, daughter.”

Peril stepped aside so the two dragons could face each other. Ruby met Peril’s eyes, and something entirely new passed between them.

“I’ll protect Cliff,” Peril said to her. “No matter what happens.”

“Thank you,” said Ruby. That was all she needed to say. That was more, Peril suspected, than Scarlet had ever said to either of them.

“To the arena, then,” Scarlet growled.

Ruby shook her head. “It’s full of wounded soldiers and healing supplies. Choose somewhere else.”

Scarlet looked momentarily unsettled, but recovered quickly. She glanced around at the gathering crowd, and Peril wondered if she’d choose to fight right here in the Great Hall. And then maybe Ruby could accidentally throw her right into me and I could accidentally catch her and WHOOSH no more Scarlet …

Perhaps the same thought occurred to Scarlet, because she nodded at the open roof and said, “Up there.”

The two SkyWing queens took off first, soaring toward the sky, and then what seemed to be the entire palace lifted off to follow them, dragons jostling for airspace as they competed for a ringside seat at the fight.

Peril couldn’t fly through a crowd like that, not without seriously hurting someone. She backed up against the wall next to Cliff.

“Hello,” he said. “I think today I’m-a be a warrior champion and go swish! swish! with my claws and ROARGH with my mouth and save Mommy.”

“Maybe we should stay down here,” Peril said. She didn’t want poor little Cliff to have to watch his mother die, if everything went wrong and Ruby lost. It probably wouldn’t be the greatest feeling to watch his mother kill his grandmother either, even though he had experienced Scarlet’s evil firsthand.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Cliff shrieked at her, making her jump. “I want to SEE IT!”

“Three moons, calm down,” Peril said. “I just don’t want you to get upset and fights can be very, um … upsetting.”

“I WON’T get upset!” Cliff shouted. “I want! to SEE! MOMMY KILL GRANDMA!”

Peril had to stifle a giggle. “All right, you bloodthirsty little barbarian,” she said. “Let’s wait until there’s space and up we’ll go.”

He gave her a sideways look. “You different now?”

“Yes,” Peril said. “I’m better now.”

“Not a bad guy?” he said.

“Well … I hope I’m not a bad guy,” Peril said. “I was under a spell before.”

“Hmmm,” said Cliff. “A spell?” He scampered over and picked up the necklace. “From this?”

“Right,” Peril said. She took the necklace and clasped it between her claws, letting it melt into a blackened hunk of metal. “I wasn’t thinking for myself. I was thinking what someone else wanted me to think. But I’m all right now.” She hesitated. Now that I’m thinking what Clay wants me to think?

What if he really was gone from my life? What would I be like then?

Which reminded her … she turned to scan the hall, but Chameleon had flown off along with everyone else.

There seemed to be a clear enough path to the roof now. “We can go up,” Peril said. “Stay close to me, but don’t touch me.”

“Why not?” Cliff asked, immediately reaching for her tail.

She flicked it out of his reach. “Because I’m very hot and you’ll get burned.”

“Oh,” he scoffed. “I’m not afraid of me burned.”

“I am,” Peril said. “Be careful — and don’t get close to Mommy either. She’s very busy right now, so you need to leave her alone.”

“Until she WINS!” Cliff sang, vaulting into the air.

If she wins, Peril thought as they flew up and out into the driving rain. What happens to Cliff if she doesn’t?

The roof of the keep let out onto a rocky mountaintop with dizzying views of peaks all around them. Small tufts of fierce little scrub brushes clung to the dirt here and there, but mostly it was all rocks — long overlapping shelves of gray rock and lumps of boulders like giant stone eggs.

Scarlet and Ruby were grappling in the center of a crowd of dragons; some were standing on the rocks and many were hovering in the air so they could watch but also make a quick escape if necessary.

The Sky Kingdom is going to be a mess if Scarlet wins, Peril thought. She’s going to want to kill at least half the dragons here for disloyalty.

Cliff wobbled over to a boulder that was taller than the others, with a view of the battlefield. The dragons on it saw him and Peril coming and cleared off quickly.

