Kinkajou let out a startled yelp, but before Moon could apologize or even get speech back under her control, a louder commotion erupted near one of the tunnels.
“Catch it!”
“Mine! I claim it! Mine!”
“It went that way!”
All the MudWings and SkyWings abandoned the chickens at once and bolted over to that side of the cave. Moon felt the thread of fear twist higher and brighter, as if it had been set on fire.
And then a small shape shot between the dragons and came pelting across the cave, dodging sheep and chickens, and Moon saw what everyone was chasing.
A scavenger!
She’d read about them and seen drawings, but she’d never encountered a real scavenger before. She’d never given them much thought. Apart from stealing the SandWing treasure and killing Queen Oasis twenty years ago, they were just creatures who happened to live on the same planet as the dragons.
But suddenly this one was right here and blazing in her mind as brightly as any dragon. She saw it spot the sheep and chickens, including the ones that had been caught and half eaten already, and she saw it stumble as a bolt of despair went through it.
Why can I feel the scavenger’s fear, but nothing from the sheep or the chickens? she wondered. Aren’t they the same?
The icy anger she’d felt before swept into the cave like an avenging blizzard: an IceWing, pale blue as a frozen ocean, with glittering scales like overlapping chips of ice. He stormed through the yelling crowd of dragonets who were still trying to find the scavenger underfoot, and Moon realized he was chasing the little animal as well.
The scavenger didn’t stand a chance. He’d fled into the worst possible place. Someone in the prey center was definitely going to catch him and eat him, and Moon would have to feel his awful terror as it happened.
She couldn’t watch it die — she couldn’t let that happen to something so scared, so helpless and alive and alone and clearly aware of what was about to happen to it.
Moon bolted over to the scavenger, cut it off as it tried to dodge around her, darted left to block its retreat, and deftly snatched it up in her claws.
“It’s all right,” she whispered to it. “I’m not going to hurt you.” It did no good. The scavenger’s heartbreaking fear buzzed even more clearly in her mind now that she was holding it. It put its little paws over its head and curled into a ball between her talons.
Silence slowly spread across the cave. Moon looked up and found the IceWing only inches away, glaring at her with dark blue eyes.
NightWing, he thought with a flash of vicious hatred that made her wince. He hissed slowly, exhaling a hint of deadly frostbreath into the air between them.
“You have ten seconds to give me back my scavenger,” he snarled, “before I slice your face off.”
So much for keeping my head down and staying inconspicuous, Moon thought, feeling the eyes and thoughts of every dragon in the cave on her.
The IceWing was frighteningly beautiful, with horns like deadly icicles and sharp spikes at the end of his whip-thin tail. His gaze pinned her down like a spear.
Never seen one look like that before, she heard him think. Didn’t know they had silver scales anywhere except under their wings. Those ones by her eyes are remarkable … and she looks like she’s … listening to something. A brief wave of curiosity shivered through his thoughts, and then was abruptly buried in a landslide of anger and self-loathing. What am I thinking? NightWings killed him, and I hate them all, all of them.
Moon tore her eyes away from his, wishing she could shut her powers off. She could have known from his expression that he hated her. She didn’t need to see the layers of how complicated his feelings were. Who did we kill? Someone he loved, obviously. She found it easy to believe the NightWings she knew deserved his hatred. I wish I could be someone else, someone he would give half a chance.
“Five seconds,” he snarled.
“No,” Moon said, forcing the word out past the scavenger’s terror and the sharp edges of the IceWing’s anger.
“That is my scavenger,” he hissed. “My idiot clawmate let it out, but it is mine and I did not bring it all the way here to see it eaten by a lying, smoke-breathing NightWing.” He took a step closer, and Moon felt the cold coming off his scales. “I could freeze you one part at a time — first your horns, then snap them off. Then your tail — freeze it and snap it off. Then your claws, and your wings … Should I go on?”
Moon closed her talons around the scavenger and brought her wings forward to wrap around it, too. It was impossible to focus her thoughts; the IceWing’s mind was so bright, like the sun dazzling off a glacier. In between his threats were images of another IceWing, laughing and shouting in the snow, then the same dragon surrounded by SkyWings in a mountain forest.
