“All right,” the RainWing said affably and flew off in a way that probably counted as a hurry for a RainWing, but was only marginally faster than your average snail.
“I swear,” Tsunami muttered through her teeth. “Sunny. You’ll probably be shocked to hear this, but I don’t think I’d make a very good RainWing.”
Sunny laughed. “I missed you,” she said, and meant it.
It wasn’t long before they were all gathered around Starflight’s bed. Sunny felt a rush of joy as Glory swept into the room. Here were all her friends, all together in one place like they were supposed to be.
“Sunny,” Glory said, and the relief in her voice was matched by the bright yellow of her scales. She even reached out and squeezed Sunny’s front talons, which was more affection than Sunny would have expected from her. “Thank goodness you’re alive. Because now I can totally behead you. Starflight, what’s our official policy on beheading right now?”
“Our constitution says no beheading Sunny,” he said loyally.
“Let’s amend that,” Glory said, flicking her tail. “To I can behead anyone who worries me half to death like this.”
“I know you’re probably mad,” Sunny said. Glory’s ears and wings were starting to shade more red than yellow. “OK, definitely mad. But there were — lots of — stuff happened, and —”
“It had better be wildly important ‘stuff,’ ” Glory growled. “You know what I don’t need in my first week as queen, in addition to a whole new tribe of pretty much the worst, most unhealthy, most annoying dragons ever? I don’t need to also be freaking out because one of my best friends has disappeared. I don’t need to be using my best dragons on patrols searching for you when they should be helping me run a brand-new experimental two-tribe kingdom.”
“That’s me,” Deathbringer said, poking his head in from outside. Sunny jumped. She still wasn’t used to seeing any NightWings in the RainWing village, apart from Starflight. “When she says her ‘best dragons,’ she’s talking about me.”
“I am not,” Glory said, a little too indignantly, Sunny thought. “Quit stalking me.”
“This is not stalking,” he objected, sliding into the room as if he were perfectly welcome. “This is protecting you.”
“Nobody invited you to this private conversation,” Tsunami said bossily.
“Hey, I’m just making sure the queen is safe,” he said, spreading his wings.
“The queen can take care of herself,” Glory pointed out. “Out of the two dragons in question, the queen happens to be the one with camouflage scales who can shoot venom. What can you do again? Sit in the dark, is that it? Guess what, I can do that, too.” Inky black spilled across her scales and she looked down her snout at him.
“I can stop dragons from killing you,” he said. “Three assassination plots so far, Your Majesty. No one’s better at stopping assassins than the world’s best assassin.”
“You poor dragon,” Glory said. “If only you had a shred of self-esteem.”
“What?” Sunny cried, dismayed. “NightWings have tried to kill you? Three times already?”
“So he says,” Glory observed. She didn’t look remotely scared or even ruffled. “Apparently he’s my bodyguard now. Not that anyone asked him to be, ahem.”
“It’s true, I did have to fight my way past a whole pack of volunteers,” he mused mockingly. “Oh, no, wait. It’s just me. The only dragon who cares if you live or die.”
“He’s just trying to make his list look longer than mine,” Glory said to Sunny. “We’re keeping track of who has saved who more often. I say it doesn’t count if you have to save me from your own dragon-murdering self, and he says I shouldn’t get credit for sending him away before the IceWings got him.”
Sunny couldn’t help but notice that Deathbringer was apparently allowed to know where the RainWing village was, and to roam around it freely. So whatever she said about him, Glory really must trust him, certainly more than any other NightWing.
“If you two are quite finished jabbing at each other,” Tsunami said, rolling her eyes, “I’d like to hear what Sunny’s been doing for the last week.”
“Me too,” Clay said fervently, sidling up beside her. Sunny twined her tail around his, relieved that at least one of her friends wouldn’t be mad at her, no matter what she’d done or how worried he’d been.
“Well,” she said, “I found my parents. And I met Burn’s brother. And I saw Peril again, and Queen Scarlet is alive, oh, and she’s maybe coming here to kill us, although I hope she doesn’t really know where we are, although she said she did.”
Glory cleared her throat quietly, but everyone turned to look at her anyway.
“Um,” she said. “So. Yes. Actually, she does know where we are.” She squinted at the skylight, rubbing the back of her head. “She maybe visited me in a dream. With a dreamvisitor. And saw where I was. So. Yes.”