It was the frog’s fault, really, that Sundew had discovered the SapWings when she was only two years old.

Not the jade frog. This was an actual frog, small and brownish green with orange flecks across its knobbly back. A frog that hopped into Sundew’s bowl of taro, snarfed up the sugar-sprinkled grasshopper she’d been saving for dessert, stuck out its tongue at her, and then jaunted off into the jungle as if it aggravated dragons every day with no consequences.

Well, THAT was not going to stand. NO, SIR. THIS time, there would MOST DEFINITELY BE CONSEQUENCES, FROG.

She chased the frog to the thorn-vine fence, Belladonna’s original version of the barrier, where it popped through a gap in the leaves and vanished into the jungle.

Now, dragonets under four years old were not technically allowed outside the safety perimeter of the village on their own. But Sundew was not like the other LeafWing dragonets. And really, she was almost three, which was practically four. And plus also, what was she supposed to do? Just LET the frog taunt her like that?

Besides, she knew the jungle better than any of the other dragonets. She was a Venus dragon-trap slayer! She had battled cobra lilies and sundews and pitcher plants and beaten them all! She had mighty superpowers! No one could stop Sundew, chosen one, daughter of the leaders of the LeafWings! Especially not on a QUEST FOR VENGEANCE.

This frog was going DOWN.

Sundew glanced around to make sure no one was watching — most of the adult dragons were in a council meeting, so it seemed fairly safe — and then hurtled over the fence.

The jungle on the other side of the thorns looked a lot like the jungle on her own side, except maybe the plants were bigger and grew more thickly entwined. She spotted the miscreant frog right away. It was squatting in a patch of wet leaf mulch, chewing in a very self-satisfied way. Chewing her grasshopper.

“AHA!” Sundew roared, pouncing on it.

Her claws squished into the disintegrating leaves and mud, but somehow missed the frog, which leaped several feet into the air and bounded off through the undergrowth.

“NO!” Sundew shouted. “You will PAY FOR THIS!”

She shot after the frog, ducking under snapping plant teeth and weaving through thickets of strangler vines that tried to tighten and ensnare her. She was moving too fast for them, but not fast enough to catch the frog, who could bounce right over quicksand that she had to go around. At one point, she lost the frog and had to freeze for a moment — and then it made the mistake of leaping away again, and she was after it at once.

Sundew was surprised when they broke through into a clearing and she realized the sky was turning purple. She didn’t think she’d been chasing the frog for that long … but she hadn’t been paying attention to anything except the flicker of its legs up ahead. One of the moons was already climbing the sky.

Belladonna and Hemlock were going to be furious.

Not as furious as I am, she thought. With THIS FROG, who caused all this TROUBLE in the FIRST place and must FEEL MY WRATH.

She slowed down as she slipped out of the trees, realizing there was a pond in the clearing, fed on the far side by a small silvery stream. A boulder as smooth as obsidian stuck up out of the water near the middle of the pond, and some of the far trees leaned down toward it like parent dragons feeding their little ones. Not particularly like Sundew’s parents, that is, but like a few other parents she had seen among the tribe.

The frog had paused by the edge of the pond, half-buried in the mud. Sundew could see its eyes rolling back toward her and its throat pulsing rapidly.

She crept forward on stealthy talons, placing each claw silently, crouching close to the ground, and holding her wings perfectly still.

Here I come, frog. Prepare to die.

One step … another … closer … and … POUNCE!

Her claws closed on mud and thin air. The frog disappeared into the pond with a smug plop!

“ARRRRRRRRRRRGH!” Sundew roared, shaking the leaves on the trees overhead and making several dragon-traps snap shut on nothing. “You SLIPPERY, flea-brained, smirking, BUG-EYED SON OF A HIVEWING! I am going to DESTROY YOU!”

Even in her rage, she knew better than to leap into an unfamiliar body of water without checking for waterwheels and bladderworts first. She whipped around, wrenched a large branch out of the nearest tree, and started furiously stabbing the water with it. Droplets flew up and drenched her face and wings, and the underbrush rippled with tiny animals scurrying away from the enormous splashes she was making.

She checked the sharp end of the branch. No impaled frog. No tangles of deadly underwater plants either, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. If she went into the water and got drowned by a hungry waterwheel instead of fulfilling her great stupid destiny, her parents would strongly disapprove.

