RUMI PROJECTILES RIGHT into Banu, pushing the sloth back down the tunnel. Sky and Gogi—and the protective bubble—tumble along with them. As they hurtle along, Rumi does quick calculations in his mind, using proportions and his memory of the two-legs’ carving to decide where there will still be volcanic magma below them, but only open water above instead of rainforest.

The orange glow of Auriel’s blockage is too far away to see now. He’ll have to imagine what’s happening, whether the pressure of the magma has already become enough to burst through. A little more, a little more, Rumi thinks. Then he shuts his mouth, so they slow to a stop.

This should be about right.

“Okay,” Rumi says. “Here we go.”

“Here we go what?” Gogi asks, holding his belly. All this jet travel must be giving him motion sickness.

Sky’s a step ahead, though. “A little fire-wind-water flurry?” he asks, looking downward.

“You got it!” Rumi says. “I’ll lead with the air. Banu and Gogi, add your elements once you can. As much as possible, so we can drill down deep. Once we hit magma, we need to get out of here as quickly as possible.” Even their fastest might not be fast enough, not once the ocean water surrounding them boils.

He can’t give them any more warnings, though, because his mouth is needed for other things. Planting himself firmly in Gogi’s armpit, Rumi directs a needle-thin blast of air into the rock floor of the tunnel. He rises—and Gogi with him. Rumi can hear wing beats as Sky hops to Gogi’s head and flaps, forcing the monkey to stay on the ground.

“Oh . . .” Banu says. “I get what we’re doing now.” He adds water to Rumi’s air drill.

“Ooh, pretty,” Gogi says, the water sizzling into steam as he mixes in his fire. The drill of water and air lights up in yellows, then reds, then—with a grunt of exertion from Gogi—blues. Outside of the hottest core of the drill, all is steam and bits of rock shrapnel.

“I think it’s working!” Sky caws from above.

Rumi can’t afford to say anything in response, not if he wants to keep up the drill’s stream. He listens to the surging ocean all around him, the whine of splintering rock, the roar of water turning to steam. Waves of hot water wash against him; bits of disintegrated stone abrade his skin.

“Oh, I see it, I see it!” Sky says. “Stop the drill!”

Rumi shuts his mouth and looks down to witness a wall of frothy boiling seawater bearing up on them, lit in orange from the lava released beneath. “Oh no,” is all he manages to say before the wall of water strikes.

It’s upon them. Banu’s sphere of air vanishes. Rumi loses track of his friends as he rolls and tumbles, the water scalding him then freezing him then scalding him again as he bashes against rocks and sand and shells. There’s something sharp against his chin, and at first he assumes he’s hit a spike of rock or shell. But then the sharp thing vanishes, and the water turns warm and almost sweet. He realizes that he’s been plucked out of the ocean by Sky. That he’s inside Sky’s mouth.

Eww? Mostly phew.

Rumi grips the macaw’s rough black tongue. Sure, maybe it would be a little gross under any other circumstance, but right now being inside Sky’s mouth is saving Rumi’s life, so it’s A-okay by him.

They roll and pitch, Rumi flying around Sky’s mouth while the explosion’s watery blasts buffet him. Keeping his arms around Sky’s tongue, the tree frog presses his feet against the roof of Sky’s mouth, in case his friend swallows by accident.

Sky must have hit a current, as Rumi’s pushed flat against the back of the macaw’s throat. He can only imagine what the blasts are doing to his friends, without a bird skull around them for protection. It’s impossible to know what’s happening on the outside of Sky. It’s impossible to know whether the macaw is still alive, Rumi is startled to realize.

Sky slows his forward movement. Have they made it out of the tunnel, and back into open water? Rumi props himself up as best as he can, waiting for the next bone-thudding propulsion. Instead they’re rising, gently rising. Rumi can’t imagine Sky swimming, but perhaps Banu is raising them with his bubble—or Sky’s dead body is floating to the surface.

But no, Sky is definitely alive. The macaw’s tongue vibrates as his muscles reengage, as the bones joining his wings to his rib cage shudder and pull. Rumi is lifted up and down in a soft rhythm. They’re flying. The soft movement continues, until Rumi’s stomach lurches, and he knows they’ve started to descend.

A slam and a shake, and then Sky’s skidding along the ground. A few steps, then the bird tumbles to his side, and his mouth parts.

Dizzy and gasping for air, Rumi picks his way out of the open beak.

Hot sand beneath his hands and feet. He cursed this beach before, how it burned his soft, porous skin, but now he feels like he could lie there for hours, soaking in the heat. His cold blood warms enough that he can finally think straight. “Sky, thank you, thank you,” Rumi says, rolling over to look at his friend. “You saved my life. I’d be dead without you . . . Sky?” Rumi props himself up on an elbow. “Are you okay?”

The scarlet macaw is on his side, beak open, vacant eye staring into the open sky. Rumi hops nearer. “Sky? Answer me! What’s going on with you?”

Once he’s close, he can see Sky’s tongue twitch, can feel the slightest hint of breath. But there’s white foam around that tongue, and there’s froth at the corner of Sky’s beak.

Poison.

Rumi’s stomach drops. He’s poisoned his best friend.

“Oh no, no no,” Rumi says, slapping Sky’s feathery cheek. “Sky. I was worked up by the explosion, I didn’t mean to envenomate, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

Rumi looks around the beach desperately. In the distance he can see the makeshift escape craft, the tapirs standing at the shore and staring out into the sea. They can’t see him, though—and what could they do to help if they could? Still, Rumi hops into the air and waves his little arms, using his magic to project his voice. “Help! Help us!”

Sobbing, he wraps his hands around Sky’s neck. “I’m so sorry, my friend. I’m so sorry!”

