Looking up at the sky, Rook zoned the girls out. Beyond the darkening blue was the twinkling of unfamiliar stars. His stomach did a flip. This really was an entirely different world; not just a forgotten pocket tucked away somewhere.

“Go ask them for one,” Gwendolyn finally snapped at Whisk, taking a claiming bite of the apple. She stormed further away.

“I was just teasing her,” Whisk commented dryly as she carefully stepped over the dry riverbed stones back to Rook.

She sat next him. Even in the waning sun, Whisk was radiant. The lazy breeze toyed with everyone else’s hair, but hers never seemed to fall out of place.

“She’s quite conceited, isn’t she?” she added.

“Be ready to be blamed for all her problems,” Rook warned.

Whisk snorted, then held her hand out.

“We haven’t met properly. I’m Whisk. When I was found in the human world, I gave them that name and I’m seventy percent certain I told the truth. The humans renamed me, of course, but I’m quite happy to readopt it.”

“You don’t have an accent. We might live near each other,” Rook observed, shaking her hand. “Where are you from?”

“Doesn’t matter. Past is passed,” she dismissed the question kindly enough.

Rook knew when someone was brushing aside a topic, but she was the most competent of the rescued; a prime ally for rescuing Dalia and finding a way home. He searched her face for clues that she was just trying to be brave.

A resolute grin was all she revealed.

“Well, nice to meet you, Whisk. I’m Rook. They let me keep my name. I lived-”

“Looks like you went through a doozy,” Whisk interrupted, gesturing at all of him. “I guess the cult beats up those they don’t like.”

Rook felt as keen to talk about his experience as Whisk was the human world. But, if he wanted to learn about her, that meant playing nice—give and take.

“Brought it upon myself from trying to escape.” His hand drifted to the burn before he caught himself scratching around it. He winced as his knuckles grazed the injury. “Actually, could you tell me what this one looks like? Is it super red?”

Whisk leaned to look behind him. She let out a long whistle.

“Pure white. The edges are bloody, though.” She leaned in closer. “A frostbite burn?”

Rook pulled his hand away, mentally berating himself for scratching around it so much.

“Kissa!” Whisk called out. “Do you have anything for burns?”

“Don’t,” Rook whispered too late.

Kissa looked up from tending the siren.

“Were you burnt?” she asked Whisk.

Whisk raised a brow at Rook, weighing mischief against sympathy. The glint in her eye gave him an uneasy sense there was an intelligence behind her carefree façade, that even in mischief, she was doing things with an ulterior purpose.

“Rook…”

“Did Rook burn you?”

“No!” Rook shot to his feet. “We were thinking of making a fire, but she is afraid of getting burnt.”

He glanced back at Whisk, silently pleading for her to be quiet. He didn’t want more attention on himself. Kissa and Vaughon were not too bad. Brennan and Ashton were too intense.

“No fires here,” Kissa said strictly.

“Yes, as you wish.” Whisk flipped her hair and stared up at the sky, much like Rook had been doing. He saw her smile grow faint.

He crouched down on his haunches by the siren, eager to further redirect the conversation. “Does he have a fever?”

“The start of one,” Kissa said solemnly. She reached into the pack, pulled out several dried herbs, and crumbled them into a bowl.

“How is he going to consume those with the muzzle on?”

“They’re for burning when we camp. I’ll have him inhale the smoke. There’s little more we can do. Until we get to the palace, we can’t remove this thing.”

“You can’t remove it with a knife or…” he looked at her fingers. While the nails looked potent, they weren’t like the ethereal claws he’d seen earlier.

“The muzzle is enchanted. I can’t cut it.”

“There’s magic to remove it?”

“There’s bound to be something enchanted in the resources we’ve hoarded for millennia.”

Rook watched Kissa ground the herbs to a fine dust. She handled the herbs with practiced confidence.

Rubbing around his burn, he tentatively asked, “Dragons breathe fire, right? Do you burn yourselves?”

“We’re fairly flame resistant.”

“But it happens? Like, in this form? Do you carry herbs for when that happens?”

Kissa looked at him from the corner of her eye. In the sunlight, all the dragons’ irises were no longer highlighted by any aura, but they remained piercing. Rook’s stomach twisted under the scrutiny.

“Did you set fire?”

“No! No. Really, Whisk was joking. I was just thinking theoretically. I don’t even know how to make a flame,” Rook’s voice dwindled into a mumble.

“Claws or teeth and stomach gas,” Vaughon stated, plonking down beside them.

He carried two strange, leather masks that looked stolen out of a World War museum. The brown-tinted glass in the goggles were surprisingly well shaped, considering the century of technology Rook had assumed this world to be in.

Vaughon looked at Rook sympathetically. “How are your wrists and ankles?”

Brennan and Ashton glanced their way, evidently having kept an ear on his conversation.

“Bruised, but the cold water brought the swelling down,” Rook forced optimism into his tone. He gestured towards Violet. “Definitely better than him.”

