If Darkstalker can tell when an animus casts a spell, Turtle realized, his heart floundering wildly around in his chest, then I can never use my magic again.

Turtle couldn’t tell from Qibli’s expression whether he’d figured it out as well. But then Qibli said, “Oh, Anemone — yeah, she might have gone by a little while ago. I’m not totally sure,” and Turtle knew that he must have made the same connections.

“Interesting,” Darkstalker mused. “If you see her, please tell her I wish to speak with her as soon as possible.”

“Sure,” said Qibli. “You bet. I’ll do that.”

Darkstalker gave him another appraising look. “Qibli,” he said, “please order that scroll to roll itself up.”

Qibli laughed. “Don’t you think I’ve spent my whole life hoping magic would suddenly pop out of my claws?” he said. “Hey, scroll, roll yourself up.” The scroll lay there, inert and uninteresting. Qibli shrugged at Darkstalker. “Disappointed again.”

“I think that’s for the best,” Darkstalker said, smiling at him a bit more genuinely. “With your mind, you’d be a very formidable animus.” He backed out of the cave. “See you in the morning.”

“You too,” Qibli answered. Darkstalker disappeared down the hall, with the sound of scraping scales jittering through the walls behind him.

“He knew,” Turtle whispered — not because Darkstalker might hear him, but because his voice didn’t quite seem to be working the way it should. “He knows when someone is using animus magic. He must have enchanted something to warn him.”

Qibli waited until the vibrations of Darkstalker’s passage had faded away. “Lucky you cast your hiding spell before he did that.”

“Yes,” Turtle said fervently.

“You’re also lucky he didn’t cast the enchantment to tell him exactly what the spell was,” Qibli mused. “That’s what I would have done. But he didn’t act like he knew what we did.”

Turtle couldn’t speak for a moment, he was so appalled. He’d come so close to getting caught! In a way he hadn’t even imagined worrying about! What other spells did Darkstalker have in place that might tangle him up?

“Now I can’t use my magic anymore!” he finally managed to say. “Or else he’ll figure out I’m out here, hiding from him.”

“His spell seems to be location-based,” Qibli pointed out. “Maybe if you were standing near Anemone or Stonemover when you cast it, he’d think it came from one of them.”

“Maybe, but then wouldn’t he ask them what spell they just cast? And if they say they didn’t use their magic, what then? Would he think they’re lying? I don’t want him to think Anemone is secretly using her magic, maybe against him.” He worried the edge of a wing between his claws. “I don’t want to get her in trouble. I don’t want him to blame her for what I’m doing.”

“That’s true,” said Qibli. “Yeah, that could be bad.”

“Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh,” Turtle groaned, lying down and covering his head with his wings.

“Look, I know it’s terrible, but it’s smart, too,” said Qibli. “If you got trapped underground by an animus spell, wouldn’t you want to keep a pretty close eye on any new spells after you got out? He’s not going to let himself be fooled again. I’m sorry you didn’t get to cast a spell to protect your soul, though.”

“I’m going home,” Turtle said, leaping up and whirling toward the door. “I’m going back to the Kingdom of the Sea to hide in the Deep Palace. He can’t follow me there. Unless he can! He could enchant something to let him breathe underwater. Or something to make the entire ocean evaporate! HE COULD DO ANYTHING.”

“Moons above, stop panicking!” Qibli jumped in Turtle’s way. “It’s not the end of the world. This doesn’t prove he’s evil. All we know for sure is he’s protecting himself. So we keep watching him like you have been.”

“I can’t,” Turtle said. “He’s going to the rainforest tomorrow with the other NightWings.”

“All the NightWings?” Qibli asked. “Including Moon?”

“I don’t know,” Turtle answered. “I think so.”

Qibli thought for a moment, drumming his claws again. “I don’t have a good excuse to go along with them,” he said. “It’ll have to be you.”

“Me?” Turtle said, startled. “You mean follow him to the rainforest?”

“So we can see what he does next,” Qibli said. “I can watch things here — you know, keep an eye out for any thunder and ice coming to destroy the school. Then we’ll report back to each other and see what we think. If only we had a dreamvisitor, too, so we can send each other messages … maybe Sunny would let me use hers …”

Oh, Turtle realized. I’m not his enchanted fish. He thinks we’re in some kind of detective team story. Solving crimes together; investigating strange behavior. Or maybe I’m his sidekick. But the sidekick doesn’t get sent on the crazy dangerous mission alone, does he?

He was dangerously tempted by this vision. In detective stories, it was all right for one of the partners to be incompetent and unreliable, because the other one would make up for it. In that kind of story, Turtle’s character wouldn’t have to make all the decisions. No one would be waiting for him to save the day.

That was the kind of story he might actually survive.

“I might have something we could use,” he said hesitantly.

