“Yeah, I remember this.” Stone turned the sapphire over in his hands. It was so big, Ivy almost couldn’t believe it was real.

Violet and Daffodil sat on the bench behind her, wrapped in rough gray blankets, still shivering from the long walk back to Valor in the rain. Azalea had not wanted to let them take the sapphire, but Foxglove and Pine both thought they should show it to Stone, make sure it was part of the dragon’s treasure, and then decide what to do with it.

Foxglove stood by the door, her arms crossed, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“Heath never liked this gem,” Stone said. He passed it to Ivy, who was startled by the weight of it in her hands. “He said that holding it sometimes gave him strange waking nightmares of the dragons who torched our village. He said sometimes they would look at him as though they could see him. If it’s the one thing that makes him feel anything about the dragon attack, that’s probably why he left it behind.”

There was something odd about the sapphire, but it didn’t feel menacing to Ivy. It had a kind of quiet vibration to it, as if it was reaching for something on another level of the universe. She cupped it between her hands and stared into its facets.

“So if he moved the treasure, where else can we look?” Violet asked.

Stone shrugged. “I have no idea. Sorry.”

“Well,” Foxglove said as Violet and Daffodil got to their feet, “if you think of anything, let us know.” Violet rolled up the blankets and turned to hand them to Stone.

With a brisk knock, the Dragonslayer strolled through the front door.

Violet threw the blankets at Ivy so fast that Ivy almost didn’t catch them. They tumbled around her hands and she scrambled to bury the sapphire inside the folds of wool. Her heart was pounding. I hope he didn’t see it.

“What’s this?” her father said with a pleasant smile. “A Wingwatcher party? At my brother’s house? Why wasn’t I invited?”

“Hi, Dad,” she said, clutching the blankets to her chest. “We were just stopping by to say hi to Uncle Stone.”

Heath’s gaze traveled over Violet’s innocent face, Daffodil’s wide eyes, Foxglove’s blank expression. “Oh?” he said. “Why are you all … wet?”

“It’s raining,” Violet answered.

“We were surprised by a storm while we were out skygazing,” Foxglove reported. “We came in the closest entrance. Ivy suggested that her uncle lived nearby and we could dry off here.”

Heath raised his eyebrows at her. “You haven’t dried off much,” he observed.

“I was more concerned for the young recruits,” Foxglove said. “I’ve been caught in the rain before. I’ll be fine.”

“Holly, right?” he said, pointing at her.

“Foxglove, sir,” she said, as politely as always.

“Hmmm,” he said. “Ivy, use one of those blankets on your hair. You are dripping all over your uncle’s cave. And then get on home — I need to speak with my brother.”

Ivy took a nervous step toward the door. Stone was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking resigned to a conversation with Heath. He looked too morose to say anything helpful.

“We’ll wash these and bring them back to you, mister Ivy’s uncle sir,” Daffodil said, patting the pile of blankets in Ivy’s arms. “Thanks very much!”

“Yes, thanks, Uncle Stone,” Ivy said, relieved. She hurried to the door.

“Foxglove,” the Dragonslayer said, and a chill went through Ivy. She could hear the thread of anger under his pleasant tone, even though it was well buried. “Perhaps it would be wise to confine the younger recruits — and yourself — to the tunnels for the foreseeable future. If you can’t recognize when a storm is on its way while you’re literally staring at the sky, it seems you might all need a little more training.” He stepped up behind Ivy and lifted a strand of her wet hair. “We can’t have the daughter of the Dragonslayer getting sick, after all.”

“Yes, sir,” Foxglove said. She held the door as the three girls went through, nodded to the Dragonslayer, and followed them out.

“Yikes,” Daffodil said when they reached a safe distance. “I thought that was the end of everything! I was starting to wonder if I’d have time to pack before we got thrown out of Valor!”

“I’m sorry,” Ivy said. She didn’t know how to shield her friends if her father’s anger turned on them.

“Don’t be,” Foxglove said, looping one arm around Ivy’s shoulder and squeezing her. “You have nothing to be sorry about. We know more than we did at the beginning of the day. And we have something.” She took the pile of blankets with the sapphire hidden inside. “I’ll find a place for this. And I guess I’ll … wash these. Daffodil, since you volunteered, if you’d like to come help me do that tomorrow, I would appreciate it.”