“Luckily dragon wings are absent in this form, or they’d have likely cut your wings off too.”

Rook bit his lip, furrowing his brow.

Vaughon raised a brow. “You don’t think so?”

“Corruption is really… chatty.” Rook’s brow furrowed further. “I could be wrong, but I think he wanted me intact. He got really angry when a guard struck me on the head. Claimed he’d make me a guardian or something.”

Vaughon laughed. “He wouldn’t be able to make you do his bidding through magic, so I’d have liked to have seen him try.”

“He warned that if I didn’t cooperate, it would take longer, but he’d break me like a horse.”

A low growl emanated. He wasn’t certain who made it, but his hairs stood on end. He nervously scratched harder around the burn, breaking skin. He winced. The more he tried not to focus on it, the more it itched and burned.

Vaughon caught Rook’s wrist, pulling it aside. He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Was this under the collar? It’s no normal wound.”

Rook’s lips parted, but no words came out.

If the wound was deemed abnormal or magical, would they send him back? Leave him? Maybe, even kill him? These were mythic beasts, not humans, after all. He had no idea of their customs. And, if the burn wasn’t something dragons got, it proved their mistake in thinking him one of their own.

“How did you get it?” Vaughon asked.

“From… a knife.” Rook swallowed nervously. Vaughon let him go and he sidled out of reach, massaging his wrist. “W-when I tried to escape, a goblin seared me with it.”

Rook jumped when Ashton rested a hand atop his head. The dragon had gotten behind him so quickly! He tipped the teen’s gaze toward the ground so that he had a clearer view of the nape. Rook didn’t dare disobey.

Ashton’s fingers surely, but gently, inspected the skin, careful to avoid the burn directly. Finishing up, his thumb briefly grazed the burn.

Rook bit his lip to restrain a complaint.

“Ice stone,” Ashton spat viciously.

The rising scent of smoke filled Rook’s nose and he shrunk down.

Brennan shook his head. “Don’t even think about going back.”

“Brennan—”

“Ashton...”

“It’s Thruin! He knew exactly who Rook was. I’ll kill him!”

“And one day I’ll hunt him down with you, but not now,” Brennan said sternly. “We need to finish our mission.”

The smoky scent grew stronger as Ashton sat beside Rook, his eyes still on the burn. For a heartbeat, a faint aura illuminated the intricate lines within his irises, despite being in the light.

“It will never heal,” he said. Still angry, but his tone had calmed. “Though, there is rumour of a dae alchemist in the northwest, famed for brewing poultices to cure any disorder.”

“That’s only a rumour and North is further from our end goal.” Brennan leaned down to look at the burn. His hand twitched, as if wanting to touch it, but Ashton’s narrowed eyes had him hold back.

“Then the elves. They can’t cure it, but they possess recipes to subside pain from cursed ailments. We’ll head along the ranges’ eastern border until their land.”

“But the siren needs attention,” Kissa blurted out. She shrunk under Ashton’s gaze, but persisted, “The elves barely tolerate you and they downright despise sirens.”

“We have our barter piece,” Ashton gestured towards Gwendolyn, who was a fair ways from them now.

“Thanks to Rook, but the king will want to see them first,” Brennan insisted. “All of them. He will want to control everything.”

Ashton dragged the older dragon down by the arm, so that they were face to face. Rook took the chance to inch away.

“So, Rook must suffer longer to appease His Kingship’s pride?”

“Would you incur his wrath again?” Brennan met Ashton’s gaze, but shortly looked away. “Let’s sleep on it. Either way, the elves and the palace are southbound.”

Ashton got to his feet.

“We need to talk alone.”

Brennan sighed, but followed Ashton off into the surrounding trees, out of earshot and away from watchful eyes.

Whisk sauntered over. “Not that I’m complaining, but shouldn’t Brennan be in charge?”

“Ashton is higher in the hierarchy,” Kissa replied. “He’s also spent decades travelling the lands, so there is no one more familiar with other cultures. Brennan is more of a confidante—which lets him get away with saying things Vaughon and I never could.”

“So, Ashton is better at leading?”

“Actually, Ashton is more of a loner,” Vaughon said softly. “Nearly went renegade a few times.”

“Careful what you say, Vaughon,” Kissa warned.

“Rook should know!”

“Rook is not the only one here. At least change tongues.”

Vaughon grimaced. “He won’t understand the larger words in Serpentine.”

Whisk placed on a mocking pout. “Oh, the unicorn can’t know? How racist! Or, is it speciest?”

Kissa looked at Whisk wryly. “History has many tales of unicorns and dragons. Tales older than our kingdom. There’s a reason unicorns don’t graze near the mountains. You are tolerable, but I suspect that’s the human influence on you.”

“Gee, thanks.” Whisk laughed, as if it was all a joke. “I’ll fetch our better-than-thou elf, so you can have some secretive dragon talk.”

Whisk skipped off, leaving Rook feeling oddly abandoned as the twins’ turned their attention back to his burn.