“But look!” said Fifer, pointing out the east window to the ground. She couldn’t bear to say Florence’s name. The warrior’s body had broken into chunks, and the impact had scattered the pieces over a wide swath of the yard like some horrifying art project gone wrong. None of the pieces moved. Nearby lay a writhing, dying red dragon.

“Holy—” Dev began, then stared. “What happened? Is that Florence? Is she… dead?”

Fifer gripped her head in shock. She’d never imagined anything more horrible than seeing the iconic Magical Warrior trainer and dear friend defeated and destroyed so violently. “I don’t know,” Fifer whispered.

“We need to take cover,” Dev said again, more urgently. “The northwest tower is smashed to pieces.” When Fifer didn’t move, Dev grabbed her hand and pulled her to the stairwell. They went down a flight and crawled behind the stone and iron steps, hoping they were strong enough to protect them if anything else came slamming down from the sky.

Through the tower window, Dev and Fifer could occasionally see the remaining two dragons swoop by, and then they caught sight of the ghost dragon who was trying to fight them, knowing she wasn’t allowed to kill them. “It’s Astrid!” Dev said.

Fifer didn’t know Astrid, and she didn’t care about her either—not right now, anyway. Florence’s body was destroyed and scattered across the front lawn. The shock was so great that Fifer was having a hard time believing what she’d seen. Could Florence really be dead? The warrior trainer had said the dragons couldn’t hurt her. But she hadn’t anticipated this.

“At least she got two of them,” Dev said. “She helped us a lot.”

Fifer cringed and buried her face, not wanting to talk about anything like that. “This is horrifying,” she whispered. “Florence’s death is the end of Artimé. We’re nothing without her.”

Dev was taken aback. How could Fifer feel so strongly about a statue? And how could Florence be so important to Artimé when she hadn’t even been a part of all of the rescues the Artiméans had done in the land of the dragons? But he could see Fifer was shocked and stunned. After a while, glancing helplessly her way, he said, “This has to end soon. Let me know if I can do anything to help you.”