Wren was fourteen and she did not have time for Undauntable’s nonsense.

She probably should have guessed something was up when she found him examining a jewelry trader’s wares and he looked so very pleased to see her.

“Wren!” he cried. She had finally told him her name on their third meeting, figuring there wasn’t anything too terrible he could do with it. “I have a great idea!”

“Good for you,” Wren said. “I can’t stay long today.” She’d promised Sky she would be back before nightfall. He’d recently decided he could sing — which was slightly factually inaccurate — and wanted to make up a song for her. “Here’s another scale. I need —”

“Stop stop stop,” Undauntable said. “Listen. I know you have a stash of these and you’re just bringing me one at a time. I also know you don’t have a family, because you never buy anything for anyone else, and you’re afraid to go into the city, which means you’re probably an orphan.”

Wren put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You seem to think you know a lot of things that aren’t your business.”

“But you don’t have to worry anymore!” he said. “Because of my great idea. You should marry me.”

Wren blinked at him, then looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was standing behind her. Undauntable’s porcupine bodyguard was there, a little closer than she would have liked. She guessed Undauntable wasn’t proposing to him.

“No,” Wren said to Undauntable. “To be clear: never.”

“What?” he said, his face clouding over.

“I do have a family,” Wren said. My family happens to be a dragon; you don’t get to know that. “And I am not remotely interested in getting married or living in a city. For someone who wants to marry me, you don’t seem to know me very well.”

Undauntable threw his hands in the air. “Because you always LEAVE,” he complained. “If I marry you, you’ll have to stay. I’ll buy you lots of things. You can bring your whole stash of dragon scales so we can be super rich together. And you’ll get to be princess of the city! It’s a dream come true!”

“Undauntable, I’m only going to say this once, and I really mean this,” Wren said. “Yuck.”

“But whyyyyyyyyyyy?” he demanded.

“Because I don’t want lots of things, I hate cities and people, and I only want to be friends with you,” Wren said. Friends-ish, she amended in her head. The kind who have polite interactions once a year and that’s it.

“My life is so unfair,” Undauntable said, sitting down on the ground. Cat curled up in his lap and stared balefully at Wren. “Everything is terrible.”

“It is not actually my responsibility to fix your life by giving you everything you want,” Wren pointed out. “I’m not a rare dragon scale to add to your collection. I am a person. You are not entitled to have me along with everything else.”

“Every time I see you, you make me mad,” he said. “But then I’m so bored until you come back.”

“Undauntable!” Wren said. “That is definitely a problem you need to solve yourself!”

“Ugh,” he grumbled, burying his face in Cat’s fur.

“You should try reading,” Wren suggested. “It’s much more fun than getting married.”

Undauntable looked up at her to see if she was teasing him, but she actually wasn’t. She thought it was a perfectly fine idea, and he must have access to loads of books.

He narrowed his eyes and glanced at his bodyguard in a way that Wren didn’t like. Undauntable was spoiled and grumpy and demanding, and he always complained about her leaving, but he’d never done anything to stop her before.

“Have you noticed any new books out here today?” she asked, trying to change the subject. It seemed like there were fewer encampments in the line than usual. She wondered where everyone was. Not in the city, she guessed.

“What if you promise to marry me someday?” he asked.

Wren tucked the scale back in her pocket. “Start with a dictionary,” she told him. “Look up the word never. And stop acting like people are just more things you can buy.”

She marched away down the line of travelers toward the river, feeling very betrayed. Why did her one human friendish person have to turn out to be terrible, just like all the others?

She’d gotten about ten steps away from Undauntable when someone in the line screamed and pointed at the sky.

Wren whirled around and saw a dragon hurtling toward the unprotected people gathered at the base of the cliff. Everyone on the ground started screaming and running, while the ones already on the steps froze and cowered into the cliffside.

It was a sand dragon, enormous and gleaming in the morning sun. Its teeth were bared in a delighted grin and its venomous tail was raised behind it like a promise of death to come.

