“Do you think that robe gives you the right to control my life, Head Mage Fifer?” Thisbe challenged.

“What? No! Of course not! I’m—it has nothing to do with that!”

“You are on a real power trip now, Miss Stowe,” Thisbe snarled. Smoke swirled up from her nostrils, and she could feel heat in her throat, begging to be released. She let out an angry dragon roar like she’d never known she could do before.

Fifer stared, and Thisbe closed her mouth abruptly. “I didn’t know I could do that,” she said. She got to her feet and hobbled recklessly to the desk, too angry to feel pain. She peered out the east window at the dragons.

“Don’t hurt me, please,” begged Fifer, crouching lower.

“Be quiet,” Thisbe said, still furious, but focusing on something else outside for the moment. “The dragons heard my roar,” she said softly. “They’re walking this way.”

Fifer muttered something unintelligible under her breath and got up. Both girls watched as the two dragons from the front corners of the property moved toward the palace. The twins turned together to look out the window that overlooked the back of the property and saw those two dragons coming too.

“What have you done?” Fifer whispered.

“What have you done?” Thisbe fired back. She smoothed her scales and hopped on one foot back to her sofa; then she took a drink to try to cool the fire in her throat.

“They’re sniffing the air,” Fifer reported. “Slowing down.”

“Nothing to see here, dragons,” muttered Thisbe. She dropped her head into her hands, annoyed by Fifer and wishing the dragons away. “Are they still coming?”

“They’ve stopped,” said Fifer. “They’re turning around and going back.”

“Good,” said Thisbe with a relieved breath.

“How did you do that?” asked Fifer.

“I got mad enough, I guess,” said Thisbe, eyeing her sister through slits.

“Look, will you let me explain?” Fifer tentatively stepped closer.

Thisbe shook her head and rolled her eyes, then sank back on the sofa. “Fine. Explain your madness, please. Because it sounds pretty bonkers to me.”

Fifer wasn’t sure what bonkers meant but figured it was a Kaylee word. And it didn’t take much sleuthing to figure it out. “Bear with me,” she said. “I have a story to tell.” She went to the arm of Thisbe’s sofa and, when Thisbe didn’t set her on fire, perched on it. “After Alex died, when we were camped out in the forest searching for you, everybody kept asking me if I could feel your presence. And I couldn’t. I’d never had that feeling that I knew what you were thinking, or where you were, or if you’d been hurt—all that stuff that Alex and Aaron felt for each other. Did you ever feel a connection like that?”