“I will!” Daffodil said. They split off from Foxglove at the next tunnel and headed back toward Ivy’s cave. Violet still hadn’t said a word since leaving Stone’s cave.

“Violet, are you all right?” Ivy asked.

“Just thinking,” Violet said. “Was he really mad about you getting a little wet? Or why did he order us confined to the caves?”

So Violet had noticed Heath’s anger, too. “Do you think he suspects?” Ivy whispered. “If he saw the sapphire — he would have taken it from us, wouldn’t he?”

“I don’t think it was about the treasure,” Violet said thoughtfully. “I think he didn’t like seeing Wingwatchers with Stone. Maybe he’s worried his brother will try to steal his position as lord of Valor.”

“No way. Uncle Stone isn’t at all interested in that,” Ivy said.

“But the Dragonslayer is clearly feeling threatened by something,” said Violet. “I think I’d better tell the Wingwatchers to be extra careful for a while. Even if they just roll their eyes at me and say, ‘Nobody is UP TO anything, Violet, buzz off,’ like they normally do.”

“Do we have to be extra careful, too?” Daffodil asked with a dramatic sigh. “I hate being extra careful.”

“Have you literally ever tried, even once in your life?” Violet asked.

“What about our plan?” Ivy interjected. “To fix everything? What do we do about it now?” She didn’t want to give up. Especially now that she’d seen the village — if dragons were still doing that to other villages, she would do anything to get the treasure back and stop them.

“Well,” Violet said, “if seeing Pine in the old village spooked him into moving the treasure, it stands to reason he’d have moved it closer to him. Somewhere he could keep an eye on it all the time.” She gestured at the tunnels around them. “Somewhere down here.”

“So we keep looking,” Daffodil said. “Don’t worry, Ivy. We’ll find it.”

*  *  *

*  *  *

It was several days before Ivy found herself alone at home again. Her father seemed to be lurking around more than usual, eyeing her with either suspicion or concern. He was short-tempered with her mother and grumbled about everything — the fish stew, the temperature of the cave, all the whining people kept doing about tunnels collapsing and vegetable shortages, like it was his fault the architects and gardeners were so lazy.

Ivy noticed that he’d also added several men to his private guard, all of them brawny and surly and devoted to the Dragonslayer. She saw a few Wingwatchers be summoned individually to his office, and she wondered whether that meant they were loyal to him, or whether they were the ones he most suspected of fomenting rebellion.

One day at breakfast, Ivy’s father announced that he had to go on an inspection tour of the orchards. “Something about pests eating all the fruit,” he muttered. “Don’t know what they think I’m going to do about it!” He snorted and looked at Ivy’s mother. “Wingwatcher training is suspended for today so a patrol can accompany us. So you should stay home with Ivy, Lark.”

Mother gave him a puzzled, dismayed look. “But I have that meeting with the gardeners,” she protested. “We’re working on a new solution to the sunlight problem.”

“You’ll have to miss it,” he said, standing up.

“Ivy can stay home by herself, dear,” she said. “She’s fourteen! She’s almost a full Wingwatcher.”

“Yes, I know,” he said, frowning. “Still, stay together for today. I’d feel safer if you did.”

“I could go to Daffodil’s while Mother has her meeting,” Ivy suggested.

“No, no,” he said. “You spend quite enough time with those girls. Both of you, here. And don’t leave until I return.”

“Heath —” Mother protested, but he was already striding out the door. She stared after him for a moment with a bewildered expression. Watching her, Ivy realized that there was something different about her mother’s face … something missing.

The dreamy look, she thought. The hero-worship eyes she used to give Dad all the time, same as most everyone in Valor. I haven’t seen her look at him like that in a while.

When did that change?

She tried to think back to when the bedtime story stopped, or to some of the fights her parents had had in the last few years. Was it possible her mom had started noticing Dad’s lies, too? Had she realized, somewhere along the way, that he was not as much of a hero as she’d first believed?

Ivy knew her mother loved working on projects to improve Valor. Now that she thought about it, those projects had been taking up a lot more of her time in the last few years … as though Lark was happy to stay busy and away from Heath.

