text: "Prince Arctic?"
  
  A silvery white dragon poked her head around the door, tapping three times lightly on the ice wall. Arctic couldn't remember her name, which was the kind of faux pas his mother was always yelling at him about. He was a prince; it was his duty to have all the noble dragons memorized along with their ranks so he could treat them according to exactly where they fit in the hierarchy.
  
  It was stupid and frustrating and if his mother yelled at him about it one more time, he would seriously enchant something to freeze her mouth shut forever.
  
  Oooo. What a beautiful image. Queen Diamond with a chain of silver circles wound around her snout and frozen to her scales. He closed his eyes and imagined the blissful quiet.
  
  The dragon at his door shifted slightly, her claws making little scraping sounds to remind him she was there. What was she waiting for? Permission to give him a message? Or was she waiting for him to say her name — and if he didn't, would she go scurrying back to the queen to report that he had failed again?
  
  Perhaps he should enchant a talisman to whisper in his ear whenever he needed to know something. Another tempting idea, but strictly against the rules of IceWing animus magic.
  
  Animus dragons are so rare; appreciate your gift and respect the limits the tribe has set. Never use your power frivolously. Never use it for yourself. This power is extremely dangerous. The tribe's rules are there to protect you. Only the IceWings have figured out how to use animus magic safely.
  
  Save it all for your gifting ceremony. Use it only once in your life, to create a glorious gift to benefit the whole tribe, and then never again; that is the only way to be safe.
  
  Arctic shifted his shoulders, feeling stuck inside his scales. Rules, rules, and more rules: that was the IceWing way of life. Every direction he turned, every thought he had, was restricted by rules and limits and judgmental faces, particularly his mother's. The rules about animus magic were just one more way to keep him trapped under her claws.
  
  "What is it?" he barked at the strange dragon. Annoyed face, try that. As if he were very busy and she'd interrupted him and that was why he was skipping the usual politic rituals. He was very busy, actually. The gifting ceremony was only three weeks away. It was bad enough that his mother had dragged him here, to their southernmost palace, near the ocean and the border with the Kingdom of Sand. She'd promised to leave him alone to work while she conducted whatever vital royal business required her presence. Everyone should know better than to disturb him right now.
  
  The messenger looked disappointed. Maybe he really was supposed to know who she was. "Your mother sent me to tell you that the NightWing delegation has arrived."
  
  Aaarrrrgh. Not another boring diplomatic meeting.
  
  "I can't possibly be expected to attend them," he said, waving his claws at the translucent walls of his room. "I only have three more weeks to prepare."
  
  "Well," said the other IceWing, "she did mention that …"
  
  "But she doesn't care," he finished when she trailed off.
  
  The poor dragon looked profoundly uncomfortable, caught between a prince who outranked her and a queen who outranked everyone. Arctic sighed.
  
  "Very well," he said, sweeping shards of ice aside with his tail. "I'm coming."
  
  She stepped back with relief, and he realized that the silver chain around her neck had only one circle on it. Uh-oh. That meant she was ranked in the First Circle — how could he have forgotten a First Circle IceWing? First and Second Circle dragons usually lived in the queen's ice palace alongside the royal family, and he was sure he'd memorized them all.
  
  Except for the nobles who lived in the outer three palaces …
  
  "Snowflake," he blurted. He really was an idiot. This was the one his mother had chosen for him to marry. Respectable family, loyal, likely to have a daughter who could replace Queen Diamond one day, since he had no sisters or aunts who might try for the throne. Snowflake was probably the real reason he'd been dragged on this trip.
  
  "Yes," she said, dipping her head. She was pretty in that boring, glassy way his mother liked, but he had gotten absolutely no sense of her personality at their one prior meeting. He was a little afraid she might not have one.
  
  "Uh," he said, following her down the frozen hall. There must be something we can talk about. "Have you ever seen a NightWing before?"
  
  "Only the one who came to the wall a few months ago to request this meeting."
  
  "Do you know what they're here for?"
  
  She shook her head. So. That was apparently the end of that conversation.
  
  Ooo, how about an animus-touched object that can make any dragon interesting. Skies above, now that would be useful.
  
  Don't waste your gift! his mother's voice echoed in his head. Blah blah blah! Careful consideration! Months of planning!
  
  Sometimes he got a strong feeling that she regretted her own animus gift to the tribe: the gift of healing, which was a set of narwhal horns that could heal frostbreath injuries. It helped when young IceWings played too roughly or when fights broke out within the tribe … but it certainly would be a much more useful gift if the horns could heal any injuries. He bet Queen Diamond wished she could reach back through time and fix that mistake.
  
  "What would you give the tribe?" he asked Snowflake. "If you were an animus, I mean, and had to come up with a gift?"
  
  "Oh," she said, fidgeting her wings in little flippy waves. "I don't know."
  
  "Well, think about it," he said. "I'd really like to know."
  
  "All right," she said. They kept walking through the halls of the palace, which were smaller and more cramped than the ones at home, with odd little mismatched ice carvings everywhere — here a polar bear, there a wolf, there a screaming scavenger, here a lumpy owl. There was no consistency, no sense of an artistic vision, and everything was too close to him. It made Arctic want to smash through the walls just so he could see the sky.
  
  About a minute later, Snowflake said, "Sorry, I can't think of anything."
  
  Arctic couldn't hide the irritation that flashed across his face. "Really think about it," he said. "Tell me tomorrow, or whenever you come up with something."
  
  She gave him a look that, to his surprise, was nearly as irritated as his own. "Seems like kind of a waste of my time," she said. "Unless you're having trouble coming up with an idea for yours."
  
  "No, no," he said quickly. "Of course I already have a plan." Well, Mother has a plan. Which is why I am trying to come up with a better one.
  
  She didn't ask what it was. Instead she stopped at one of the flight ledges and nodded down at the dome below them. In the gathering dusk, it glowed from within like firelit marble, covering most of the plain between the palace and the ocean. Snow dusted the outside and the ground all around it; more crystalline flakes were falling softly from the sky.
  
  The ocean itself was gouged with streaks of orange and gold as the sun set on the distant western horizon. Dragon wings sliced the air like darting bats as hunters dove to catch dinner in the sea for the welcome banquet tonight.
  
  Arctic and Snowflake flew down to the entrance of the guest dome. Inside, he knew, it would be warmer than he liked, heated by the bodies of the fire-breathing NightWings and also by the gift of diplomacy. (Created by an animus named Penguin about fifty years ago, chatted his overstuffed brain. He had studied every animus gift in careful detail, trying to come up with something new and original for his own. Which was perhaps why he didn't have room in his brain for the faces of dragons he barely knew.)
  
  The dome itself was not an animus gift, though; these blocks of ice had been carved by ordinary IceWing talons. It must have taken ages, and he wasn't entirely convinced that it wouldn't all melt on top of some fire-breathing guests one day.
  
  Maybe I could improve the dome as my gift, he thought. An indestructible welcome dome for any allies or guests from other tribes. He dismissed the thought almost as soon as he had it. It was derivative and not nearly as impressive as he wanted it to be. He wanted his gift to be one that IceWings would marvel about for centuries after he was gone — something like Frostbite's gift of light.
  
  They landed with a crunch on the snow, but just as they were about to enter the tunnel into the dome, a dragon came charging out.
  
  "Sorry!" she cried breathlessly as she narrowly avoided knocking them over. "I just needed to be outside for a moment. Look at that sunset! Great kingdoms, it is freezing out here! I might literally die! But obviously I can't go back inside and miss this sunset. I can handle a little cold, right? If I just … keep … moving …" She began stamping furiously in a circle around them, whacking herself with her wings.
  
  She was a NightWing — the first NightWing Arctic had ever seen. He'd known she would be black, but he hadn't expected the underscales of dark green on her chest or the silver scales that glittered here and there across the underside of her wings. Her eyes, too, seemed a little closer to dark green than to black, and they caught his without any fear. Her wings snapped with energy and he felt his own wings responding, lifting as though he might suddenly take off and touch the moons.
  
  "I'll meet you inside," he said to Snowflake.
  
  She paused, giving the NightWing a disapproving look.
  
  "You can tell my mother I'm coming," he suggested. "Better hurry. She doesn't like to wait."
  
  Snowflake's forehead wrinkled into that irritated expression again, and she turned to whisk down the tunnel without even a bow or ritual farewell.
  
  I suppose that's what I deserve, he thought, since I didn't give her the greeting her rank requires. He stared after her for a moment, trying to imagine what it would be like to be married to Snowflake. Maybe she does have a personality: repressed fury. Or maybe she's as unexcited about this match as I am. I'm not sure how to improve that situation. I mean, I am a prince; if she marries me, she could hatch the next queen. What more could she want?
  
  "Who stuck an icicle up her snout?" asked the NightWing. She started jumping up and down in place, grinning at him.
  
  "I'm afraid that was me, probably," he said. "It took me far too long to remember her name."
  
  "So?" said the black dragon. "I forget names all the time."
  
  "Well, I'm not supposed to forget anyone's," he said. "Also, we're kind of engaged to be married."
  
  The NightWing started laughing so hard she had to sit down, which immediately made her leap up again with a yelp, shaking snow off her tail.
  
  "Are you all right?" he asked.
  
  "Just c-c-cold," she said, stamping her feet again. "All right, I'm on her side. That's pretty terrible. You're the worst."
  
  "I'm not the worst!" he protested. "We've only met once! I barely know her! Also, she is extremely unmemorable!"
  
  "Seriously the worst!" she cried, laughing again. "That poor dragon! I am completely telling her not to marry you. I pity whoever gets tricked into that. You'll be like, 'Happy fortieth anniversary … what's your name again?' and she'll be all, 'It's our FIFTIETH, you slime weasel, and my name is you're sleeping on an iceberg tonight.'"
  
  "I promise I would remember that name," he said. "Sticks in the brain a bit better than Snowflake."
  
  "And what's your name?" she asked. "Or I can keep calling you slime weasel, although I suspect that might get me kicked off the peacekeeping committee."
  
  "My name is Arctic. Prince Arctic."
  
  "Oh, fancy," she said. "I guess I shouldn't bother telling you mine, since you'll forget it in the next five minutes anyway."
  
  "I promise I won't," he protested.
  
  "Oh, you only forget your girlfriends' names?" she joked. "Or future family members?"
  
  "I remember any dragon who seems likely to change my life," he said.
  
  "That's not me!" she cried, looking genuinely startled. "I'm under strict orders not to do any damage or break any ice palaces or corrupt any IceWings or change any lives. Then again, I'm pretty sure I've never followed an order in my life, so … you know, watch your back, ice palaces."
  
  Never followed an order in her life! Arctic blinked at her, enchanted and mystified. How was that possible? Life was nothing but a series of orders; if you didn't follow them, wouldn't you get lost or drop to the bottom of the rankings or be thrown out of your tribe? Imagine disobeying an order — any order. Where would I even start?
  
