TRAINING BEGAN IMMEDIATELY. THEY ONLY had four days to get ready for the race against Lu, and Brazza needed a lot of work.

After reading to the dragon for half an hour, Abel stopped in the middle of a chapter and stood up. The dragon’s slitted eyes snapped wide open. Her body had relaxed while listening, but it tensed now. She raised the huge hook on her tail over her back like a scorpion.

“Okay, Brazza. Savvy, friend, savvy …” he cooed at her, using kinner slang to say that everything was okay. “I’ll read you a little more after we get to know each other. Savvy?”

The dragon didn’t impale him right away, which was a good sign.

“I’d like to work with you. With your permission, of course.” Dragons were proud creatures, and this one had probably had her pride hurt for a long time. Dragons’ bodies were tough and healed quickly, but their egos were fragile. Once pierced, they could be hard to repair. He had to try, though. Abel needed her. And from the looks of the stodgy stall where she was kept, she needed him too. “How would you feel about racing with me on your back?”

Again, the dragon didn’t impale him or eat him.

“She must like you!” Otto called from the stall entrance. Brazza thrust her neck out and snapped at Otto, but she was too far away and the cuffs still held her in place. The dragon dealer laughed. “She’s not fond of me!”

“These are my friends.” Abel pointed at Topher and Roa. “They’re gonna help us work together, okay? With your permission?”

The dragon swung her neck from side to side, considering the two nervous kids.

“Come on in,” Abel urged them. “Brazza wants to meet you.”

“Meet us or meat us?” Topher said. “Like, meat you eat.”

“I get it,” said Abel. “Just get in here and be polite, please.” He turned back to the dragon. “Sorry, he can be … well … himself. But it’s part of his charm. And Roa, well, they’re going to look after your health. You’ll be in really good hands. They’ve taken college-level Dragonistics classes. They know everything.”

“Well, not everything,” Roa said, stepping into the stall. “But it’ll be a pleasure to look after you.”

The dragon snorted.

“I’m a designer!” Topher blurted as he came in, not wanting to be shown up. “I know how to build cool stuff, see?” He pulled out the small notebook he always carried, where he wrote what he called lyrics but were really poems, and where he did sketches of his ideas for dragon equipment.

“We’re young,” Abel said. “But we’re a good team. You won’t regret flying with us.”

“She won’t be flying with you until I get paid,” Otto called, not stepping a foot into the stall himself. Abel didn’t know how much human speech dragons understood, but Brazza’s lips curled from her teeth in a way that suggested a growl.

Abel pulled out his phone and opened the credit app; he clicked on the entire balance in his account, all $567 of it. He waited for Otto’s icon to pop up, then he swiped the money into it. There was a whooshing sound, and his balance dropped to zero. Otto’s phone dinged. He smiled as he took Abel’s meager life savings. Abel smiled too. He didn’t like having the ill-gotten gambling money and was glad he’d put it to use for something good.

Or maybe good. There was still a chance his new purchase would eat him.

“You bought yourself a dragon,” Otto said. “Now what are you gonna do with her?”

You would think transporting a dragon in a city full of dragons would not be that hard, but you would be wrong.

“First of all,” Roa reminded them, “no one under sixteen years old is supposed to pilot a dragon on the streets without an adult. Secondly, no one under eighteen years old is allowed to own a dragon. And thirdly, Brazza is an unauthorized breed, which means if you’re stopped by a patrol, she’ll be seized by the government and—”

Abel put his hand up to stop Roa. He didn’t want to think about what would happen to Brazza. He could still hear the shrieks of the orange dragon at the races echoing in his thoughts.

“Also, we don’t know if she’ll let you ride her,” Topher pointed out. “And we don’t have a stable to ride her to.”

“Y’all didn’t think this through very well, did ya?” Otto asked. He took his seat at the front of his market stall again. He started tapping his phone screen and speaking to them without looking. “This dragon is no longer my property nor my responsibility, but I’m not a heartless man. Back when I was a teacher, I was admired for my fairness, see? So I’ll be fair to you now, give you some time to figure this out.” He held up his phone to them: a timer counting down from one hour. “You’ve got an hour until the magnetic cuffs release and she’s all yours. She won’t have to go home with you, but she can’t stay here.”