She couldn’t follow the threads — if that was the dragon he mourned, how did he get killed by NightWings if he was captured by SkyWings? If the IceWing wanted to eat this scavenger, why had he brought it “all the way here”? If he hated Moon so much, how could he also be noticing how gently she held the scavenger?
Say something, she yelled at herself, but already she couldn’t remember what he’d said and what she’d only seen inside his mind.
“Hey, calm down, all right?” A SandWing shoved his way through the watching crowd and stepped between Moon and the IceWing. Moon recognized him as the dragon she’d made eye contact with outside her cave. The one who had noticed how nervous she was.
“No one is getting sliced up or frozen and snapped apart,” he said to the IceWing. “What is wrong with you? Did you even try just asking nicely?” He turned to Moon. “Hey. I’m the idiot clawmate, although most dragons call me Qibli. My intimidating acquaintance here is Winter. What’s your name?”
He had a gold earring in one ear with a warm orange amber teardrop hanging from it. A few dark brown freckles stood out on his nose, which also bore a small zigzagging scar; the rest of him was a light sandy color. His poisonous barbed tail was tucked neatly into a safe spiral, although it kept twitching in Winter’s direction.
He looked like a normal SandWing, but he didn’t think like one — or like any dragon she’d met before. Brushing against Qibli’s mind was like stepping into a speeding river. He was almost unconsciously scanning the cave as he spoke to her, assessing threats and deciding which dragons were the most dangerous. (She was not on the list.) While he was focusing on defusing Winter’s tension and negotiating with Moon, he was also checking escape routes and noting who wore the most jewelry. A small part of his brain was even clocking a chicken in his peripheral vision that he thought might scurry close enough for him to catch.
This did not help clear her mind at all.
They were waiting for an answer from her — to what question? Her name?
“Moon,” she managed to whisper.
“Moon what?” the IceWing snapped.
Moon what? She didn’t understand the question. The scavenger was moving between her claws, and his fear now had streaks of confusion in it, which was muddling up Moon’s head as well. Not to mention the crowd of watching dragons and their excited mind clamor: Maybe they’ll fight! I wonder what scavengers taste like! Why isn’t she saying anything? I can’t believe she took his scavenger! I bet if he slices her face off, he’ll totally get expelled!
“Moon what?” Winter nearly shouted. “Come on, NightWing. We know your names are all lies. So what’s yours? Moondestroyer? Mooneater? Mooncrusher?”
“Winter, you need to seriously cool down!” Qibli yelled. He shot a grin at Moon. “Get it? Because he’s an IceWing? I know, I’m hilarious.”
“It’s Moonwatcher,” said Kinkajou, coming up behind Moon. She twined her tail around Moon’s. Moon knew that the RainWing was trying to be reassuring and supportive, but the effect was that Kinkajou’s thoughts were suddenly as loud as thunder, clashing up against the scavenger’s small hot spark of terror.
An IceWing! He’s so glittery! And fierce and dang
erous! Plus a heroic SandWing! So much drama already! I love school! I love it, I love it!
“Moonwatcher,” Winter muttered, deflating a little. There was something shivery about hearing him say her name, but Moon couldn’t tell if that was just because Kinkajou was having starry-eyed sparklethoughts about him all over her brain.
“Listen,” Qibli said. “This is my fault. I wanted a closer look, so I opened the cage, and that thing was halfway down the tunnel before we could even sneeze. But I promise you the scavenger does belong to Winter, so we’re asking you nicely: Please don’t eat it.”
“Get your teeth anywhere near Bandit and you will lose them,” Winter snarled.
“You are not at all clear on the concept of ‘asking nicely,’ are you?” Qibli said to him.
“Bandit?” Moon echoed. Who names their dinner? Or keeps it in a cage? She had a sinking feeling that she had terribly misread this situation. Why, why, in all the furious jumbled thoughts inside Winter’s head, hadn’t she seen anything about him not wanting to eat the scavenger?