As her talons landed on the slippery wet rock, Peril could see that already the battle was not going well for Ruby. A long slash down her neck and another across her back were bleeding, turning the puddles thick and red around her talons.

The venom-scarred side of Scarlet’s face always looked as if it were melting, but the rain slithering off it now made it even worse. The triumphant leer didn’t help either; she looked absolutely terrifying and a little bit insane.

Scarlet whirled around and cracked her tail across Ruby’s snout. Ruby let out a yelp of pain and jumped back, blinking blood and rain out of her eyes. She tried slashing at Scarlet’s nearest wing but missed, stumbling on the slick rocks.

Cliff edged a little closer to Peril’s heat. “Mommy?” he whispered.

This poor little dragonet. What do I do if Ruby loses?

Maybe THEN I can kill Scarlet myself. I doubt anyone would try to stop me.

But then there’d be no one left to be queen of the SkyWings, since Scarlet brilliantly disposed of all her heirs.

A jolt ran through her. What about Tourmaline? If Scarlet was telling the truth, Tourmaline was still alive somewhere. And a backup heir would probably be fairly useful right about now.

Where could Tourmaline be? Ruby would know if her sister were in any of the usual SkyWing prisons …

But Peril already knew; she could have guessed from the moment she ripped off the necklace. Nobody knew where Tourmaline was, because Tourmaline wasn’t herself anymore. Like Peril, she must have been enchanted by Chameleon. She could be anybody now.

Which meant that only Chameleon and Scarlet would be able to identify her.

Peril narrowed her eyes, searching the audience of SkyWings. One thing about Chameleon’s disguise as Soar: he blended right in to the rest of the tribe. It took her several minutes to spot him, and then she only did because she caught his eyes watching her instead of the fight.

She pointed at him, and then at the rock beside her. Come here. Right. Now.

He wavered for a moment, then flapped down to land, she noticed, in a way that kept Cliff between him and her. Oh, very brave, Father. Hiding behind a dragonet: classy.

“I was thinking,” he said quickly, before she could speak. “Perhaps we should try a different enchantment. Maybe you don’t even want to be a SkyWing anymore. We could both be MudWings! In fact, I could do that right now and we could fly away from here together; what do you think? I hear the Mud Kingdom is … tolerable. We could start a new life together. Very far away from whoever wins this fight.”

“I don’t want a new life,” Peril said, bristling. “I want my own life, with all my memories intact, thank you very much.”

“You could word the enchantment yourself,” he said desperately, or slyly: Peril wasn’t sure. She found him hard to read even when he wasn’t drowned out by thunder and rain. “We could —”

“No,” Peril said. “I’m never letting you change me again. I can’t trust you.”

He wilted a little, but she was pretty far from feeling sorry for him.

“Now tell me what you did to Tourmaline,” she added.

“Me?” he said. “Tourmaline? I don’t — I can’t even — was there — who’s that?”

“Very amusing,” she said. “Almost as amusing as your ears on fire would be.”

“All right, all right, yes, I changed her,” he said. “She was getting too ambitious. Scarlet wanted her out of the way but not dead. She couldn’t get rid of all her heirs. A kingdom without any heirs is in perpetual danger … I think all the queens learned that from what happened to the MudWings a couple of centuries ago. So Tourmaline is still available if Scarlet ever needs her. She just doesn’t know it herself.”

He trailed off, regarding the battling dragons and rubbing his snout worriedly.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Peril burst out. “You can’t just take away a dragon’s memory! Turn them into someone completely new! That’s horrible!”

“I thought becoming someone completely new was exactly what you wanted,” he said, ruffled. “I like being different dragons.”

“Yes, but you still have your memory when you do that,” Peril said. “You know who you are underneath. Tourmaline, I assume, does not.”

“True,” he said. “But she was safer that way. Otherwise she would have challenged Scarlet and wound up dead before she turned eleven.”

Peril shook her head, scattering the cloud of steam that was forming around her as raindrops hit her fiery scales. “You’re like eighteen thousand different kinds of untrustworthy. Are you even really my father?”

