“They’re gone,” Kinkajou said wonderingly.

“Oops,” said Turtle, scanning the sky. “I think we might have zapped Winter back to the Ice Kingdom along with everyone else.”

“Are they gone for good?” Kinkajou asked. “Or will they come flying right back? Did we end the war, or just postpone it?”

“If I understood their thoughts correctly,” said Moon, “I think those dragons will have a hard time killing one another from now on.”

“We did it,” Qibli breathed.

“You did it,” said Moon. She turned toward him with shining eyes.

“He certainly did,” said Darkstalker, swooping down out of the sky. He seized Qibli in his talons with startling speed and shot away on his enormous wings.

“Qibli!” Moon shouted.

It happened too fast for Qibli to react. Massive claws dug into his chest, holding him just tightly enough to let him know that with the slightest bit more pressure, he’d be dead. His wings were pinned to his back in an uncomfortable twisted position; he could tell if he struggled too much he might sprain one of them. His tail swung free, but he knew that stabbing Darkstalker’s invulnerable scales with his venom barb would be useless. He could see the ground rushing by far below him, or if he craned his neck around he could see the line of icy white scales under Darkstalker’s beating black wings.

Where is he taking me? Why not just kill me?

Darkstalker was huge, but carrying an entire dragonet in his talons still had to be exhausting for him. He wouldn’t be able to go far — Qibli hoped.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Darkstalker banked suddenly and dove. Qibli’s eyes stung in the rush of wind. The earth seemed to be hurtling up toward him and he wondered if this was how he was going to die: smashed into the dirt by a vengeful monster from the past.

Then he saw a gaping maw ahead: a mouth studded with rocks and drooling splintered trees. The crevasse gouged out a piece of mountain and went too deep to see the bottom, at least from Qibli’s dizzy, spinning point of view.

Apparently he would see the bottom, though. Darkstalker plummeted straight into the fissure and down, spiraling as the walls narrowed in around them. Qibli’s suppressed claustrophobia rushed over him. Dying in a dark cave, where the sun and wind would never touch his scales again, was a recurring nightmare of his.

Is he taking me somewhere to kill me out of sight? So Moon doesn’t have to see it?

The light had faded to a small line overhead when Darkstalker slowed and dropped Qibli the last short distance to the ground at the bottom of the gorge. The stone was smooth and cold under Qibli’s talons as he stood up shakily.

Darkstalker sat on an outcropping just above him, blocking the route to the sky. He plucked a stone from the cliff wall and conjured it into a compact ball of flames, setting it spinning beside him like a haunted imitation of the sun. The glow illuminated a cramped crawl space behind Qibli, barely large enough for a dragon the size of Darkstalker to turn around if he squashed his wings in and stood on his own tail as he did it.

All around Qibli were claw marks in the stone, hundreds upon hundreds of scratches, some of them firm and bold, others tiny and slanted to fit in around the others. A discarded scrap of rusty metal wires lay near the opening, frayed and looped around a trio of misty white gemstones.

His tail brushed something the size of a tooth. When Qibli bent to pick it up, it turned out to be a mouse skull rubbed almost smooth as velvet.

“One thing I like about you,” Darkstalker said conversationally, “is that I don’t have to waste a lot of time on tedious explanations. I drop you somewhere and your brain goes clickity-click and a moment later, you know where we are and we can get on with the interesting bits.”

“This is the cave Clearsight left you in,” Qibli said. “Where you were buried for thousands of years. That’s the broken bracelet.” He nudged the fragment of wires — such a small, fragile thing to hold back such a powerful danger. Qibli lifted a claw to touch one of the scratches. “And these are the number of days you were awake down here before Peril set you free.”

Darkstalker flicked his tail at the skull in Qibli’s talons. “And that leftover from my only dinner was also my only friend in the world, until I heard Moon’s thoughts overhead and realized another mind reader was finally nearby.”

“Did you bring me down here to make me feel sorry for you?” Qibli asked incredulously.

Darkstalker’s mouth quirked into a small half smile. “Well, that empathy spell of yours was so effective on my subjects,” he said. “I figured it couldn’t hurt for you and I to understand each other a little better.”

“It wasn’t my spell,” Qibli said, tracing the tiny eyeholes of the mouse skull.

