The world after the storm was dazzling; sunbeams glinted off all the new puddles and the sky felt as though it had just taken a dive in a lake. It seemed as if more dragons were out flying than Peril had seen in ages — everyone wanted to spread their wings in the beautiful air. She saw a lot of SkyWings especially and realized guiltily that they should have let Queen Ruby know the scroll was safe.

Except apparently it wasn’t very safe, after all.

“She wouldn’t,” Winter fretted as they flew south. “She wouldn’t.”

Qibli was silent for once, deep in thought.

“Uh,” Turtle said, “maybe she —”

“I thought we were all going to talk about it!” Winter yelled.

“Maybe she didn’t think you’d be a good listener,” Peril suggested. “I mean, I haven’t known you very long, and even I can already see that.”

“I listen,” Winter growled, “when there is something worth hearing.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s the same thing,” Peril said, shaking her head.

“You can fly faster than us,” Qibli said suddenly. He twisted himself in the air so he could look at Peril. “You can fly faster than her. Maybe you can catch her.”

“Oh, yes,” Peril said. “Probably. You guys are slowpokes. It’s like flying with a trio of banana slugs.”

“So go!” Turtle said wildly. “Fly as fast as you can! Stop her before she sets him free!”

“Um … all right,” Peril said. “Except … how do I do that?”

“Just tell her what a bad idea it is!” Winter said.

“Ah, OK,” Peril said. “So, stop her with … words.”

“Well, right, don’t set her on fire,” Turtle said. “Let’s be clear about that.”

“Are you sure?” Peril said. “It would be very efficient. I bet it would stop her right away. Just a tiny bit of her tail — I’m kidding, I’m kidding!”

She hadn’t exactly been kidding, but she could tell from the expressions on their faces that she’d better act as though she was.

Not that she wanted to use her firescales on Moon, but if the alternative was some big ancient nightmare dragon rising from the earth, then shouldn’t all the options be open?

Qibli looked close to panicked, though, and Winter was giving her the MOST suspicious, untrusting face, and even Turtle looked worried about this plan, so: No. The answer was evidently “let the nightmare dragon escape rather than harming even one of Moon’s scales.”

“If she insists on doing it, tell her at least to wait for us,” Qibli pleaded. “Tell her she shouldn’t release him alone.”

“All right,” Peril said, flicking her wings to rise to a higher updraft. “I’ll try.” But I suspect I might be exactly the wrong dragon for this particular mission.

“She’ll be close to Jade Mountain somewhere!” Qibli called after her. “He must be buried near there if that’s where she could hear him!”

“Got it!” Peril called back.

She was surprised when she hadn’t caught up with Moon by midday. Either the NightWing had a much bigger head start than Peril had guessed, or she flew a lot faster than Peril would have expected.

Peril stopped only once, to drink from a mountain lake, and spent the rest of the day flying as fast as she could. She was exhausted when the first stars of the evening began to emerge and she saw Jade Mountain starting to fill the sky ahead of her.

Clay’s in there, she thought with a thrill of excitement. I could see him tonight. I can tell him everything that’s happened.

But first she had to stop Moon.

Peril slowed down as she got closer to Jade Mountain. She began to scan the peaks around her with her eagle-sharp eyes, looking for unusual movements.

Once she swooped down only to discover an extremely startled moose; the second time, she nearly got a snoutful of porcupine quills.

But on her third try, she found the dragon she was looking for.

Moon wasn’t exactly hiding. She was sitting on a grassy slope on the western side of a mountain not far from Jade Mountain. The sunset cast golden rays over her huddled form and her shadow sloped like a long second tail up the hill behind her.

Peril looped around overhead, studying the ground around Moon until she spotted a boulder where she could safely land. It wobbled slightly as she thumped down, threatening to tumble into the narrow ravine nearby, but she steadied it with her claws.

The NightWing didn’t look up. She was curled over the scroll, reading it so intently that her claws were crushing the binding where she held it.

