“SUNNY!” Clay bellowed at the top of his lungs.

“She was mad,” Starflight fretted. “Maybe she ran off because she was mad at us.”

“She was?” Clay asked. “Why was she mad?” Glory couldn’t remember either.

“Run off into a strange rainforest on her own?” Tsunami said. “That’s not like her.”

Glory closed her eyes and ransacked her brain. Poisonous snakes. Deadly swarms of ants. What were the other “dangers of the rainforest”? Quicksand? She opened her eyes and peered at the ground around them, but it was all plain dirt, tree debris, and tangled roots. Nothing looked like quicksand.

“SUNNY! SUNNY!” Clay yelled again.

Tsunami growled. “We made it through the Sky Kingdom and the Kingdom of the Sea without losing anyone, and now we’re two minutes into the rainforest and one of us is gone?”

“She’s not gone,” Starflight said, his voice vibrating with panic. “She can’t be! She has to be here somewhere. I was looking at her only a few moments ago!”

Glory turned her gaze up to the trees. Another gray sloth hung from a nearby branch, yawning. It looked like perhaps the least threatening creature she’d ever seen. She frowned at it.

“Webs, what do you think happened?” Tsunami demanded, following Glory’s gaze.

There was no response. They all turned around.

Webs was gone, too.

“No way,” Clay said, flaring his wings. “He was just here. I saw his face when we realized Sunny was gone. Maybe ten seconds ago. He couldn’t have disappeared in ten seconds.”

“But he did,” Starflight cried. “He did, and Sunny did, into thin air.”

“Ouch!” Tsunami said, clapping a talon to her neck. “Something just stung me.”

Clay jumped and clawed at his neck as well. Starflight’s eyes went wide, and then he threw himself to the ground and rolled under the nearest low-hanging bush with his wings over his head.

“What in the world are you —” Glory started, ducking to look at him. She heard a soft buzz as something whizzed by her ear, followed by a tiny thunk as it hit the tree behind her.

She spun around and saw Clay literally disappear right in front of her. It was as if the forest reached out leafy arms, quietly wrapped him up, and bundled him away. One moment he was there, blinking dizzily, and then he was gone. A heartbeat later, so was Tsunami.

Aha, Glory thought.

She planted herself next to Starflight’s hiding spot and flared her ruff. She could sense the waves of pale orange and dark red rippling across her scales, but she didn’t try to hide them. She didn’t care if her audience knew she was angry.

“That’s enough!” she called. “Come out here right now.”

There was a pause, and then the air seemed to shimmer for a moment, and suddenly a dragon the color of raspberries stood in front of her, grinning.

Glory had never seen anyone else use camouflage scales like hers. It was startling and unsettling and kind of the coolest thing she’d ever seen. Holy moons, she thought. That is awesome. We do that. RainWings, like me.

Another dragon, dark blue dappled with gold, appeared beside the first. She was grinning, too.

Rustling overhead made Glory look up.

Suddenly the trees were full of dragons.

RainWings curled around the trunks or hung from the branches by their tails. Several of them were colors she’d never even imagined. She saw deep shades of violet, iridescent peach, pale jade, and a yellow so bright it was like being stabbed in the eyes with the sun.

We are beautiful.

“Aw, look!” said the raspberry dragon. “She’s happy to see us!” He beamed at her, and Glory realized that small bubbles of rose pink were rising up from her talons to her wings.

“Poor little dragonet,” murmured the dark blue RainWing. “Why are her scales so dull?”

Glory blinked. Is she talking about me?

“Shhh, don’t be rude,” said the first RainWing. “Hello, tiny one. I’m Jambu, and this is Liana. What’s your name, and why don’t we know you already?”

“Glory, and the easily terrified black one is Starflight,” she said. She glanced behind her and saw Starflight peering out from under the bush. “Where are my friends?”

The dark blue dragon — Liana — tilted one of her wings up at the trees. Amid the dragons clustered overhead were four hanging nets woven of vines. Sunny, Webs, Clay, and Tsunami were inside; they all had their eyes closed and hung limply like sacks of fish.

“Are they OK?” Starflight cried.

“Sleeping darts,” said the raspberry dragon, producing a tiny blowgun from a pouch around his neck. “Let’s just say we have some tree frogs around here you wouldn’t want to lick. Your friends will wake up fine in a few hours.”

“It’s easier to meet new dragons this way,” said Liana. “We’ve had a couple of grumpy brown ones stumble in here, and for some reason they start biting us before we can even say hello. This way we get to chat first, while they’re still a bit groggy.”

“Plus it’s more fun,” said Jambu. “Practicing dart-shooting on ourselves isn’t the same.”

“They probably won’t think it’s so fun,” Glory said. “Especially the blue one. She can be a little cranky. Just to warn you.”

“So . . . are we your prisoners now?” Starflight asked glumly.

The dark blue dragon burst into gales of laughter, and amused noises swept through all the dragons in the trees.

“RainWings don’t take prisoners, funny little black dragon,” Liana said when she could speak again. “Whatever would we do with them?”

“Interrogate them for information,” Glory suggested. “Trade them for hostages or weaponry. Contain them to minimize any threats.”

The RainWings blinked at her as if she’d suddenly started speaking toucan.

“Just a few ideas,” she said with a shrug.

“If we’re not prisoners,” Starflight said, “then what are you going to do with us?”

“Well,” said the raspberry dragon, glancing up at the position of the sun over the canopy. “Is anyone hungry?”

And then the trees began to scream.