“Let’s be serious.” Darkstalker nudged the floating sun a little closer to him. “That was your spell. You lack the magic, but you have the ideas.”

Qibli didn’t answer.

“You have the brains to be a great animus dragon, but Turtle has the power instead,” Darkstalker observed. “I know that’s frustrating for you.”

There was a pause.

“I’ve noticed something,” Darkstalker said a little more quietly. “You’re just like me, Qibli. Maybe even as smart as me; certainly smarter than everyone else. You have big ideas and lots of them, not just one or two in a lifetime like some dragons. You want to change things — all the things that are wrong with the world. You know you could do it, if you had the chance.”

“I’m not like you,” Qibli interrupted. “I’m not a murderer.”

“Oh, but you would be, under the right conditions,” Darkstalker said, waving this off. “To protect your queen, to save your tribe, or if it would make Moon love you.”

“That’s not true,” said Qibli. “She wouldn’t love a murderer.”

“Sure she would.” Darkstalker looked amused. “You don’t think she would love a dragon who had to kill someone in order to save Kinkajou — just for one example? Or what if you figure out how to kill me?” The amusement faded from his face. “Wouldn’t she still love you then?”

“Do I figure out how to kill you, in the future?” Qibli asked, avoiding Darkstalker’s question and the other questions that spiraled out of it, inside him. “Is that why you brought me here, to stop that from happening?”

Darkstalker chuckled. “No, no. There’s no future in which I die. That’s impossible. But there are futures where I go about my business peacefully, and there are futures where certain clever gnats continue to annoy me for an interminable length of time.”

“Something to aspire to,” said Qibli. “Annoying, clever gnat-ness.”

Darkstalker pointed a talon at him. “There’s one crucial difference between us,” he went on. “You want to be loved so desperately. I think it lies underneath everything you do. Will this make that dragon like me better? What should I do now to turn all these dragons into friends? If I can convince this cold, standoffish IceWing to like me, surely that’ll prove that I’m a dragon worth liking.”

“Excuse me,” Qibli said. “I’m not the one who literally enchanted the entire world to like me. That was you, if you’ve forgotten.”

“But I got the idea from you,” Darkstalker said, now immensely amused. “Your first day at Jade Mountain. Oh, if only I could magically make everyone like me! Don’t you remember? That comes from the holes in your heart that your family never bothered to fill. My first thought was, how tremendously sad. What a tragic well of need that dragon is. And then I thought, but my, that would be a useful spell. How easy life would be if everyone liked and trusted me. No one scheming against me, sending assassins to kill me, or getting irrationally upset over perfectly harmless enchantments.” He frowned, as though a part of him was locked in an endless argument with someone long gone.

“Clearsight and Fathom liked you,” Qibli said. “As I understand it, they loved you. But they still risked everything to stop you, because they saw how dangerous you are.”

Darkstalker snorted. “They couldn’t think big,” he said. “Not like you and me, Qibli. They couldn’t imagine all the wonderful things we could do with our magic. They would have been content with small, meaningless lives — clearly that’s what they chose; look how they vanished from history after I was gone. They didn’t want to take the hard steps to get to the best futures.”

He leaned toward Qibli. “But you can imagine it. You know what you would do with unlimited power — you’ve thought about it enough. Your big secret dream: to be an animus.” He scratched a talonful of pebbles into his claws and they started to bounce and bubble like boiling water. One by one they turned into gemstones: tiny opals and emeralds and amethysts and tiger eyes leaping and dancing together. Qibli couldn’t pull his eyes away from them.

“So what if you could be?” Darkstalker asked in a low rumble. “What if I made you an animus, too?”

Qibli’s talons felt as if they were drifting away from him, suddenly as unreal as the rest of this situation. “You would never do that,” he said. Even Turtle, my actual friend, refused to do that for me.

“I would, actually.” Darkstalker plucked a ruby from the spinning galaxy of gemstones and scrutinized it. “Because I can see that if I do, it leads to the best future — for you, for me, for Moon, for all of Pyrrhia.”

For you? Qibli wondered. Wouldn’t I use my magic against you, in these hypothetical futures?

“No, this is a trick,” he said out loud. “You’re trying to trick me into taking off my protective spell, and then you’ll enchant me.”

“That would be a reasonable worry,” said Darkstalker, “except that I am about ten times as strong as you and right now I could literally rip that earring off your ear anytime I wanted to.”

