“No.” Rose shakes her head fiercely. “It can’t have been Crowky. He’s gone. Win said so.”

“Plus, he doesn’t know where my cave is,” says Win. “If he did, he’d have trashed it years ago.”

“Listen,” I say, “I know it was Crowky because I saw him. He was here during the night!”

They stare at me in disbelief. “Arthur, what are you talking about?” says Rose.

“In the middle of the night something woke me up and I saw this . . . shape sitting between you two.”

Rose shudders. “How can you be sure it was Crowky and not just some, I don’t know, tree shadow?”

“I heard rustling feathers, and he spoke to me. He said my name. Tree shadows don’t talk, Rose!”

The two of them continue to stare at me. “And that was it?” says Rose. “He just said, ‘Arthur?’”

I think about the other thing Crowky said, Take me to Home, but something stops me from mentioning it. “That was it,” I say.

Win puts a reassuring arm around my shoulder. “What did you do then?”

“I went back to sleep.”

Rose gasps. “Arthur, how could you possibly go back to sleep?”

“I thought I was dreaming!” I protest. “Win said Crowky was gone. You said he was gone. I thought I was having some freaky middle-of-the-night moment, so I hid in my sleeping bag and . . . went back to sleep.”

“Nice,” says Win, nodding. “Stealthy. That’s ninja-thinking, mate. If I’m ever scared, I pretend to be a rock. Works every time. So what should we do now?”

Rose drops her voice to a whisper. “We need to get out of here. That paint is still wet. Crowky couldn’t have finished writing it that long ago. He’s probably hiding nearby, watching us!”

We fall silent as we look around, our eyes jumping from Win’s cave to the tall trees.

“Where shall we go?” I say.

Win doesn’t hesitate. “The Crow’s Nest. It’s the safest place.”

He’s right. The Crow’s Nest is the perfect fortress: it’s strong, built high on sharp rocks and surrounded by a wild sea. Plus the Lost Girls are there and they’re fearless, and fearless is just what we need right now.

We leap into action.

While Rose whistles for a dragon, I pull on my sneakers, and Win dashes around his cave finding apples, his wand, a telescope, and a hefty-looking wooden sword. He stuffs it all in a rucksack.

“Ready?” says Rose, grabbing Mitch’s bag. Already I can hear the distant thud of dragon wings.

“Ready,” I say.

Then we take one last look at Crowky’s sinister message before jumping off the rock and running into the forest.

Chapter 13

Rose’s dragon whistles all sound the same to me, but the dragons know who she’s calling, and this time, it’s Pickle and Vlad who appear in the sky.