He checked and triple-checked that Darkstalker was long gone from the hallways, then led Qibli back to his own lonely cave. Tucked under his woven-reed sleeping mat was the small satchel of belongings he’d brought to the school — a significantly lighter burden than Anemone’s sparkle extravaganza.

Turtle tugged it out and shook the contents onto the floor.

A broken piece of coral. A pair of small, cracked writing slates with a slate pencil. Three pieces of curved wood that slotted together to form a weathered, food-stained bowl.

Qibli regarded the tiny pile with an extremely polite expression. “Well,” he said. “Honestly, I’ve seen weirder treasure in the Scorpion Den.”

Turtle checked the corridor again. “These are the things I’ve animus-touched,” he whispered.

“Oh,” Qibli said, his eyes alight. “What do they do? Protect your loved ones from harm? Smite your enemies? Make everybody love you?”

“Er … no,” Turtle said awkwardly. He touched the coral. “This one helps me find things I’ve lost.” He assembled the bowl and tipped it toward Qibli. “This doubles the amount of food you put in it — I just drop it in and say ‘twice as much, please!’ Then instead of two mussels, I’d have four, or instead of a ladleful of clam soup, I’d have twice that amount — that kind of thing.”

Qibli tipped his head to the side. “Aren’t you a prince? I thought that meant you’d have plenty of food.”

“Well … yes,” Turtle admitted. “But I was still competing with all my brothers for it. And I’d get hungry between meals and wouldn’t feel like hunting. You know?”

“All right,” said Qibli. “What about those?”

The slates clattered like falling seashells as Turtle picked them up and passed one to Qibli. “With these, if you write a note on one, it’ll appear on the other.”

He took the pencil and wrote “Hi Qibli” on the smaller slate. The message appeared simultaneously in his looping, scraggly handwriting on the other slate. When Turtle erased his slate, the message stayed in place on Qibli’s.

Qibli turned his slate over in his talons, as though he were hoping to discover a better spell on the other side. “Huh,” he said.

“So we can use these to communicate, I think,” Turtle said. “I’ve never used it across a really big distance before. Oh, and it only works one way. But at least I can send you panicked ‘help, he’s got maaaaarggghh’ messages.”

“It only works one way?” Qibli echoed. His face seemed to be struggling with the concept of a world in which amazing magic could be given to a dragon like Turtle instead of him.

“Well,” said Turtle, “yeah. I mean, I never thought I’d use it with anyone else.”

Qibli, to his credit, managed to restrain his reaction to a slow blink. “Then … what in the world did you use this for?”

“It’s a little embarrassing,” Turtle admitted.

More embarrassing than a bowl that doubles your royal meals? said Qibli’s expression.

“I used to think I wanted to be a writer,” Turtle said. “So sometimes when I was out hunting or training or whatever, I’d have a great idea or think of how I wanted to phrase something, but I’d always forget it by the time I got home. With these, I could take notes on the slate I carried with me, then erase it quick before my brothers saw it — but the notes would be there waiting on the other slate once I got home.”

“I see,” Qibli said, finally looking sympathetic. “I had siblings who picked on me, too. A writer! So fancyscales.”

“Oh, I gave that up a long time ago.” Turtle shook his head. “I wasn’t any good anyway.” He nudged the other items. “I keep these kind of for sentimental value. I don’t use them very much, since I don’t want anyone to notice me using them.”

“Sure,” Qibli said. He tipped his slate up to the light. “But this is a great idea. I’ll hang on to this one, and you can send me notes on what Darkstalker is doing. Or anytime you need me. Or if Moon needs me. Or anyone, I mean, hypothetically Moon, but anyone. I’ll come flying, all right?”

Turtle nodded. It made him a little nervous to let half of one of his animus-touched objects out of his sight — what if it fell into the wrong claws? On the other talon, it was reassuring to have someone he could call for help.

I guess I just agreed to follow Darkstalker to the rainforest, he realized.

A clatter of talons came from the hallway, followed by a whooshing sound, a yelp of fury, and the distinct smell of something burning.

“Think I can guess who that is,” Qibli said with a grin.

Turtle peeked out the door and found Peril jumping around trying to stomp out a small fire, except every time she touched it the flames got higher. A few sleepy faces peered out from their caves and immediately withdrew when they saw her.

“Ack!” she yelped. “Stop! Buckets of gizzards! Go OUT already!”

“Back back back,” Qibli said, hurrying over and flapping her away with his wings. “I got it.” He pulled one of the message chalkboards off the wall and smothered the fire, then trampled out the last few glowing sparks as they tried to scuttle away.

“WHAT KIND OF JERK leaves scrolls lying around in the HALLWAY where ANYONE COULD SET THEM ON FIRE?” Peril demanded. “Someone is TRYING to pick a fight with me, is that it?”

“Um … that was my homework,” mumbled a RainWing nervously from the nearest doorway.

