Beware the darkness of dragons … beware the stalker of dreams.
A breath of cold air shivered along Turtle’s wings. Was Darkstalker right? Was one of the dangers of the prophecy seething under their noses this whole time?
“I’m not any of that!” Flame snarled. “What does that tripe even mean?”
“You must have stolen this from Starflight on the NightWing island,” Sunny said, pointing to the dreamvisitor. “But how did you hide it all this time? While you were injured and everything?”
“I had help,” spat Flame. “Idiot help, but that’s all I had to work with.”
“He’s thinking about a dragon with a weird name. Ogre? Okra?” mused Mindreader. “Who he also hates, by the way.”
“Stop sticking your snout in my brain,” Flame hissed. “Or I’ll slice it off.”
“I wish I could,” flared Mindreader. “You’re a miserable dragon and your thoughts are like nasty boiling tar.”
“What are we going to do with you?” Sunny asked Flame. “I’ll have to tell Queen Ruby what you did … but until she sends someone for you, it’s not like we have somewhere to lock you up.”
“Really? What kind of respectable school doesn’t have a dungeon?” Darkstalker asked. Fearless and Mindreader turned toward him with wide eyes, and he chuckled. “I’m just kidding. Sunny, I can take care of this for you.”
“How, exactly?” she asked warily.
Darkstalker took Flame’s library card and touched it to one of Flame’s front talons. Instantly it flipped over and outward, transforming into an iron band that clamped around Flame’s forearm. A thick metal chain sprouted from the band like a coiling snake. It plunged into the rock, trapping Flame in place.
Flame roared his fury, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t reach any of the throats he was clawing for.
“There,” Darkstalker said. “He’s not going anywhere now.”
He backed out of the cave. Turtle pressed himself tightly against the wall, closing his eyes, as the mass of ebony scales rippled by. Giant claws scraped the stone perilously close to his own pitifully small webbed talons.
Sunny circled Flame, her expression uncertain, until she noticed that she was leaving tracks of Stonemover’s blood across the floor. With a sigh, she bowed her head and slipped away into the tunnels.
“That was awesome!” Anemone danced out of the cave and spread her wings, looking up at Darkstalker where he stood in the rain. If she noticed Turtle as she went by him, she didn’t acknowledge his presence. “Let’s solve some more mysteries! Catch some more bad guys! Be even more awesome!”
“You should have an early night,” Darkstalker said to her. He swept his wings toward Mindreader and Fearless, who were huddled under the cave overhang looking severely displeased about the weather. “You all should, because tomorrow we’re going to the rainforest, and it’s a long flight. Moon!” he called as she slipped out of the cave. “Come flying with me!”
She hesitated. “Qibli and I told Starflight we’d help him clean up the library and look for more scrolls for you. Maybe later?”
“Of course,” Darkstalker said. “No problem.” He watched her fly away, raindrops slithering down his sides. His expression reminded Turtle of someone, but he couldn’t think who.
“I’ll go flying with you!” Anemone chirped. “I’m way more interesting than Moon and I’m not tired!”
“You will be tomorrow,” Darkstalker said. “And we’re not stopping on the way to the rainforest. Thank you, Princess, but I’ll be fine by myself tonight.” He spread his wings, and Turtle realized who Darkstalker had reminded him of: the soldiers in the garden of the wounded. The ones who couldn’t swim anymore, who’d lost a tail or a limb or a wing and didn’t quite know yet how to go on living without them.
That was the expression he’d glimpsed, very briefly, on Darkstalker’s face.
The enormous NightWing turned and flew away, higher and higher into the gray, glowering clouds until the storm seemed to melt into his scales and swallow him whole.
Turtle thought about following him, but his wings felt coated in thick sand. He hadn’t slept all night, and he’d spent the entire day before flying across the continent as fast as he could. His fear of Darkstalker had kept him awake for most of the day, but now his eyes were desperate for sleep.
He hasn’t done anything terrible yet, he told himself as he flew back to the entrance hall. And I have to sleep sometime. He dragged his tail through the tunnels. I can’t watch him every second of his life forever.
He paused in the doorway to his own sleeping cave.
It was so empty. Like a giant, hollowed-out oyster shell, the walls rose around him, bare and scraped of all life.
In the Kingdom of the Sea, the sons of Queen Coral were almost always together — they shared rooms, classes, prey. They filled the palaces with their wrestling matches and shouting games.
So when one of them did something wrong — and if someone was paying attention to them long enough to notice — their punishment was almost always isolation.