“Okay,” Abel said, thinking fast. “We can take her to one of the abandoned skyscrapers across town. She’ll be safe there, and we can train her around the empty buildings.”

“How are we gonna get her there, though?” Roa asked. “We can’t just fly her through the main streets. We’ll get pulled over for sure. She kind of stands out. And so do we.”

“We’ll need a disguise,” Abel agreed. He looked around the vast building. “Luckily, we’re in a place where you can buy anything.”

“But we don’t have any money left,” Topher said.

“We have Roa.” Abel turned to his friend. “And they’re the best DrakoTek player I’ve ever seen.”

“Wait, you want me to play a game of DrakoTek?” Roa’s forehead wrinkled with deep and doubtful lines.

“I want you to win a game of DrakoTek,” Abel said. “In one of the gambling parlors on the first floor.”

“But we don’t have anything to bet,” they objected.

“Of course we do!” Abel said. “We have a dragon!”

Downstairs, Abel had found the most self-serious, grim-faced group of DrakoTek players any of them had ever seen. The cards were bright and colorful, but the players’ faces were flat and dull, revealing nothing.

It hadn’t been hard to find a game. The moment the gamblers saw three kids who’d just bought a dragon from nutty old Otto Voorhees, they thought they had an easy win. They hadn’t reckoned with Roa’s skill.

The bet was simple. All or nothing, winner got the loser’s cards and, if Roa lost, their dragon too. If Roa won, they got the cards and a whole heaping pile of cash, which would easily be enough to buy a disguise for their dragon, a racing harness, and other supplies.

They’d been playing for half an hour and hadn’t won yet, though two of the grim-faced players were already knocked out.

“Get ’em, Shanna!” one of the losers cheered. The best player among them, Shanna, laid down a silver-scaled wyvern card, with a double-point breath enhancer, a gas mask against reverse poison attacks, and a special “hold back” card that let her play the last card of her move after Roa went. It was a good hand. Abel had no idea how he’d beat it. Luckily, he wasn’t the one playing.

“Wowee,” Roa said. The others around the table laughed and patted Shanna on the back. Abel noticed that she had a kinner tattoo behind her ear, the lightning dragon of the Thunder Wings.

“Sorry, kiddo,” Shanna said. “I’m gonna take that dragon off you. Hope you learned something about playing grown-up games.”

Roa smirked. Sure, grown-ups could play DrakoTek, but that didn’t make it their game.

“Sorry, you misunderstood me.” Roa plucked the cards that they were going to play out of their stack. “I meant ‘wow,’ like ‘wowee, that was a really dumb move my opponent just made.’ ” Roa gave Shanna an insouciant grin, which was Roa’s favorite kind of grin. It was a grin that said I’ve got nothing to worry about from the likes of you.

Shanna grinned back, but her grin dropped as Roa laid down the card for a short-wing Swamp Wyrm, a kind of dragon that lives in the toxic water of swamps and sewers and, importantly, breathes poison. They had a plus-five defense against all wyverns, and when played with a spitting weapon card, they reversed any breath enhancer card’s damage back onto its player. Roa played the spitting weapon card next, then dropped a cold-blood card, which made their dragon invisible to any dragon other than Frost Dragons. For their last card, they played a shining piece of gold.

“Why did you play that?” Abel wondered. The only reason to play a gold piece card was to try to bribe another team’s dragon into doing what you wanted. It didn’t work if they were in the middle of attacking you, and Shanna still had her “hold back” card left to play.

“Watch and see,” Roa said. Shanna ran her hands over her deck, rummaging for the last card to play, getting madder and madder. The clock on the table was ticking down. She only had thirty more seconds to decide her play. “What’s the problem, Shanna?” Roa taunted. “You noticing you’re now at minus three? Unless you play a healing card, I win.”

“Don’t tell her what to play!” Topher objected.

“She doesn’t have a healing card left,” Roa said. “She played her last one two rounds ago to beat me with that Reaper. I knew she’d want to intimidate me with attack cards. All I had to do was inflict some damage to make her use them up. And then just wait.”

“Wow, you’re a genius,” Topher said.

“I’m not a genius,” Roa replied. “I just pay attention.”

“You’re an ankle-chewing kin traitor!” Shanna erupted. She threw her cards down to lunge across the table at Roa.

