As usual, Qibli’s nine thousand very good points were impossible to counter. Winter glanced at Kinkajou’s still, white face and nodded.
“The town is called Possibility?” Moon asked. Her voice was strained, but when Winter reached for her side of the canopy she flicked her wing at him. “No, take a longer break,” she said. “I can handle it for another few minutes.”
“When the two sides merged, neither wanted to take the other’s original name,” Qibli said. “This was about seven years ago. They talked and disagreed and talked some more, throwing around names like Hope and Peace and Union, but finally they put it to a vote, and the majority of the citizens chose Possibility.”
“I like that,” Moon said. “The possibility of hope and peace. But it’s not guaranteed; they still have to work for it.”
“You know someone here?” Winter asked Qibli.
“A lot of someones,” Qibli said. “I met practically the whole SandWing tribe after Thorn became queen, as everyone came to pay tribute — and to see if they could support her as queen. Which they can and do, of course, because she is amazing. Anyway, several of them were from Possibility. I just have to find one who can help us.”
They flew down to land on one of the islands in the river as the sun clambered over the peaks, scattering warm yellow light that outlined the palm trees in gold. A hippo was planted in the mud on the island’s shore. It gave the dragons a resigned look as they landed, like Fine, go ahead and eat me, I knew it would happen eventually. But they were all too tired to kill anything, and after a moment the hippo splashed loudly into the river and submerged, probably congratulating itself on its impressive stealth.
Moon climbed onto the canopy as soon as it was spread out on the ground. She picked up Kinkajou’s talons, trying to rub warmth into them.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Qibli promised. He darted off to the bridge, not far away, where merchants were already unrolling carpets and setting out trays of food that exhaled clouds of steam. Winter could see Qibli in the gaps between the stalls, pacing along the length of the bridge and speaking to dragons here and there.
“This is weird,” Hailstorm said behind Winter. “All those dragons from different tribes, just … acting like it’s totally normal to be together. Not as weird as you bonding with your strange little trio, though.”
Winter turned to look up at his older brother — although it wasn’t as far up as it used to be. Hailstorm looked so exactly like he had the day he’d been captured. There were no new scars, no signs of starvation or beating or anything Winter would have expected him to go through in a SkyWing prison.
But then, if Hailstorm hadn’t been himself all this time …
“What do you remember about being Scarlet’s prisoner?” Winter asked.
Hailstorm shook his head. “I was never her prisoner,” he said. “I’ve been a loyal soldier to her for … I thought it was my whole life but now … all my memories of being a SkyWing dragonet are fading. I think I hatched as an IceWing.”
“You did,” Winter said. “You’re my brother Hailstorm. You’ve always been an IceWing.”
Hailstorm shuddered in a big, bone-wracking way. “But I know I’ve been fighting for Queen Scarlet in the war,” he said. “I remember bowing to her. Worshipping her. I fought — I killed IceWings for her.” He drew his wings in closer and clenched his talons. “Or was it a dream? Maybe I’m still myself and I’m only hallucinating memories of being an IceWing.” With trepidation he held out his claws, saw that they were still white, and slammed his eyes shut.
Winter’s veins felt as if they were iced over and cracking, bits of him splintering off inside his body. Hailstorm looked the same, but inside he was nothing like the brother Winter remembered. This lost dragon, torn in two, who had killed some of his own tribe in service to a queen he hated — it was worse than all the things Winter had imagined Scarlet doing to him.
“Hailstorm, focus,” Winter said, flicking his brother’s tail. If he treated him like their parents did, sharp and demanding, maybe Hailstorm’s real personality would come back. “You are my brother Hailstorm. You were under some kind of enchantment, but you’re back. Just forget about Pyrite and be you again.”
“But which me?” Hailstorm protested. “I look at that river and think, I can’t swim. But I remember diving into dark green oceans studded with drifting pieces of ice. I look at my claws and think, I’m clumsy and useless. But I remember winning every competition — I remember being at the top of the rankings. I feel like the air is too warm and I think I can’t wait to go home and roll in snow, but I imagine being surrounded by IceWings and I immediately want to kill them all to protect my queen.” He made a noise of despair and pressed his forehead as though he were trying to keep his brains from spilling out.