“Indeed,” Qibli said. “The scavenger with the silly name is Winter’s pet. Nobody told me we could bring pets here, but I guess the nephew of the IceWing queen gets some special privileges. And if you didn’t know he was Queen Glacier’s nephew, don’t worry, he’d have told you sometime in the next five minutes.”
“I only mentioned it,” Winter said irately, “because it seems entirely obvious to me that the niece and nephew of the IceWing queen should each be given a private cave, so I wanted you to know we wouldn’t have to be clawmates for very long, as there has clearly been some kind of mistake.”
“Here’s hoping,” Qibli said. “So? Moon? Can we catch you a sheep or something instead?” Another million thoughts flashed through his head in the space of two heartbeats. What do NightWings like? Never trained for bargaining with a NightWing. Can’t be too different from other dragons, right? Start with food, but she doesn’t look like a dragon who thinks about prey a lot. Not treasure either. Scrolls? She has a cool, scrollish look about her. What can we offer? If she eats him, Winter will be furious. Maybe I can get him a new scavenger.
“I wasn’t going to eat him,” she blurted quickly, before she could get lost again in all the tracks of thoughts around her. “I didn’t want anyone to eat him. Nobody can eat him, not ever.”
Winter tilted his head curiously at her, and she felt his fury thaw a little. “That is exactly how I feel about it.”
“Great,” Qibli said. “Weird, but great. We’re all on the same roll of the scroll, then.” He looked expectantly at Moon.
She tried to block him out so she could listen to Winter’s thoughts for a moment. It seemed to be true: He was keeping the scavenger as a pet and would violently dismember anyone who tried to eat it. She didn’t think the scavenger understood that — he seemed as terrified of Winter as all the other dragons — but at least he’d be safer in Winter’s cage than anywhere else in the academy.
She carefully unwound her tail from Kinkajou’s and lifted the little creature into Winter’s talons. His claws brushed against hers as she did and she flinched, both at the cold and at the furious turmoil of guilt and self-loathing inside him.
“Ew,” Winter protested, peering at the scavenger. “You got him all sticky.”
Moon realized that her claws were still covered in crushed mango, and she’d gotten bits of it all over Winter’s pet. “Sorry,” she said softly. “I just …”
“She was just saving him,” Kinkajou pointed out. “You could actually say thank you.”
“Hmmm,” Winter said. Moon sensed Clay approaching along one of the tunnels, along with someone whose mind was warm and nearly as excited as Kinkajou’s. Sunny, she guessed with relief. She really needed to not be the center of attention anymore.
Winter took his pet over to the river and dunked him in, prompting several shocked squeaking noises from Bandit. What does she know about scavengers? Moon heard him think. I wonder if she can figure out what’s wrong with Bandit. Not that I would ever ask a NightWing for anything.
“He’s hungry,” Moon blurted, and immediately wanted to bite her tongue off.
Winter gave her a cold look. “No, he isn’t. I offered him a piece of desert rat this morning on the way here, and a bit of walrus the day before that, but he didn’t eat either of them.” He lifted the dripping-wet scavenger up and inspected him narrowly. The little creature had flopped over and curled into a ball again, shivering. “In fact, he hasn’t eaten since Queen Glacier caught him and gave him to me four days ago. I gather that scavengers eat fairly infrequently.”
“Or maybe it hates you and is trying to starve itself to death,” Qibli offered helpfully.
Winter frowned. “Scavengers don’t do that.” Do they? “He drinks water when I give it to him.”
“Have you — um —” Moon faltered as he turned his scowl on her.
“Have I what?” he snapped.
Sunny’s warm scales brushed against Moon’s as the SandWing came hurrying in. “Hello,” she said brightly. She was smaller than Winter and Qibli, not much bigger than Moon and Kinkajou. Moon liked the way her mind felt, all hopeful and determined. “What’s all the excitement?”
Behind them, Clay started shooing the watching crowd away. Moon could hear them grumbling about wanting to eat the scavenger or wishing there had been a bigger fight, both aloud and in their heads.
“Fatespeaker told me you brought a pet,” Sunny said, turning to Winter. “Is that it? Aw, I met a couple just about that size once.”