  "AAAAAAAH, why is it SO COLD?" The NightWing leaped into the air and started doing vigorous somersaults.
  
  "Because this is the Ice Kingdom," he said, standing back out of her way. "It's true, though, our climate is one of our best-guarded secrets."
  
  "Oh, he's a wise guy, too," she said, righting herself and landing again. "Do you have any useful skills, or maybe an extra one of those magic bracelets that keeps your guests from freezing?"
  
  "That's the gift of diplomacy," he said. "It keeps our guests warm and helps them travel safely over the Great Ice Cliff. The tribe only has three bracelets — are there more than three of you?" he asked, surprised.
  
  "I'm the fourth," she said. "My mother and I are sharing her bracelet; there was some back and forth silliness to get over your cliff. I probably should have asked for it before I came outside."
  
  "We could go inside," he said reluctantly. Inside there would be other dragons, infinitely more boring dragons, not to mention his mother, and probably a new set of rules about appeasing Snowflake, staying away from NightWings, and generally acting more like an obedient puddle. "Or we could stay to watch the rest of the sunset …"
  
  "The sunset is great," she said, "but honestly I had to come out here because my mother is driving me crazy."
  
  He couldn't control the smile that split his face like ice cracking. It seemed possible that he would never be able to stop smiling at her. He'd never heard an IceWing say anything like that about his or her parents; it was beyond forbidden to complain or talk back or criticize your elders in any fashion.
  
  "Please tell me all about it," he said.
  
  "Oh, she's always lecturing me about how I ruin everything. Foeslayer, why are the scrolls shelved in the wrong places again? Foeslayer, you smiled at the wrong dragons this morning! Foeslayer, the queen will never want you on her council if you insist on having opinions all the time. Foeslayer, I'm bringing you on this mission because I don't trust you if I leave you behind, but if you say one word to any IceWing, I will mount your head on a spike in the throne room." She snapped her mouth shut as if she'd just understood that last instruction, then gave Arctic a rueful look. "Um … oops."
  
  "Aha," he said, with a thrill like the first time he'd touched fire. "I have cleverly deduced that your name is Foeslayer."
  
  "Oh no," she said. "That's just how my mother starts all her sentences."
  
  He laughed and she smiled and he thought that perhaps nothing would ever be boring or frustrating again as long as he was near her.
  
  "So really," she said, "no secret extra magic bracelets? Or a blanket or anything?"
  
  "Sorry," Arctic said, wishing he could offer his own wings for warmth — but his scales were as cold as the snow underfoot and would only make things worse.
  
  She sighed. "Then I guess I do have to go back inside."
  
  "Wait," he said. He didn't stop to think about it. It was wrong, worse than wrong: a broken rule, a betrayal of his entire tribe, but next to this shining dragon he didn't care. He'd do anything for another few minutes with her.
  
  He unclipped the diamond earring from his ear, held it between his talons, and said softly, "I enchant this earring to keep the dragon wearing it warm no matter the temperature … and to keep her safe no matter the danger."
  
  Her dark green eyes were wide with disbelief as he leaned over and gently curled the earring around her ear. His talons lingered there for a moment, brushing against the smooth warmth of her long, dark neck. The shivering in her scales slowed to a stop, and she cautiously held out her wings to the cold air.
  
  "Whoa. That — that worked," she said. "So the rumors are true — your tribe does have magic."
  
  "Only a few of us," he said. "And so does yours, doesn't it?"
  
  "Only a few of us," she echoed, "and not like that. I don't have anything, for instance. You just — can you enchant anything? To do anything?"
  
  "Animus power," he said, taking a step closer to her. "That's how it works."
  
  "Then why don't the IceWings rule the entire continent?" she asked, her tail skipping nervously over the snowy ground. "You don't even need this alliance. You could destroy the SkyWings easily, couldn't you?"
  
  He shook his head. "The tribe has strict rules. We're only allowed to use our power once in a lifetime."
  
  Foeslayer's talon flew to the earring and she stared at him, shocked into stillness for the first time.
  
  "Well," he said with a shrug, "perhaps I'm not much of a rule follower either." He felt another thrill at the idea of being that dragon, of being seen that way by this dragon. He reached out tentatively and brushed her wing with his. She didn't pull away.
  
  "Why?" Foeslayer whispered.
  
  "It's these old legends we have," Arctic said, "warning us of the dangers of animus magic — use it too much, you lose your soul, some mystical mumbo jumbo like that, which probably isn't even true. But once there's a law set down in the Ice Kingdom, everyone better follow it with no questions asked." He decided not to mention the ancient stories of animus dragons gone mad.
  
  "No," Foeslayer said, touching the earring again. "Why did you do this — for me?" She wrinkled her snout, half teasing, half serious. "Aren't you worried about your soul?"
  
  "Not anymore," he said. "It's yours now … if you want it."
  
  Glittering petals of snow fell softly on her black wings, melting into her heat. Foeslayer hesitated, then reached out and took one of Arctic's talons in hers.
  
  This is a bad idea, whispered Arctic's conscience. The very worst. Neither of our tribes would forgive us. Mother will never allow it.
  
  All the more reason. I won't let the queen crush my entire life between her claws.
  
  It's my life, my magic, and my heart.
  
  "I'm going to say something really sappy," Foeslayer warned him.
  
  "More sappy than what I just said?" he asked. "I'd like to see you try."
  
  "I just — I have this strange feeling," Foeslayer said, looking into his eyes, "that the world is about to change forever."
  
  Fathom had never thought of himself as anyone special, and he certainly wasn't expecting that to change the day of the animus test.
  
  Eight SeaWing dragonets were lined up on the beach that morning, their blue and green scales wet from the hissing waves of the ocean behind them. All of them had turned two years old within the last few months. The sun was beating on Fathom's snout and his eyes felt prickly and sore from the brightness. He couldn't wait to get back to the underwater palace, where it was cool and dark.
  
  But he sat quietly, patiently, waiting without moving (even though they'd been sitting there for ages), like they had been told to do. Unlike some dragonets.
  
  Swish. Sand pattered across his back talons, just enough for him to be sure it wasn't the wind that had done it.
  
  "Shhh," he said out of the corner of his mouth.
  
  "Who, me?" said the dragonet next to him. "What did I say? Nothing, that's what. You're the one being noisy. I'm just sitting here. Perfectly still. A model dragonet, me." She lifted her chin and put on an angelic expression.
  
  A large, sleek seagull landed up the beach from the dragons, near the tree line, and eyed them suspiciously. It had the face of a bird who knew things — a shrewd bird who had managed to survive this long in a dragon world. It was clearly trying to figure out why a bunch of dragons had popped out of the water and then decided to sit quietly in a row on the sand. Were they about to drop bits of food for a crafty seagull? Or were they all conspiring to eat him?
  
  The bird pivoted its head to study them with its other eye.
  
  "I dare you to grab it and eat it," Indigo whispered.
  
  "Quit talking to me," Fathom growled.
  
  "You know you want to." Her voice was as light as feathers, barely stirring the air.
  
  He did want to. He was very hungry. But the queen had told them not to move, and he was not going to be the dragonet who failed. Being the queen's great-nephew would not save him from whatever trouble that would cause.
  
  Swish. This time a hermit crab got caught in the sweep of Indigo's tail and bonked against his side as the sand sprayed over his feet. Fathom felt the crab stagger dazedly across his claws, trying to figure out what had just happened to it.
  
  "Stop. That," he growled, keeping his face as still as he could. On his other side, he heard his sister, Pearl, let out a small, exasperated sigh.
  
  "I think you're the one who should stop distracting everybody with all your chitchat, Highness," said Indigo with mock primness.
  
  "Indigo." Queen Lagoon materialized suddenly behind them, rising out of the ocean like a sinister iceberg. She stalked slowly up the beach between Fathom and his troublemaking friend.
  
  "Your Majesty," Indigo said, her dark blue-purple claws gripping the sand. She managed to keep her anxiety out of her voice, but Fathom knew that the queen terrified her. Given how openly Queen Lagoon disliked her, in fact, Indigo would be quite justified if she tried to bury herself in kelp whenever the queen appeared.
  
  "I hope you are taking this test seriously," said the queen. She turned her gaze to scrutinize Fathom, and he felt as though eels were wriggling under his scales. He liked it much better when the queen ignored him, as she did most of the time. He was only a minor prince in the palace, nobody important.
  
  "Of course, Your Majesty." Indigo widened her eyes as if she'd never done anything wrong in her entire life.
  
  There was another splash behind them, and Fathom found himself holding his breath as a new dragon stalked up the beach to join the queen.
  
  It was him.
  
  The most respected dragon in the SeaWing tribe, second in power only to the queen: Fathom's grandfather, Albatross.
  
  Albatross was from the same hatching as his sister, Queen Lagoon, but he was nearly a neck length taller than her, with long wings that swept majestically across the sand. His scales were bluish gray but so pale that in places they looked almost white, while his eyes were a blue so dark they were nearly black. In fact, his coloring was somewhat similar to the seagull, which had now retreated to the safer vantage point of a palm tree.
  
  His expression, too, was as suspicious as the seagull's. He looked down his long, hooked snout at the dragonets.
  
  "This is a waste of time, Lagoon," he said. "Nobody ever tested me, but we figured out quickly enough what I could do. If any of them have a shred of power, surely they would know by now. Or it will become obvious, sooner or later."
  
  "I'd prefer sooner," the queen said silkily. "If we find another animus in the tribe, that would make us twice as powerful, which would be quite useful given how the MudWings and RainWings have been behaving lately. And the earlier we find her, the sooner you can start to train her, and the sooner I can start to use her.
  
  "Besides," she added in a lower voice, so Fathom had to strain to hear her, "I think we would all prefer to discover our next animus in a less … dramatic fashion than you were discovered. Don't you?"
  
  Albatross flinched, just slightly. He cast a skeptical eye across the young dragons. "My power is more than enough for whatever you need. I've given you everything you've asked for, haven't I? And I don't want an apprentice."
  
  Lagoon coiled her tail and bared her fangs. Suddenly she did not seem smaller than Albatross at all. Fathom dug his talons into the warm sand, trying not to shiver.
  
  "You are done complaining about this," she hissed. "The animus tests will continue. You will administer them whenever I tell you to. You will train any dragonet we find with powers like yours. And you will never question my decisions again."
  
  There was a long pause, and then Albatross bowed his head. "Yes, Your Majesty." He folded his wings and paced down the line of dragonets, avoiding everyone's gaze. "Some of you may have heard of animus magic. It is a rare kind of immense power, and a dragon is either born with it or he isn't. What we are doing today is a simple test to see if you have that power. Almost certainly you do not," he added.
  