“Um,” Peril said. “So. Hello. I’ve been instructed not to set you on fire. In case you were worried,” she added hastily.

Moon raised her head and Peril realized that her eyes were full of tears. In fact, her whole face was full of tears; she looked as if she’d been crying for a while.

“Yikes,” Peril said. “I’d offer you a hug, but … ”

“I just wanted to hear him again,” Moon said. “I wanted to tell him we found it — to talk to him and remember why I trusted him. But then I started reading, and he clearly didn’t want me to, and I found this.” She trailed off, touching the scroll with one mournful claw.

Peril tilted her head at the paper. She could see that Moon was on the page where the writing stopped and the rest of the scroll was blank. But she couldn’t read the letters from where she was, and she didn’t dare get any closer.

“What does it say?” Peril asked. When Moon stared into space instead of answering, she added, “Hey, I’m not a mind reader. Different horrible power over here, remember?”

“Stop talking!” Moon said sharply, making Peril jump. “Oh, not you,” she said to Peril. “Him.”

“He’s talking to you right now?” Peril said. “That’s … creepy.”

“He has trouble reading your mind, too,” Moon said. “Although he agrees it’s a lot less infernoesque than it was before you went to the Sky Palace.”

“… Yay?”

“A dragon’s not a thing!” Moon suddenly exploded, talking to the air again. “You shouldn’t be able to enchant someone like that! It’s wrong. Don’t you — no, stop, it doesn’t matter how bad he was. This.” She jabbed the scroll so hard it ripped a little. “This is the cruelest thing I’ve ever read.”

“OK, you really have to tell me now.” Peril was itching with curiosity.

“I am,” Moon said. “I am going to tell her. When you do something this terrible, you kind of cancel out any privacy rights.” She turned to Peril. “Remember how Winter said that Darkstalker killed his father, Prince Arctic?”

“Yeah,” Peril said. “That confused me a bit. Why was his dad an IceWing?”

“Long story, not important,” Moon said. “I mean, except to the IceWings. Anyway, the other rumor I’d heard about Darkstalker was that he did something so awful that it terrified the entire NightWing tribe into abandoning their city and going into hiding, so that he would never find them again if he ever came back. They thought he was gone, maybe dead, but they still uprooted the entire tribe to hide from him, just in case.”

“Yeesh. And I thought my tribe hated me,” Peril tried to joke. She was starting to get a creepy-crawly feeling under her scales. This menacing dragon was buried alive somewhere right below their talons?

“Well,” Moon said, “now I know what it was. Yes, I do. I’m sure. If I saw a dragon do this, I’d go into hiding, too.”

“YES?” Peril said impatiently.

Moon dropped her voice. “He used his magic on his father. He enchanted him, as if Prince Arctic was no more than a necklace or a rock or a piece of cheese.”

“Oooh,” Peril said, momentarily distracted by the idea of an enchanted piece of cheese.

“The spell is right here,” Moon said. She spread her front talons on the scroll, starting to cry again. “ ‘Enchant Arctic the IceWing to obey my every command.’ That’s it. It’s that simple. What did you make him do?” she demanded. “You made him kill himself, didn’t you?”

“Whoa,” Peril said. “Is that possible? That could happen? Could Turtle do that?”

Moon gave a furious shake of her head. There was a long pause, and then she yelped, “Disembowel? Did you seriously just say disembowel?”

“Who disemboweled who?” Peril asked. “Oh, GROSS, did Arctic disembowel himself? That is much worse than anything that happened in the arena. Oh my goodness, Scarlet would have loved to get a self-disemboweling dragon in her arena. She’s dead, by the way, did we mention that?”

But Moon was lying down on top of the scroll now, pressing her talons over her ears with her eyes closed.

Peril wondered if she should try to get Moon away from Darkstalker’s voice, but she couldn’t think of a way to do that without either touching her or throwing rocks at her to get her attention, which seemed a little heartless considering what Moon was going through.