Winter exchanged a glance with Moon, who looked as horrified as he felt. Was it even safe to bring Hailstorm back to the Ice Kingdom? Had he been too badly damaged by living as a SkyWing for so long?
Would he ever truly be Winter’s brother again?
A trio of red and orange dragons flew overhead, the wind from their wings sending ripples across the river to wash up on the shore near Winter’s talons.
Hailstorm squinted up at the sky, as if he was thinking about following the SkyWings.
“You just need some time,” Winter said, although it sounded stupid as soon as it escaped his mouth. “The longer you’re Hailstorm again, the more you’ll feel like yourself.” At least he hoped that was true. He looked down at his claws and picked a piece of wet reed off one of them. “How long were you like that? Trapped in the body of a SkyWing?”
“I have no idea,” Hailstorm answered. “The SkyWing patrol took me straight to Queen Scarlet, I think. And then there was a yellowy-orange dragon who … did something to me. Wait.” He dropped his talons and frowned at them. “She looked like me. How did I do that to myself?”
“I bet Pyrite is a kind of mask,” Moon offered. She was still watching Kinkajou, so she didn’t see the look of repugnance that Hailstorm shot at her — but Winter did. “Not a real dragon at all. I bet the other dragon was wearing the Pyrite mask when you saw her, and he or she put it on you.” She looked up at Winter. “Maybe it was that NightWing. Scarlet’s ally. Scarlet had a lot of confused thoughts about what he could do for her, changing dragons into other dragons … I couldn’t understand them because I had no idea this was even possible.”
“Your SandWing is coming back,” Hailstorm said, nodding at the river, where Qibli was swooping toward them.
“Directions to a doctor,” he said as he landed, brandishing a small scribbled map. “Meerkat is going to fly ahead and tell her we’re coming.” He took the side of the canopy again as Moon climbed off it.
Winter took the other side, checking as he did that the necklace and pouch were still securely tucked beside Kinkajou. They were the key to whatever had been done to Hailstorm. They must be animus-touched.
So the NightWing is an animus, but Pyrite wasn’t. The magic he’d felt when he touched her must have been the spell on Hailstorm. Had he felt anything like that from the NightWing? It was hard to remember in the confusion of the fight, but he thought so.
Their little group got a few odd looks as they flew through the town, but not as many as Winter would have expected. Most dragons were still asleep, and those that were up were busy getting ready for the day. The smell of bread baking and meat cooking wove through the streets, and Winter could hear the tink-tink of small hammers, the clattering of mugs, and voices calling to each other within the walls of the houses. Some kind of stringed instrument greeted the sunrise with musical scales and hints of half-played melodies.
They were on the west side of the river now, originally the SandWing side, but Winter wouldn’t have been able to guess which tribe had settled here first. The structures were spread out in a haphazard, lazy way, some with gardens planted around them, some pressed up against a crowded row of other buildings. Some were magnif
icent towers that could have fit into any queen’s palace; others were barely more than mud huts. He saw cascading fountains and several bejeweled statues of stone dragons; he also saw a discarded, bloated crocodile carcass gathering flies, and a brackish puddle with a red tint that looked like blood. (Not IceWing blood, at least.)
“What a strange place,” Winter said to Qibli. “There’s no order to it at all.” Not like the Ice Kingdom, where your ranking on your seventh hatching day determined where you would be assigned to live. The highest-ranked lived within the walls of the palace itself, like Winter’s parents. After you turned seven, you were shifted to the adult rankings, where if you worked hard enough and moved high enough, you might be able to request a transfer closer to the center of power.
“Let me guess, all your igloos look exactly the same?” Qibli asked.
“We don’t live in igloos,” Winter said, looking down his nose at Qibli. “Not aristocrats anyway.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Qibli said. “Didn’t you say you’re related to someone important?”