  Albatross flicked his tail at the trees. The seagull let out an alarmed screech as eight coconuts suddenly wrestled themselves loose and came flying down to the beach, rolling to a stop on the sand, one in front of each dragonet.
  
  "Pick up your coconut," Albatross said.
  
  Fathom hesitated. There was something a little terrifying about this order. Albatross sounded bored, and yet a coconut that flew through the air by itself might do anything when you touched it. Would it explode in their claws? Turn into a sea urchin and stab them? Was this the kind of test that might hurt?
  
  Pearl was the first to lift her coconut into her talons, with Indigo a moment behind her. Neither of them started screaming, so Fathom reached out and picked his up as well.
  
  It seemed like an ordinary coconut — hairy, a little heavy, warm from the sun.
  
  "Now," said Albatross, "tell your coconut to fly over here and hit me."
  
  The dragonets glanced at one another in confusion, shuffling their feet. Fathom felt the ocean lapping at his tail as the tide started to come in.
  
  "Um," said Indigo — of course it was Indigo, the only dragonet who ever spoke up about anything. "Sorry. How do we do that?"
  
  Queen Lagoon glared at her, but Albatross looked obscurely pleased. "You use your power, if you have any," he said. "An animus dragon can enchant any object to do what he wants it to do. I can do it now without even speaking, but saying it out loud is the way to start. Simply whisper to your coconut that you want it to fly over here and hit me." He smiled.
  
  "Huh," said Indigo. "Wouldn't it be easier to just throw it at you?"
  
  Albatross barked a laugh. "But then you might miss. An enchanted coconut will never miss, no matter how I dodge or try to block it. Go ahead and try."
  
  Small voices began to murmur on either side of Fathom. He glanced over at Pearl, who was frowning hard at her coconut, and then at Indigo, who met his eyes, grinned, and gave a "well, this is the dumbest thing we've done all day" shrug.
  
  Fathom curled his claws around the brown sphere and brought his snout close to it, feeling quite silly indeed.
  
  "Coconut," he whispered. "Um. Would you please go hit my grandfather?"
  
  The coconut didn't move. It wasn't a magical ball of danger. It was just a coconut.
  
  Fathom exhaled. He didn't know what he felt. A part of him had hoped … well, it was ridiculous to hope. Albatross was the only animus in the tribe — the only animus any SeaWing had ever known. There were rumors that other tribes had them, but who could tell if that was true. Maybe Albatross was the only one ever. The chances of finding another SeaWing animus just a generation or two after Albatross, when there had never been one before … and the chances of it being him, Fathom, of all dragons …
  
  "Fathom, you jellyfish," Indigo whispered, giggling. "I don't think you're supposed to ask politely. He said tell it what to do."
  
  "How would you know?" Fathom whispered back. "You don't know how effective politeness can be because you have atrocious manners."
  
  The other dragonets were starting to whisper to one another as well. Nobody's coconut had done anything interesting. Albatross turned to the queen with an "I told you so" smirk.
  
  "It's a coconut." Indigo rolled her eyes. "I think you're allowed to boss it around."
  
  "Fine." Fathom held the coconut a bit higher and gave it a stern royal stare as imposing as his great-aunt's, trying to make Indigo laugh. "Coconut, listen up. I command you to fly across this beach and strike my grandfather."
  
  The coconut shot out of his talons so fast that Fathom stumbled forward, thinking he'd dropped it. He let out a yelp of surprise, but it was not enough warning for Albatross, whose eyes were on the queen. Fathom's coconut smashed into his grandfather's chest hard enough to knock him backward, his wings flying out, sand blasting in all directions like waves.
  
  Silence dropped over the beach.
  
  Fathom had never known it was possible to feel this elated and this terrified at the same time. He wished he could dive into the ocean and scream at the top of his lungs, but he couldn't move a single muscle.
  
  "Whoa," Indigo breathed.
  
  Albatross slowly rolled to his feet, struggling against the sucking, shifting white sand. He shook out his wings and stood up, wincing. He looked suddenly a lot older than he had before. Without looking at the dragonets or the queen, he carefully picked up the coconut that had attacked him, stared at it for a moment, and then held it to his chest. Fathom thought he could hear tiny crunching sounds. Had he cracked his grandfather's ribs? Was Albatross using the coconut to heal himself?
  
  Was he in the very worst trouble he'd ever been in?
  
  Finally Albatross looked up.
  
  "Who did that?" he asked. Queen Lagoon swiveled her head, staring down the line of dragonets until she came to Fathom's empty claws.
  
  Fathom hunched his shoulders and saw that Pearl was pointing at him.
  
  "It was my brother," she said. "Fathom's an animus!"
  
  "Leaping barracudas," Indigo said to him. "I can't believe you never told me!"
  
  "I didn't know!" he protested. "I had no idea!" Frankly it had never occurred to him to give orders to inanimate objects before.
  
  "Prince Fathom," said the queen, stepping toward him with a glittering smile. "How perfectly wonderful. You are going to do such wonderful, important things for m — for your tribe."
  
  Fathom held out his talons and stared at them. I'm an animus. The rarest of all dragons. ME. I am special after all. I have magic like no other dragon in the Kingdom of the Sea.
  
  Except one.
  
  He looked up and met his grandfather's eyes.
  
  "Yes," said Albatross, smiling. "What happy news."
  
  Behind him, out of view of the other dragons, a vine curled slowly out of the jungle and wrapped itself around the seagull's throat. Fathom watched, transfixed, as the bird was strangled to death without a sound.
  
  Albatross patted Fathom on the shoulder, his face calm and friendly. "Another animus in the tribe," he said. "I'm so very, very pleased."
  
  His earliest memory was the voices that came from outside the darkness.
  
  "Are you sure it's time? Now? Tonight?"
  
  "Yes. NightWing mothers always know. And it's the brightest night, like Foreseer said it would be. Three full moons … we haven't had a thrice-moonborn dragonet in over a century! Snakes and centipedes, quit pacing. It makes me want to bite your ear off."
  
  "Try anything like that and I'll enchant all your teeth to fall out."
  
  A slight pause. "Arctic. I was just kidding."
  
  "Right. Me too."
  
  He couldn't understand the words yet, but he was flooded with the emotions that poured from both minds. One (Mother, he knew without knowing) was absorbed with worry, protective, ready to love and defend and rage at a moment's turn. The other radiated resentment and cold anger, rotten around the edges.
  
  A scratching noise, and he felt the world tilting. Suddenly there was light, dim and soft but there, beyond the wall he had only just discovered around him. The light was calling him: Come out, come out. Come out now.
  
  "Why are you moving them?" the angry voice demanded. "We leave ours buried in the snow."
  
  "Ours have to hatch in the moonlight," Mother answered. "Stop scowling at me. It's completely safe. NightWings have been doing this for hundreds of years."
  
  There was a sharp, loud tap near his ear.
  
  "Don't touch them!"
  
  A dizzying rush of motion, followed by warmth and stillness.
  
  "Why are they two different colors?" asked the voice he didn't like, as loud and splintery and jagged as the tap had been. "Is it because of us? Maybe that one's more of an IceWing?"
  
  "No," she said. "Most NightWing eggs are black, but the ones that hatch under full moons turn silver like this. I don't know why that one's still black. They should hatch at the same time."
  
  "Something is wrong with it," he muttered.
  
  "Nothing," said Mother, "is wrong with my dragonets."
  
  The world tilted again, and he felt himself settling into a place that wouldn't roll or shift so easily when he moved.
  
  Now he could sense something else — another heartbeat, slow and steady and very close by. He reached for her mind, but there was only peace and quiet there. None of the urgency to escape that he felt. He knew he didn't have forever. Now, that's what he had, only now.
  
  "We're up too high," grumbled the angry voice. "They could fall. This is a stupid tradition. We should have taken them back to the Ice Kingdom to hatch."
  
  "So they could freeze the moment they came out?" Mother said acerbically.
  
  "They wouldn't," he growled. "They are half IceWing, remember."
  
  "And your mother would have been so pleased to meet them," she snapped. "At least my family won't kill our dragonets on sight. They'll help us protect them."
  
  "Your family has nothing to complain about. I brought royal IceWing blood to their line."
  
  Mother hissed dangerously. "I see. I'm so sorry about mixing it with my peasant NightWing blood."
  
  A burst of violence, of bloody scales and frozen claws, flashed through the dragonet's mind. His mother was in danger. Bad things were about to happen. But he could stop it. He just had to come out now.
  
  He pressed his talons hard against the walls around him, shoving and kicking and straining. A satisfying crack, and the sensation of something giving way beneath his back claws.
  
  "He's coming, look." It worked. They were both distracted from their anger, especially Mother, all her thoughts now on her dragonet, her mind shimmering with excitement.
  
  He tried to reach the quiet heartbeat again. If he'd had the words, he would have thought Come out with me! Just try! You have to fight!
  
  But he didn't have those words yet, and she wasn't listening in any case.
  
  "There's a storm coming. Does that make a difference to your moon superstitions?"
  
  "I don't think so, but it doesn't matter. He'll be out before it gets here. Look how strong he is." A moment, a pulse where they almost shared the same emotion, and then she added, "They're not superstitions, by the way. You don't have to be a rhinoceros nostril just because you don't understand something."
  
  The danger flashed before him again. Time to fight harder. He dug in his claws and squirmed, pushing in every direction at once.
  
  The light, the light, the light wanted him out, wanted to run its talons over his wings, drip through his scales, fill him with silver power. He wanted that power, too, all of it, all of it.
  
  CRACK-CRACK-CRACK.
  
  The walls fell away.
  
  The moons poured in.
  
  Three silver eyes in the sky, huge and perfectly round, with darkness all around them. It felt as if they were sinking into his chest, melting into his eyes. He wanted to scoop them into his talons and swallow them whole.
  
  He was in a carved stone nest lined with black fur, at the peak of a sharp promontory. Another egg sat quietly in the nest, nearly camouflaged against the fur and the shadows.
  
  Below him stretched a vast landscape of caverns and ravines, glowing with firelight and echoing with the flutter of wings. It looked as though a giant dragon had raked the ground with her claws, digging secret canyons and caves into the rock all across the terrain, some of them stretching toward the starlit sea in the distance.
  
  After several heartbeats he realized there were two large dragons behind him, their wings drawn tight against the wind that buffeted them all. One was black as the night, one pale as the moons. He glanced down at his scales, but he didn't have to see their color to know he belonged with the dark one. That was Mother. She sparked with anger from snout to tail, but there was immense room inside her for love, and she adored him already, heart and soul. He could feel it. It filled him like the moonlight did, setting the world quickly into understandable shapes in his head. He loved her, too, immediately and forever.
  
  The danger came from the white dragon. This was Father, some kind of partner to the dragon who cared. The newly hatched dragonet could hardly look at him without seeing a spiral of confusing flashes: pain, fury, screaming dragons, and blood, everywhere, blood. This white dragon had done something terrible that haunted him, and he might do worse someday. Father's mind had patches of damp, rotten vileness all over it.
  