BUT THE FROG. IT COULDN’T GET AWAY WITH THIS.

“Come out and face me like a reptile!” Sundew shouted. “I’m going to bite off your legs and feed them to a tarantula! I’m going to pour piranhas into this pond and tell them all to eat you slowly!”

“By all the trees,” said a voice above her. “Who are you talking to?”

Sundew jumped back, startled.

A pale green dragon sat on the boulder, blinking down at her. She had definitely not been there a moment earlier.

Also, she was a dragonet, out beyond the safety perimeter, just like Sundew.

Also, Sundew had never seen her before, which didn’t seem possible in a group as small as the LeafWings.

Also, she had the deepest brown eyes Sundew had ever seen.

“My archnemesis,” Sundew growled in response to her question. “Who is hiding in this pond but NOT FOR LONG because I am going to DESTROY HIM. Or her. Whatever it is.”

The new dragon tilted her head to study the water. “Wow. What did this terrible, extremely doomed fiend do to you?”

“It STOLE my GRASSHOPPER, which I was — you know what, it doesn’t matter,” Sundew said, noticing the amusement that was sneaking onto the stranger’s face. “What it DID is not the point; what I am going to do TO IT is COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED, trust me. I just have to catch it first.”

“Are we … we’re not talking about a dragon, are we?” the stranger asked.

“Nnnnoooo,” Sundew admitted.

The other dragon wrinkled her snout thoughtfully. “A crocodile? A monitor lizard? Oh, a Gila monster! Those things are cranky. I nearly got in a fight with one last two moons night, because I stepped on its tail, but I obviously didn’t mean to! Hey, maybe it’s the same one!”

“It’s not,” Sundew snapped. She scowled at the water. “It’s … a frog,” she said at last. “But a VERY BAD frog who deserves STAMPING ON.”

“Oh, no. That’s — oh dear.” The stranger covered her face as though she was overcome with sympathy, but Sundew could see her shoulders shaking.

“Don’t you laugh at me!” she yelped. “You would understand if you’d seen its stupid smug face! I can’t stand smug faces. I just want to SMUSH THEM ALL FLAT. You should have been here five heartbeats sooner, then you could have seen it SMIRKETY SMIRKING its way into the pond.” Sundew glanced around at the dimming sunlight. “Where … did you come from anyway?”

The stranger waved one of her wings at the trees behind her. “From the village, of course, silly.”

But the village wasn’t behind her. It was quite a long way in the opposite direction.

“Um. What?” Sundew asked, which wasn’t exactly the incisive line of questioning she’d been planning on.

“Who are you?” the other dragon asked. “I feel like I should really know you already.”

Sundew drew herself up and made her fiercest face. It was one thing for Sundew to not know this stranger, but it was inconceivable for this stranger to not know her. “Yes, you should! I’m Sundew. Who are you?”

The dragon tilted her head. Her scales were dappled with darker green leaf shapes, like the shadows of long oval leaves. Her eyes looked like they were smiling. Her whole face was doing a weird crinkly sparkly thing that made Sundew’s face want to do the same thing. Crinkling and sparkling! What kind of weird brain magic was this?

“Sundew, really? That’s an unusual name,” she said.

“No, it’s not!” Sundew snapped. “I mean, it is, technically, because I’m the only one who has it, but everyone’s heard it, so it’s very well-known, which means it can’t be unusual, by that definition, I mean, is my point, and besides, YOUR name is the weird one, it’s … just, SO WEIRD …” The brain magic was doing something to her words, too! She frowned as severely as she could. Stop crinkling, face!

“I haven’t told you my name yet,” said the other dragon, sparkling even more.

“Well, I BET IT’S WEIRDER THAN SUNDEW.” Sundew fluffed out her wings.

“I’m Willow,” said the dappled green dragon with the perfect face.

“There, see, I was right,” Sundew said. “Like, who ever knew anyone named Willow, NOT ME.”

Willow tilted her head, looking confused. “What do you mean by ‘well-known’? I’ve … never heard of you. Should I have?”

Sundew flicked her tail and accidentally knocked a startled lizard into the pond. “I’m the daughter of Belladonna and Hemlock!” she said. “You know! The whole plan? I’m the one who has to save Pantala?”

“Save Pantala from what?” Willow asked.

