The iceberg rose off the ground, trailing a long chain of roughly-hewn ice blocks behind it. It was kind of like those wooden snakes with all the sections that could slither side to side, only this was a lot bigger and angrier. Not to mention, this snake had spikes for legs all along its body. More millipede than snake. I liked millipedes. They were like roly-polies but all stretched out. 

This millipede was a lot louder than the ones back home. It clicked sections of its head—the iceberg—together like the pincers of an ant as it roared. I caught a couple words I recognized, like “no” and “die.” That sounded about right. 

“Yes, no die,” I shouted.

A dim shape swooped down from beside the millipede and landed in front of me. It was the voidcat, panting and wide-eyed. 

“What are you doing? You’re not making any sense, and he’s really angry we’re in his territory. Can’t you just tell him you’re a dragon too and ask for help?”

I frowned. “He makes sense to you?”

“Of course. How do you know Bontair but not Tenan?” She threw up her wings and forepaws like this was the greatest possible offense I could’ve committed. 

“Shade didn’t teach me.”

“Ugh, this is bad.” Dancing around to face the millipede, she squeaked a phrase out in Tenan. It was something fast I couldn’t decipher at all, but it seemed to calm the millipede a little. 

The voidcat turned back to me. “He says he’ll help, but only if he gets your horns for his collection. And we’ve got to get out of his territory before daylight or he’ll come looking for us again.”

“That’s silly.” I snort-coughed. “I don’t have horns.”

“That’s not good.” She squeaked some more at the millipede, who grumbled back a sharp reply. “He says he’ll take spikes. Or claws, if you haven’t got any spikes.”

“I have claws. Guess he can have some.” It was getting too warm in this coat. I wiggled, trying to catch the zipper with my teeth, but I kept missing. I tasted blood. Must’ve bit my lip instead. 

“What’s going on?” Aster whispered as the millipede moved closer. 

“He wants my claws. Wants us to go bye-bye. You should probably move. Yep, moving’s good idea.”

He shook his head. “I’m not going down without a fight.”

Before I could try to explain, the millipede’s pincers descended from the sky like two arcs of jagged, icy rock. They easily pushed Aster aside and hooked under the belt tied around me. The ground flew away as I soared toward the stars. A warm liquid spewed from the millipede’s mouth and soaked through my coat. It stung like lemon juice on a cut. Yelping, I frantically tried to escape from the drenched coat. 

The belt snapped loose. I threw my arms out to catch the dragon’s pincer, but my fingers only just brushed its icy mandibles. My stomach lurched. Biting wind whipped the coat away and froze the dragon’s saliva to my skin. 

The world slowed to a crawl. Whistling wind was a distant melody, and the glacial dragon’s roars were little more than the rumbling of an avalanche. They were background noise to the fire crackling in my lungs. As disgusting as being spit on might have been, it was a gift in disguise. Every part of a dragon was magic, even saliva. I now had some of that magic soaking through my pores. 

Flames erupted from my skin, burning away any trace of snow or ice. Crimson feathers cascaded over my body as my clothes melted away. Dull scrapes and rumbles of bones twisted my human form to better support massive wings, a long tail, and a jaw capable of crushing steel. 

My arms stayed more or less the same size, though they grew scales instead of feathers. My legs grew to support my hefty frame, each sprouting scaly four-toed feet with serrated claws meant to tear prey limb from limb. 

I was no longer falling. Rather, my outstretched wings and the superheated air in my lungs and hollow bones meant I drifted slowly down to a snowdrift. The snow sizzled and turned to watery slush around me. Rolling onto my stomach, I shook off the water. Whatever didn’t fall off turned to steam as I looked at the world with new eyes. 

Instead of the moonlit dimness, I saw an endless landscape of pale drifts and icy boulders peaking up from the snow. Standing comfortably, my shoulder was no higher than a human, though my neck stretched nearly as long as my legs. But when I reared back to get a better look at my surroundings, I could’ve touched the glacier dragon’s pincers with my snout. 

He rumbled something, and I made out more of it than I had before. Tenan was a cruder form of Bontair, but there were enough similarities that I could understand the gist of his meaning. He’d been promised fire dragon claws, and he wanted payment immediately.

“Fine.” I held up my left hand and gritted my teeth, wondering what was the least painful way to remove my claws. 

Apparently impatient, he hit me with one of his many pointed feet and pinned me to the ground. Leaning closer, he gingerly pinched one of my largest toe claws. 

Then he ripped it out. I screamed and kicked instinctively, chipping the end of his pincer. He called me something along the lines of “baby” and pinched the corresponding claw on the opposite foot. I wanted to tell him I’d rather both claws he took be from the same foot so I could just limp the pain away, but before I could come up with the words, he’d pulled out the second claw. 

Snapping my beak shut, I narrowly avoided spewing a string of Tenan insults Shade had equipped me with for the pushiest of traders. It wouldn’t do to insult a creature that would have no qualms against killing offensive trespassers.

