A roar of fury split the sky and shook the rocks, startling Leaf awake. He sat up quickly and banged his head on the ledge he’d been sleeping under.

Next to him, the others emerged from their camouflage coverings of branches and leaves, blinking.

“That sounded a lot closer than all the other dragon sounds,” Cranberry said nervously.

They’d had trouble sleeping this close to the palace, with roars and growls and wingbeats filling the night, especially after lying still all day. At one point in the late afternoon, Leaf had crept back into the forest to walk off his nerves. He’d run through his tumbling training, then climbed the tallest tree he could find. From the top, he could see east all the way to the hazy blue line of the ocean.

Looking south, toward Talisman, he thought he saw a shape arrowing through the clouds — an enormous dragon with scales as black as night. He wondered if the distance was playing tricks with his eyes, or if that was really one of the rare black dragons Grove claimed he’d seen once, too.

Now it was midmorning, and he’d finally gotten about an hour of fitful sleep before the dragon roar woke him. He crawled partway out from under the ledge, rubbing his head and squinting toward the palace.

It looked busier than it had the day before. Dragons were boiling up out of the depths of the palace, pouring into the sky like a swarm of bees. They divided into formations and shot away, some of them north, some east, some west. The rest gathered in a hovering red-orange cloud, staring south.

An orange dragon wreathed in coils of smoke suddenly shot past overhead, flattening the hair on Leaf’s head with the wind of its passing. Its roar sounded like the one that had woken them. It soared up to the waiting dragons and roared something at them.

Leaf scrambled back under the ledge. “They seem angry,” he whispered. “Maybe Mushroom succeeded.”

“I’m afraid so,” Rowan said. She pointed to a ridge below them, edged with trees on one side and a steep dirt slope on the other. A human was scrambling through the trees as fast as he could, carrying a sword in one hand and a sack in the other.

“Mushroom!” Thyme shouted. He rolled out from under the ledge and sprinted across the boulders, staying low. “Mushroom!” he called again.

“That seems like maybe a terrible idea,” Cranberry said to Rowan.

“Too late now,” Rowan said, drawing her sword.

The three of them ran after Thyme. Leaf kept one eye on the sky, where the orange dragon was still roaring at the others. It looked like it was either giving orders or yelling at everyone for doing something wrong. But as long as their focus was on that dragon, they might not notice the prey darting around below.

Mushroom saw his brother a few yards before their paths converged. He skidded to a stop, his eyes wide and his breath coming in gasps.

“Mushroom!” Thyme cried. “I can’t believe you’re alive! You idiot! I was so worried!”

“Stay back!” Mushroom shouted, slashing his sword through the air. Thyme stopped abruptly, nearly skidding down the slope, and Leaf almost crashed into him.

“It’s all right,” Cranberry called. “Mushroom, we can get you back to the village safely. We’re here to help.”

“Here to steal my treasure, more like,” Mushroom snarled. “It’s mine! You can’t have it!”

“We don’t want your treasure!” Thyme said.

“Yes, we do!” Rowan interrupted. “Crow and Gorge found out what you’re doing. If we don’t take the treasure back to them, they’re going to feed Grove to the dragons. We need it to save him.”

“Ha!” Mushroom snorted. “There was plenty of gold in that palace. Go get your own!” He glanced back over his shoulder.

The dragons in the sky were starting to scatter in a search formation.

“Please, Mushroom,” Cranberry pleaded. “Come with us. We don’t have to give the dragonmancers all of it — they’ll never know what you keep. We’ll protect you and you can help us save Grove.”

“I don’t care about him!” Mushroom shouted. “You’ve all laughed at me for years! Well, now I’m the one with the power! I’m going to own my own village soon, wait and see! Everyone will do everything for me, like they do for the dragonmancers!”

“How can that be more important than saving Grove’s life?” Rowan yelled.

“Mushroom!” Thyme shrieked. “Look out!”

He leaped toward his brother as a crimson dragon suddenly plummeted out of the sky toward them.

