Probably the best thing was to bother Daemon as little as possible and let him heal.

Of course, he had to carry her, Fairy, and Broomstick while he flew to the islands of the tiger’s paw, a trip filled with as much tension as one would expect. Broomstick tried to keep the mood light by rambling about inconsequential topics, like what kind of polish was best for keeping swords shiny, but his chatter backfired because every time Fairy said something, Daemon stiffened below them, and everyone could feel it against their legs. The conversation eventually died off, and they finished the flight in silence.

As soon as they landed on the white cliffs of one of the tiger’s-paw islands, Fairy and Broomstick practically leaped off Daemon’s back.

“We’ll go scout down on the shore,” Fairy said, heading away before Sora even had a chance to acknowledge her plan. Broomstick hurried off with his gemina.

Daemon didn’t look as they left. “I’ll do a few flyovers of Dera Falls.” He snuffed out the sparks in his fur and jumped off the cliff into the air.

“I guess I’ll stay here,” Sora mumbled to herself. Which is how she ended up crawling on her stomach to the edge of the cliffs, where she could get a better look at the island that she suspected was Empress Aki’s prison.

But what would they find when they got there? An empress, beaten down and tortured? Or one whose mind was stripped, who might look and act like the empress but was really the Dragon Prince’s puppet?

Sora seethed. Not that long ago, Prince Gin had stolen her mind, too, filling her with a bloodcurdling greed for the Evermore and the will to do whatever was required to get there. She’d walked and talked like herself, but otherwise, she hadn’t been Sora. She’d abandoned her friends because of Prince Gin, and almost killed Empress Aki. If it weren’t for Daemon, Sora would already be well on her way to becoming the murderous general in her Lake of Nightmares vision.

I won’t let anything like that happen to the empress, Sora thought, fingers tightening over the hilt of one of her swords.

But first, she had to find Empress Aki. Sora took a deep breath, then let go of the sword and instead pulled out a spyglass.

For a minute, she couldn’t see much, because the moon was blocked by a thick blanket of clouds. There weren’t any fires or signs of a soldier encampment over on the island, and her stomach knotted up. Maybe Sora had been wrong about the empress being here. Come to think of it, there were no ships either. Had she read the map wrong? Was Empress Aki elsewhere?

But the soul pearl stirred in Sora’s collar. The Dragon Prince’s magic was near.