Apparently happy with his prize, the glacier dragon tucked my claws in a stony alcove on his belly and clicked his pincers. “Sun up, be gone gone, or meet stomach.” With that, he scuttled off and left me alone with my throbbing feet. 

I stemmed the bleeding in my toes with a few sparks of magic, which used up nearly all I had left. If I wanted to turn human again, I would need to eat and rest to regain enough magic. Of course, staying in dragon form made a lot more sense at the moment. Izzy, Vance, and Aster seemed to agree. Izzy and Vance practically dove on my outstretched wing to bury their hands and faces in my glowing feathers. Aster snagged his singed coat off the ground and ran over to wrap his arms around my neck. This upset the voidcat, who jumped off his shoulders to land at his feet with a hiss.

Aster chuckled. “You’ve got to stop doing this to me. I thought that thing was going to eat you.” 

“Sorry, I wasn’t really thinking straight.” I tugged my wing out from under Vance and Izzy. Folding my wings, I rolled onto my stomach and pulled my tender feet beneath me. Even as I moved, Vance and Izzy were clinging to my side. I couldn’t blame them; magic hadn’t made me forget how cold I’d been as a human. But the cold wasn’t our most pressing issue now. “Climb on. We’ve got to get out of his territory before sunrise, or else we’ll end up in his stomach.”

Vance huffed. “We’ve got to stay in the area to wait for the portal.”

I winced and tried not to look him in the eyes. “The portal won’t be opening here any time soon. We need to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere except back to Earth.” He shook his rifle at me. “You’ve got your powers back. Open the portal, now.”

“Void dragons train for decades to manipulate the void and create interdimensional portals. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a fire dragon, not a void dragon. And threaten me all you want, but I’m significantly more bullet-proof than you are fireproof.” 

I looked back at Aster. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Shaking his head, he grabbed handfuls of the silky feathers at the base of my neck like he was going to use them to pull himself up. But instead, he dove past me to lunge at Vance. 

Vance whipped up his gun. “Stay back.”

Aster froze with his fists raised like he had half a mind to fight him in spite of the gun leveled at his chest. “He was going to shoot you.”

I tensed, instinctively wanting to pounce. But if I moved without thinking, Aster would get hurt. I needed to distract Vance long enough to disarm him safely.

“Just in the leg.” Vance’s finger hovered above the trigger. “Thought she needed some proper motivation to get that portal open.”

“You idiot,” Aster shouted. “She might hate you, but do you really think she would make me and her little sister stay here if she didn’t have to?”

“She doesn’t give a damn about us humans. We’re just her pets here in this hellish-”

Behind Vance, Izzy scrunched up her face and ran to cower behind a rock. Her whimpering distracted him for the split second I needed. I lunged and snapped my mouth shut on the barrel of the gun, ripping it out of his hands. The rifle went off, stinging the inside of my cheek. Heat sparked in my throat, and smoke billowed from my mouth as the rifle’s barrel melted on my tongue. I spat it the molten metal at Vance’s feet. 

He scrambled back with a yelp, tripping over his own feet in a futile attempt to get away. I didn’t even have to knock him over; he just fell on his own. Growling, I let flames lick my fanged beak as I looked down on him. Fear morphed his words of protest into gargled nonsense. As his whole body shook, wetness soaked through his pants. 

The stench of fear filled the air, overwriting the smell of human urine. He was scared out of his mind, absolutely certain he was about to die. Part of me wanted to make his fears come true. It would be simple enough to drive a claw through his heart—or for a more satisfying end, watch him slowly be consumed by flames. 

I shoved the aggressive part of me deep down inside. Vance was acting out of fear for his life. He was doing what he thought was necessary to get home again. In his situation, I doubted I would’ve done the same things, but I couldn’t say I wouldn’t have done things just as stupid. More than all that, though, was the guilt gnawing at my stomach. He was here because of me, just like Izzy and Aster. If he hadn’t been hired to keep Izzy out of trouble, he never would’ve chased her when she came after me. He’d just been trying to do his job, and it ended him up here. Even now, he was trying to do his job in a way. If he found a way home, he could take Izzy back, safe and sound. 

It was a pity he didn’t know a thing about what was going on. Clicking my mouth shut, I extinguished the flames and turned away. Aster stood frozen, staring at me in the same way you would stare at a polar bear about to rip apart a baby seal in a nature documentary. The smell of his fear stung worse than Vance’s. I could imagine what he was thinking—that I could just as easily turn on him if he stepped out of line. Back home, we’d argued about all kinds of things from politics to the best ice cream flavors. He wouldn’t dare say a word against me now. That thought made my insides squirm. 

I couldn’t look at Aster, not with terror skewing his usually kind face. “This is your last chance, Vance. If you put our safety at risk again, I will leave you behind.” I heard the spittle-y sound of his mouth opening and cut him off. “Don’t say a word. I don’t want to hear your voice. Stay or come, but do it in silence. If you come, sit on the coat. I don’t want to have to clean piss out of my feathers.”