It’s probably good for Mom to see him more clearly, she thought. But … they’re my parents. I still want them to love each other.

No. What I really want, she admitted to herself, is for Dad to be the person that Mom and I thought he was.

Her mother was still staring at the door, frowning in a puzzled way.

“Mom? Why is Dad acting so weird?” Ivy asked.

“He’s … got a lot on his mind,” her mother said, looking down at the table. She started to clear the breakfast things and Ivy stood up to help her.

“So do you,” Ivy said gently. “Your work on the gardens is really important, too.”

“I do think it is!” Her mother stopped and took a deep breath. “Right now your father is worried that something might happen to us. There’s a man — a very powerful man — who’s been trying for years to get your father to come work for him.”

“Really?” Ivy said. “Who? What does he want Dad to do?”

“Slay dragons, of course,” her mother said ruefully. “He’s the lord of the Indestructible City.”

Oh, wow, Ivy thought. She’d heard of the Indestructible City, but she didn’t know anything about its lord. What would it be like if they all moved there and Heath became a professional dragonslayer? Would he lead the lord’s armies against the dragons?

Dad would never work for anyone else; he likes being lord himself too much. And he doesn’t want to fight any more dragons. He’d rather hide from them.

“Anyway, the last couple of messengers have been more … persistent than the ones before. Your father is worried about what they might do. I think he’s afraid they might even kidnap one of us.”

Ivy wondered if that was exactly true, or whether that was her mother’s own interpretation of Heath’s concerns. I think he’d be more worried a kidnapper would ask for the treasure as ransom. Would he give it to them? In exchange for either of us?

“Not to mention all the unrest in Valor,” Lark sighed. “So many angry people, all wanting your father to fix everything.”

Well, it would certainly help if he tried to fix SOMETHING, at least, Ivy thought.

She glanced sideways at her mother as they washed the dishes. “I think you should go to that meeting, Mom. If you’re not there, the gardeners will only get more angry with Dad — but if you are, maybe you can help fix things. I promise I’ll stay here with the door locked.”

Her mother pushed her hair out of her face, leaving a damp streak on her forehead. She gazed at the door, looking worried. “I wouldn’t be gone long,” she said. “It is pretty important … if I go, do you think we could keep it between ourselves?”

“Of course, Mom,” Ivy said, giving her a hug. “Go save the vegetables.”

“All right. Yes. I will! Thank you, Ivy.” Her mother smiled and hurried off to change.

Ivy finished cleaning up, wondering if this was the first time she’d ever seen her mother disobey one of her father’s orders, or if had happened before without her noticing. She hoped it wasn’t a terrible mistake to encourage her mom to go. She hoped Dad wouldn’t find out and be furious. But it didn’t seem fair that her mother had to miss a meeting she cared about, just because he was feeling paranoid, when Ivy could certainly look after herself.

Almost as soon as her mother was gone, there was a knock on the door. Ivy checked the peephole, but she already knew it was Violet and Daffodil.

“I was just trying to figure out how to send a message to you,” Ivy said, opening the door.

“No need,” Daffodil said, sweeping in grandly. “We’ve been watching and waiting for AGES for them both to be gone.”

“Everyone focus,” Violet said. She had her hair back in a dark purple band of cloth and was wearing gray instead of her Wingwatcher uniform, but she still looked like she was ready to take over Commander Brook’s job the moment it was available. “We’re going to search every corner of this place, but we have to do it fast.”

“I’ve already searched every corner!” Ivy protested. “I really have!”

“We’re doing it again,” Violet said, striding purposefully toward the Dragonslayer’s office. Properly this time was strongly implied.

“I need a snack first,” Daffodil said. “We’ll catch up to you!”

Violet rolled her eyes and disappeared into the next cave.

“Guess what?” Daffodil whispered to Ivy, pulling her into the kitchen. “Forest asked me to be his date to the Wingwatchers dance!”

“Oh — wow,” Ivy said. She’d completely forgotten about the Wingwatchers dance. “Yay? Yay, right? That’s exciting, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Daffodil said, “except that Violet will be a huge pain in the butt about it.” She took an apple from the barrel in the corner and started cutting it into slices.