So she decided to watch over her and wait for the others. That seemed like a sensible plan of action.

She glanced around, found a tree that was growing at an angle out of a ravine, and lit its branches on fire. That should help Turtle, Qibli, and Winter find them.

It felt like hours of Moon not moving and Peril sitting there watching her not move. But at last Peril heard wingbeats, and she turned to see the other three dragons straggling up, looking much the worse for wear after flying all day. Turtle in particular looked like the world’s unhappiest squashed frog.

“There she is!” He gasped.

“Moon!” Qibli and Winter cried at the same time.

“And hello to you, too,” Peril said.

The two of them landed and ran over to Moon, but Turtle came over to Peril’s boulder first.

“What happened?” he asked. “Has she —?”

“No, she hasn’t freed him,” Peril said. “I don’t think she’s going to. She’s had some bad news, though, so don’t be a phlegm-snorting ratbreath at her!” she yelled over to Winter.

Qibli crouched beside Moon, covering her gently with one of his wings. “Tell us what happened,” he said. “Is he talking to you right now?”

“Yes, and he won’t shut up,” she said, sitting up and wiping away her tears. “Winter, you were right. We can’t free him.” She passed the scroll to Winter, who let out an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. Qibli breathed out a small flame so they could both read it.

“Whoa,” Qibli said after a moment.

“We absolutely can’t free him if he can control other dragons that way, that easily,” Moon said. “And we can’t free him because he’s the kind of dragon who thought of doing it in the first place.” She listened for a moment. “He says he promises he won’t ever do that again. Darkstalker, how can we trust you? No one could ever stop you, with a power like that. No, stop, I don’t want to see another fairy-tale vision. I’ll have my own visions, thank you very much.”

Winter let his wings drift softly down as though they were heavy weights he could finally drop.

“So what do we do with it?” Qibli asked, taking the scroll from Winter’s claws. He brushed one talon lightly across the blank space. “I was thinking about it today while we flew. We could do a lot of good with this. We could use it to protect our queens. I could enchant something so that Thorn will never die, or make her palace immune to attack. Moon, think about it — we could enchant something to make all the NightWings love Glory. You know how many of them hate her, probably better than anyone because you’ve seen into their minds. But imagine if they all loved her instead? What if she could rule without the threat of assassination hanging over her?”

“She wouldn’t want that,” Moon said. “She wouldn’t want enchanted obedience or fake love.”

“How about fireproof scales, at least?” Qibli said.

Ooooo, Peril thought. We could give all my friends fireproof scales! Which I guess means Turtle. Turtle could be fireproof and safe from me, too!

Qibli went on, holding the scroll closer. “Or something that could warn Glory before someone tries to kill her? Wouldn’t that be a good idea? And then you wouldn’t have to use your own powers to help her … you could do whatever you want with them.”

Moon put her talons to her head. “He really doesn’t love this conversation.”

“If we’re in the business of protecting queens with magic,” Winter growled, “we should include Queen Glacier. She’s a good queen, too.”

“And what about my mom?” Turtle interjected. “Or Queen Ruby, for Peril?”

“But if we enchant all the queens to never die or be magically protected or whatever,” Peril said, “then … won’t we end up stuck with the same queens forever? Wouldn’t that be bad, too?”

“Not in the case of Queen Thorn,” Qibli said stubbornly. “Look, the three of you have these crazy gifts and you’re figuring out how to use them safely, aren’t you?”

“Shush!” Moon whispered, closing her eyes. “I’ve been fine without you!”

Qibli paused with a puzzled expression.

“Not you,” Peril explained. “The crazy dragon in her head.”

“So if I can trust you with your powers,” Qibli said, “couldn’t you trust me to take care of this one? To think carefully about the consequences and only use it for good?”

“You?” Winter snarled. “By yourself? We just let you saunter off with the most powerful talisman in the world? Why should you get it instead of me? Maybe I should take care of it.”

