He ducked his head, looking down at his talons. “Well,” he added. “You know. Don’t take too long.”
She laughed again, and he felt a fierce, awful longing to be back with his friends, where, even if everything wasn’t easy, at least he felt like he meant something to somebody — something more than a line in a prophecy.
Her face went serious, and she toyed with the corner of one of the scrolls between her claws. “So Deathbringer’s in trouble for helping me,” she said.
“I’m sure he understood the risks when he decided to set you free,” Starflight pointed out.
“Hmm,” Glory said skeptically. “I’m sure he thought he could charm his way out of anything. Idiot.”
“Well, he still might,” Starflight said. “I don’t think Greatness wants to execute him.”
Glory shook herself. “Can you tell me anything else about the NightWings?” she asked. “Anything that might help us when we do attack? Like, do they have mind readers posted at the tunnel entrance? That’s what I would do, so they could sense anyone coming through and maybe even read our battle plans before we got there. I want to send in a camouflaged scout just to see how many guards are in the cave now, but that’s why I haven’t yet — I don’t dare.”
“I don’t know,” Starflight said. “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything useful about what the NightWings are doing.”
“I bet you know more than you think,” she said. “Can you tell me more about the fortress? Or the layout of the island? Or how we might get there if we flew from the continent instead of using the tunnel?”
His heart sank. “You’d have to get through MudWing and SkyWing territory first,” he pointed out, “before you could fly across the ocean to the island, even if I could find a way to describe the route.” And that would take weeks, he thought. Weeks to travel the whole length of the continent. Can I survive for weeks on my own?
“Yeah, it’s probably not the safest plan,” Glory said thoughtfully.
Starflight shifted his wings. He felt chilly air against his scales, and it wasn’t coming from Glory’s rainforest dream. “I think I have to go,” he said in a panicked whisper. “It must almost be dawn.”
“All right,” she said, standing up. “But come back tomorrow night if you can. We can figure this out, Starflight. It’s going to be all right.” She stepped over the table and wrapped her wings around him, which didn’t work very well since he wasn’t really there, but somehow it was still comforting.
“See you soon,” he said. “Remember to watch out for Tsunami.”
Glory rolled her eyes. “At this point, I bet most of my tribe would invite the NightWings to abduct her. She’s not the calmest general on Pyrrhia, I can tell you.”
Starflight smiled and lifted the dreamvisitor to his forehead.
The rainforest disappeared.
He was back in the gloomy, dimly lit NightWing dormitory.
Had he heard a scrabble of claws right before he’d opened his eyes? Starflight glanced around and realized that his blankets had shifted so he wasn’t as well hidden anymore.
Or someone moved them.
His talons, with the glowing sapphire trapped between them, were visible; he pulled them back close to his chest, then leaned over the side of the bed to tuck the jewel into its hiding spot.
Sleepy mutters indicated that the other dragonets were waking up. But when he looked around the room, he couldn’t see anyone who looked awake yet.
Did someone see the dreamvisitor? Was someone spying on me?
Maybe I imagined it.
But he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that his secret might not be entirely safe anymore.
Starflight lay curled on top of the blanket, trying to calm his pounding heart.
I’ve done what I had to do. I warned Glory. Now I just have to wait until they rescue me … survive until they get here. Surely I can do that.
“Up,” snarled Morrowseer from the doorway.
All the dragonets in the dormitory scrambled to their feet, neck spikes bristling. But Morrowseer’s gaze was fixed on the prophecy dragonets, who came forward to stand in front of him. Starflight noticed that Flame kept his head down so he didn’t have to meet the NightWing’s eyes.
“Yesterday was stupendously unimpressive,” Morrowseer growled. Starflight glanced over his shoulder and saw Fierceteeth watching them with an alert expression.
“Next time you’re in that kind of situation,” the NightWing went on, “I want to be sure you can fight your way out of it, even without backup. So. Today, battle training.”
Starflight’s wings drooped. Battle training was always his least favorite thing.
“Next time?” Viper snapped. “I’m not stupid enough to go through that again.”
Morrowseer hissed at her. “If you would like to take yourself back to the Talons of Peace, too, there’s the door.” He swept his wing toward the outside.
Viper hesitated, scowling, then ducked her head and stopped arguing.