Sometimes it was imposed from above, by someone like their uncle Shark or cousin Moray. Sometimes it came from within, when the brothers banded together to exile one of their own.
Turtle’s punishment for failing his father was chosen and carried out by his own brothers. The older ones caught wind of the news that Gill was furious about something, and they finally pried the whole story out of Octopus and Cerulean. Turtle was shut out completely for a month. Nobody spoke to him. He was left to sleep in an empty room, and his brothers all behaved as though he didn’t exist.
Turtle had felt his sense of dragonhood drifting away, dissolving into the ocean like a mist of ink. If no one could see you, were you real? If no one spoke to you, how long could you go on existing before disappearing completely?
Which was why he’d finally used his magic on them. An enchanted seagull egg, cracked into their fish stew one night, and forgiveness was suddenly his.
But it left him with an unshakeable sense of doubt. Would they ever have forgiven him on their own? Or would he have been alone forever?
He knew he hadn’t earned it, this beguiled friendliness, this false tide of mercy that had washed away his sins.
Empty caves always reminded him of that feeling — first the loneliness, and then the guilt. He’d had trouble sleeping in his school cave ever since his clawmate Umber had run away with Sora. Umber had all the warmth and energy that Turtle didn’t have, and as a MudWing, he needed brothers and sisters around him, too. From the first night, they had dragged their reed mats together and slept back to back, feeling as if the world was really still there as long as there were other scales close by.
Umber had felt like a new brother right away. Turtle missed him.
He glanced along the hall, then slipped quietly down to Qibli and Winter’s room.
It looked a lot bigger without Winter’s scavenger cage taking up half the space. Winter was tinkering with a new wire construction, muttering, while Qibli sat curled on a ledge, surrounded by scrolls, a pensive look in his black eyes.
“Hey,” Turtle said, poking his head inside. “Can I sleep in here tonight?”
Qibli snapped back to the world immediately. “Of course!” He jumped off the ledge and hurried over to Turtle.
“Oh, hello, yes, there is another dragon in here,” Winter observed. “I wonder if HE has an opinion about extra snoring in his sleeping cave.”
“What’s happened?” Qibli asked Turtle, ignoring his clawmate. “What have you seen?”
“Not much,” Turtle said. “Darkstalker’s been really quiet all day. He read a bunch of scrolls, fixed Flame’s face, made talismans to protect his soul and Anemone’s, and then gave powers to the NightWing students. And then Flame tried to kill Stonemover and —”
“Wait, whoa,” said Qibli. “That doesn’t sound like not much. Start from the beginning.”
So Turtle told him and Winter as much as he could about Darkstalker’s activities that day. Both dragons looked horrified when they heard what happened to Stonemover, but Winter seemed even more horrified by the news that Darkstalker was handing out superpowers to the NightWings.
Winter threw his silver-blue wings up in the air. “We only just found out that those powers were fake — and now they’re real again?”
“You don’t have to worry, though,” Turtle reminded him. “You still have the skyfire, so no one can read your mind.”
“I can be a little worried about superstrength,” Winter growled. “And whatever that other one can do.”
“Make bananas,” Qibli filled in. “Absolutely terrifying. Run for your life.”
Winter narrowed his eyes at his clawmate.
“So what is Darkstalker up to?” Qibli said thoughtfully. “What does he want?
“Seems obvious to those of us whose brains work,” Winter snapped at him. “He wants to make friends and help dragons.”
“That is what it looks like,” said Turtle. “It’s really confusing … he’s only done good things all day.”
“As far as we can see,” Qibli pointed out. “We don’t know what he might be doing in secret. That being the entire point of secrecy.”
“Why do you have to be so suspicious?” Winter flared. “Darkstalker is the one who saved Stonemover! He’s a good dragon with a good heart!”
“Also that,” said Qibli. “Does that sound like our Winter at all? Remember yesterday when he was yelling at Moon about how you could never trust Darkstalker? Wouldn’t he normally be more suspicious than anyone else?”
“I’ve changed and grown!” Winter protested. “I’m a much more open-minded dragon since my parents decided to sacrifice my life in exchange for my brother’s place on a wall.”
“I’m sure you are, Winter, but still …” Qibli spread his front talons. “Listen, I’m just picturing myself as Darkstalker, right? So I pop out of a mountain, and yikes, here’s a fierce, smart, excessively shiny IceWing prince with an ego the size of an iceberg and a million potential great futures. I’m pretty sure I’d think, hmm, that dragon could be a serious threat. And then I’d think, first thing I’d better do is neutralize you. I’m just wondering if that’s what he did.”