“Or maybe all of us together?” Turtle suggested, but no one was listening anymore.

“You just flew off and abandoned us in Possibility!” Qibli shouted at Winter. “You were really mean to Moon and you haven’t even apologized!”

Winter opened and closed his mouth, looking at Moon with an oddly heartbroken expression.

“So how could we trust you?” Qibli demanded.

“At least I’m a prince and have some experience making decisions to help my tribe!” Winter shouted.

“Oh, awesome logic!” Qibli shouted back. “You’re royalty, so you’ve always had power, so you should get to keep any new power that comes along?”

“Stop fighting!” Moon cried, covering her ears again. “All of you! Darkstalker, stop yelling at me!”

Qibli and Winter were too busy roaring at each other to hear her. Turtle was curled in a ball below Peril’s boulder with his wings around him, looking indecisive and worried.

Fighting over power, Peril thought. Like every dragon ever. But it’s not their power, it’s Darkstalker’s, and they want to use it, the same way Scarlet used mine.

But that scroll is too dangerous to be in this world. Even if a good dragon controlled it … even if it didn’t change that good dragon to have that much power … even if we could somehow guarantee that it would never fall into evil talons … it shouldn’t exist.

Look how good dragons are fighting over it already.

Nobody should be the boss of someone else’s magic.

And nobody else should ever be hurt by that scroll.

Peril sidled to the edge of the boulder, hopped down onto the grass, hurried through the scorched path she made toward the fighting dragons, and paused right behind Qibli.

The SandWing didn’t notice her. He swept his talons wide, shouting something at Winter about being careful.

And Peril reached out and lifted the scroll right out of his claws.

There was a heartbeat of silence as Peril flew back onto the boulder. She sat down and held out her talons, and the other dragons turned around, and they all watched the scroll burn, burn, burn into tiny black ashes.

As the last piece of the scroll flickered out of existence, Peril brushed the ashes off her scales.

“There,” she said. “That solves that problem.”

Now nothing can set the Darkstalker free, and no one can abuse his power.

She looked down and saw Turtle smiling up at her. Moon’s expression was all relief as well, so, despite the shock on Winter and Qibli’s faces, Peril felt a sudden, clear bolt of that was the right thing to do.

For once she was sure, and not because someone else was telling her what the right thing was, but because she could feel it in her own bones.

I did it. I saved the world. And Clay wasn’t even watching.

Even if he never knows about it, I’ll still know I did the right thing.

She lifted her head to the rising moon, taking a deep, tranquil breath.

Wait. Why was the moon wobbling?

It wasn’t the moon. It was the ground. The ground was shaking, harder and harder, an earthquake trembling through all the veins of the mountain. Peril’s boulder toppled into the ravine and she had to leap into the air, pounding her wings to get as far away from the shuddering hillside as possible.

The other dragons threw themselves aloft, too.

“What’s happening?” Turtle yelled. “Is Jade Mountain falling? Is this the prophecy?”

Peril twisted in the air to look toward the academy. Clay.

But Jade Mountain wasn’t moving. Only this mountain was, and in fact, it was doing more than shaking and dropping giant rocks everywhere.

It was splitting apart.

An enormous crack appeared in the earth, and out of the darkness rose the hugest dragon the world had ever seen. Silver scales glittered in the corners of his eyes and along the underside of his black wings. His bones were visible under his skin; he was long and frighteningly thin, with a narrow handsome face, long twisted horns, and eyes as black as underground caverns.

Darkstalker stretched his wings out to their fullest reach, as wide as the mountain itself. He swiveled his neck, expanding in every direction, like a dragon who hadn’t been able to turn or stretch or move in two thousand years.

And then he smiled down at Peril, a smile that was all teeth, somehow menacing and charming at the same time.

“Ah. That’s infinitely better,” he said. “Nice to finally meet you, Peril. Thank you so much for your help.”