  The dragonet immediately wanted to turn him into a fireball and blow his ashes away. But inside Father, hidden under layers of ice, pulsed a small, warm ember of love for Mother. That was the thing that saved him.
  
  Wait and see, thought the dragonet. He did not understand yet that he could see the future. He had no idea what the flashes meant. He couldn't follow the paths that were unfolding in his brain; cause and effect and consequences were all still beyond him. But in his mother's mind he found the idea of hope, and in his father's mind he traced the outline of something called patience.
  
  He could wait. There was much still to come between him and this father-shaped dragon.
  
  "Darkstalker," said Mother. "Hello, darling." She held out her talons and he climbed into them willingly, content to be closer to that warmth.
  
  "Darkstalker?" Father snorted. "You must be joking. That's the creepiest name I've ever heard."
  
  "It is not," she snapped, and the dragonet bared his teeth in sympathy, but neither of them noticed. "The darkness is his prey. He chases back the dark, like a hero."
  
  "Sounds more like he creeps through the dark. Like a stalker."
  
  "Stop being horrible. It's not up to you. In my kingdom, mothers choose their dragonets' names."
  
  "In my kingdom, the dragon with the highest rank in the family chooses the dragonets' names and the queen must approve them."
  
  "And of course you think your 'rank' is higher than mine," she snarled. "But we're not in your kingdom. My dragonets will never set foot in your frozen wasteland. We are here, whether you like it or not, and he is my son, and his name is Darkstalker."
  
  Father's eyes, like fragments of ice, studied Darkstalker's every scale, and Darkstalker could feel the cold, congealing weight of Father's resentment.
  
  "He looks every inch a NightWing," Father growled. "Not a shred of me in him at all."
  
  Suspicion, hatred, outrage flashing on both sides, but none of it spoken.
  
  "Fine," said Father at last. "You can have your sinister little Darkstalker. But I want to name the other one."
  
  Mother hesitated, glancing at the unhatched egg, which was still black. Darkstalker listened as her mind turned it over, already half detached. She wasn't sure anyone would ever come out of that egg. She was ready to give all her love to Darkstalker, her perfect thrice-moonborn dragonet. All of it, and he was ready to take it.
  
  But Darkstalker knew his sister was in that egg. Alive, but not restless. Quiet. She didn't care for the moons that had called him forth. She couldn't hear them.
  
  Something tingled in his claws.
  
  He could change that.
  
  He could touch her egg and summon her. He knew it, somehow; he could see in his mind how her egg would turn silver under his talons, how it would splinter and crack open as she scrambled out. He could see the beautiful, odd-looking dragonet that would come out, and he could see the moons sharing their power with her, too.
  
  Then they would be the same. She would be born under three moons as well. She would have the same power as him … and the same love from Mother.
  
  Which he already had to share with the undeserving ice monster across from him.
  
  No. This was his. All he had to do was nothing. His sister would come out in her own time, tomorrow when the moons were no longer full. Then he would be the only special one.
  
  "All right," said Mother. "If that egg hatches, you can name the dragonet inside. Only … remember she has to grow up in the NightWing tribe. It'll be hard enough — just, try to be kind, is all. Think of her future and how she'll need to fit in."
  
  Father nodded, seething internally at being instructed like a low-ranked dragonet in training.
  
  She'll be all right, Darkstalker thought. A thousand futures dropped away before him as he made his first choice. Futures where his sister joined his quest for power; futures where she fought him and stopped him; futures where they were best friends; futures where one of them killed the other, or vice versa. As Darkstalker folded his talons together, choosing to keep them still for tonight, every possible future with a thrice-moonborn sister disappeared.
  
  He saw them blink out, and although he didn't know exactly what it meant, he felt somehow a tiny bit safer, a tiny bit bigger and stronger.
  
  Sorry, little sister, he thought, not in so many words, but with visions of his future cascading through his mind. This is my mother. Those are my full moons.
  
  This is my world now.
  
  A few days after the animus test, Albatross summoned Fathom for the first time. It was right in the middle of their geography lesson, and Fathom felt his stomach lift and drop and zigzag just like the lines of the canyons around the Deep Palace.
  
  Grandfather wants to see me? he echoed. Right now?
  
  He said to meet him at the sunset beach of the Island Palace, the messenger reported. Alone. The phosphorescent scales under his wings flashed, transmitting the words in the SeaWing underwater language, Aquatic. An eel swam by the window, peered in at the dragons, and then wriggled quickly away.
  
  Can't Indigo come? Fathom asked, glancing at his friend. She was perched beside him on the pink coral ledge around the interior of the room, their talons anchoring them down while their wings drifted in the water. On her other side, Pearl was giving her tail a bored inspection.
  
  His sister glittered with coils of gemstones, long twisted ropes of pearls and opals and sapphires circling her torso and ankles. Indigo's only adornment was a necklace woven from dark purple seaweed, which Fathom had made for her last week. He liked it because the color matched her eyes. He liked her because she wore it with delight even when she was surrounded by the sharp-eyed, bejeweled dragons of the Deep Palace.
  
  He didn't want to leave the Deep Palace without Indigo. He rarely went anywhere without her; they'd been together almost since hatching. Her mother had been in Queen Lagoon's army, where she'd become close friends with Fathom's mother before she died. Indigo's father curated the museum at the Island Palace and was quite happy to leave his only dragonet's upbringing to the caretakers who'd been assigned to Fathom and Pearl. Indigo was the only dragon invited to every royal family gathering despite having not a drop of royal blood in her.
  
  Hang on, does Indigo want to come? Indigo said, poking his wing with hers. Perhaps someone with manners should try asking her. She might be extremely busy, you know. She reached out to tap the large terrain model of the kingdom that filled most of the room, and the tip of an underwater mountain broke off in her claws. Oops, she said with a guilty look at their frowning tutor. Never mind, I'm totally free.
  
  He specifically said "alone," the messenger flashed with a shrug.
  
  I think you two can survive an afternoon's separation, Pearl chimed in, rolling her eyes.
  
  Fathom knew that, but it felt so weird to have something he couldn't share with his best friend. And he kept thinking of that seagull … although he knew it didn't mean anything, and possibly he'd seen the whole thing wrong and maybe the bird had accidentally strangled itself. Right? It was possible. Wasn't it?
  
  I agree with Pearl, said their tutor. Perhaps with you gone, Indigo will miraculously be able to focus on the geography of the Kingdom of the Sea.
  
  Indigo sighed a little whoosh of water around her snout. Not likely, she said sadly.
  
  Why are you acting like an indecisive jellyfish right now? Pearl demanded, glaring at Fathom. The scales flashing along her wings were brighter than they needed to be, and he blinked several times, trying to avoid a headache. You're the chosen one or whatever. Go have special chosen-one bonding time with Grandfather.
  
  Yeah. Indigo nudged his wing again. Get excited! You've been waiting for this!
  
  She was right. Albatross had forbidden him to try any magic until their first session, and it felt as though Fathom's claws had been trapped in sand the last few days. He knew they could do marvelous things and he wanted to set them free. He wanted to start playing with his power; he wanted to find out everything he could do. And for that he needed his grandfather, the only one in the tribe who understood how animus magic worked.
  
  All right — I'll be back soon, he said. I think.
  
  Sure, if you're not too special and magical to hang out with us anymore, Pearl said.
  
  Fathom gave her a sideways look, trying to figure out if she was mad at him. For what? Being an animus? There wasn't much he could do about that.
  
  And he wasn't sorry. Their whole life, his sister was always "the one who might be queen someday." She had special diplomacy classes, extra policy sessions with the queen, private lessons to improve her handwriting (which was terrible), even advanced etiquette courses (those he was fine with missing). Wasn't that enough specialness for her?
  
  Whereas he could never rule the tribe … but now he had magic.
  
  His wings felt as if they had an extra current underneath them, shooting him along as he flew through the water to the Island Palace. He took all his strange little whispery feelings of dread and squashed them flat. He was special. He wasn't just another SeaWing prince, destined to lead a wing of the queen's army, sitting through normal lessons, on track for an ordinary dragon's life.
  
  He had power, and he could use it to do something amazing.
  
  Exactly what that would be, he wasn't sure yet. He'd been trying to think of some good ideas so he could show Albatross what a smart, thoughtful dragon he was.
  
  The Island Palace was an elegant, sprawling complex of pavilions and courtyards, rooms and terraces, gardens and walkways that covered an entire island at the heart of the Kingdom of the Sea. Several of the walkways led to pavilions over the water, with glass floors so the dragons could have the sea at their talons at all times. Carvings of pale pink sea horses and bone-white dolphins dotted the gardens. Iridescent-blue paua shells gleamed in wave patterns, with white foam made from inlaid pearl, all along the polished wooden walls.
  
  This was where Queen Lagoon entertained visitors from other tribes with elaborate feasts and entertainments that went on for days. This was also where the regular royal family gathering happened once a month, so Fathom had his own bungalow there, which he shared with Indigo and Pearl.
  
  There were two main beaches used for palace events. The sunrise beach was the one dragons went to for tranquility or quiet conversation, for peace and quiet and solitude. So Fathom was surprised that Albatross had summoned him to the sunset beach instead, where parties often began that could last all night long. Royal weddings usually took place on this beach, including the one five years ago between his own parents, Manta and Reef.
  
  But in the middle of the day, with the sun high above them, it was deserted. Albatross stood alone on the white sand, watching with his odd dark eyes as Fathom swam up to the beach. Waves clawed and pounced at his feet, eating away the sand below him, but Albatross didn't seem to notice he was sinking.
  
  "Hello, Grandson," he said, spreading his wings as wide as his smile. "Do you feel powerful today? Ready to do some magic?"
  
  "Yes!" Fathom said.
  
  "Let's see those claws," said Albatross. Fathom held out his front talons and Albatross inspected them, one side and then the other, as though he were selecting a pair of precisely matched emeralds.
  
  "Hmmm, yes, very interesting," Albatross said. "This talon definitely has more power than that one."
  
  "It does?" Fathom said with awe, stretching it out so the sunlight shone through the webs between his claws.
  
  "Oh, clearly," said Albatross. "Can't you tell?"
  
  Fathom nodded thoughtfully. "I — yes — of course, it's more — more tingly, like —" He caught the mischievous expression on his grandfather's face. "Wait a minute. You're messing with me!"
  
  Albatross laughed a warm, fish-smelling laugh. "I couldn't resist. I've never had a fellow animus to tease before. This is going to be fun, isn't it? Finding out what your magic can do?"
  
  Fathom nodded, beaming. His grandfather had never been so jovial with him before. Albatross was always too busy, too untouchable, spending all his time on Queen Lagoon's projects. He'd been a kind but distant presence all of Fathom's life.
  