That was quite true, Qibli realized uncomfortably. He felt smaller than the dead mouse.

“So I don’t need to orchestrate an elaborate trick.” Darkstalker twitched his wings, set the ruby in its own constellation, and nudged an agate over to orbit it. “But you’re right, there is a condition to this offer. I’ll give you unlimited animus magic, in exchange for a tiny spell that says you can never do me any harm. That seems quite fair to me, though. My hope, of course, is that you won’t want to do me any harm once we are allies.”

Never do him any harm, Qibli thought. There would be ways around that. This might be a trick, but I can turn it back on him once I have that magic. I could outsmart him if I was an animus.

If I say yes … I could stop Darkstalker and get all the magic I’ve ever wanted.

“Let me tell you about the best future,” Darkstalker said dreamily. “You’ll adore it. Everyone loves us. We share the continent and rule all the tribes with benevolent wisdom — you and Moon, me and Clearsight, once I get her right. Our dragonets play together in the palaces of Pyrrhia. There’s no more war. There’s no more sickness, thanks to us. No more sadness or worry, no more hunger, no more starving dragonets scrabbling for food in back alleys. No more terrible parents, because we can fix them. You could make your mother a dragon who loves you. I could have healed the scars on my father’s soul. I know that’s what I should have done, to make him a father that Whiteout and I could love.” He bowed his head for a moment.

Qibli didn’t want to give him ideas, but he had to ask. “But you could do all that by yourself. So why would you share your power with me when you could simply kill me right now?”

“Because I don’t just want power, Qibli,” Darkstalker said a little impatiently. “That’s what so many dragons get wrong about me. Even Clearsight thought that way, toward the end.” He selected a pair of perfect diamonds from his treasure cloud and set them spinning on their own axis with the ruby. “I also want to make the world a better place. I want to have real friends I care about. I want my happily ever after.”

“You think I could be your real friend?” Qibli asked.

“You’re funny and not boring,” said Darkstalker. “You can keep up with my conversation, unlike pretty much all my subjects except Moon. You have ideas that I haven’t already had myself, which is fascinating and rare. I like to be surprised — I mean, unless the surprise involves betrayal and involuntary comas, of course. Yes, I think we’d get along really well.”

Qibli wondered about that. Was Darkstalker right? Were there really futures where they were friends, even co-rulers?

“And you’d be a good influence on me!” Darkstalker said charmingly. “I can see that, too. You steer me through some pretty rough times and save a lot of dragons from my mistakes. We all end up on much better paths if we’re friends. I mean, consider my alternatives. If you’re not my friend, Moon won’t be either, and then who do I have? This lizard?”

He snapped his claws and with a startling popping sound, Vulture suddenly materialized in the air beside him.

Qibli’s grandfather let out a yell of surprise. “Where am I?” he shouted. “What did you do?” He craned his neck to look up at the speck of sky far above them. His talons pressed against the sheer rock walls, and Qibli knew the SandWing claustrophobia was snaring him, too.

And yet, even though he could see Vulture’s fear, Qibli’s heart still tried to make a run for it. He felt it galloping wildly around his chest like a terrified chinchilla. He couldn’t stop himself from crouching, trying to make himself smaller until perhaps he’d be invisible, and then Vulture wouldn’t be able to hurt him. He wouldn’t be able to worm inside Qibli’s ears and make him doubt everything that was real.

“Enchant this dragon to obey my every command,” Darkstalker said offhandedly. He tapped Vulture on the forehead. “Stop talking and stay where you are.”

Vulture’s eyes bulged as he tried to snap something furious and failed. His talons touched down on a small bump of stone and he teetered there, unable to fly away.

“I can’t believe you’re so terrified of this salamander,” Darkstalker said to Qibli with a chuckle. “He’s so easy to manipulate, even without magic. Thin scales, loves treasure, lies about everything until he doesn’t even know what’s true, not that he cares. He’s a dragon made of paper who has never been happy one day in his life.”

Qibli took in a lungful of air, trying to see his grandfather that way. It was hard, with those black eyes attempting to spear him in the gut.

“If you accept my gift,” Darkstalker said, “you never have to worry about him or anyone else like him ever again. Watch.” He tapped Vulture’s head again. “Enchant this dragon to have the mind of a new-hatched dragonet. You may speak.”

