After Lila's somewhat disastrous idea, neither of the other girls wanted to do much. Reluctantly, and very against the spirit of a sleepover, in Lila's opinion, they all went to sleep. Or in Lila's case, lay there overcome with questions about what had happened before somehow sinking into a sleep. She didn't remember how, or when.

But she did remember the dream that came after. Or at least, a part of it. 

She remembered teenagers, around her age, standing in the streets of Goldwater Harbor wearing old-fashioned suits of arms and wielding swords that crackled with lightning. One approached her, and swung his sword. His blue eyes burned with hatred. The taste of blood filled her throat, the smell of something burning filled her nose.

Only for her to wake up before the blade hit her neck.

She shot up and reached for her neck. Every hair on her arm and neck stood on end, as if she'd really been electrified in her dream. For a few moments, she sat in darkness of Aideen's room, the beginnings of the dawn trickling through the curtains. The other two princesses were still fast asleep.

That was when Lila felt it—a message on her lips. She didn't know where it came from, or why she needed to say it. But she had to speak, to get it into the open: "The Paladins—they're coming."

It was six in the afternoon—just the beginning of evening, based on the dwindling daylight—when Kira saw them enter the building. 

There was some kind of event in the lobby of the physics building at Wingfield College that Dr. Gershwin was required to attend despite having just arrived from the airport, jet-lagged from her conference in Colorado. Kira wasn't sure of the specifics—but she had been the one to drive her grandmother to the event, despite both their anxieties surrounding the situation. Kira might have had her learner's permit, but neither her nor her grandmother was eager for her to get behind the wheel of her grandmother's minivan. 

The entire way, Kira gripped the steering wheel white-knuckled, a prayer whispered at every stoplight. Somehow, they'd managed to arrive in one piece, no accidents, no injuries, and only mild distress from both passengers. But it still left Kira on edge.

Maybe that was how she noticed them. 

Kira lurked in the corner of the lobby, watching as various other professors and students talked to and congratulated Dr. Gershwin. On what, Kira wasn't certain. There was a reason she only took the amount of physics credits required to graduate. Math had never been her strong suit, not compared to English Class. 

Therefore, what her grandmother did was completely beyond her. Kira was easily lost in the terms and numbers spiraling around on the page and in her head. In desperation to avoid getting caught into a conversation about physics or university politics or whatever else, Kira glanced away from Dr. Gershwin—and that's when she saw them. 

A group of teenagers and twenty-somethings who clearly didn't belong there. In mud-splattered boots, organically distressed jeans, weapons strapped where it was easy to grab, they were all just standing there in the lobby. 

Kira glanced around—no one else seemed to notice them. 

She looked back to them—only to lock eyes with a boy about her age, with blue eyes like aged denim or brewing storm clouds in the late afternoon. 

Kira darted to the door to the staircase, past the more conveniently-located bathroom. As soon as she was out of sight, she pulled off her kitten heels and sprinted up the staircase. She didn't stop until she reached the top floor, where she made a beeline for the ladies' restroom. She slammed the bolt to the stall door to lock, and whipped her phone out of her pocket. 

This wasn't the first time she'd feared that she'd been followed. 

All her life, she'd occasionally seen people in black, people not to dissimilar from what she saw today, in the grocery stores where her grandmother frequented or outside her elementary school playground. But only ever right before they had to move, before her grandmother would get the itch to wander and they would leave again. Kira couldn't ever recall telling her grandmother about the strangers. Now she wondered if Dr. Gershwin somehow had known, and that was why they always left so quickly. 

They couldn't leave though—not this time. Not now that Kira had friends, that she had a destiny, and that there was Galileo. . . 

An idea sparked into her head, at the memory of her friends, of the wild sleepover from the night before. 

The teenagers and young adults bore a strange sort of resemblance to the legends Aideen had told them about the Paladins. And Aideen had never said that the Paladins were gone. 

Could they. . .

Her thought was cut off by the sound of footsteps. Not in the bathroom, not yet—but they were closer.

She tapped Aideen's contact on her phone, and typed as fast as her heart beat.

You know the dragon-hunters from your stories last night? The paladins, I think you called them?

Three dots at the end of text window appeared. The door to the bathroom creaked open. 

Type faster! Kira screamed internally. 

Yea

BANG! Kira's heart skipped a beat. Someone hit a door at the end of the stall. 

Do they still exist?

Another door—BANG!

Only more dots on the screen awaited her. Kira knew she was on her own. She put her phone away, only to flinch as the door next to her was slammed open. She pretty much knew the answer to her question anyway.

The only thing she could do now was figure out how to get out of this.

Then a pair of mud-splattered combat boots that were practically falling apart sauntered in front of the door to Kira's stall.

Think fast.

THUD. The lock held tight.

"Estoy ocupada!" Kira was suddenly thankful for her Spanish classes. "Un momento, por favor!"

Whoever was standing outside backed up a few paces—but she didn't leave. She grabbed her shoes and squared her shoulders back. She would need her feet free for what came next. 

She then opened the door to reveal three girls from the group she saw earlier—the Paladins, Kira suspected. 

All three wore more rugged clothes, with combat boots, lots of black, and weapons strapped to their legs or sticking out of the pockets of their leather jackets. They all wore golden jewelry with some kind of lightning bolt on it, as an amulet or a hair clip or a ring, as was the case of their leader. She was a tall girl with dark hair and a passing resemblance to the blue-eyed boy that Kira had seen before in the lobby. Except her eyes were a piercing gray, of storm-clouds ready to strike, snow about to fall. 