  "All right, then," said Albatross, splashing into the sea. "Let's go."
  
  "Go where?" Fathom asked. He'd been picturing a training session on the beach, maybe with more coconuts, or in one of the shaded courtyards while servants brought them mango drinks and platters of shrimp.
  
  "My sister wants me to show you my most top secret project," said Albatross. He tossed his head carelessly and winked at Fathom. "In case I die and you need to finish it, I suppose."
  
  "Oh no," Fathom protested. "Never do that! I could never make something as amazing as what you've made." But as he said it, he wondered if it was true. Would his creations be as brilliant as his grandfather's one day? Would he eventually be as beloved and respected and important as Albatross?
  
  Fathom had only seen a few animus-touched objects in action. The most striking was a conch shell that pulsed with light whenever someone lied. It was intended for the queen to use in interrogations and negotiations, but Lagoon let her family use it whenever they asked. That was how Manta had forced Indigo and Fathom to confess that they were the ones who put squid ink in everyone's toothpaste (Indigo's idea, of course, but Fathom accepted half the blame rather than run the risk of being separated from her).
  
  "You might be surprised," Albatross said. "But as for me never dying, I am also in favor of that plan." He smiled and dove into the ocean, and Fathom had to scramble to catch up to his grandfather's powerful wing strokes.
  
  They swam for what seemed like a long time, and not in the direction of the Deep Palace. Where are we going? The islands in this direction were more scattered, with strong currents in between them. Golden sunlight filtered down through the water, illuminating the schools of brightly colored fish that darted by.
  
  Up ahead, Fathom saw the foundation of a large island rising from the ocean floor; all around it, gray boulders and tall spires of rock jutted out of the water. Albatross led the way to a wavering forest of orange-yellow kelp and swam straight into it. Fathom followed him through the sticky fronds to a tunnel in the cliff ahead of them.
  
  They swam into the tunnel, from light into darkness, and Fathom's night vision kicked in so he could see every bend and twist in the rock as they went deeper. He was beginning to wonder if they were going to swim right through the island when, all of a sudden, they emerged into a wide open lake.
  
  Fathom popped his head out of the water beside his grandfather. They were in the heart of the island, surrounded on all sides by craggy, soaring cliffs. Up above them, cormorants wheeled about in a bright blue sky.
  
  In the center of the lake, a vast, strange shape was growing out of the water. It looked at first glance like a gigantic narwhal tusk, as if someone had taken four towering pillars of white stone and braided them together. Huge flat bubbles of stone grew out of the pillars at regular intervals. Fathom realized with a start that they were literally growing — expanding, inch by inch, as slow as a sea slug inching across the ocean floor.
  
  The whole thing was an amorphous, misshapen blob, a weird growth on the insides of the beautiful island.
  
  "Oh no," he blurted. "What went wrong?"
  
  Albatross paused for a long moment, studying the shape, before answering. "What makes you think something is wrong?"
  
  "Um … I'm sorry," Fathom stammered. "It's — is it — supposed to look like that?"
  
  Albatross ducked his head under the water and came up with a smile on his face. "It's not finished," he said lightly. "It's still growing into its final shape. I must admit, I didn't think it would take so long. But when it's done, trust me, it will be the pride of the Kingdom of the Sea."
  
  "Oh, I'm sure it will!" Fathom's mouth tumbled on ahead of him. "Everyone will love it! Because it's a … the best possible … such a cool …" He trailed off, feeling like a sinking snail.
  
  "It's a new palace, grandson," said Albatross. He turned to swim to the nearest beach. "Entirely grown by animus power. I call it the Summer Palace — a place where royalty can escape to enjoy the warmest weather of the year."
  
  Fathom blinked at the twisting, growing pavilion. He had a million questions, like Does Queen Lagoon know about this? and Would anyone really want to live here? and How will it know when to stop growing? and Doesn't it feel kind of … creepy?
  
  But he didn't want his grandfather to see him as unimaginative or full of doubts. He wanted to be an ideas kind of dragon, all energy and enthusiasm.
  
  He scrambled out of the lake beside his grandfather, feeling rough pebbles scrape his underbelly and tail. They both regarded the enchanted pavilion for a moment.
  
  "Here's what it will look like when it's finished," Albatross said, opening a box on the beach beside him and pulling out a scroll. Fathom unrolled the drawing and let out a gasp.
  
  "This is beautiful," he said. "It's going to grow into this?"
  
  "That's the plan," said Albatross. "I check on it regularly, making adjustments and adding features. It's been growing for more than seven years, so it shouldn't be much longer."
  
  "Seven years?" Fathom said, startled. His voice echoed too loudly around the cavern.
  
  "I enchanted it to grow carefully and precisely, like a tree," said his grandfather proudly. "Anything faster and wilder could have damaged the ecosystem of the whole island."
  
  Is that true? Fathom wondered. Or did he make a mistake with the original enchantment? Maybe he just told it to grow and didn't specify how fast. I bet that would be really frustrating.
  
  "I have an idea," he blurted.
  
  "Already?" said Albatross. "How … impressive."
  
  "I mean," Fathom said, "I don't know if it's a good idea. Or if it would work. Can you use animus magic on plants?"
  
  "Oh, yes," said Albatross. "I've done that several times."
  
  "Well," Fathom said, getting excited, "I was thinking this Summer Palace would be more secure if it was hidden from above. Don't you think? Because right now, any dragon flying overhead can see it. But you could enchant the greenery up there to grow together and create a canopy, couldn't you? Shielding the palace from the sky? But still letting in sunlight through the leaves?"
  
  His grandfather tilted his head back to study the roof of the cavern. "Yes," he said slowly. "Yes, that could definitely work. What a clever idea, grandson."
  
  Fathom's wings felt as if they might float off into the sky. "Can I do it?" he asked excitedly. "Can I do it right now?"
  
  "Hold on," said Albatross, taking the scroll of detailed palace sketches. He set it carefully back in the box and cleared his throat. "I — I have to warn you about something."
  
  Fathom shifted impatiently on his talons. His life was full of lectures and warnings. Don't offend the elders of the royal family. Don't eat until everyone else has been served. Be careful of sharks until you're full-grown and can eat them. Never explore the deepest trenches alone. The lecture he got the most often but still didn't understand was from the queen, who seemed compelled to inform him at every family gathering that he shouldn't get "too attached" to Indigo, whatever that meant.
  
  "The first lesson of being an animus," said Albatross, looking into Fathom's eyes, "is that you must always be careful. Remember this is powerful, powerful magic. It can go wrong very easily. It's so powerful that you can do almost anything, except bring a dragon back from the dead."
  
  Fathom managed not to look at the weird shape growing in slow motion behind him. "I'll be careful," he promised quickly. "I won't do anything wrong."
  
  "I know," Albatross said, patting Fathom's shoulder. "You're very fortunate. I didn't have anyone to guide me." He hesitated again. "Do you know the story of my first animus spell?"
  
  Fathom shook his head, shivering with excitement. He'd always wondered how Albatross discovered his power. "Was it amazing?" he asked. "Do you still have the first object you enchanted? Can I see it? Did you feel like the biggest, most incredible dragon in the whole ocean? Did you want to enchant absolutely everything else around you right away?"
  
  Albatross sighed and swept his tail in an arc across the sand until it drifted into the water. "Maybe you're too young to hear this."
  
  "I'm not!" Fathom protested. "I really want to know. Please tell me."
  
  "It was an accident," his grandfather said. "Remember that. I had no idea it would work. I didn't know I had this power — I barely knew such power existed, and we all thought it was only in stories. Also, I was very young. Younger than you are now."
  
  There was a long pause. I'm not that young, Fathom thought. I already know lots of things.
  
  "It was an empty clamshell," Albatross said in a rush. "You know — the kind where the two halves are still connected, but hollow inside. A big one, but nothing extraordinary. I was playing with it on the sunrise beach, pretending it was a dragon mouth that was chasing the crabs and seagulls."
  
  This was beyond Fathom's imaginative skills. He couldn't begin to picture his stately, intimidating grandfather scampering around with a toy.
  
  "And then my sisters came down to see what I was doing." Albatross's voice kept getting quieter, and his eyes turned to the water as if the scene in his mind were reflected there. "Lagoon and Sapphire. Our mother was still queen back then — it was years before either of them would be old enough to challenge her. But they were both bigger than me, and they started to tease me. They said my scales were a weird color, that my tail was a funny shape, that my teeth were too small, and I swam like a feeble old duck. Normal brother-sister teasing, but it made me so angry. So very, very angry."
  
  Normal teasing? Fathom wondered. Is that what other brothers and sisters are like? He didn't always get along with Pearl, but she never followed him around just to be mean for no reason. And his older cousins simply ignored him, politely uninterested in his stories or Indigo's games.
  
  No one in his family had ever made him really angry, that he could remember. Wait — Queen Lagoon, once, when she ordered Indigo to go deep-sea fishing at night because the palace had run out of her favorite snack. Fathom's mother had stopped Indigo and gone herself, and Lagoon had rolled her eyes and muttered something about coddling the lower class. Fathom didn't know what it meant, but he knew he didn't like the way the queen looked down her snout at Indigo. It made him feel all roary and snarly inside.
  
  Angry like that? Was that what Albatross had felt?
  
  "Sapphire tried to grab the clamshell out of my talons. 'What have you got here?'" Grandfather's voice went high and mocking, imitating his sister. Great-Aunt Sapphire — Fathom had heard her name before, but he'd never met her. She'd never attended a royal family dinner. He didn't actually know if she was dead or alive or where she lived.
  
  A sinking feeling swept through his stomach. He suddenly didn't want to hear the rest of this story at all. But there was no stopping his grandfather now.
  
  Albatross's claws curled into the sand, his gaze anchored on a spot over Fathom's shoulder. "'That's mine!' I yelled. 'Oh, is this your precious treasure?' Sapphire cooed, peeling my talons off it easily. 'Everything you have will be mine when I'm queen, you know. Even stupid beach trash like this.'" Albatross took a deep breath.
  
  "I don't know why I spoke to the shell next instead of her — maybe because I'd been pretending it was real, or maybe because of some animus instinct curled up inside me. But I did. I squeezed the edge of it that I still held and I shouted, 'Bite her! Bite all her claws off!' and then I let go."
  
  Fathom's jaw fell open in shock. Albatross finally looked at him again and winced.
  
  "I know. You are lucky that your talent was discovered in a much less gruesome way," he said, touching his chest absently, as if remembering the pain. "It took several days for all the blood to wash away from the beach. Sapphire, of course, could never be queen after that — a dragon with no claws cannot hunt or fight, and as for swimming … well, who looks like a feeble old duck now." He barked a dry laugh. "She went a little mad, I'm afraid. Now she is kept on an island far away from everyone else, tended by two very well-paid servants. Lagoon visits her occasionally, but I never have. I assume Sapphire would prefer never to see me again."
  