“You haven’t told her?”

“Obviously I will,” Daffodil said, “but I was thinking I’d wait until the very last minute, just to minimize the amount of time I have to spend hearing about how all boys are gross and he’s the worst and couldn’t I do better and so on forever and so forth.”

She took the plate of apple slices into Ivy’s living room, but stopped short in the entranceway. “Speaking of gross!” she said, flourishing one hand at the tail barb on its pedestal. “How do you live with that thing?”

“I avoid it,” Ivy admitted. “I’ll walk all the way around the tables to get past it.”

Daffodil’s eyes suddenly went wide. “So,” she said slowly, “hypothetically, when you were searching the whole place … did you avoid it then, too?”

Ivy gasped. Of course she had. She hadn’t even thought about it. She avoided it instinctively. She’d never once lifted the tapestry draped over the pedestal to see what was underneath.

“Violet!” Daffodil shouted.

A few moments later, they had folded the tapestry over the glass box and the tail barb, revealing the huge wooden cabinet that formed the pedestal. It was definitely a cabinet, because it had a door, but there was no keyhole. Instead there was a series of tumblers embedded in the wood, with letters inscribed on them.

“It’s a combination lock,” Violet said. “We have to line up the letters to spell the right word in order to get it to open.”

“Wait,” Ivy said as Daffodil reached for the first tumbler. “Let me memorize what it is right now, so we can put it back the way it was before Dad comes home.” She studied the letters, her heart beating wildly.

“What could it be?” Violet mused. “Four letters … maybe a word that means something to him?”

“Try Lark,” Ivy suggested. “My mom’s name.”

Daffodil lined up LARK, but that didn’t work.

“SLAY?” Violet suggested. “TAIL? BARB?”

They tried all three. No luck.

“What about something no one would expect?” Daffodil said. “Like … BOOK? Or LOVE?”

Violet snorted, but she tried both of them. “Shockingly terrible guesses,” she said when neither worked.

“I am thinking outside the box, VIOLET,” Daffodil said.

“Claw?” Ivy said. “Wing? Fire?”

They tried every dragon-related word they could think of, and then all the treasure-related ones, like GOLD and GEMS and RICH.

“Anyone might guess one of those,” Violet said. “It has to be something more specific to him, doesn’t it?”

“Oh,” Ivy said softly. “I know. Try Rose.”

She held her breath as Daffodil clicked the letters around. R-O-S-E. The lost sister who he must think about every time he saw his treasure. He must wonder if it had been worth it, losing her in exchange for this.

Daffodil tugged on the door. It did not open.

“Whoa,” she said, blinking up at Ivy and Violet. “I really thought that would be it! That would be the perfect password. Like a sign that your dad does have a soul after all.”

“Hey now,” Ivy said. “He has a soul. Sometimes he’s really funny or does something thoughtful for Mom. He’s not completely evil.”

“Try EVIL,” Violet suggested.

“Violet,” Ivy said, rolling her eyes, but she was secretly relieved when that word didn’t work either.

“Maybe IVY … S?” Violet said. “Like, all this will be Ivy’s one day?”

That didn’t work either. Ivy would have been enormously surprised if it had. She didn’t think she was that present in her father’s thoughts.

Besides, he wouldn’t think of the treasure as something that would belong to anyone else, ever. The way he talked about it, the way he loved it — it was his, and he wouldn’t ever give it up.

“Maybe … try MINE,” she said. As in, this treasure is all mine.

The letters clicked into place, and the cabinet door swung open.

“Yeesh. Not to be judgy,” Violet said, “but that’s an upsetting choice of password.”

“Oh my stars,” Daffodil whispered, staring into the cabinet. Ivy crouched beside her and saw that it was packed, top to bottom, with piles of gold coins, gemstones, and a dragon carved from blue stone with emeralds for eyes.

“We found it,” she said. “Now quick, lock it up again.”

“Can’t I touch it?” Daffodil said wistfully.

“No, Ivy’s right,” Violet agreed. “Leave everything the way it was.”

“Before we take the treasure, we need to work out the rest of the plan,” Ivy said. “How to give it back to the dragons …”

“And survive,” Violet finished.