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arrived and the flowers became dormant.
Stefan and Benny and Mai, maybe
. Keiko was probably with them, for no better reason than that she never passed up an opportunity to wander through the forest. I had no idea who was on washing duty. I imagined golden-haired Trix and dark-eyed Andreas cleaning the breakfast dishes in a stream. Unless one of the Waterbabies was doing it, in which case they’d bring water to the dishes rather than the other way around.
    Thinking of them all was enough to steady me as we left the Firstwood behind to fly above a sea of yellow grasses. On we went, until we finally floated down to land amid the hills that made up the Five Sisters. Jaz wasn’t here. I frowned and spun in a slow circle, searching for him. All I could see were rocky hills and long grass. And the grass wasn’t flattened the way it would be if a saur had trampled over it.
He said he’d meet us!
    What if something had gone wrong, something to do with the Leader business he wanted to talk about? What if he was missing as well?
    I cast a worried glance at Connor – and gasped as a fireball appeared out of nowhere and hurtled towards his back.
    “Connor, watch out!”
    He was already moving, flinging himself to the side. The fireball blazed into the space where he’d been, stopped dead, and vanished.
    A black-haired, black-eyed boy popped up from out of the grass. “No fair, Connor! Ash warned you.”
    Connor stood, brushing himself off. “I moved before she spoke, Jaz. I could hear something coming through the air. But,” he added in an approving tone, “most enforcers would have turned in the direction of the sound. You would have hit them right in the face.”
    “It’s no good getting the better of ordinary enforcers! I have to be able to beat the best. That’s you.”
    “Have you two gone insane?” I choked. “What do you think you’re doing?”
    “Practising fighting the government,” Jaz answered. “I try to ambush Connor, and he has to escape without using his ability, as if he’s an enforcer.”
    “Since when have you been doing that?”
    “I dunno, a while. Connor’s been teaching me lots of stuff. Tactics, and camouflage – see my clothes?”
    I did. Jaz was wearing a shirt and pants of yellowy-brown that was hard to distinguish from the grass. He must have dyed them; none of the seven cities had that colour clothing. “And,” he continued enthusiastically, “check this out.”
    He pointed to one of the Five Sisters and intoned, “Hatches-with-Stars! Emerge!”
    For a second, everything was still. Then the hill moved.
    No, not the hill. A lizard the size of a pony who’d been coiled about the base.
    Hatches-with-Stars skittered over to us, claws tearing at the ground and tail sweeping behind her. She’d been born late; it meant she was little, for a saur, and her scales were pale blue instead of black. Normally. Right now, she was covered in red dust. She stopped, and reared up on her hind legs, displaying the rocks that had been – glued? – all over her body.
    “What have you done to her?” I demanded.
    Jaz rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, it all comes off.”
    Connor examined Hatches with interest. “It’s very good, Jaz. Although in most situations you’d
want
people to see a saur coming. It tends to encourage fleeing in terror.”
    “Yeah. I only thought of that afterwards. Plus to really make it work you have to puff up the grass to hide the saur footprints, which takes ages.”
    I looked from Connor to Jaz and back again. I’d known they were talking, but I hadn’t realised they were … really talking. What else had I missed while I’d been wolf?
    Hatches sank to her feet and lounged on the ground, licking the dirt off her scales. Jaz grabbed hold of my arm. “Come on, Ash. We need to speak.”
    He pulled me along, stopping at the very edge of the circle formed by the Five Sisters. “What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed.
    “What are you talking