Winter fluffed his wings as though he wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or offended. “Well, stop wondering. I would know if I was under a spell.”
“Right. Of course,” said Qibli. “With your … magic IceWing brain? How exactly would you know, Lord Genius?”
“I don’t have to stay and listen to this,” Winter said, flouncing out of the cave.
Qibli poked his head out the door to watch until Winter was gone, then came back inside and sat down in front of Turtle with a rueful expression. “I have a really bad feeling that he’s gone to tell Darkstalker about this conversation.”
“He can’t tell him about me, though,” said Turtle. “Or if he does, Darkstalker won’t hear it. My enchantment hides me completely from him.” I hope. I hope I hope I hope. If I did it right. Which seems unlikely, knowing me. Ack.
“That’s clever,” said Qibli. “How did you think of that?”
“I used this brainstorming method called pure terror,” Turtle admitted. “It wasn’t so much clever as deeply cowardly.”
“How does your soul feel?”
“Like it’s still there,” Turtle said with a shrug. He wasn’t going to talk about the flashes of screaming Chameleon in his head. Or the way his heart sped up when he thought about how he’d do the same thing again to anyone else who hurt Kinkajou.
“Would you be willing to do a couple more spells?” Qibli asked. “If I had any powers of my own, I wouldn’t ask …”
“Oh,” said Turtle. “I mean, yes, I suppose so. The problem is I don’t know what. I’ve been thinking about it all day. I should be able to do something useful, shouldn’t I? If I can just figure out the exact right thing. Peril wanted me to kill Darkstalker, but I don’t think that’s possible, and I’m just … not the kind of dragon who kills other dragons. I don’t want to be.”
The flashes again; the enchanted scroll case smashing into Chameleon’s face, the blood flying. The power tingling in Turtle’s claws. The power to punish those who deserved punishing. The power to cause violence with a twitch of one talon.
No. No, no, no, that’s not me.
“Plus what if he actually is good?” he hurried on, pushing the images away. “Winter’s not the only one who thinks so — Peril does and I think Moon does, too. Then it would be really wrong to kill him. So then I wondered if I should do something to protect Anemone from him, right? Just in case? But I don’t want to do anything he might notice. You know? That’s the most important thing. I don’t want him to suspect there’s another animus out here. Just in case he’s evil. I don’t want him to have any clues that I exist.”
He shifted his tail, thinking of all the heroes his mother had ever written about, and how none of them would have ever said anything like that.
“I understand,” said Qibli. He took a deep breath. “This is something small. I was hoping you could tell me if there’s a spell on me.”
“On you?” Turtle said, startled.
“Remember that little fight I just had with Winter?” Qibli said wryly. “Applies to me, too. The thing that bothers me is, I like Darkstalker. He’s funny and charming and he does seem helpful and he acts like I’m an important, valuable dragon. Why aren’t I more suspicious? I can think logically of all these doubts and worries, but none of them seem to change the way I feel. And that makes me crazy, because I’ve always trusted my mind to figure things out for me when my gut is wrong.”
“All right,” said Turtle. “But the spell might not be on you. It might be on something else, like the earring Darkstalker is wearing, and it might apply to everyone around him.”
Qibli frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.” He tapped his claws. “Then what else can we do? Could you —” He hesitated. “You probably wouldn’t want to do this.”
“What?”
Qibli traced a crack in the cave wall with one of his claws. “Could … could you turn me into an animus dragon, too?”
Turtle’s stomach gave a guilty lurch. “I shouldn’t,” he said. “You wouldn’t want that. You think you do, but you really don’t.”
“I’d be careful,” Qibli insisted. “I’d protect my soul first thing, I promise. For my very first spell, I’d enchant something to make sure my soul was always good, or that I always made the kind and right choice that helped the most dragons. Doesn’t that make sense?” He looked down at his claws. “That’s what I would have done with Darkstalker’s scroll, too. In case you were wondering.”
Turtle remembered the fight Winter and Qibli had had, over who could keep Darkstalker’s scroll and use it for themselves. It had scared him — but not as much as Darkstalker did. What would the world look like if either Winter or Qibli now had all this power instead?
“I believe you,” he said, “but I still don’t think it’s a good idea.” Making him an animus would put Qibli in danger in too many ways. Turtle would always feel responsible for whatever happened to him.
“Sure, that’s all right,” Qibli said quickly. “Sorry I asked. I’d probably feel weird about making more animus dragons if I were one, too.”