“Very funny,” Winter said.
“Yes,” Hailstorm interjected at the same time, a little too loudly. “We’re Queen Glacier’s nephews. EVERYONE knows that.” He lifted his chin and regarded a pair of passing SandWings with enormous disdain.
To his credit, Qibli managed not to laugh, although Winter was glad that Hailstorm didn’t notice the mischievous glint in the SandWing’s eyes.
“So, your not-igloos don’t look like this?” Qibli asked.
“Our cities are all very carefully planned,” Winter explained. “It’s always clear where the power and the wealth is, and who has it, and who can influence it.”
Hailstorm was nodding, which Winter found reassuring. Maybe his IceWing memories were taking over.
“Order and clarity are built into our architecture,” Winter said. “The only thing that seems to be built into the architecture here is absurdity.”
“I love it.” Qibli inhaled deeply. “It smells like freedom. Freedom to be whoever you want to be, not who someone tells you you have to be.”
“It smells like rotting water buffalo,” Winter said. He couldn’t help but notice the way Moon was looking at Qibli, as if what he said made more sense than what Winter had said. Was that what she wanted? Freedom at the expense of order?
Didn’t everyone want to know where they fit into the world?
A few young dragonets burst past them, laughing — two SkyWings, two SandWings, and a MudWing — and veered toward a bigger building with pictures of tumbling, acrobatic dragons painted on the side.
“Does Sunny know about this place?” Moon asked Qibli, her eyes on the group of dragonets. “It seems like her dream come true.”
“Well, it’s not quite as utopian as that,” Qibli said. He pointed to an alley where someone had scrawled DESERT-MUNCHERS GO HOME! in red paint. A few doors down, a MudWing sat on a corner with one leg wrapped in bandages and his wings drooping. A hollow coconut half shell sat next to him, into which someone had dropped a pitiful couple of fried grasshoppers.
“But it’s the right idea,” Moon said. “Dragons from different tribes living together and getting along, for the most part.”
“That’s true, and Sunny does know about it,” Qibli said, checking his map. “But I don’t think she’s been here yet. Look, that’s the house.” He nodded at a compact structure with walls of whitewashed bricks and a roof of dried reeds. A small green flag stuck out of the wall by the door, with the word DOCTOR neatly printed on it.
A young, handsome SandWing came bustling out the door as they approached and reached for Winter’s side of the stretcher.
“Hello, I’m Meerkat,” he said with a friendly nod. “Wait out here.”
“We’re staying with Kinkajou,” Winter insisted.
The SandWing shook his head. “Sorry, there’s not enough room in there for seven dragons. Mayfly is very strict about her space. Extra visitors can wait in the garden.” He pointed to the back of the house, where a riot of greenery was trying to vault over the roof.
“Mayfly?” Winter said. He kept his grip on the canopy, his claws tingling suspiciously. “Your doctor is a MudWing?”
“The best in Possibility,” said Meerkat.
Winter would not have thought there were any MudWings smart enough to be doctors, let alone the best in town. Maybe there wasn’t much competition. Or maybe this was the wrong place to bring Kinkajou.
“One of you can come in with her,” Meerkat said. He reached out again, and this time Winter relinquished his grasp. What choice did they have? Where else could they take her?
But he reached in and fished out the animus-touched pouch first. He wasn’t letting magic like that out of his sight.
Qibli opened his wings to let Moon take the stretcher from him and she disappeared into the house with Meerkat and the unconscious dragonet.
There was an awkward pause. Winter, Hailstorm, and Qibli glanced sideways at one another, shuffled their wings, and squinted thoughtfully at the sky.
“I’ll be in the garden,” Qibli said finally, edging away.
Hailstorm stomped over to stick his nose in the neighbor’s pond, muttering something like, “Don’t even know why I’m here.”
This seemed like a good time for pacing.
Which Winter did, until he realized he had accidentally trampled some bright yellow flowers poking up around the base of the house. He stepped back and tried to keep still.