  He sighed.
  
  Fathom looked down at his own talons, subdued. He'd been thinking of all the bright, shiny, amazing things he could do now. But what if one of his great ideas turned out all horrible and dark? What if he made a mistake and hurt someone?
  
  I won't, a voice whispered inside him. I'll be careful and smart. Smarter than Grandfather.
  
  "I'm not telling you this to scare you," said Albatross. "But you needed to know so that you'll understand my rules — mine and the queen's. You must listen to me. You must never use your magic unless I am there to supervise you. You must consider every spell carefully for weeks before you cast it, and you must run them all by me first. I know you feel powerful now — I understand that better than anyone. But you are also dangerous."
  
  "All right," Fathom said. "I know. I understand. I promise to be careful and all of that stuff. Can we try some magic now?" He twitched his wings hopefully.
  
  Albatross rubbed his forehead. "I suppose enchanting a few plants wouldn't hurt."
  
  "YES!" Fathom shouted. "Thank you, thank you!" He shot into the air, arrowing toward the sky above them.
  
  A few moments later, he burst into the open sky, soaring over the circle made by the top of the cliffs, with the lake and the Summer Palace far below him. The heat of the sun was startling after the cool temperature inside the island — but even more startling than that was the yelp that came from a patch of foliage near the edge of the cliff top. He twisted in the air to squint at the shrubbery as his grandfather appeared beside him.
  
  "A spy?" Albatross said, his brow darkening. He flicked one claw sharply, and the entire bush tore free from the dirt and hurled itself into the sea.
  
  Exposed underneath it was a small, very anxious-looking purplish-blue dragonet.
  
  "Indigo!" Fathom cried. "What are you doing here?"
  
  "Making sure you're all right," she said. She sat up, squaring her shoulders. "Sorry, Albatross, sir. I didn't mean to spy on you. I only followed Fathom to watch out for him."
  
  "That's perfectly silly," Fathom said. He swept down to land beside her. "You don't need to keep an eye on me. What do you think you're going to stop me from doing? You cause a lot more trouble than I do."
  
  "Do not!" Indigo protested. "When have I ever caused trouble?"
  
  "Well, you're certainly in trouble," Albatross interjected. "The queen won't be pleased that you've seen her most secret project."
  
  Indigo raised her chin defiantly.
  
  "But since you're here anyway," Fathom said, "you can watch me do my first real spell! With plants! I have this great idea about plants and things!"
  
  "Actually," Albatross said. "I'm getting tired. I think we should swim back to the Island Palace now."
  
  "What?" Fathom cried, his wings drooping. "Just one vine? Please?"
  
  "There will be plenty of time for you to practice magic, youngster," Albatross said firmly. "But I am a wizened old dragon and you've surely been taught something about respecting your elders. It's time to go."
  
  Fathom didn't dare argue with him, although his scales felt as if they were seething with frustration. Nobody spoke, not even Indigo, all the way back to the Island Palace. Albatross landed on the beach in the orange light of the sunset.
  
  "Good session today, grandson," he said to Fathom, tapping his wing lightly with his own. "I can see that you are full of promise. We'll make an excellent team, you and I." He glanced briefly at Indigo, who was dripping quietly onto the sand beside Fathom, close enough that Fathom could feel the heat of her body all along his scales. "Just remember what I told you about being careful. Now good night, both of you. I'll see you soon, Fathom."
  
  He slipped away in the direction of the frangipane garden. As soon as he was gone, Fathom stamped his foot in the sand and blew all the air out of his lungs.
  
  "Good session?" he cried. "We didn't even do anything! He just talked and talked!"
  
  "Yeah, but has he ever talked to you that much before?" Indigo asked. "Wasn't that still pretty great?"
  
  "No," Fathom grumbled. "I wanted to enchant something. I thought he was going to let me practice."
  
  "Maybe it was my fault," Indigo suggested, her face falling. "Maybe he didn't want you to practice in front of me."
  
  "I don't think that's it." Fathom sat down and started sweeping sand into a castle mound with his tail. "He was acting weird about it even before you got there. Doesn't he remember what it's like to be excited about something?"
  
  "Old dragons," Indigo said, shaking her head as though they were just too hopeless. She added a few rose-colored seashells to his castle. "Do you — um, do you think the queen is going to yell at me? Or … or make me stop being friends with you?"
  
  "She could never do that," Fathom said firmly. "I'd enchant her face to shut up first."
  
  Indigo giggled, but he could see that she was still worried. Maybe Queen Lagoon had been saying mean, divisive things to her, too, behind his back.
  
  Fathom twisted around and found a piece of bleached-white driftwood on the beach behind him. He held it up, grinning at Indigo.
  
  "Don't you dare," Indigo said, guessing what he was about to do, as she often did. "He told you not to use your power without his approval! You have no idea what you're doing!"
  
  "I do, too," he said. "One tiny spell won't hurt anything. I just have to make sure I don't say something stupid." He clasped his talons around the driftwood. "I enchant this wood to carve itself into the shape of a gentle little octopus."
  
  He set it down on the sand between them and watched with amazed elation as small curls began peeling off the edges of the wood, and then bigger wedges, and then slowly a perfect head emerged, followed by eight sculpted tentacles.
  
  Several minutes later, it was done. The little white octopus was about the size of a full-grown dragon's foot, with cheerfully flippy tentacles and a mischievous expression. Fathom picked it up and dusted off the sand.
  
  It was the most perfect carving Fathom had ever seen; it matched exactly the vision he'd had in his head. That never happened when he tried to carve things with his claws.
  
  "For you," he said, handing it to Indigo.
  
  "Wow." She took it carefully. He could tell she was trying not to smile too much at it; that she loved it, but was still trying to look disapproving, which didn't work at all on her.
  
  "You could have just carved this yourself," she pointed out.
  
  "I know," he said, "but then it wouldn't have turned out so well."
  
  "I think your carvings are perfect. I still have the beluga."
  
  Fathom laughed, remembering his first gift to her. "Hello, that was supposed to be a graceful dolphin."
  
  She snorted. "Well, I like belugas better anyway. The point is, you didn't need magic to make this."
  
  "Maybe not," said Fathom, "but without magic, I couldn't do this." He rested one claw on the octopus's head and whispered, "Now come to life, with the sweetest, most loyal, most agreeable personality of any pet in Pyrrhia."
  
  The octopus blinked its large, dark eyes at him, and then up at Indigo. She gasped softly, and the octopus wrapped its tentacles around her wrist as if it were hugging her.
  
  "How are you going to hide this from your grandfather?" Indigo demanded.
  
  "Let me worry about that," Fathom said. "Isn't it adorable?"
  
  The octopus snuggled in closer, and now Indigo really couldn't stop herself from smiling. "I can't believe you magicked me a pet," she said. "You're such an idiot."
  
  Fathom stroked one of the tentacles, which still felt oddly like wood, but malleable and warm. The octopus reached up and poked Fathom's snout curiously. "What are you going to call it?"
  
  "Obviously Blob," Indigo said immediately. "He's clearly a Blob. Aren't you, Blob?" The octopus moseyed in a dignified curling way up Indigo's arm to her shoulder, proceeded to climb up her neck, and settled contentedly on top of Indigo's head, tentacles flopping over her ears on each side.
  
  "Oh dear," said Indigo. "Please tell me octopus hats are in this year."
  
  Fathom fell over laughing and got sand up his nose. As he tried to sneeze it out again, he caught a glimpse of Indigo's delighted face trying to look up at the octopus on her head.
  
  See, Grandfather? Our power can be used for good things. It can make dragons happy.
  
  I won't make mistakes like you. I can be trusted.
  
  Everything's going to be just fine.
  
  Clearsight was in the library.
  
  She was always in the library. Her parents often joked that they should have let her egg hatch there instead of on the lunar hatching peak. Of course, if they had, she wouldn't have been born under a full moon, so she wouldn't have gotten the gift of prophecy, and then she wouldn't have needed to spend so much time in the library in the first place. But whenever she pointed this out, her parents always shook their heads and sighed as if she just didn't understand their spectacular sense of humor.
  
  The librarian had given Clearsight a study room of her own, although she suspected that was because he thought she was insane and he wanted the option to lock her in if necessary.
  
  Partially blank scrolls were unrolled all the way across the five tables around her, and she hurried from one to another, scratching quick notes and trailing ink splatters from her claws.
  
  Would it change anything if she did pretend to be insane? She closed her eyes and tried to see if a future unfolded around that idea. Would she end up in the asylum? Would it save the tribe? Would that life be better than the other options?
  
  It was too unlikely; no one would believe her even if she tried it. There was no path there.
  
  No escape.
  
  Keep searching. She went to the next table and tried to follow the timeline she'd started on that scroll. But it was so muddled. Step one: meet him, step two: chaos along every potential timeline.
  
  A heavy sigh came from the doorway.
  
  "Hello, Father," she said without looking up. This note — when did she write this? The SeaWing brings death. The SeaWing brings salvation. Don't let him come. He must come, or all is lost.
  
  Aaaaaargh. Clearsight put her head down on the desk and thumped her tail on the stone floor.
  
  "Clearsight," her father said. "You are too young to worry this much."
  
  "I should worry more," she said, lifting her head and squinting at the SeaWing note again. Something really terrible was going to happen in the Kingdom of the Sea not long from now — something involving a lot of death. The kingdom was so far away, it was hard to be sure of the details. Should she try to warn someone? She wanted to, but she couldn't see any paths where anyone would believe her. Poor SeaWings. "I mean, what is the point of seeing the future if you can't fix it? If I just concentrate harder, I can follow all the paths. I can figure this out."
  
  "All the paths?" her father echoed. "Every future that spirals out of every choice you and every other dragon make for the rest of your life? Can't you hear yourself? It's impossible, dearest. That way lies madness."
  
  "No," she said absently. "I just checked. No madness in my future, not a viable option."
  
  "This gift is not supposed to consume your entire life," he said. He stepped over the scrolls on the floor, narrowly avoided a blue ink puddle, and stretched one of his wings between her and the table. She looked up at him, rubbing her forehead.
  
  "Listen," he said with infinite gentleness. "I know your power is stronger than any future-teller the NightWings have had in generations. I know it feels like you can see everything ahead of you."
  
  "It's not that simple," she said. "It's not, 'here's your life, that's the way it will be.' It's every possible life, all the things that could happen to me and the tribe, and it all depends on what I do next. But there are so many — I can't keep track — and the further I look into the future, the more confusing and random it gets …"
  
  "I understand." He wrapped his wings around her and she leaned into his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat. She knew he was trying, but he actually didn't understand at all. He didn't have either this power or mind reading. He was sweet and ordinary and not tortured, and his choices made almost no difference to the future. "But Clearsight, even if you could see everything, that doesn't mean you can control everything. Or anything. Things will happen. Other dragons will change your path and you won't be able to stop them."
  