“It’s not —” Turtle started. “I mean, it’s not you. I’m not trying to —”
“Don’t worry about it,” Qibli said, fiddling with his earring. “Maybe something else would make more sense anyway. Can you make me immune to animus spells?”
It was strange to be discussing his power openly with another dragon. Strange to be taking someone’s advice, and to know that the other dragon would never be able to stop wanting things from him, even if it was a friend like Qibli.
“All animus spells?” asked Turtle. “Are you sure? I mean, some spells are good, aren’t they? Like my healing rock, or the dreamvisitors — being immune means those wouldn’t work on you anymore. And if you’re completely immune, then an animus couldn’t even change you back if you changed your mind.”
“That’s true,” said Qibli. “What if you just made me immune to Darkstalker’s spells, then?”
“Don’t you think he’d notice?” Turtle fretted. “If he suddenly couldn’t control you, or he tried to cast a spell and you didn’t react … he’d get really suspicious, wouldn’t he?”
“I’ll take that risk,” Qibli said. He tapped his claws against the floor in a nervous drumbeat rhythm. “As long as he can’t use magic against me, I can handle anything else he does.”
“Oh,” Turtle said, feeling like even more of an inchworm. “I meant — yes, of course, suspicious of you, too, but then he’d know it’s a spell, and that could lead him to me. Which … I guess I’m not sure I can handle anything else he does.”
Qibli picked up a scroll that had rolled across the cavern and tucked it back into one of the racks by the door. “You are some kind of worrying expert, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Turtle said, his wings drooping. “I’m sorry. I like to think through everything as much as possible before making any big decisions.”
“That’s all right,” Qibli reassured him. “It’s smart. As long as you can also make decisions even when there’s not enough time to think about them.”
Turtle didn’t like that idea. It gave him a scrunching feeling in his chest.
“Listen, Turtle, it’s your magic. You’re the boss of whether you want to use it. But I look at Winter and I think, that is NOT the normal behavior of Her Majesty Queen Glacier’s nephew. And then I think, what about me? What if I’m acting like a hallucinating sunbaked lizard and I have no idea?”
“You seem normal to me,” Turtle said. “Does that help?”
Qibli shrugged and turned away, rolling up another scroll. “I need to know my mind is my own. That’s all. It’s all I have. No superpowers, no firescales, no royal family. Just me and my brain, if it’s working.”
I am the lowest of cowards. How can I say no to the one dragon who’s still willing to think twice about Darkstalker? To my friend, who needs protection?
“I’ll do it,” Turtle said. “Of course I will. Immune to Darkstalker’s spells — that’s what you want?”
“Really?” Qibli said, his face alight. “Yes! That would be amazing. Here, enchant my earring.” He took it off and dropped the small gold and amber earring into Turtle’s palm. “Do you know what you’re going to say? Want me to write down some ideas?” He seized a scroll and a pot of ink before Turtle could answer and started scribbling on a blank corner.
“If this works,” he went on, “we could do a spell like this for Winter, too, couldn’t we?”
“Sure,” Turtle said uncomfortably. Here I go again. Helping my friends, which could mean getting noticed, which will surely lead to getting caught and slowly dismembered by a giant nightmare dragon from the past.
There weren’t any stories in the scrolls like this. He didn’t know quite what role Qibli saw Turtle playing. Helpful wizard? Those often died by the end, too. Or maybe in Qibli’s story, Turtle was the enchanted fish who granted three wishes if you caught him. You’ve got two left, Qibli, Turtle thought wryly. Then I think I turn your nose into a sausage and escape back into the sea.
“Wait,” Qibli said, lifting his ink-stained claw from the scroll. “Have you made something to protect your soul yet?”
“Um … no,” Turtle said. “I mean, I think it’s fine.”
“You should do that first,” Qibli said. He started absentmindedly drawing a series of concentric circles around the words he’d written on the scroll. “Something like what Darkstalker and Anemone have. That’s more important than this.”
“Let’s do this first,” Turtle said, reaching for the scroll. “Since it’s all ready to go. It could take me all night to decide how to do the soul spell.” He tried to return Qibli’s grin.
“If you’re sure …” Qibli said. “And you’re feeling totally nonviolent …”
Turtle read the words carefully a few times, then focused on the small amber teardrop in his palm, glowing like sunlight against the dark green. “Enchant this earring to make the wearer immune to any spell Darkstalker has cast or will cast, whether past, present or future.”