“Yes,” he said firmly. “Kestrel didn’t know who I was — she thought I was assigned to partner with her — but I knew her. I am unquestionably your father.”

“Wonderful,” Peril said. “Such fantastic news. So where is Tourmaline? Is she here now?”

He hesitated, and then nodded.

At the same moment, Ruby let out another cry of pain as Scarlet slammed into her chest, knocking her off her feet. Lightning cracked the sky in half above the fighting dragons, illuminating Scarlet’s gloating face as she advanced on her daughter.

“Why isn’t Mommy fighting better?” Cliff cried.

Peril looked down at Cliff’s anguished face.

“You know what,” she said to Chameleon. “Fine. Keep your secret. It doesn’t matter who Tourmaline is, because Ruby has to win this fight.” For the entire SkyWing tribe, but mostly for Cliff.

“Oh,” Chameleon said. “She can’t.”

Peril stared at him. “Yes she can. Of course she can. What are you talking about?”

“Uh — nothing,” he said. “You’re right, of course she can.”

“Did you do something?” Peril asked. “Did you do something to Ruby like you did to me?”

Below them, Ruby leaped up and sliced one claw across Scarlet’s throat, but Scarlet caught her arm and kicked Ruby back into a boulder. Ruby struggled back to her feet, her wings drooping and heavy with rain.

“Well … ” he said. “Even if I did, it’s not working anyway. This shouldn’t be able to happen at all. So really, anything could happen next. It’s basically like I didn’t do anything.”

“What did you do?” Peril’s wings flared open, scattering warm raindrops all over Cliff. Nightmare possibilities were flashing through her head. He could have done anything to Ruby with that scroll. He could have enchanted her to fall asleep whenever Scarlet hit her. He could have enchanted her to go blind whenever she tried to hit Scarlet. He could have enchanted her to lose any challenge battle with Scarlet.

But he’d need a thing to enchant — that’s how animus magic works, Peril remembered. Something with room for a piece of scroll inside.

She stared wildly down at the battling queens, trying to spot something on Ruby that might be hiding an animus-touched scrap of scroll.

There.

Ruby had one small earring that she always seemed to be wearing — Peril had never seen her without it. A teardrop-shaped pendant hung from it, studded with rubies, and just big enough to open and fit a piece of paper inside.

“Wait here,” Peril said to Cliff.

“But —” he protested as she lifted off. “But you said not to interrupt Mommy!”

Peril dove at the wrestling SkyWings just as Scarlet was about to stamp her talons down on Ruby’s face. But she must have heard something over the wind and thunder, because she looked up at the last moment, saw Peril hurtling toward them, and leaped backward instead.

Ruby scrambled up and turned to look at Peril, too. “Don’t interfere!” she gasped, her heaving sides slick with blood and rain. “I have to win this myself.”

Peril skidded to a stop in front of her. “I know — but it’s not a fair fight right now. Don’t move.” She reached out and crushed the dangling earring pendant between two of her claws.

The metal exterior melted first, caving in, and Peril caught a glimpse of something white inside before it crumbled into black ash, and then the whole pendant dropped to the ground.

“Why did you do that?” Ruby cried. “That was a present from my sist — from — I have a —” She stopped, her talons moving slowly to her head as if a glacier were trying to climb out her eye sockets.

Ruby’s dark red scales glimmered once, twice, and then faded softly into dark orange instead. Her horns curved inward and her snout lengthened slightly, and her whole body seemed to get thicker and stronger. Not only that, but all her wounds vanished.

“What in the sun … ” Ruby trailed off, blinking at her newly sharp talons.

Peril was surprised, too. She hadn’t expected Ruby to be something different underneath.

“I’m s-sorry,” she stammered. “You were under a spell, too. All I know is that it was enchanted to stop you from winning this battle and I — I thought that wasn’t fair.”

“Tourmaline?” Vermilion said, stepping out of the crowd of gawking SkyWings. “But — aren’t you dead?”

“Not yet,” said Scarlet. “But she will be soon.” She shot a glare at Peril.

“This is Tourmaline?” Peril cried.

“But if I’m Tourmaline,” said the transformed queen, “then where … or who … is Ruby?”