  That is far more true than you know, Father.
  
  Darkstalker's face flashed in her mind again: the face of a dragon she had yet to meet, but who came with a torrent of visions — joy and love and pain and horror, so mixed-up she couldn't untangle it, couldn't even breathe whenever she thought about it.
  
  "I should go away," she blurted. "Far away. Maybe the rainforest. Maybe the Mud Kingdom. Maybe the lost continent. Oh, that would change everything — it would have to!" She leaned back to look up at his face. His eyes were sad, but she knew they would get much sadder in many, many of her futures.
  
  "I could have a whole different life, Father. I could be an explorer; I could chart the rest of the world. I could be alone, and then I'd be the only dragon who could change my destiny, right?"
  
  If I never meet him … is the darkness lighter? Is everyone safer?
  
  She closed her eyes, trying to follow that path — that weak, trembling thread of a future where she flew off across the ocean tomorrow, all by herself. It wasn't impossible. It was only nearly impossible. But she didn't see any success that way … that fog at the end of the path probably meant she died somewhere over the sea. And there was still blood and darkness for the tribe, even with her gone. Maybe worse.
  
  That was the worst part; most of the futures where she avoided him were even more scary. As if knowing her made a difference to his path, but only maybe.
  
  A flash of a silver-and-gold crown, twisted into sharp thorny points, tumbled through her head.
  
  Which timeline was that — oh, table three. She untangled herself from her father, leaned over, and made a note.
  
  "What are you so afraid of, dearest?" her father asked, taking her claws gently to keep them still. The blue ink smudged his talons like IceWing bloodstains.
  
  Why do I even know that IceWing blood is blue?
  
  Because I've seen it, way too much of it, down hundreds of paths.
  
  "I can't tell you," she said. "I'm sorry, Father." In the futures where I tell you his name too early, you end up dead. I can't see how or exactly why, but that's where they all go, and that is one thing I can prevent. One choice that will keep someone I love safe.
  
  He sighed again. "Clearsight, your mother and I have been discussing this. We think it's time for you to go to school. Every other NightWing dragonet started when they were one, and you're nearly two and a half."
  
  "No," Clearsight said, panic rising in her chest. "I can't. I told you. That's when everything speeds up — that's when I lose control. I need more time to plan." She turned frantically to point at the scroll on table two, which was covered in desperate spiky handwriting. "That's what happens after I go to school. Look at all the timelines! They just explode! I have to chart them all before I get there. If the teacher puts me in that art group instead of this one, things change. If I sit with these dragons at lunch instead of those dragons, futures ripple in new directions. If I miss a day here or give the wrong answer here or share my scroll with this hapless dragon here, the entire tribe might die." She stabbed at the scroll, leaving little rips all the way across it, and burst into tears.
  
  "Oh, Clearsight," her father said with hopeless distress. "It can't be that bad. One two-year-old dragonet isn't going to doom the entire tribe to destruction. The worst that can happen is you don't get into the astronomy program, and maybe your mother will be disappointed, but no one will die. Trust me." He patted her back sympathetically.
  
  He had no idea, NO IDEA. Maybe most two-year-old dragonets couldn't affect the future of the whole tribe, but she could.
  
  "Besides," he said, "we don't think this is healthy, what you're doing in here. School might be a good distraction — give you something else to work on, friends to keep your mind off things. Maybe it'll help you see that we're not all so doomed after all." He laughed a little, and she wondered what a mind reader would find in his thoughts. Was he really not worried about her visions of war and bloodshed? She hadn't told her parents everything she'd seen, but she'd woken up screaming enough nights for them to get the general idea of what the future held.
  
  Probably. Maybe. Unless she could fix it.
  
  She had to fix it. No one else could.
  
  "Please don't make me go yet," she said, battling down a sob.
  
  A long, horrible moment passed; futures hung trembling in the balance.
  
  He sighed. "All right, dearest. We'll wait until you're three." He tipped her chin up to look at him. "But then there's no more delay. The queen wants her seers properly trained, and we're pushing her patience already with our special requests. So. When you turn three, you're going to school. Are we in agreement?"
  
  Not a lot of viable paths where she could change this fate. Her mind flicked through them, then gave in.
  
  "Yes, Father. I'd better get back to work, then." Maybe she should start over with the school scroll. If this was inevitable, maybe she needed to fill all the tables with what-happens-when-I-go-to-school scrolls — yes, with more room for all the possibilities. She'd bought herself some time. She could hide in here for a few more months and figure this out.
  
  "Don't hurt yourself, Clearsight," he said, sweeping to the door. "It's not the end of the world if you let yourself sleep, you know."
  
  That's what you think.
  
  She dipped her claws in the inkwell again and missed the moment when her father left.
  
  So I will have to meet him before too long. My Darkstalker, my fate. I always knew the other timelines were unlikely. He has this power, too; he would find me.
  
  It was almost calming, accepting that. She didn't have to worry now about the futures where he was alone and it made him angry and callous. She didn't have to worry about the flimsy paths where he found someone else (with no powers and no backbone, she thought with a really annoying flare of jealousy). As those timelines dropped away, she saw how bad they would have been — for both of them.
  
  But what was left was such a daunting tangle. Two dragons who could see the future, each trying to stay on a particular path.
  
  Start at the beginning. Follow one thread at a time.
  
  Her claws scratched across the paper, spilling her visions into cluttered mountains of words that she'd have to puzzle out later.
  
  Just keep trying. It's for the sake of the tribe.
  
  I must have this gift for a reason.
  
  If I can see all our possible destinies — surely I can make sure we get the right one.
  
  He could hear his parents' voices echoing off the cliffs as he swooped down to the landing outside their home. They were arguing again, and as usual, he could see their neighbors peeking avidly out of their own windows, ears pricked. Everyone in the tribe was interested in every detail of the disintegration of the Night Kingdom's most famous couple.
  
  At least a few of them had the decency to duck back inside when they saw him coming. He shot a cold look at the two across the ravine. One didn't even notice him; the other was only pretending not to as she fussed unnecessarily with her doorway vines. Stupid — everyone knew he could read minds. Maybe she thought a three-year-old's skills wouldn't be that advanced yet.
  
  She doesn't believe the rumors about me. He chuckled softly, but the smile dropped off his face as he touched down into the wave of fury and bitterness that was rolling out of his home.
  
  "I'm not going to help her fight my own tribe, Foeslayer! I would never do that!"
  
  "They're not your tribe anymore — we are! And you could work for her some other way!" Foeslayer shouted back. "You don't have to join the army, but you can't keep saying no to the queen! She's offering you a position at the castle! You love stupid castles and hanging out with royalty and all of that! You could stick your nose in the air all day long and fit in just fine!"
  
  "She's not doing me an honor," Arctic growled. "You know what she wants. She wants my power. The gift I should have given the IceWings — she wants it for your tribe."
  
  "This is your tribe now, too," Foeslayer insisted again. "No one is trying to use you. We're just trying to give you something to do so you'll stop slithering around the house complaining and moping and getting on my nerves all the time."
  
  Darkstalker stepped through the archway into their small, cramped living room and dropped the three hawks he'd caught by the door. His parents were in one of the back rooms — maybe his mother had been listening the last time he'd asked her to make their discord more private, although they were so loud it didn't really help.
  
  But his sister was huddled on the floor by the fireplace, wings over her head.
  
  Don't they know she's here? he thought with a flash of anger. How dare they fight like this in front of her?
  
  His father always behaved as though Whiteout was his only dragonet, his precious snowflake of a daughter, but he was completely careless of her feelings. He brought her special fish and paraded her around the tribe, and then they got home and he acted like she was a necklace he could hang in the corner until he needed her again.
  
  "Hey," Darkstalker said softly, crouching beside his sister. He spread one of his wings over her. "How long have they been doing this?"
  
  "I don't know," she whispered.
  
  "Well, if you're SO MISERABLE HERE," Foeslayer yelled, "why don't you go BACK TO THE STUPID ICE KINGDOM ALREADY?"
  
  "Oh, there it is," Darkstalker said. Their mother's favorite line, and the one that usually signaled they'd run out of breath for the moment. "That means it'll be over soon."
  
  Whiteout nodded, but kept her talons over her ears.
  
  Darkstalker had heard the whispers (and the thoughts — all the millions of thoughts) about his sister, so he knew he wasn't the only one who thought she was the most beautiful dragon in Pyrrhia. Her scales along her body were black with hints of dark sapphire blue, but her wings were an icy bluish-white, as were the spikes all along her back and her sharp, curving claws. Instead of silver starlike scales under her wings, she had a scattering of black scales that gleamed like jet against the snowy white. Her head was narrow and elegant like an IceWing's, and she had their father's startling blue eyes.
  
  It was easy to tell with just one look at her that she was an IceWing-NightWing hybrid. The other things that were different about her were harder to see, unless you were a mind reader.
  
  Darkstalker had been in Whiteout's mind often, but he still couldn't figure it out. It was different from other brains, as if she thought in colors and waves instead of in words. He could sometimes guess what she was feeling, but he almost never knew what she was thinking. He'd assume it was so quiet in there that she must not be paying attention, and then she'd make an observation that he never would have thought of. She was the only dragon he knew who could surprise him.
  
  Would that be different if she'd been moonborn? he wondered. If I had helped her out of her egg sooner, would she be more like other dragons?
  
  He shook off the guilt. It didn't matter. He wouldn't want her to be like other dragons. She was perfect the way she was.
  
  Whiteout leaned into his shoulder and he twined his tail around hers.
  
  "Maybe I should go home," Arctic spat, his words crawling like frost centipedes across the walls and into their ears. "I've been offered amnesty. My mother says she'll end the war and take me back — on one condition."
  
  There was a clattering sound, like a metal tablet being tossed onto the table.
  
  "How did you get a message from Queen Diamond?" Foeslayer asked sharply. "This could be considered treason, Arctic."
  
  "Just read it," he said.
  
  A long pause followed. Darkstalker closed his eyes, tracking the thoughts of both his parents.
  
  "What is it?" Whiteout whispered to him.
  
  "Nothing," he whispered back.
  
  "It's something," she said. "You got colder and harder all along here." She pointed to the line from his jaw to his heart.
  
  "I'll tell you later," he said. When I come up with a lie that you'll believe.
  
  "Arctic," Foeslayer said in a tight, shaking voice. "If I thought for one minute that you'd consider this —"
  
  "You should stop making threats," he said, "when you know you can't do anything to me. But don't worry. I'm not planning to accept. I just want you to know exactly what's on the table, so you can think about that the next time you tell me to leave."
  
  It's time to stop this, Darkstalker thought. He tightened his wing around his sister for a moment, then stood up and went to the hall that led back into the other rooms.
  
  "We're here," he called. "Both of us."
  
