“Watch him carefully,” Glory instructed Clay. “Don’t let him talk.”

“MMMMMFF,” Deathbringer complained through the vines she’d tied around his snout. She didn’t want him spilling the beans to Clay before she could get away into the forest. Also, she’d gotten sick of listening to him yammer all night long trying to derail her plan. This way she’d been able to watch the sunrise in relative peace and quiet, shortly after which Clay had shown up.

“No worries,” Clay said. “I’ll just sit here and be my usual intimidating self.” He threw back his shoulders and tried to scowl.

“Absolutely terrifying,” Glory assured him.

Deathbringer managed to look skeptical despite the vines obscuring most of his face.

“I’ll send someone else soon to take the next watch,” she said, backing away.

But first I’m going to catch a monster.

It wasn’t that stupid a plan, no matter what Deathbringer said. A lone RainWing was exactly the kind of target the monster would go after. And she couldn’t risk enlisting another RainWing as bait — they were all too dopey to be any use, even Mangrove.

Besides, as far as she could tell, she was the only RainWing willing to use her venom on other living things. It wasn’t her favorite thing to do, but it was still a weapon — a powerful one that few dragons knew about — and she was sure she could use it to escape any situation if she had to.

She headed back to the tunnel first. She was still certain that it was connected to the missing RainWings, although she couldn’t figure out how.

It started with the question: Who had put the tunnel in place? And then: What was their plan — to steal a RainWing here and there? Why?

Glory nosed around the forest near the tunnel opening until she found a clearing where she could sit and think for a moment.

Burn seemed like an obvious suspect, since her stronghold was not far from the tunnel. But Glory had seen the look on Burn’s face as Glory’s venom sizzled on Queen Scarlet’s scales. It was pure shocked terror. The SandWing queen had clearly never seen anything like Glory’s venom before. If she were the one abducting RainWings for the past year, surely she’d have heard about their training sessions and she’d know all about it.

Glory stopped at a small bush and sprayed it with her venom. Black goop spattered over the leaves, and almost immediately the whole bush wilted, shriveled up, and died. Glory tilted her head at it, feeling weirdly guilty.

Maybe she could practice her aim while she waited for the monster to attack her. She chose another bush with long dragon-tail leaves and tried to hit just one of them.

Half the bush went fzzzzzrrrt and melted into the grass.

“Hmmm,” Glory said aloud. “Not awesome.”

She tried again. And again. The clearing was starting to look a bit worse for wear.

Glory stopped and smacked herself with her tail.

Try using your brain for half a moment, Glory.

If she made a mess like this with her venom practice, then surely the other training dragonets would have, too. So even though Bromeliad wouldn’t show her where Kinkajou had disappeared, there was a chance Glory could find it on her own.

She started at the waterfall and circled out from there, walking so she could study the bushes as she went past them. Fat spiny frogs stared at her, making worgle-WORG noises in their throats. A pair of red and gold birds with large beaks followed her for a while, gossiping loudly in what sounded like garbled dragon language.

But she found nothing — no signs of venom anywhere. Maybe the training sessions had been in a whole different part of the forest; maybe the secret tunnel really had nothing to do with the abductions.

Glory stubbornly kept searching. What other reason could there be for the tunnel? Who would need to get quickly between the desert and the rainforest? No one . . . no one came to the rainforest at all, and the RainWings certainly never left.

But the war is closer than they think, she thought. It’s right on their doorstep, ready to fall through into their peaceful world. She glared up at the treetops as an image of Queen Magnificent flashed through her head. And what is that useless queen going to do about it?

Blaze is no better than Magnificent. If we pick her, we leave the SandWings as weak and vulnerable as the RainWings.

She looked up at the trees again. Was it getting darker? The sun had been up for only a couple of hours.

A fat raindrop splattered against her snout. The leaves above her whooshed like dragon wings as the wind rushed through them, and more rain came pattering down in scatters and sprays. Glory drew her wings close to her.

Rain probably washed away any trace of venom training days ago, she realized. But she kept going, sodden undergrowth squelching below her talons.

She found herself in a small circle where the trees above bent together to form a kind of umbrella canopy, keeping the ground below relatively dry. She stopped there, stretching and shaking her wings. This is stupid, she told herself. I’m not going to find anything, and I’m not going to get caught by anything in this weather either. What kind of creature would be out hunting in the rain? She might as well head back to the village and dry off.

But as she turned to fly away, she spotted a dark patch on the bush of pink flowers beside her. Glory paused, then edged closer and peered at it.

