Carina was first to break the silence. “Okay,” she said decidedly, resting her hands on the shoulders of her younger two children. “That’s enough. Moving on. We have an issue to deal with here that takes precedence over… whatever that was.” She turned to Aaron. “You were saying that we should declare our opposition to Frieda Stubbs loud and clear.”

“That is my position,” Aaron said stiffly.

“I support that.” Carina didn’t look at Samheed, but it was clear to everyone that she’d just made a statement. “I’m not sure how we’re going to do it, though.”

“I have an idea,” Aaron said quietly. He stared hard into the jungle, deep in thought, and after a moment, a flicker of recognition crossed his face. In his youth, he’d spent some time sneaking from the tube in Quill to the one in the head mage’s kitchenette and on to the one in the jungle, befriending Panther during his visits. And he could just barely see the jungle tube in some brush not far away. “Hmm.” He turned to Carina. “Yes. And I think we should attack immediately, since they won’t be expecting us to.”

Florence looked concerned. “How? We barely have enough people to surround the mansion.”

Fifer glanced at her brother and saw him staring out into the jungle again. She followed his gaze and caught a glimpse of the tube in the clearing. “Oooh,” she said, almost as if she could read Aaron’s thoughts. “I see. We’ll surprise them,” she said slowly. “And on the way we can get more components.”

Aaron pivoted to his sister with a small smile and a nod. “Exactly.”

In the Cavelands

Dev opened his eyes and blinked at the sky a few times, trying to remember where he was and what had happened to him. With a sick feeling welling up inside, he recalled being thrown from the castle tower window and his ride in the grip of the dragon’s mouth. Was he dead now? This… didn’t seem anything like what he’d imagined death to be.

After a moment he was certain he could not possibly be dead with his body aching and head pounding like it was. His thirst was intense, and his stomach was trying to communicate either hunger or the need to vomit—he wasn’t sure which. He heard something snuffling some distance away but could see no one. Dev tried to move, but his limbs wouldn’t obey, so he let his lids droop.

When the snuffling noises grew louder and an oven full of hot breath blasted him, Dev’s eyes flew open again. Looming over him was a shocking sight. One dark purple dragon and two silvery ghost dragons stared down. A huge drop of something disgusting fell from one of the ghost dragon’s nostrils and sizzled on Dev’s arm. Steam rose up from it, and the dull burning pain it created joined the various other pains Dev already endured. “Krech,” he whispered, but the word from the common language caught in his parched throat, and only a scratchy noise came out. He closed his cracked lips and let his head sink to one side, too exhausted and injured to be frightened.