Qibli inspected the earring like a poorly drawn map, then picked it up between two claws to squint at it. “I thought it would get all sparkly or something,” he said.
“See if it makes you feel any different,” Turtle suggested.
The SandWing slipped it back through the hole in his ear and blinked a few times. “Huh,” he said. “I think so.”
“You think so?” Turtle echoed, somewhat disappointed. If he was going to use his magic, he wanted it to make a big obvious cool helpful difference.
Qibli started pacing, tipping his head from side to side as though he was resettling everything inside his skull. “Let’s see. I still think Darkstalker is funny and charming. But I definitely feel more anxious about that. There was this calm trusting feeling I had before, and that’s vanished.”
“Could be a coincidence,” Turtle observed. “Like, all psychological.”
“No.” Qibli stopped in front of him and met Turtle’s eyes. “I feel like my mind and my instincts are linked up again. Which is really important to me. Thank you.”
“Hmm,” Turtle said. This didn’t seem like a particularly useful use of his magic, honestly. He guessed Qibli hadn’t been under a spell at all. Darkstalker was charming and convincing enough to win everyone over without magic.
“I can help you figure out your soul spell!” Qibli offered. “I know how I’d phrase mine, if I could protect my soul with magic.”
“You’ve thought about it that much?” asked Turtle. “When have you ever had to worry about your soul? Aren’t you one of those naturally heroic dragons?”
Qibli let out a startled laugh. “No way,” he said. “I grew up in the Scorpion Den, remember? I was stealing before I could fly. My mother was an assassin who tried to teach me garroting and poisons instead of reading and writing. I’ve done lots of bad things, and the problem is, I know I’d do more if it was for — for, um, Queen Thorn.”
“I guess I could make you a soul spell, too,” Turtle offered, trying to hide his reluctance. What was wrong with him? Darkstalker was giving out powers all over the place, helping other dragons he barely knew. Why couldn’t Turtle be equally willing to share with his closest friends?
Was it just that he was afraid of being exposed? Or was he worried about how the magic might affect his friends?
“Thanks,” Qibli said, pinning down the scroll he’d been writing on. “But let’s make sure yours is safe first.”
Maybe that’s it, Turtle thought anxiously. Maybe my soul isn’t as fine as I think it is. Maybe using my magic has made me selfish and a terrible friend.
Qibli blew a small flame on the corner where he’d written the first spell. As it burned away, he checked the other side of the scroll and made a face.
“I probably shouldn’t have used my history reading for this,” he said. “Well, too late now! It was really boring anyway. All right, one soul spell, coming right —”
A sudden thud from above shook the caves. Qibli and Turtle looked up, then at each other as more thuds followed, and then the scraping of scales and claws against rock echoed down the tunnels.
“What is —” Qibli started toward the door, but before he could get there, black scales blotted out the fire globes and Darkstalker was squeezing his head and shoulders through the narrow space to peer into Qibli’s room.
Turtle scrambled to the back wall, as far away as he could get. Why is he here? WHY IS HE HERE? It took all his willpower not to close his eyes and curl up completely. He stood perfectly still as Darkstalker’s sharp gaze scoured the cave.
“That looks uncomfortable,” Qibli said to Darkstalker in a friendly voice. “I can’t believe you squashed yourself into our tunnels.”
“Not a problem,” Darkstalker said, a bit breathlessly. “I’m surprisingly squishy.” He grinned at Qibli, but there was something a little forced about his smile. “This is your cave? I thought it might be Anemone’s. What were you just doing in here?”
“Looking at scrolls,” Qibli said, waving at the ripples of paper that covered his sleeping ledge. “Trying to figure out if I should bother studying. Accidentally setting history on fire. The usual.” He waved at the thin trail of smoke that was still rising from the scroll on the floor.
Darkstalker studied each outcropping, each shadow with such slicing intensity that Turtle was sure he’d be seen, and not just seen, but peeled and flayed from horns to tail by those searching eyes.
“Is something wrong?” Qibli asked.
“Was Anemone in here a moment ago?” Darkstalker asked.
“No,” Qibli said cautiously. “I haven’t seen her.”
“Are you sure?” Darkstalker demanded. “Or maybe passing by? She might have been talking to herself or doing something unusual?”
A lightning bolt of fear scorched through Turtle’s body.
The spell on Qibli’s earring. Darkstalker showing up only moments later, asking about Anemone.
He was looking for the source of a spell. Somehow he knew magic had happened here, and he came immediately to find out what Anemone was up to.
Darkstalker’s given himself the power to sense animus magic.