  Guilt from his mother, anger from his father — well, that was normal. At least they fell silent. He picked up the hawks and began tearing them into pieces to split among the four places at the table.
  
  Foeslayer appeared first, taking deep breaths. How much did they hear? flashed through her mind.
  
  "Everything," Darkstalker answered her. "Especially Whiteout. She was here when I got here." He didn't hide his anger.
  
  Even … she thought.
  
  "No," he said, glancing at his sister. "Only I know that."
  
  Foeslayer came to the table and moved a piece of hawk from her plate onto Darkstalker's, then another piece onto Arctic's. Darkstalker wordlessly moved the gift from Arctic's plate to Whiteout's.
  
  I'm sorry, she thought at him.
  
  "Say it to her," he said.
  
  Foeslayer went over to Whiteout and hugged her, just as Arctic came stamping out of the back rooms.
  
  "Oh, hawks again," he said bitterly. He didn't look Darkstalker in the eye. He never did.
  
  "I thought they reminded you of the Ice Kingdom," Darkstalker said. In fact, he knew they did, because he'd seen that in his father's mind every time he brought hawks home to eat. That's why he looked for them particularly — because he knew they brought his father a little bit of happiness and a little bit of despair at the same time.
  
  Stay out of my mind, moon-eyes, his father thought, glaring at him.
  
  "Wish I could," Darkstalker answered briskly. "Whiteout, time to eat."
  
  As the family moved to the table, he swept past his father into the back hall, acting as though he was going to wash his talons. But he had another mission in mind. He needed to see the message for himself.
  
  There it was, tucked under a corner of the blankets on his mother's side of their sleeping room. A hammered piece of silvery metal with words carved into it.
  
  He'd read their minds correctly. Here it was, clear as starlight.
  
   Dearest Arctic,
  
   We want you to come home.
  
   You must have realized your mistake by now. You must be growing to hate that insidious NightWing, the source of all your misery. You know she was only sent here to tempt you away. But now you have seen through her, haven't you? You're starting to realize that your mother was right all along.
  
   So I'm giving you one chance to take it all back.
  
   Come home.
  
   We'll call a truce with the NightWings. The war can be over. You can return to my palace, rejoin your tribe, and all will be forgiven.
  
   And we have only one condition. One small, easy request that can save so many lives — and give you back your destiny.
  
   It is this: Kill your dragonets.
  
   Kill them, bring us proof, and you can come home.
  
   A small price to pay for your life back, isn't it?
  
   I love you, Arctic. Despite your poor choices and terrible mistakes.
  
   I hope to see you soon, back in the tribe where you belong.
  
   Queen Diamond
  
  Darkstalker slid the tablet back into its hiding place, thinking.
  
  He knew from his father's mind that Arctic wasn't seriously considering this possibility — yet. True, Arctic was miserable in the Night Kingdom, where he had no friends and no status and the climate was all wrong for him, but he could also remember all the things he hated about the Ice Kingdom: the rules, the expectations, the way his life was completely planned out without any regard for his feelings.
  
  Moreover, Queen Diamond had clawed too many of Arctic's nerve endings with her comments about how she was right and he was so foolish. Arctic was too proud to go back with his head hanging, and most important, there was still a kernel of him that didn't want to leave Foeslayer or Whiteout.
  
  Darkstalker never worried about how his father hated him. It was mutual and instantaneous upon his hatching, so it didn't particularly affect his life. Besides, he knew his father couldn't do anything to him, considering Darkstalker's powers.
  
  But visions were flashing in his head where Whiteout was in danger. Unclear, muddled paths; he couldn't trace them exactly, but he knew that something led from this tablet to a scene of pain and violence and his own helpless fury.
  
  I need a better future-seer to help me figure it out.
  
  I need Clearsight.
  
  Darkstalker smiled, trailing his claws along the wall as he went to wash in the stream at the back of their cave. He hadn't met her yet, but he knew it would be soon, and once he did his whole life would change for the better. It was almost impossible to wait this long, knowing his soulmate was so close by. But he'd managed it, for her. He saw that their relationship would eventually be stronger if he did. He was a master of patience.
  
  When it came to his father, though, his patience was starting to wear thin.
  
  Nobody threatens Whiteout, Darkstalker thought. Not the IceWing queen, not my father. I won't let anyone hurt her.
  
  No matter what I have to do to stop them.
  
  "Maybe I shouldn't come tonight," Indigo said, flopping across Fathom's sleeping couch. Blob expertly held on to her ear with one tentacle to stay in place and looked very pleased with himself.
  
  "Oh no. No way," Fathom said. "I don't want to make boring conversation with all my ancient aunts and uncles either, but we're in this together. That's the deal. How am I supposed to survive without you?"
  
  "They're your family," Indigo protested. "Why do I have to be tortured, too? Besides, the queen doesn't even want me there."
  
  Fathom winced. She was probably right about that. Queen Lagoon's comments had been getting meaner and more pointed lately. Now that she knew Fathom was her second animus, she unfortunately seemed to care a lot more about which dragons he spent time with. Albatross and Pearl: acceptable. Indigo and anyone visiting from other tribes: decidedly not.
  
  Which reminded him. "Don't you want to see the SkyWings up close?" he asked. "This could be your last chance, if we end up going to war with them over the new shore villages." It was unlikely — Queen Lagoon was skilled at negotiating peace, especially with the threat of an animus in her back talons; they hadn't heard a peep out of the RainWings or MudWings in years. And the three new SeaWing villages didn't encroach very far into SkyWing territory, after all. No SeaWing would want to live any distance from the ocean.
  
  "I saw them across the gardens when they arrived two days ago," Indigo said. "They looked pretty displeased."
  
  "I thought SkyWings were supposed to be the friendly tribe," Fathom mused.
  
  "You're distracting me," Indigo said. "The point is, the queen would be much happier if I stayed here, especially when she has the SkyWings to impress. I'd be the only one at the gathering who wasn't dripping with jewels." She arched her eyebrows at the new gold armbands Fathom wore — carved with royal symbols, they matched his grandfather's — and the emeralds that glittered in his ears.
  
  "You're perfectly impressive," Fathom said, hauling her up onto her feet again. "You don't need jewelry; you have the best smile in all the kingdoms."
  
  Their wings brushed, light as ripples on a pond, and Indigo pulled her talons away quickly.
  
  "Smile in front of the queen?" she said with a feigned gasp of disapproval. "Surely that's not allowed!"
  
  "Here," Fathom said. He bounded into the next room, where Pearl was pivoting slowly in front of a series of mirrors to examine herself on all sides. "You can wear those pink pearls Mother bought for Pearl."
  
  "I do hate those," Pearl said in the new, exceedingly bored voice she'd been trying out lately. Even now, more than three years since the test, she still acted irrationally jealous whenever Fathom went off to train with Albatross. But most of the time she was back to normal, which involved a lot of sighing at how loud and immature Fathom and Indigo were.
  
  "And they'll look really cool on you, Indigo," Fathom said. He crossed to the far wall, where all of Pearl's jewels were displayed on a tall tree of dark brown mahogany with many branches, which he had carved for her for their birthday last year. (Without magic, since Indigo insisted.)
  
  "Are you sure?" Indigo asked Pearl. "Won't Manta be upset if she sees me wearing them instead of you?"
  
  "She'll be thrilled," Pearl said. "Mother thinks you're very entertaining."
  
  Indigo wilted a little and Fathom flashed Pearl a glare. "Mother loves you," he said to Indigo. "She wants you at the party, and she won't mind what you have to wear to fit in." He unhooked the string of pearls and the bracelet. Each of the pearls was slightly irregular instead of perfectly round, and they were all different shades of pink from almost white to deep rose. He could see why Pearl didn't like it — she preferred everything perfectly symmetrical — but he thought it was really cool.
  
  He clasped the bracelet around one of Indigo's wrists and then helped her drape the long cord of pearls around her neck and wings. They glowed against the deep purplish-blue of her scales. Fathom could feel her heart beating as he leaned over her back to adjust the length. His talon rested on her neck for a moment and she curved her head toward him.
  
  Why does everything feel different lately?
  
  It wasn't weird that he wanted to spend time with her more than anyone else. That had always been true. It wasn't weird that she was the first dragon he thought of whenever he had something to share. It wasn't weird that she could make him laugh when no one else could.
  
  It was a little weird that his own heart sped up when she stood this close to him.
  
  "You two are HOPELESS," Pearl barked, bundling Fathom aside, and for a moment he was startled into thinking she'd guessed his thoughts. "Have you never seen a dragon wear pearls before? They can't hang this way or they'll make it impossible to swim, and besides, everyone knows a double wind around the neck is most flattering. You have to tighten the slack here and drape it like this …"
  
  She busied herself adjusting Indigo's adornments while Indigo stood still, looking uncomfortable.
  
  "There," Pearl said at last, standing back with a nod of triumph.
  
  "That looks exactly the same," Fathom said.
  
  "Thank you," Indigo said to Pearl before she could snap at her brother. "I really appreciate it."
  
  Pearl waved her tail dismissively. "You can thank me by distracting Great-Uncle Humpback if he tries to corner me again with stories about the grand old days. 'You know, when I was a young whippersnapper, we had scavenger sashimi every afternoon. But where have they all gone, can you tell me that, eh? They can't have gotten smarter! Someone's been interfering with my scavenger supply! Some toothy little blowfishes, I'll show them.'" Her imitation of Humpback's creaky old voice was pitch-perfect.
  
  Indigo giggled. "Someone should eventually tell him that he probably ate them all."
  
  "It's not going to be me!" Pearl said.
  
  "Me neither," Fathom chimed in with a laugh.
  
  "You know you have to leave your weird little thing behind," Pearl said, flicking her tail at Blob. Indigo wrinkled her snout with disappointment, but she lifted down the tiny octopus and tucked him onto his perch on her side of the room.
  
  "Stay," she told him sternly.
  
  Blob blinked at her with an innocent face. It was very unclear whether he understood any of her instructions. Sometimes he was dutiful, obedient, and perfect, and sometimes he immediately did exactly the opposite of whatever she'd asked him to do. Fathom occasionally worried this might be because he'd forgotten to give the octopus ears.
  
  Pearl studied herself in the mirror for another long moment. Fathom realized that Indigo hadn't even gone over to check what she looked like.
  
  With a sigh, Pearl said, "Well, this will have to do. Let's go."
  
  As they swept out the door of the bungalow into the garden, Fathom turned to Indigo and whispered, "You look great."
  
  "I look like a squid pretending to be a sea horse," she said with a laugh. She winked at him and hurried after Pearl through a shower of white jasmine petals.
  
  Fathom smiled as he followed her. Another boring royal gathering, another yawn-inducing feast. Thank goodness he'd convinced Indigo to go with him.
  
  He couldn't imagine what he would ever do without her.