“Mandrake, stop!” she cried.

Too late, too late, the plant hummed. Spread grow far wild conquer consume all mine … The vines had stopped growing outward as soon as Sundew pulled back, but they were already huge and covered the bank of the stream. Cricket was nearly caught in a tangle of them, but she’d jumped into the air and hovered above, her talons pressed to her mouth and her eyes wide with shock.

Mandrake came stumbling back toward Sundew. She could see that his root had grown as well, not as vigorously as hers, but enough vines had sprouted to show him unmistakably what it was.

“What is this?” Mandrake asked plaintively. “It looks just like the breath of evil! Sundew, what is happening?”

“We were tricked,” she said. “I think. I don’t know! Why would anyone —? But look at it. The antidote is a lie.”

“M-maybe not,” Cricket stammered from above them. “Maybe another piece of the plant could be an antidote for the rest of … no, it doesn’t make sense. Maybe Hawthorn got mixed up and gave us the wrong thing?”

“No,” said Sundew. She felt frozen in place, as though the plant had hypnotized her. “He knew what he was doing. But I don’t understand why.” She tried, tentatively, to reach out to the plant again with her leafspeak. Maybe if she understood it … maybe if she spoke to it, she could turn it into an antidote? Perhaps that was what Hawthorn had done.

But she found nothing healing about this plant. It felt as sinister as the ones in the Den of Vipers, far worse than the ones in Wasp’s greenhouse. And when she tried to investigate it, it reached right back, a sensation like freezing tentacles plunging into her brain. She closed herself off quickly.

“We have to warn Queen Sequoia,” she said. “She needs to know that burning the roots won’t help.”

“But Inchworm —” Cricket said. “He was cured! It worked on him!”

“I think perhaps it didn’t,” Sundew said. She felt a new cold fear, like her skin turning inside out. They’d left Inchworm with Hazel and Willow. If Wasp was still inside him …

“If the antidote doesn’t work, Blue is the first dragon they’ll come for,” Cricket said in a panicked voice. “He’ll be out there where everyone can see him!”

“We’ll go stop them,” Sundew said, lifting into the air. “Mandrake, stay here and destroy all these vines. I mean really destroy them.”

“He can try,” said a voice from the other side of the stream, “but it won’t make much difference. We’re spreading through the jungle as we speak.”

Hawthorn stood on the opposite riverbank, twitching pitcher plants away from himself with his tail. Beside him, with a dragonbite viper coiled around her neck, was Willow. Its fangs were bared and Willow’s deer-brown eyes were fixed on Sundew, terrified and defiant at the same time.

Sundew hissed and started forward, but Hawthorn raised one claw and made a patronizing “ah, ah, ah!” sound. She could kill him for that sound alone, but she was definitely going to kill him for threatening Willow.

“If you hurt her,” Sundew growled. “If you dare —”

“I know, I know,” he said. “You’ll do something terrible and violent to me. But it will be too late, because she’ll be dead. So how about you stay on your side of the river while we have our little talk, and maybe she’ll survive this, more or less. You too, little gnat. And you, disposable LeafWing, I can still see you; don’t even think about sneaking away.”

Sundew sank back down to the ground; Cricket and Mandrake did the same on either side of her. The moment they touched the earth, the breath of evil vines slithered around and around their talons, snarling them in place so they couldn’t move.

“There,” Hawthorn said. “After all, it would spoil everything if you went to warn Sequoia. My whole brilliant plan, ruined by a trio of idiots? I think not.”

“What brilliant plan?” Sundew asked. “So you tricked us into burning a pile of roots; great work! If you think that means Queen Sequoia won’t be prepared for Wasp’s attack, you’re the idiot. She’ll be ready even when the bonfire does nothing. We’re stronger than you think, and so is this jungle!”

Hawthorn chuckled. “Oh, I know how strong this jungle is. It’s been my home for thousands of years, after all. It came so close to killing me at last, after so many had failed … but then Hawthorn came along and rescued me. Gormless lovely dragon husk. He’s been so useful. I think I’m going to keep him forever, or at least, until his bones rot and I can’t move him anymore.”