The other players caught her and yanked her back. “Whoa! No violence at the Burning Market!” they yelled.

Suddenly, one security kinner from each of the three kins rushed over, and three more circled above on short-wing Gull Stalker dragons.

“Problem here?” the Sky Knight asked.

“Nobody fights in the market,” the Red Talon said.

“You have a problem, you can settle it outside however you choose,” the Thunder Wing reminded Shanna. “In here, we’ll have peace.”

Shanna settled down and flopped into her seat. She shoved the cards toward Roa. “You win, kid. But I’d watch your back.”

Roa shrugged. “I’ve got friends to watch my back for me,” they said. “And you owe me some cash.”

Abel patted his friend’s shoulder, proud of Roa for keeping their cool, though his heart thundered in his chest. “Told you Roa had us covered!”

They had twenty-five minutes left to get a disguise for their dragon and get to Otto’s.

“I got this part,” Topher said. “I know just what Brazza needs.”

With only minutes to spare, they stood in front of Brazza’s stall, ready to take their dragon out.

“Okay, I have to admit,” Roa said. “This disguise is genius.”

“Not genius.” Topher grinned. “I just pay attention.”

“I think you’re both geniuses,” Abel told his friends from atop the pink-and-blue dragon’s back. “But I still have to fly her.”

“We’ll stay on the phone the whole time,” Roa said. “And we’ll meet you at the empty skyscraper with the ad for Peanut-Butter-and-Pickle Wyvern Wafers on the side.”

“Wish I could fly you there with me,” Abel told them. “But I don’t think Brazza will let anyone else on.”

At the mere suggestion, Abel felt Brazza’s back tense. Some people thought dragons were just dumb animals, the best of whom could follow commands and fight like demons, but Abel knew they were so much more than that. They had complicated ideas and emotions and desires—and they all had a lot of pride.

“It’s better this way,” Roa said. “We’ll take separate buses so no one can follow us.”

“But we’ve got money now!” Topher objected. “Let’s take a cab!”

“Then the cab will know where we’ve gone,” Roa said. “And cab pilots turn their flight plans in to the Dragon’s Eye for review every day. I swear, Toph, you make a lousy criminal.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Okay, kids, time’s up,” Otto announced. “Be on your way. Follow the exit signs for Dragon Riders. And let your brother know we’re even now. Thanks for shopping at Otto’s.”

Abel tugged the reins to nudge Brazza forward out of her stall. She hesitated, but he didn’t yank again. He figured she needed time to decide if she wanted to follow his suggestion. If he tried to force it, she was likely to resist. After a count of ten, she stepped forward, out of the stall and onto the main floor of the Burning Market.

Folks turned to look at the kid in the brand-new riding saddle atop the notoriously difficult dragon. Then they turned away, just like Topher had said they would.

They’d wrapped Brazza up in an advertisement for “low-interest home loans at variable rates with zero processing fees.” Abel didn’t have a clue what any of those things meant, but that, Topher had said, was the point.

“No one else does either!” he had explained. “No one pays attention to these ads. It’s better than an invisibility cloak!”

“What is an invisibility cloak?” Roa asked.

“Who cares?” Topher replied. “This is better!”

Sure enough, not even the security goons up in the rafters looked his way. When he reached the exit, his phone rang. He tapped his earbud.

“Don’t get pulled over,” Roa warned him.

“Don’t get followed,” he warned Roa.

“Savvy,” they agreed together.

Abel gave one quick shake of the reins, asking Brazza to fly.

She turned her head to look at him, perched in his saddle at the base of her neck. If she chose to take off now, this would be their first flight together. He had no idea how it would go.

She snorted soundlessly, set her gaze straight at the fire gate to the exit platform, and hesitated. She took a long look back at her stall and then at Abel. He felt her body relax.

Then she ran!

The wall of flames loomed larger in front of them, then larger still. Brazza unfurled her wings and leapt from the ground the same instant a circle of clear air opened in the flames.

They launched into the dusk over Drakopolis, leaving the Burning Market behind. Brazza flapped hard for the ragged edge of the city, where ruined skyscrapers loomed. A list of fixed-rate home loan prices fluttered behind her, and not a soul paid any attention to the boy and his dragon at all.