A voice comes from the tree line. “Move, Rumi, move!”

He snaps his head up to see a panther streaking toward him—Mez! “Rumi, get out of the way!”

“I poisoned him,” Rumi wails. “I didn’t mean to, it just happened. I’ve done it again.”

“Get out of the way, Rumi!” Mez shrieks.

Now Rumi sees why. Lima is tucked under Mez’s chin. The bat springs into the air as they get close, immediately zooming to Sky’s beak.

“I’ve never treated poison before,” Lima squeaks. “I don’t know how to start.”

“Just do something!” Rumi says. “Anything. Please, Lima, please help.”

“On it,” she says. “Mez, keep Sky’s beak pried open.”

Mez pulls Sky’s beak apart with a front and back paw, muscles straining with the effort. On her back, Lima inches into his mouth. “Ugh, parrot breath is the worst. Oh yes, I see some tissue damage in here, wow, more than some, hold on. . . .”

A few moments later, she’s back out. “I licked what I could in there, but I assume the poison is in his bloodstream now. I don’t know what to do next—I mean, I can’t get inside Sky.”

“Maybe not,” Rumi says. “But you could get in contact with his bloodstream.”

“How’s that?” Lima asks quizzically, head cocked. A glob of parrot slobber dangles from her ear.

After quickly checking his hands to make sure they’re no longer envenomated, Rumi parts the feathers along Sky’s thigh. His friend’s flesh already feels like it’s cooling. “Mez, I need you to slit the skin here.”

She doesn’t need to be asked twice. Mez extracts one claw and makes a single clean slice between the parted red feathers, down the white flesh of Sky’s leg. Blood wells up, more crimson than Sky’s feathers, made even more shockingly bright by the harsh midday sun.

“Now what?” Lima asks, looking down apprehensively.

“Drop a little saliva in,” Rumi says.

“You mean spit into his cut?”

“Yes, I mean spit into his cut.”

Lima makes a hawking sound, and then she spits right into Sky’s wound, coating it in bat saliva. Rumi is amazed to see Sky’s wound seal together right in front of his eyes, the saliva trapped inside . . . hopefully in the macaw’s bloodstream.

He hops so he’s in front of Sky’s closed eye. Mez releases his beak so it half closes. Rumi can’t tell whether Sky’s still breathing, not with the hot air rising from the sand of the beach. There’s no motion under Sky’s eyes, and his claws are drawn up tight. They curl, like a dead bird’s.

Like a dead bird’s.

“Oh, Sky,” Rumi wails, hurling his head into his palms, so all he can see is his own moist amphibian skin. “I’m sorry. There was so much we still needed to explore together, and I . . . I . . . killed you.”

Sky’s body shudders. His crimson feathers lift and lower, rippling in a wave from his claws to the top of his head.

“Well, that’s an overstatement,” Sky rasps.

Rumi looks up, vision murky with tears. “What?”

“I might not be feeling so hot,” the macaw says, “but I’m pretty sure I’m alive.”

Lima claps her wings, and Mez cheers, but Rumi can’t take his eyes off his friend, brought back to life right here in front of him. Rumi hurls himself around the soggy flight feathers of Sky’s neck, breathes in their musty scent. “You’re okay, you’re okay,” he finally manages to say. “I can’t believe it.”

“That’s enough,” Sky says. “I’m not quite ready to hug all of this out. I’m in a bad mood. You did nearly kill me, after all.”

Rumi hops away. “Sorry, I get it.”

Sky scrunches his eyes shut and then opens them. “That was supposed to be a joke.”

Sky flaps his wings and extends his claws, but when he tries to get up, he just flops to his side. He manages to tilt his head so he can see Lima. “I can sense your magic in my bloodstream. Thank you, my friend.”

Lima squeaks. “Did you just call me ‘friend’?”

Sky’s eye opens wide. “Have I never said that before?”

Lima shakes her head.

“Oh,” Sky says. “I’m sure I meant to.”

Lima reaches out a wingtip and pokes Sky, as if testing to see if he’s still real.

Mez’s ears go flat. “Now that that emergency is over, we need to talk,” she says. “What happened down there?”

A thought strikes Rumi, and the moment it does, sudden panic sends him hopping into the air. “Where are Gogi and Banu? We got separated.”

Mez points down the beach, where the emergency escape raft is just visible on the horizon. “Lima and I passed them on our way in. They’re a little waterlogged, and Gogi’s complaining to no end, but they’ll be fine. Their air bubble popped out of the sea, and Zuza and the other tapirs mounted a rescue to bring them to shore. Banu’s magic kept them alive. We’d been waiting for you—we got here last night after dealing with Mist. Chumba’s the new leader of the panther family, by the way—”

“Yes!” Rumi exclaims. “I was watching.”

“Right, of course. Anyway, I just got finished fishing Gogi and Banu out of the water, and that’s—”

“I helped too!” Lima says.

“Lima helped, too. That’s when we heard you yelling, so we made our way right over here.”

Rumi shakes his head. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

“Yes,” Mez says. “So, are we all safe now?”

“I don’t know,” Rumi says. He looks toward the horizon. There’s still a tendril of smoke rising from the volcano at the rainforest’s center . . . but the tendril is much smaller than the plumes that had once been spewing out into the sky. He thinks about Auriel’s dogged pursuit of the tunnels and chasms that led to the magma core, of his disappearing in a blaze of light and energy, of the collapse of the chasm where the hot lava had been rising, of opening the new release vent, far from land. He can see a geyser of water off at the horizon, sending sprays of steam high into the air.

Rumi lets out a deep breath. “I think . . . I think we are. I think we’re safe.”