Glory had never been so glad that her scales were hidden. There was no way she could stop the colors flooding through them; she couldn’t even guess what they were turning to right now.

Deathbringer did know who was taking the missing RainWings. He was connected to them. And somehow he had told them to stop . . . until “it’s all clear”; what did that mean? Until he’d finished kill ing the dragonets? Or until Glory and her friends stopped snooping around the tunnel?

And how did he get a message to these dragons? Glory had left him in the Ice Kingdom and then caught him coming out of the desert tunnel into the rainforest. He’d said he followed the dragonets to the hole in the sand, but maybe he’d known about it before. Maybe he’d gotten there first, gone through to this place, warned these dragons, and then gone back to the desert tunnel after the dragonets were back in the rainforest . . . but . . .

Glory remembered that Deathbringer had conveniently appeared just in time to stop them from catching the creature in the dark.

He did that on purpose.

He was warning off the other dragon — this one with the weird breathing.

Deathbringer knew we would catch him. Maybe he wanted us to catch him.

Her tail curled. And my friends are alone with Deathbringer. I have to get back to them. I have to get back right now.

She flung open her wings and lashed her tail, clawing at the sack frantically.

“Whoa!” yelled the hoarse voice. “A little help here!”

Glory’s heart sank at the sound of footsteps and wingbeats. There were a lot more than two dragons out there. She kicked out blindly, fighting as hard as she could, but talons grabbed her from all sides, pinning her to the ground.

“You’ll never get her there like this,” gasped one of the dragons. “You’ll have to knock her out again.”

“My plea sure,” said the hoarse voice.

And once again, something slammed into Glory’s head, and then all was darkness.

“Hey!”

Something nosed Glory in the ribs, and she woke up with a small yelp of pain.

“Are you awake?” Tiny claws lifted Glory’s eyelids, and something blurry came way too close to her snout to peer at her.

“Mmmmf!” Glory said through the gag around her mouth. She tried to push the something away, but her talons felt heavy and she missed.

“Ha ha, don’t even try,” said the little voice. “I’ve spent my whole life waking up dragons who’d rather be sleeping instead of training me. I’m excellent at dodging when they get all mad about it.” The tiny claws poked at her ruff. “How come I don’t know you?”

“Mmmmf,” Glory said again. Her head hurt. She rested it back on the ground and blinked until the world came into focus.

A small diamond-shaped snout hovered only a few inches from hers. Gigantic dark eyes peered out of gold and orange scales. The little dragonet couldn’t have been more than three years old. She poked Glory’s ruff again.

“Don’t worry, I know you can’t talk. I’m the only one without a gag. They decided my venom wasn’t strong enough or I couldn’t shoot it far enough to be dangerous, or something, I guess, which is a little unfair because if somebody would just train me properly, I think I’d be super-great at it and then these horrible dragons would be super-sorry for putting me in a cage.” A ripple of scarlet fury moved through her wings.

Glory reluctantly sat up so she could look around. The pain in her head flared viciously, and she had to close her eyes until it receded into a dull throb.

When she opened them again, she realized that the blurriness around her wasn’t just her eyes. The air was hazy with smoke. Pulsing heat wafted over her scales, although she couldn’t see any sign of a fire. She glanced up and saw jagged stone walls pressing close overhead. It seemed like the heat was coming from the rocks themselves.

Back in a cave, she thought. Awesome.

The sack was gone, but the bindings around her wings and claws were still in place. Her mouth was still bound as well, but it felt different from before — whatever clamped her snout shut now was much heavier than the earlier vines. She crossed her eyes trying to get a look at it.

“It’s a metal band,” the little dragonet explained, tilting her head sympathetically. “Like this one around my neck. It’s to keep you from using your venom, but it’s also so we can’t camouflage ourselves and disappear; they’ll always be able to see the metal band.” She pointed to a thick brassy clamp around her own neck. “Smart but annoying, right?” She paused. “Kind of like me! Ha ha! My name’s Kinkajou, by the way, in case you were wondering.”

So there’s one of the missing RainWings, Glory thought. Where are the others? The small cave held only herself and the dragonet. A half-moon of light glowed at the cave opening, not far away. Glory took a tentative step toward it, then another when nothing happened. Nothing fell from the roof; nothing attacked her; no alarms went off. What sort of prison was this?

Kinkajou followed her, still chattering. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “I’m super-good at that, especially nowadays when I’m the only one who can talk and so I have to imagine the other side of every conversation I have. Maybe telepathy is contagious or something. But anyway, you’re thinking you can walk out of this cave, and trust me, you can’t, but you’ll have to go see for yourself because everybody does, I guess, instead of listening to me.”

Glory reached the entrance and stopped.

Kinkajou was right. There was no walking out this way.

A wide, sluggish river of molten lava flowed past just outside the cave. It glowed gold and orange-bright, the only splash of color in a barren black landscape. With her wings bound, Glory would never make it across.

She leaned out to see where the lava river started. A hulking dark mountain filled the sky, half-hidden by the smoke pouring out the top. Smaller rivulets of lava dappled the slope and a red glow came from a few holes in the rocks. It was hard to tell whether it was night or day; the light was so strange, and the sky was swathed in dark clouds. Glory guessed that she’d been knocked out for a few hours, at least. The rotten-eggs smell was thick in the air.

“Sinister, right?” Kinkajou said in her ear, and Glory jumped. “Who would actually want to live here? I don’t get it.”

Who does live here? Glory wondered. The Talons of Peace? Is this where they hide?

And then she realized that parts of the landscape were moving, and they weren’t rocks after all . . . they were dragons. Black dragons, with silver scales glittering under their wings. She could see at least a hundred of them scattered across the mountain and several more flying above it.

She inhaled sharply and regretted it as sulfur filled her nose.

I know where we are.

This is the secret home of the NightWings.