Above her, Wren saw something happening, up in the Indestructible City. There was movement along the top of the cliff, like weapons rolling out. She stepped back to see it better, and then Undauntable’s bodyguard slammed into her, knocking her to the ground.

“Hey, ow!” she yelled, kicking him hard in the stomach. He grunted and rolled away, and she scrambled to her feet. Overhead, the dragon swooped by and circled to come from another direction.

“Just trying to … get you to safety,” the bodyguard groaned, and Wren realized that this one was a woman. She hadn’t been able to tell with the helmet on. “Prince’s orders.”

Wren looked around. She’d been so interested in the city’s defenses, she’d forgotten about Undauntable. “Where is he?” she asked. “Isn’t he the one you should keep safe?”

The bodyguard pointed to a crevice in the side of the cliff, not far from the base of the stairs. Undauntable was standing just inside the narrow gap, beckoning to her. His face was scared, but not as frantic as some of the people around him. He lived in a city that fought back, while most of these people had probably lost friends and entire villages to dragons.

Wren jumped up and ran toward him. He reached out his hand, but as she got close, she scooped up a toddler who was standing still in the chaos, sobbing. Undauntable looked extremely bewildered when she shoved the toddler into his arms.

She turned around and grabbed another kid as he ran by. He looked younger than Wren had been when Talisman abandoned her. She pushed him into the crevice with Undauntable and the toddler.

“Wait —” Undauntable said, but Wren had spotted another little girl, trapped by the fence at the bottom of the stairs. She was shaking the gate and crying. Wren ran to her, lifted her over the fence, and carried her to Undauntable’s hiding spot.

“This is a lot of —” Undauntable protested. The crevice wasn’t very big, and he was now squashed into the back of it, with three crying children around him.

“Room for one more, I think,” Wren said, and darted away.

“Yes, YOU!” he shouted.

She found one more kid who seemed to be by himself and brought him back. The dragon was flying back and forth over the city now, dodging whatever they were shooting at him and laughing.

“This is too many sticky children!” Undauntable shouted as she squeezed the last one inside. “And not enough you!”

“I’ll be fine,” Wren said. She tilted her head to look up at the sand dragon. “That dragon doesn’t even seem hungry. He’s acting like he’s here entirely to annoy your citizens.”

He was, in fact, roaring something like, “HA HA, PUNY SCAVENGERS! YOU CAN NEVER HIT ME! I AM THE GREATEST WARRIOR IN THE ENTIRE ARMY OF SAND! HA HA HA!”

“So weird,” Wren said, putting her hands on her hips. “Like, just a total lunatic.”

“This is the fifth time that same dragon has come to attack the city in the last few months,” Undauntable said. He tried to squeeze past the children toward her, but they clung to him when he moved and he had to give up. “We thought we’d scared them all into leaving us mostly alone. But this one comes back over and over. It might not be hungry now, although I can’t see how you could possibly know that, but it has grabbed at least three people from down here so far.”

“HA HA HA!” the dragon bellowed again. “JUST YOU WAIT, YOU COCKROACHES! THE QUEEN KNOWS YOU MUST HAVE HER TREASURE! ONE DAY SOON I WILL RETURN WITH MY GLORIOUS ARMY AND DESTROY YOU!”

Ah. So that wasn’t great.

Maybe if it was Talisman, Wren would be fine with a dragon burning it down. If anyone asked, she’d usually pick dragons over humans any day. But this was a whole city, full of people who might be awful, but who hadn’t specifically left her to be eaten by dragons, plus also lots of children, and Wren had to admit she didn’t want the dragons to destroy it.

The dragon wheeled away and flew off toward the desert, still HA-HA-HA-ing as he went.

“He’s not attacking,” Wren said to Undauntable after the dragon was out of sight. “He’s scouting out your defenses, so a bigger group of them can attack later.” She gingerly patted one of the children on the head. “It’s safe to go outside again now.”

