“Ew!” Fatespeaker cried.
“We’ve tested it on everything,” Mastermind said proudly. “Turns out it doesn’t affect metal, so.” He banged on his helmet, which gave out a muffled clang in response. “But anything alive, plant or animal, it just destroys. If it gets in your eyes or your bloodstream, you’re dead within minutes. If it only hits your scales, you’ll wish you were. We have a couple of recent victims I’ll be getting to study as soon as they’re released from the healers.” He rubbed his talons together again. “If you’re lucky I’ll let you take a peek,” he said to Starflight. “A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see what RainWing venom can do.”
“I know what it can do,” Starflight choked out. “I’ve seen it kill two dragons.” Possibly three, if Queen Scarlet is dead.
He thought of Fjord, the first dragon Glory’s venom had killed — the IceWing who had been about to kill Clay in the arena. Some of the poison had landed on the open wounds on Fjord’s neck; that must have been why it killed him so quickly. And Crocodile, the MudWing who had betrayed the Talons of Peace and led the enemy right to the Summer Palace — when Glory killed her so they could escape, her venom had gone right into the dragon’s eyes.
But Queen Scarlet … He shifted uneasily. If he remembered right, Glory’s spray of venom had landed on the side of the queen’s face. So she really might still be alive. Alive and looking like Vengeance, which didn’t bode well for the dragonets.
Mastermind stared at him avidly. “Two dragons? Killed them? Are you sure? How incredibly careless; we haven’t picked up any RainWings with that little control yet.”
“It wasn’t careless. It was on purpose,” Starflight said, annoyed on Glory’s behalf.
Fatespeaker sucked in an astonished breath.
“Well, I never — are you sure?” His father’s wings flared. He looked equal parts alarmed and enthralled. “That changes things entirely! A variable I hadn’t considered! You’ll have to tell me all about it. What prompted the attack, what it looked like, how long it took the victims to die, whether there was any time to fight back —”
Starflight realized, too late, that he shouldn’t have said anything. If this information got back to the council, they’d know how dangerous Glory was. He had to hope that Mastermind was too wrapped up in his experiments to tell anyone.
“My, my, my.” Mastermind headed toward the next door. “Well, knowing the venom only worked on certain substances led us to the next project: constructing armor that could withstand a RainWing attack, if necessary.”
“But it isn’t necessary,” Fatespeaker chimed in. “RainWings don’t attack other dragons. Everyone knows that.” She looked at Starflight. “Well … they’re not supposed to.”
“Even a RainWing will defend herself sometimes,” Starflight said.
“Hmm. Not often, in my experience,” said Mastermind. “But why don’t you stand back just in case.” He waved them a few steps away, settled his helmet over his head again, and flung open the door.
Inside, a dragon was pinned to the wall.
Starflight was lucky his stomach was empty; it heaved perilously, and he had to cover his eyes and take a few deep breaths before he could speak again.
The RainWing was the sad gray color of the chains that had bound Starflight in the Sky Kingdom, the first time he’d been separated from Sunny. She drooped against the wall, her wings outstretched and secured in place. When he was able to look again, he saw that what he’d thought were pins were actually clamps, holding her where she was, but not going straight through her wings as he’d first thought.
Not that anything about this is all right.
“What are you doing to her?” Fatespeaker cried. She bolted into the room and lifted the RainWing’s snout gently in her talons. The trapped dragon barely responded.
“This one is done for the day,” Mastermind said. “We were testing to see whether they run out of venom at some point, if they shoot it for long enough, but she fainted before we could get any really useful data.”
“She needs water,” Fatespeaker said, glancing around the room, then looking straight at Starflight.
He hesitated, remembering Fjord and Crocodile again. If this dragon did suddenly spray venom at them, he wouldn’t blame her — but he didn’t want to be in the way when it happened.
“Starflight,” Fatespeaker said, and the tone of her voice reminded him again so much of Sunny that he couldn’t say no to her.
“I’ll get some.” He flew to one of the pipes on the desalinization machine, where he’d seen a faucet earlier, found an empty cauldron that smelled clean, and filled it up.