Maybe he could see something through the windows.
He explored around the side of the house until he found a window open and large enough to poke his head in. From here he could see a round sunlit room, clean and uncluttered. The only furniture was a large, plain white table in the middle and a few shelves on one wall that held neatly labeled bottles and jars. Kinkajou was lying on her back on the table, looking smaller than ever with her wings flopping helplessly to either side.
A brown dragon with a wide, flat face was examining Kinkajou. Her talons moved professionally over the dragonet, checking her wings, her bones, her head. She paused for a moment, glancing from Kinkajou’s tail to her snout. “Is this a RainWing?”
“Yes,” Moon answered. “Her name is Kinkajou.”
“Interesting,” said the doctor. “Never seen one before. The white scales made me think IceWing at first.”
“She looks nothing like an IceWing,” Hailstorm exploded with great indignation, poking his nose over Winter’s shoulder and making Winter jump.
“Get out of my window!” the doctor snapped with a hiss. “Stop blocking the light! Shoo!” She flapped her wings, taking a few limping steps in their direction.
Winter realized that the doctor’s back left leg and half her tail were covered in unmistakable frostbreath scars — blackened and blistered, with two claws missing. She’d been in a battle with IceWings, within the last year, if he had to guess. Which meant she probably didn’t feel too kindly toward ice dragons in general.
“Sorry! Sorry,” he said, pushing Hailstorm back.
“Go sit in the garden!” she barked, slamming a jar down on the windowsill that smelled like something was stabbing his eyeballs.
“Garden, yes, absolutely,” Winter said. He grabbed Hailstorm’s tail and tugged him toward the back of the house.
Winter didn’t have a lot of experience with gardens, but he suspected they didn’t usually go up quite as much as this one did. Seven trees ringed the small plot of land, each of them exploding with different fruits and flowers. Vines scaled the back wall of the house, covered in blue and gold flowers, and various ferns and shrubs took up almost all the ground space. In the center of everything there was a tower that looked as if it was made of glass, with overflowing flower-pots and seed trays on each level, piled up to the height of the trees.
Qibli was flying around the top of the greenhouse tower, studying a plant that looked like dark purple dragon tongues, but he flew down when he saw them step through the trees.
“Kind of a great idea,” he said, flipping one wing at the ascending levels of glass. “I’ll have to remember to tell Thorn.”
“Excuse me,” Hailstorm said bossily to Winter, ignoring Qibli. “Why are we obeying a MudWing’s orders?” This sounded so much like his real brother that Winter’s spirits rose — until Hailstorm added, “They report to SkyWings, not the other way around.”
Qibli regarded him thoughtfully. “He’s really confused, isn’t he?”
“You think?” Winter growled.
“Imagine being a totally different dragon all of a sudden,” Qibli said. “With completely different memories. That would be very … unsettling.”
“Oh, really?” Winter said. “Do you think that’s what’s wrong? What a useful insight, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“All right, grouchy,” Qibli said, giving Winter an affectionately exasperated glare. “I’m just expressing sympathy over here. I realize that’s an unfamiliar concept for IceWings.”
“I don’t need a SandWing feeling sorry for me,” Hailstorm said stiffly.
“It seems like an awfully complicated spell, though,” Qibli said after a moment. “What kind of animus would agree to waste his power — and lose bits of his soul — just to hide a prisoner? Why wouldn’t Queen Scarlet demand something more dramatic? Come to think of it, if she has an animus NightWing, why isn’t she queen again right now? She could use him to get rid of Ruby in a million different ways.”
Winter had no idea. It didn’t make sense to him either. He opened his talons and looked down at the crumpled pouch and chain that Hailstorm had been wearing.
At the sight of them, Hailstorm shuddered violently. “I’m supposed to wear that!” he cried. “It can’t ever come off! I’ll die if it does!” He stopped, felt his throat for a moment, and covered his eyes with a groan. “All right. I hear myself.”