“That can’t be right,” Undauntable said as the children scampered away. He emerged from the crevice, looking dusty and wrinkled and disgruntled. Two locks had escaped his slick hair and hung over his forehead. “Dragons can’t plan ahead. They’re driven by impulse and hunger. They don’t spend months preparing for an attack or work together.”

“That is so ridiculous I can’t even look at you,” Wren said. “There are entire dragon armies! They’re all having a war with one another. Of course they plan and strategize and work together.”

Undauntable brushed dirt off his robes, squinting at her. “How on earth could you know any of that?”

She was definitely not going to tell him she spoke Dragon, or anything else that might lead back to Sky.

“I pay attention,” she said. “Something the prince of a city should probably do. Just tell your dad he needs to prepare for a massive attack, probably soon.”

She remembered she was mad at him and turned to go.

“I’ll tell him,” Undauntable yelled after her. “Hey, Wren, I’m sorry! I really am! Will you come back soon?”

“Don’t know!” she called without looking back.

She couldn’t wait to get to Sky — away from people who wanted things from her, away from dragons and humans trying to hurt each other. Away from a city bristling with weapons that left kids in danger because they were outsiders.

Sky was hopping from one foot to another with excitement when she reached the valley. It was long after sunset, and Wren was too tired to light a fire, but she could see his delighted face by the light of the three moons.

“Guess what I found?” he burst out. “I mean, I think. I was flying up really high and I think I saw something great but I didn’t want to go look without you. Can we go look?”

“Right now?” Wren asked.

“It’s a thing to see in the dark,” he said, “and then to investigate in the daylight. Come on, you can fall asleep on top of me if you’re THAT tired.”

“How did you get so bossy?” Wren asked affectionately, stepping onto his outstretched talons. He lifted her to her favorite spot, settled in the shoulder curve between his wing and neck, holding on to one of his back spines.

They lifted into the sky and banked northwest, to her surprise. That direction would soon take them out of the mountains and into the desert. Sky flew higher and higher, and farther than she’d expected.

“You came all this way by yourself?” she called, and he ducked his head toward her.

“Why not?” he called back. “You went off by yourself, too!”

But I am sensible, and you are not, she thought. I can protect myself, and you are my adorable helpless baby dragon. She knew that was slightly absurd of her now that he was three times her height, but he didn’t have fire and he had no idea how to fight if a bad dragon came along — or people looking to steal his scales, for that matter.

I guess at least people aren’t a threat up this high, she admitted to herself.

“I saw a dragon who seemed dangerous today,” she said. “A really big sand dragon. You should watch out for him.”

“All right,” Sky said carelessly. “Look! There it is!” He pointed, his wings shivering with excitement.

It was a clear night, with the moons bright in a cloudless sky. In the distance, far ahead and below them, Wren saw a cluster of lights on the ground.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“I think it’s a city!” he said. “Can we get closer?”

“Carefully,” she agreed.

They flew onward, deeper into the desert than they’d ever been before. Wren saw the long, dark serpentine shape of a river cutting through the sand. The lights were scattered around the river, closer and closer together as the river approached the sea.

“Wow,” she said softly. “Sky, I think you’re right. It looks like a big city … a dragon city.”

“Isn’t that amazing?” he said, pausing to hover for a moment. “Wren, can we please sleep nearby and visit it in the morning?”

“Visit it? That doesn’t sound safe,” Wren pointed out. “At all.”

“You go to your human city,” he pleaded. “Can’t I please visit a dragon city?”

Wren felt a stab of her old anxiety, that one day Sky would decide he’d rather be with other dragons instead of her. That one day he would leave her for something better.

But she couldn’t say no, when he was so sweet and never asked for anything. If he did want to go be with other dragons one day, she couldn’t be selfish about it.

Besides, this didn’t mean he was leaving her now. It meant he was curious. That was fine. Wasn’t it?

“Let’s find a safe place to rest for the night,” Wren said, “and in the morning, we’ll take a closer look at the dragon city.”