Sundew’s jaw dropped. “From THE HIVEWINGS!” she cried. “Don’t you know anything? Where have you been? Who are you?”

“Oh!” Willow’s front talons flew to her face. She stared at Sundew as though a lightning bolt had dropped out of the sky and asked for directions. “I know why your names are weird! You’re a PoisonWing!”

“A what?” Sundew barked, but Willow had already flown off the boulder to land beside her. She circled Sundew, studying her wings and tail with wide eyes. Up close, she carried a scent of mint and chocolate and new rain.

“But how can you be? You look just like us!” Willow said. “Maybe a little prettier.” She met Sundew’s eyes and ducked her head, doing that full-face smile crinkle thing and trying to hide it at the same time. “Maybe a lot.”

Which was a weird and wrong observation, because Willow was the one with the river-deep eyes and the sparkle face and THAT WASN’T THE POINT, SUNDEW.

“I’m not a poison-anything,” Sundew said. “I’m a LeafWing.”

“But you’re one of the offshoots, aren’t you?” Willow asked. She stopped circling and sat down, checking the ground below her for anything thorny first. “The scary dragons with all the dangerous-plant names?”

Sundew stared at her. “Offshoots?” she echoed. “I thought … we were the only ones. The only LeafWings left.”

Willow’s sparkly look dimmed a little, as though someone had thrown cobwebs over her starlight. “Oh … no,” she said. “There’s us. The rest of us. The, um … sorry, I’m not sure how else to say this … the real LeafWings? The ones who stayed with Queen Sequoia and are still loyal to her.”

“Queen Sequoia is still alive?” Sundew said, startled.

“Wow,” Willow said. Her wide-eyed look was sort of unreasonably adorable. “I can’t believe they keep us a secret from you! We learn all about the PoisonWings in school.”

“What do you learn?” Sundew asked, curiosity warring with anger. Did Mother know about this? If so, how DARE she hide anything from Sundew! “What do they tell you about us?”

“Oh, you know … how some dragons wanted to keep fighting the Tree Wars, so they split off from the rest of the tribe when we reached the Poison Jungle. And then they started naming their dragonets after deadly plants instead of giving them tree names, like LeafWings always have. And how they’ve been plotting revenge on the HiveWings all these years. Queen Sequoia met with their leader last moon cycle — she’s always trying to convince her that it’s safer to stay here and lie low until Queen Wasp dies.”

Met with their leader — there was only one dragon that could be.

Belladonna. Sundew’s mother. Sundew wondered which “hunting expedition” or “council meeting” had been the lie Belladonna had tossed her way to hide her secret meeting with the LeafWing queen. The queen who was still alive, even though Sundew and the other dragonets had been taught that she died during the Tree Wars.

Willow was still talking. “I mean, can you imagine how dumb it would be to go poke one of the Hives? As long as they think we’re extinct, we’re safe. But if we let them know we’re still out here?” She shuddered.

“Excuse me,” Sundew said, bristling. “So your suggestion is we let them win? We let them steal our continent and revel in our extermination? We just accept living here?” She waved her wings at the Venus dragon-traps overhead, which had been slowly leaning down toward them, closer and closer as the conversation went on. Sundew dug a rock out of the mud and threw it at the nearest plant. It snapped shut and drew back, and the others around it bristled.

“It’s not that bad here,” Willow said. “Right? I mean … I think it’s better with, um … interesting company.” She gave Sundew that crinkle-sparkle smile face that made all the words in Sundew’s head run around bumping into one another like disoriented moths.

Do NOT smile back at her, Sundew. She is fundamentally wrong about your entire life purpose! WHAT IS YOUR FACE DOING, SUNDEW?

“We deserve to be out there,” Sundew said, trying to focus on everything she’d been taught. Belladonna had trained her to summon her anger at a moment’s notice; that was a safe place to go when Sundew’s other emotions got too complicated. “Wasp could live for another hundred years, or she could be replaced by someone equally bad. We can’t just sit around and wait for history to sort itself out. We have to fight! We have to make things better with our own claws!”

Willow blinked at the fist Sundew was making, and then she reached out and took it between her own front talons. She smoothed out the tension and laid one palm over Sundew’s, her scales warm and light as a fern frond. Sundew could feel Willow’s heartbeat, going only about half as fast as Sundew’s.