“Oh,” Peril said. She drew her wings back in, eyeing the hapless dragonet, who was half her size and a nervous fizzy green color. “Um.” She shot a glance at Turtle, of the “there’s a right thing to say here, isn’t there?” variety. “Well, next time, keep your mess in your own cave, all right?” she said, with what Turtle knew was about as much gentleness as she could muster.

“S-s-sorry,” stammered the RainWing.

Turtle cleared his throat. “I’m sure Peril is sorry, too,” he offered.

She tilted her head at him.

“For burning up this dragon’s homework. Which he probably worked very hard on.” Turtle tipped his head at the dragonet.

“Ah, okay, sure,” Peril said, nodding vigorously. “I’m sorry your scroll got under my claws and met a fiery end,” she said to the RainWing. “On the plus side, at least it was a scroll and not, say, your tail.”

He turned an even paler shade of green and vanished into his cave.

“Good idea!” she called after him. “You shouldn’t leave tails lying around the hallways either!”

“That’s our Peril,” Turtle said to Qibli. “Spreading a little terror before bedtime.”

“Was I?” she said. “Hrmph. I thought that was a very nice apology myself.”

Turtle liked the dragon he was when he was with Peril, although he hadn’t quite figured out how their stories fit together. He might be her sidekick, although she wasn’t exactly a normal hero. Or he might be her voice of reason, like the dragon assigned to take care of a mad prophet or something.

The closest parallel he could think of, though, was this scroll he’d once read about a dragonet who’d been lost and raised by a pack of orcas. So when she returned to her tribe, she had to be taught everything about language and relationships and how to interact with other dragons, and occasionally she would have furious fits and bite someone. With Peril, he sometimes felt like that wild dragon’s foster brother — a minor character, but one of the few willing to risk hanging out with her.

He was pretty sure they were friends, though. Which was crazy; never in a million years would he have guessed that he might end up friends with the SkyWing queen’s deadliest weapon.

She followed him and Qibli back into his sleeping cave, where he hurriedly scooted his sleeping mat to the far end of the room, away from Peril. He could move it to Qibli and Winter’s cave later. He packed the smaller slate, the slate pencil, and the coral into his pouch to take with him to the rainforest. The pieces of the bowl were too big to fit, so he repacked them in his satchel and hid it under Umber’s sleeping mat.

“How was your meeting with Clay?” Qibli asked Peril.

“Fine!” she blurted. “Fine, normal, great, weird, totally fine, why, what did you hear?”

“Nothing at all,” he assured her. “Just wondering.”

“Right,” she said. “He was very pleased to hear about Quee — about Scarlet.” She paused, looking like she’d swallowed an exploding cactus for a moment. “There was hugging!” she finally burst out. “I mean, he gave me a hug. No big deal. Normal stuff, I’m sure. Dragons probably hug you guys all the time.”

Oh, Peril. Turtle kind of wished he could hug her, to let her know he understood.

“Clay likes you, too,” Qibli said to Peril.

“Really?” Peril glowed like molten glass. “He does? How do you know?”

“I can tell. He just doesn’t know quite what to do about it yet,” Qibli said. “Give him some time to figure it out. Like, lots and lots and lots of time.”

“I have lots and lots of time,” Peril said, exhaling. “That’s totally all right with me.” She beamed at Turtle. “Qibli thinks Clay likes me,” she said in a loud whisper.

“I heard.” Turtle smiled back at her.

“I was a little worried he’d hate me after I burned the magic scroll and released a giant bad guy,” Peril admitted, “but I guess Darkstalker’s not bad, so everything’s all right?” She squinted at the items Turtle was packing. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to follow Darkstalker to the rainforest tomorrow,” Turtle said. “Just … to see what happens.”

“Oh,” Peril said, her wings drooping. One of them nearly caught on one of the scroll racks by the door, and Qibli quietly dragged it out of her reach. “You’re leaving?”

“Only for a little while. I hope,” Turtle said. “I wish you could come with me.”

Peril held out her front talons. “I wish I could, too. But no firescales in the rainforest, by order of the queen,” she said haughtily. “I’ll miss your boring face, though,” she said to Turtle. “Not, like, a LOT. But I’ll miss it a little bit.”

“You won’t miss me at all,” he said. “You’ll have Clay to hang out with.”

“True,” she said. “True true.” She tried to squash back her smile, but it kept sneaking out.

I really do wish she could come with me, Turtle thought. Her unpredictable, hilarious company was the only thing that had made him able to leave Jade Mountain in the first place. He’d been able to think of their adventure as her quest to find Scarlet. No pressure on him. Nothing enormously major he could mess up. Nobody expecting anything of him.

Not like tomorrow, when he’d be following Darkstalker to the rainforest alone.

Without the option of using his magic.

Alone, powerless, useless … this story couldn’t possibly end well.