"Excusame, por favor," Kira mumbled. She brushed past the tallest Paladin girl with the fierce gray eyes, only for the girl to catch her by her right sleeve. Right where Kira's birthmark was.

"Hey!" Kira wrenched herself out of the Paladin girl's grip and covered her shoulder. She darted back, but the wolves were closing in. 

The girl with dark red hair narrowed her pine-green eyes. She reached for something inside of her jacket. "You're Kira Drake, aren't you?"

"No comprendo, señorita," Kira said as she tried to make her face go blank.

The tall girl rolled her silver eyes. "There's no point in hiding it anymore. We've been hunting you for a long time."

"You're a Paladin, then?" Kira already knew the answer—but she hoped it might buy her a little more time.

"Oh, so you've heard of us." The girl with the dark red hair lowered her shoulders, her posture relaxed. "Look, we don't have to make a scene—"

"I think you've already done that." Kira was surprised at how low her voice went. It almost grumbled with a kind of power Kira was certain couldn't live within her. But there was something commanding about it, something fierce. And that felt good. "You've been stalking me, after all. You said that much. So tell me—what is it you want?"

"We need you to come with us." The tall girl with the gray eyes advanced a step forward. 

"I don't think I will." Kira stepped back with each word, shaking her head. Then she bolted for the door. 

She ran out into the hallway, where a crowd of Paladins as she now knew them were waiting. She scrambled in the other direction, past the laboratories and fire extinguishers, to the lounge on the other end of the hall. There, a large window greeted her—and her last option.

Being a dragon didn't eliminate an inherent fear of falling.

But Kira knew what she had to do—otherwise, death waited with the Paladins. Aideen's stories and the weapons made that pretty clear.

All she could do was fly, or fall.

She closed her eyes, and remembered the feeling of fire in her heart, the wind under her wings, a rainstorm in her brain. 

She turned into a dragon, right then and there, and burst through the window. Her wings caught her, as she knew they would—but she also knew that this form was a liability. After all, it was easy to find a big purple and green dragon.

She shifted back in the free-fall as she plummeted through the red and gold foliage of the trees—only to hover before she could hit the ground. 

Kira never knew that she could do that. She slowly rotated herself in the air, weightless, until her toes touched the earth. She then crumpled to the ground. But she couldn't stay there. Not when she knew they'd seen her fall out the window. She put her heels back on and staggered forward, only to see the boy with the denim-blue eyes watching her. 

"How did you—" Kira mumbled.

He glanced over his shoulder. "Go that way, your grandmother's waiting for you."
Kira blinked. None of this made sense. 

But with her heartbeat pulsing into a headache and the aftermath of adrenaline shooting ice down her veins, all she could do was numbly nod and obey.

Kira jumped into the passenger seat of her grandmother's minivan. She pushed the briefcase over to make room and buckled her seatbelt. 

"You finally saw them, didn't you?" Her grandmother raised an eyebrow.

"You've known about them?" Kira didn't even know where to begin.

"I think you'd be surprised what I know, Kira." Dr. Gershwin pulled the car into reverse and backed out of her spot. "I also know you've been acting strangely and going to that one girl's house on the edge of town."

"So you know then?"

"What you're doing?" Dr. Gershwin snorted. "Of course not. But that's beside the—"
She cut herself off as she slammed on the brakes. The car skidded to a stop just in front of the Paladins.

How had they gotten there so quickly?
Kira sank down in her seat as Dr. Gershwin rolled down the window. "Can I help you?" Her voice was cool and airy, the picture of politeness— with a layer of disdain peeking through.

"I see your granddaughter in the vehicle." The gray-eyed girl folded her arms over her chest. "She needs to come with us. You've evaded us for long enough, Dr. Judith Gershwin."

Dr. Gershwin glowered, matching the girl's piercing gray gaze. "Kid, I don't have time for this. Tell your friends to move. We've got dinner reservations—"

Kira's heart rate started to pick up. Colors blurred in her vision— only becoming clarity in points of escape from the car—

Unconsciously, she let out a low whimper. She could feel tears stinging at her eyes, her heart beating faster— faster— about to beat out of her chest—

Dr. Gershwin looked back to the girl. "Get your friends out of the way. Or I will run them over—"

"You wouldn't dare." The girl narrowed her eyes.

"Don't you dare," Dr. Gershwin shot back. She started inching on the pedal, causing the car to let out a low growl. 

For the first time that night, the girl and her friends looked afraid—panicked, even. They scattered in a leap of common sense, and Dr. Gershwin slammed on the gas pedal, throwing Kira back against the seat. As they left the group of teenagers behind, Kira felt like she could finally breathe again. Dr. Gershwin rolled up the window.

"It's okay." Dr. Gershwin reached one hand out to Kira, the other securely on the wheel. "They're not going to touch you."

Kira grasped her grandmother's hand and nodded. She was embarrassed at the tears streaming down her face. But all she could think was of the dangers of before and how small she felt and how helpless despite being a dragon princess. She gulped in air, to try and breathe again. Her chest hurt as her heartbeat slowed back to normal. "I'm sorry—"

"It's not your fault they showed up." Dr. Gershwin let go, her eyes straight ahead on the road. "And I suppose we have much to talk about, when we get home. Yes?"

Kira said nothing, even though she agreed.