Silence fell, chilling and horrible, like a dragon-trap closing its jaws around them. Sundew couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She could only stare into Willow’s frightened eyes, her pulse pounding how do I save you, how do I save you, how do I save you from this?

“… What?” Mandrake said finally.

“Is Hawthorn — aren’t you Hawthorn?” Cricket asked.

“Hee hee,” said the dragon in front of them, a sneering sort of wheeze. “The outer bark is Hawthorn, yes. All these years, he thought he was in control. He thought I was merely one of the voices in his head, his beautifully carved seed just whispering back to him.” He took out the carving that Sundew had thought was an egg. But of course it’s supposed to be a seed. The breath of evil’s seed.

Hawthorn cupped the seed in his talons. “Such a clever scientist. Left to test his experiments on himself, poor fellow. Imagine what he might have figured out if he’d had other test subjects. Aren’t I lucky he didn’t.”

The vines tightened around Sundew’s talons.

“Wasp,” she growled. “So you’ve been here, in our jungle, this whole time. You knew we were still alive.”

Hawthorn threw back his head and laughed, an awful slithering noise that sent cold vibrations through Sundew’s leafspeak.

“Wasp, really,” he said when he finally caught his breath. “No, no, no. She’s a perfect ally, all poison from her core out, but in the end, she’s my puppet, too. I let her do all her great evil things because it pleases me. But one day she’ll realize I’ve hollowed out her brain and she has no more control than her lowliest worm of a subject.”

“Then who are you?” Cricket burst out.

Hawthorn’s face went very still, his eyes flickering white-green-white-green.

“I am the rightful owner of this continent,” he growled in a low voice. “It was mine, all of it mine, every insect and blade of grass and grain of sand. I ruled it all. And then you came, with your outsized brains and your clumsy crushing talons and your fire. And you stole it from me.

“All these thousands of years, I’ve waited to recapture my home and destroy you all. I bided my time and planned my vengeance. Even trapped in the jungle, I knew I’d find a way one day. I had no idea how easy it would be, in the end. You foolish, shortsighted dragons. You came looking for me! You fed me to your enemies! You let me spread and infect you, and soon every one of you will be no more trouble than my obedient snakes here.”

“I will always be trouble,” Sundew said. “You can’t control LeafWings, and you’ll never control me.” Or you, she tried to say to Willow with her eyes.

“Hee hee hee,” Hawthorn said again, his grin widening so far it looked as though his face might split in half. “You are pleasantly stupid. You really haven’t figured out the next stage of my plan? Let’s see, how did you put it … ‘when the bonfire does nothing.’ But of course the bonfire does something, you splintery twig.”

Cricket gasped, apparently guessing it before Sundew did.

“What? What does it do?” Mandrake asked.

“Well, Hawthorn did have very powerful leafspeak,” said the thing inside the dragon facing them. “He almost managed to put a cage around me. He took advantage of one of my weak little shoots, who would have done anything to survive, and he really did adapt that branch of me to only work on HiveWings. Aggravating monster.” He abruptly stabbed himself in the neck, then chortled as blood trickled down from the wound. “I could work with it, though. It was a good start, but not what I needed. Not what I wanted. I wanted everyone.

“So once I was finally inside him, I had him fix me. All his little chains are gone. And now … I will have what I want.”

He stretched his wings and closed his eyes, breathing deeply.

“The fire has been lit,” he murmured. “The smoke is rising. They are breathing it in, and me along with it. All those brave LeafWings, ready to fight. Oh, there’s your mother, Sundew. The queen will be mine soon. It’s too bad the Chrysalis didn’t make it here in time … but I will get to them eventually. For now, at least I have these two sweet little SilkWings to infect.”

“Blue,” Cricket said softly, tears rolling down her snout.

And Swordtail.

And Queen Sequoia. Nettle. Belladonna. Wolfsbane.

Those poor dragons.

Thorn-sharp rage surged through Sundew. She had never been so furious in her life. She felt like the vines around her should erupt into flames, like she was a white-hot sun about to set the entire jungle on fire. She sank her claws into her rage, holding it close and letting it build. Her anger would get them out of this. Her fury was a weapon, and she knew where to point it now.

“Next important question,” said the thing inside Hawthorn. “Which of you four should I infect first?”