“Shhhh,” Willow said softly. “You don’t have to do anything right this second. Just be here. Breathe.”

No one had ever told Sundew to “breathe” before. Her first instinct was to scoff that she already WAS breathing and she did it rather often and was quite good at it, thanks very much. But there was something in Willow’s face, in her eyes as she gazed down at Sundew’s talons, that made her impossible to scoff at.

They stood like that for a moment. One of Willow’s graceful wings was a breath away from brushing Sundew’s, like a butterfly hovering just over a leaf. Sundew wondered if the butterfly was as aware of it as the leaf was. She wasn’t sure if her heartbeat was slowing down or Willow’s was speeding up, but at some point, she realized they had synced.

“Don’t you think thump is a terrible word?” Willow said thoughtfully. “I mean, that’s what most dragons would say our hearts are doing, but it doesn’t feel thumpy to me. Pulse doesn’t seem right either. Beat sounds too violent. It’s not quite tapping. There should be a better word for this.”

“For two heartbeats finding each other?” Sundew said, as quietly as she could, trying not to break the spell.

Willow gave her a shy sideways smile. “I hope so.”

Sundew didn’t know what to say. Belladonna would have told her to push the other LeafWing into the pond and yell at her about the Tree Wars and how important it was to go kill Wasp. She would have pointed out that Sundew had a duty to marry Mandrake and raise superpowered danger-babies to destroy their enemies. Belladonna would have said there was nothing more important than their vengeance, and that Willow was not worth talking to.

But Belladonna was a liar, and Willow was the only dragon who’d ever given Sundew this all-over-inside-sparkles feeling.

She let her wing brush Willow’s lightly. “Guess what, I’ve made a decision.”

“You have?”

“Yes.” Sundew cleared her throat and made a portentous face. “I have decided to spare that odious frog’s life in your honor.”

“Oh!” Willow laughed. “That’s too bad. I had just decided to camp out by this pond until it emerges so I could murder it for you.”

“What?!” Sundew couldn’t stop herself from laughing, too. “No one has ever offered to murder a frog for me before!”

“Well, no one has ever offered to not murder a frog for me before,” Willow said. “It’s very magnanimous of you.”

“That’s me,” said Sundew. “Ever so magnaganimous.”

“Can you come live with us?” Willow burst out. “Come be a LeafWing and meet Queen Sequoia and forget about fighting and see me every day?”

That was the first time she’d asked, but it wasn’t the last. Nearly every time they met, Willow offered again to bring Sundew into the other village, to give her a home and teach her how to be a peace-loving SapWing (a name Willow never used and quite disliked).

But every time, Sundew had had to say no.

No. I have a purpose.

No, my tribe needs me. Your tribe needs me to do this, too, even if none of you realize it.

No. I have to save the world first.

“I’m sorry,” she’d said that first time. “I can’t.”

Willow had looked away, wings sliding slowly down, but Sundew had caught her talons before she could pull away entirely.

“But can I see you again?” she’d asked. “Tomorrow night? And the night after that? Maybe also the one after that and the one after that and the one after that? I can sneak out; it’s easy.”

Willow had laughed again, and the next night she’d given Sundew the jade frog. Our signal, she’d said. So I know if you’re there. Leave it on the rock, and I’ll come find you.

In the ensuing four years, Sundew had convinced her mother that even the youngest dragonets needed to know about the SapWings, instead of only learning about them when they turned four. But Belladonna never took her to her meetings with Queen Sequoia, nor did she ever tell the council what they talked about. She’d forbidden Sundew to go to their village or try talking to any of them. She seemed to find Sundew’s interest in them suspicious, and she hated hearing about them in any case.

So Sundew kept Willow a secret. Her secret.

This was the longest they’d gone without seeing each other. She’d told Willow it might be a while, but she’d been gone even longer than she expected. And she hadn’t told Willow why, or where she was going.

A light rain started to fall, misting through the leaves above Sundew. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Only one of the moons was visible through the canopy now.

Will she still come? What if she’s given up watching for the frog?

But at last the shadows around the pond rippled and one glided up to the boulder and then down to the moonlight in front of her, becoming the silhouette of the only dragon Sundew ever looked forward to seeing.

Sundew leaped out of the tree and bounded over the grass into Willow’s wings.