In a whirl of motion, Mushroom jumped back, grabbed a piece of treasure out of his bag, and flung it at Thyme.

The treasure, whatever it was, was gold and flat and circular and covered in tiny mirrors. It flashed through the air like a tiny sun — like a beacon announcing, “Here I am! Here I am! Help, I’m being stolen! Look at me, everyone, I’m pilfered property! I’m SO SHINY AND BEAUTIFUL AND HELPLESS!”

It thumped into Thyme’s chest and he caught it with a startled expression.

At the same moment, Mushroom dove down the slope and shot away through the ravine, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust behind to defend his brother.

Leaf didn’t have time to get angry. The crimson dragon slammed into the ground beside Thyme, drawn by the shining gold and mirrors. It hissed furiously and knocked Thyme over with one of its front feet.

This was the moment. The dragon was right there, right in front of Leaf, all scales and smoke and flame and claws and wings as big as a dragonmancer’s house and teeth out of nightmares beyond Leaf’s worst fears.

It threw its head back and roared, and the dragons in the sky roared in response.

Leaf glanced sideways and saw that Rowan was frozen, too, her gaze locked on the towering serpentine figure.

Do it. Now. Before the other dragons come.

He thought of Wren. He thought of her sticking out her tongue and shouting, “You can’t catch me, I’m the fastest in the world!”

He drove his feet into the earth and sprang forward, brandishing his sword as he ran. He whirled it around his head, aimed for where he was sure the dragon’s heart should be, and plunged the blade into the creature’s hide.

Except it didn’t go in.

His sword bounced right off the dragon’s scales and sent him flying backward. He landed in a heap beside Thyme, who had dropped the gold disk and was cradling one arm.

Leaf lay there for a moment with the wind knocked out of him, struggling to take a breath.

If we can’t stab them with our swords, how am I supposed to kill one? What have I been training for all this time if nothing I’ve learned will help?

Rowan and Cranberry appeared, their backs to Leaf; they raised their swords and stood over him and Thyme. He could see their hands shaking, but Rowan yelled, “Leave us alone! We’re not the ones who stole your treasure!”

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The earth trembled as dragons landed heavily all around them. Leaf forced himself to his feet and lifted his sword again.

The orange dragon was one of them; he saw now that she was wearing a kind of crown and chain mail, which made him think she must be the queen. She snatched up the gold disk and roared something, first at the humans, and then at the other dragons. A few of them looked at one another and shrugged (actually shrugged! Leaf had never imagined dragons doing something so familiar-looking). Then one pointed at the ravine where Mushroom had disappeared.

The queen snapped her tail at Leaf and his friends and barked an order; then she launched herself into the air and shot after Mushroom.

“She wants the rest of her treasure,” Cranberry guessed.

“She’s going to kill him,” Thyme said in a hollow voice.

“Good,” Rowan spat. “I hope she bites his head off.”

“He threw you to them to save his skin,” Cranberry said. “His own brother.”

“I know,” Thyme said. “I — I can’t believe it.”

One of the dragons strode over to them. Leaf did a forward tuck and roll under the dragon’s feet and stabbed it in the side — or at least, whacked it very hard with the sharp end of his sword, which once again could not penetrate the scales. The dragon looked down at him with a very human frown of displeasure, plucked the sword right out of his hand, and wrapped his other giant talons around Leaf.

Rowan screamed, but Leaf couldn’t call to her; he couldn’t even move. The huge claws had him trapped, his arms pinned at his sides. His lungs were squeezed and burning. He felt himself lifted into the air. He caught a glimpse of the ground falling sickeningly away, and the treetops flashing past, and the palace up ahead, and other dragons seizing Rowan, Cranberry, and Thyme far below.

They caught us. Just like that. I couldn’t kill a single dragon, and Mushroom betrayed us twice over, and we didn’t even have a chance to try sneaking into the palace, and all that work on the map was for nothing, and now the dragons are taking us away to eat us, and I failed to protect anyone.

Then the lack of oxygen caught up with him, and he slipped into darkness.