Vulture’s head slowly lolled sideways and a goofy grin spread across his face. “Urple,” he chirruped at Qibli.

It was one of the most horrifying things Qibli had ever seen.

Perhaps reading Qibli’s expression, Darkstalker hastily reached over and tapped Vulture again. “Go back to the way you were before the last spell,” he said. “Now I enchant this dragon to feel guilt for all the terrible things he’s done.”

Vulture’s face collapsed into grief. “I’m a monster,” he whispered. “All those deaths … the cruelty to my family … how can I ever make up for it all?”

“See how easy it is?” Darkstalker said to Qibli. “Let’s see — now be a grandfather who loves Qibli more than anything else in the world,” he ordered Vulture.

“Qibli!” Vulture cried, reaching his talons toward his grandson. “Dearest of dragons! Have I ever told you how proud I am of you? An Outclaw! Advisor to Queen Thorn! I missed our games so much when you went away with her. But you’ve grown into such a fine young dragon.”

“Stop it, stop it,” Qibli said, covering his ears. “It’s not real. It’s not real.”

“Of course it is!” Vulture cried exuberantly.

“Shush,” Darkstalker said to him, and Vulture instantly fell silent. “But of course it’s real,” he said to Qibli. “We just made it real. He really feels that way with all his heart right now.”

“Because you put a spell on him,” Qibli said. “That’s not what real means.”

Darkstalker looked skeptical. “If magic can improve a dragon,” he said, “I don’t see what the problem is. We could turn your grandfather into the kindest dragon in the Scorpion Den. Wouldn’t it be fun to watch him give away his entire treasure to orphans and homeless dragons?”

Yes, whispered a small but unavoidable part of Qibli’s soul.

“Wouldn’t that be the best way to deal with this dragon who has haunted your nightmares your entire life?” Darkstalker asked. “Wouldn’t it be better than killing him, or whatever the ‘real’ alternatives are?”

Yes, Qibli’s heart whispered again.

“So … why didn’t you do that?” Qibli asked Darkstalker.

“What do you mean?” Darkstalker asked.

“To the IceWings,” Qibli said. “When you first came out of the mountain and you saw visions of them threatening your tribe. Why didn’t you enchant them all to want peace with you instead? Or cast a spell to make all IceWings and NightWings forget their ancient hatred and forgive everything that’s happened? Why didn’t you use your magic to avoid war, instead of trying to kill them all?”

Darkstalker’s eyes narrowed. His jaw worked silently for a long moment, as though he was grinding his teeth.

“See?” he finally managed to force out. “Smart. Like I said. Always thinking.” He turned his head away and thought for another moment.

“Because I haven’t forgiven them,” he admitted finally. “For what happened to my mother.” He took a deep breath. “All right. I see your point. I thought I was protecting the tribe … but it was about revenge, too. I can see that.” He spoke as if each word was a tooth being yanked out of his mouth.

“Maybe you need to put a kindness spell on yourself,” Qibli suggested.

“This is what I mean,” Darkstalker said slowly. “How you can keep me on the better paths. You’ll suggest peace spells instead of plagues. You’ll help me see these things I don’t recognize about myself.” He paused, and Qibli could tell that Darkstalker wasn’t entirely convinced that that was what he wanted.

Is that what I want? To be Darkstalker’s conscience? To spend my life telling him the things he doesn’t want to hear?

But … I’d have animus magic.

(And Moon would love me. In this future, he sees me with Moon. She must forgive me for this choice. Maybe it’s what she would want — me with magic and a chance to influence a better, kinder Darkstalker.)

(Are the IceWings safe in this future? Where’s Winter? Are we still friends? Is Turtle safe? What happens to Anemone? Does she have to hide for the rest of her life?)

No, I could fix all of that. I could keep them all safe.

I’d have ANIMUS MAGIC. I could do everything I’ve ever wanted to do.

“So what do you think?” Darkstalker asked. “Are you ready to become an animus dragon?” He drew a circle in the air around the floating gemstones, and they all whirled into one another until they became a crown, glowing with gems from all over the world. Darkstalker nudged the crown to set it floating gently toward Qibli.

Who would say no to their secret dream come true?

Why would I ever say no?

Say yes to the magic.

Say yes to the bright future.

Say yes.

Qibli looked up into Darkstalker’s eyes and said, “No.”