Winter arched his long neck and looked down his nose at her. “Queen Glacier said I could have him if I agreed to come here,” he said challengingly. “If you say I can’t keep him, I’m going home.”
“But you definitely can’t have it there,” Sunny pointed out in a reasonable voice. “A scavenger couldn’t possibly survive the cold in Glacier’s palace.”
“Well —” Winter hesitated, clearly ruffled by the logic of this. “I don’t care. I’ll figure out a way. I’m keeping him, that’s my point.”
“I don’t mind if you do, but remember, pets can be a lot of work,” Sunny said. “Especially a new pet you’re still getting used to. You should ask Starflight if he has any scrolls on the care and feeding of scavengers.”
“I’m sure I can manage,” Winter said. He started shaking Bandit to get the excess water off. The little scavenger yelped and tried to hang on to one of the dragon’s claws. Moon’s talons twitched. She wished she were brave enough to grab Bandit back and hold him more carefully.
“There’s an awful lot we don’t know about scavengers,” Sunny said. “Maybe your winglet can study him. And we’ll tell everyone there’s a no-eating-scavengers policy, but you still have to take care of him and keep him safe.” Sunny shifted her wings, and Moon caught the worries going through her mind. Did that sound bossy enough? Or too bossy? Will anyone ever take me seriously as the boss of anything?
“No one would dare hurt my scavenger,” said Winter. “Not if they know he belongs to me. Perhaps I should get him a collar and a label of some sort.”
“Belongs to the nephew of Queen Glacier,” Qibli suggested with a straight face. Winter nodded thoughtfully, then shot him a suspicious look.
“But,” Sunny went on, “is it all right with you, Qibli? It’ll be in the cave you’re sharing, so you have to say yes, too. Otherwise, perhaps we can switch you to a different cave, if we can find someone who won’t mind the scavenger.”
Winter cleared his throat importantly. “Perhaps you have forgotten that Queen Glacier is my aunt,” he said, as though Sunny might be too dim to know such basic facts about the world. “My sister is her niece and therefore in line for the throne. Obviously we should each have a private cave.”
“That would defeat the purpose,” Sunny said cheerfully. “Living together is part of the school’s mission of getting to know each other. Believe me, the SeaWing queen’s daughter is here, and she’s sharing a cav
e, too.” With a lot less grumbling about it, I might add, her mind observed, but she kept that to herself. “Besides, we haven’t expanded far enough into the mountain for everyone to have their own cave.”
“I don’t mind,” Qibli said. “I mean, I don’t mind the scavenger. His owner is the one I might be allergic to.”
Moon tilted her head at Qibli. Sunny had given him an easy way to get out of sharing Winter’s cave, but he wasn’t taking it. He actually wanted to be Winter’s clawmate, although she couldn’t see why. It wasn’t quite that Qibli liked him, but it was a little bit that Qibli wanted Winter to like him, and he also kept thinking of a pair of big bad-tempered SandWings (his brother and sister?) in comparison to Winter. In addition, he seemed to be teasing Winter on purpose, as a kind of maneuver to make friends with him. All she could really figure out was that Qibli was more than a little complicated on the inside.
“Don’t cause trouble,” Sunny reprimanded him, sweeping one of her wings up to stop Winter from lunging at his clawmate.
“I’m not!” Qibli protested innocently. “Someone should probably mention that the scavenger’s not going to last very long, though. It looks like it’s wilting. Hey, what if it has some kind of disease or something?”
“It doesn’t!” Winter growled. He held Bandit up and poked him gently with one claw. Bandit whimpered and flopped to the side. Don’t die! Winter thought in a panic. He glanced around and caught Moon’s eyes again. She tried to look away, but he was already leaning toward her urgently.
“What were you going to say before?” he demanded. “About feeding Bandit?”
“I — I just — I think I read somewhere that they prefer to cook their meat — is all,” she stammered. “Have you given him anything besides raw meat?”
“If he’s hungry, he should eat anything,” Winter said grumpily.
“I think she’s right,” Sunny said. “I have a —” She paused, and her mind went, Friend? Former jailer? Dragon who nearly got me killed? She settled for, “I know someone who kept a scavenger for years, and I think he cooked all her meat for her.”