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well.”
    “Did you see the messenger who was here before?” The second curl of blue smoke moved, looping around the black smoke as if checking on it, and then sliding back to the first. “That big brown dragon sent a message for Sunny. I wasn’t sure whether to tell him we haven’t seen her. I don’t want to worry the queen when she has so many NightWings to deal with.”
    “I say don’t start a panic. She’s around somewhere.”
    This was similar to the RainWings’ attitude toward their own missing dragons, some of which had been gone as long as a year by the time Glory rescued them. Well, that’s fine, Sunny thought. I don’t need or want my friends looking for me. They have enough to do.
    The black smoke stirred, as if the faintest breath of wind had touched it. “Sunny?” Starflight whispered.
    But … poor Starflight. She curled her tail in around her talons and sighed.
    “Shh, we woke him by talking about her,” admonished the first healer. “Let’s get him another sleeping dart.”
    Sunny cleared the mirror and held it between her claws for a moment. She disliked it more and more the longer she held it. It had a chilling wrongness to it, like the tunnels, that made her scales feel as if invisible spiders were crawling all over her.
    But there were things she needed to know — like what the warring SandWing queens were plotting. The Obsidian Mirror could help her figure out if any of them was an immediate threat to Sunny’s friends.
    I should at least try one of them. The most dangerous one. She hesitated, and then whispered, “Blister,” to the dark glass.
    The pale yellow twist of smoke that rose from the center this time had the same chilling stillness that Blister had; it barely even moved in the breeze.
    “Be careful!” it hissed suddenly, and Sunny flinched away from the mirror. It was unsettling to hear Blister’s voice as if she were on the next branch over. “Close it up. Is he ready to go? All right, give him his gold, and tell him I’ll be there in a moment with final instructions.” The smoke dipped for a moment, then turned as another small twister touched down. “Anything?”
    “No sign of any SeaWings, Your Majesty,” said the new arrival. “We waited half the day.”
    Blister hissed, low and long. “I’ll win this war without them, then,” she growled. “Burn will be dead within a fortnight, and then I’ll kill Blaze with my own talons, and the SeaWings will get nothing when they come slithering out of the ocean begging for forgiveness. They’ll find my claws and the entire force of the SandWing army waiting instead. Coral has no idea what vengeance can really look like. Don’t touch that,” she snapped abruptly.
    “Sorry, Your Majesty. What —”
    “It’s my plan to end this war once and for all,” Blister said in a dark voice. “Without the SeaWings or the NightWings. So stay away from it. Any word from our spies in the Ice Kingdom?”
    “No sign of the dragonets yet. Perhaps —”
    “I know,” Blister snapped. “They could be somewhere else.” There was the sound of paper crackling. “I’ve been considering the possibilities. Hiding in the rainforest, perhaps.”
    Sunny felt a chill down her spine.
    “Or perhaps they’re dead,” said the soldier. “Especially if they tried going to the rainforest, from what I’ve heard about that place.”
    “Hmmm,” Blister mused. “Dead. They’d never do anything so convenient for me. Even with a NightWing assassin after them, supposedly, if anything Morrowseer says can be trusted. Speaking of dragons I’m going to dismember as soon as I get my claws on them.”
    She doesn’t know he’s dead — how could she? Sunny gripped the branch below her, feeling terror shudder through her scales. At least she’s not searching the rainforest yet.
    “It doesn’t matter,” said Blister, her voice suddenly brisk. “I’m done with prophecies. I mean, I’ll still kill the dragonets when I find them, but first