Several of the leaves were withered and dead, looking sickly, black, and twisted. A glossy pattern of dark droplets had hardened on the ground under the bush.

Someone was training here, Glory thought. Maybe Kinkajou. Maybe one of the other missing dragons. She poked the piles of leaves that covered the ground and found half a talon print in the dirt — a small one, even smaller than Sunny’s. She leaned down to sniff at it.

And that was when something bashed her on the back of her head.

Glory started awake to the feeling of movement and something uncomfortable pressing against her wings. She kept still for a moment with her eyes closed, trying to figure out what was happening.

It felt like she was being dragged along the ground. Her left side was unpleasantly damp and slimy, as if she were wrapped in something that instantly soaked up the mud and clung to her scales. Rain still splattered around her, the sound muffled now by whatever she was in . . . a giant sack of some kind, she guessed.

Her wings were bound to her sides, and thick cloth was wrapped around her claws. More disturbingly, some kind of vine or rope was tied around her snout, binding her mouth shut.

Which meant using her venom was out of the question.

It also meant that whatever had caught her wasn’t just a mindless mystery beast. It was smart enough to tie her up. It probably knew about her venom — or it might just be wary of her teeth.

Her tail thwacked against something solid and she winced. She cracked open her eyes and saw only darkness. No, wait — not total darkness. Faint green light filtered through the thick canvas around her. The sack pressed close to her snout; it smelled like dead animals and rotten eggs and fire, overwhelming the damp leafy scent of the rainforest outside.

Glory tried to listen for clues, but all she could hear was wet slithering, which might be just the sack sliding over the forest floor. Then a shiver ran down her spine like sharp claws scrabbling to escape. She recognized the weird prickle under her scales — it was the feeling she got from the hole that led to the Kingdom of Sand.

I was right, she thought. They’re taking me to the tunnel.

Somehow, without her venom, she didn’t feel quite as triumphant about being right as she’d hoped.

She heard splashing and a moment later water soaked through the sack as she was dragged through the stream. A couple of grunts followed, and Glory felt herself lifted up into the air, then dropped onto cold stone.

Something shoved at her tail, and she started to slide, down and down as if it were slick ice below her.

Wait, she thought with a sickening lurch. The tunnel to the desert doesn’t go down. Where am I? She smacked into a wall and slid around a corner, picking up speed again. This isn’t the hole to the Kingdom of Sand. But it feels like that hole. So is this the same kind of passageway, ripped into the world where it shouldn’t be? And where does this one end?

She tumbled suddenly into open space and slammed into a pile of thin furs, which did not do much to blunt the impact of the rocks underneath them.

Glory lay there for a moment, trying not to groan. Every bone in her body ached; every scale felt as though it had been scraped raw. She was pretty sure she’d bitten her tongue when she landed. She could taste blood in her mouth.

The smell of death and smoke was stronger now, and it was no longer raining, but there was hardly any light coming through the sack. This was definitely not the desert; it was chilly instead of blazingly warm, although the sound of a fire crackled somewhere nearby. Glory could hear a distant rumble like faraway thunderclouds, except that it felt like it was coming from below the rocks instead of up in the sky.

Heavy feet thudded down beside her, and something snuffled loudly around the sack. Its breathing sounded the same as whatever had eaten the dead sloth in the night. Glory clenched her talons. Was it planning to eat her? Because it was in for quite a surprise if it —

“Another one?” said a disapproving voice.

The snuffling hitched for a second, as if startled, and then a hoarse voice beside Glory’s head said, “Yeah. Easy catch. She was all alone in the forest. Stupid like all RainWings.”

Dragons, Glory thought. Relief warred with fury. They’re just dragons. Nothing mysterious and creepy. Apart from the basic mysterious creepiness of kidnapping other dragons, that is.

Well, I can handle a couple of creepy dragons. Just as soon as they take this sack off me. She flexed her claws, wondering if she could rip through the cloth around them.

“Didn’t you get the message?” said the first dragon.

“Yeah,” said the one with the garbled breathing. “But I like the prey in the rainforest. And I was hungry. And then this dragon was just asking to get caught. Besides, I thought his message was stupid.”

“It’s not stupid if it keeps us safe.” The first dragon sighed. “Throw her in with the others. But from now on, do as you’re told.”

“Yeah, yeah,” grumbled the second dragon. “All right, I got it. No more hunting or grabbing dragons in the rainforest until Deathbringer says it’s all clear.”