THE CITY BLURRED. SINGLE DOTS of light became long streaks as Brazza blew past them. Abel pulled the reins against the strain of Brazza’s power. She pulled so hard in return that Abel was lying down on her neck, mostly out of the saddle, his arms pinned underneath himself. He pulled with everything he had, and she flew with everything she had.

Through the leather of his jacket, he felt heat radiating from below her scales. He looked up the length of her neck, focusing on the point of her head between her horns and on the orange-and-purple drones that zipped past her so close he heard their motors whistle by his ears.

Everything else vanished. He was not distracted. He was not thinking about winning or losing or about Lu or the Red Talons or his family or even himself. He and the dragon were one being, a laser firing at the finish line.

He barely registered in his ear when Roa told him breathlessly, “You just crossed five hundred miles per hour! Five fifty!”

Lu’s wyvern appeared ahead, weaving from side to side to block them from passing. Abel felt Brazza slow, just enough for him to suck a desperate breath into his burning lungs. Then, when Lu’s wyvern was at the far side of a sideways swoop, Brazza burst forward and slipped past. Abel felt the sharp tip of the wyvern’s wing brush his shoulder, but then Lu was behind him; the wyvern roared with the strain, but there was no catching Brazza now.

She snapped her wings open and closed and dove toward the last drones just over the street, twirling her body in a gleeful spin as they went. Abel saw the ground spinning up at him, and he closed his eyes tight to keep from throwing up. He’d never felt g-forces like this before. Even with Topher’s rig pulsing and adjusting his blood pressure, he felt like he was going to pass out.

“Six hundred!” Roa’s voice said in his ear, though they sounded four thousand miles away.

“That’s gotta be a least ten g’s!” Topher added.

“Slow down now, Abel!” Roa warned. He wasn’t even sure his friend was talking to him. He felt sleepy. His vision tunneled, started to turn gray.

“SLOW DOWN!” Roa and Topher warned.

Abel felt his hands drop the reins, though he still felt their echo burning his palms. A calm feeling overwhelmed him.

It didn’t last.

BOOM!

His entire body rattled when they hit the ground. Brazza had spread her wings out like parachutes to slow them down, all four claws clattering across concrete. She left a trail of sizzling furrows in the street, so hot they smoked, and then she came to a peaceful stop.

Fitz’s dragon launched rainbow sparks into the sky to signal the race’s end. They gleamed brighter than the lights of the city and showered the street in color. Brazza strutted back toward the crowd, eyes wide. She snapped at the falling sparks like they were candy. Fitz’s dragon let out a few extras for her, which she quickly devoured. Her hooked tail swiped gently under the other dragon’s chin as she walked past.

Was Brazza … flirting?

Lu’s wyvern stumbled past them for a landing. The metal claw threw up white-hot sparks as it slowed itself, then half collapsed from exhaustion. Even coming from behind, Abel had beaten them by almost a minute.

Abel’s mom came running from the crowd to cheer for him and his victory, forgetting all about her fabulous disguise. Roa and Topher strolled over, looking glum.

“What’s wrong, team?’ Abel yelled down at them, his voice hoarse. “You look like you were rooting for the other side! And, Toph, your suit was amazing! Look! I’m still alive!”

Arvin joined them before Topher or Roa could respond. He’d traded his cadet uniform for a muted red-and-maroon jumpsuit with black metal clasps and buttons. It was fashionable and more subtle than the other Red Talons in the crowd, who wore their kin colors bright and clear. They wanted to be noticed. Arvin didn’t need to be. Everyone already knew exactly who he was.

He looked up at Abel and winked, like he was pleased, before he walked over to Lu.

“What was that?” Abel asked his friends.

“Congratulations!” Arvin called to Lu.

Lu flinched, stunned, then looked over to Fitz.

“Wait, what?” Abel shouted, also looking to Fitz.

Fitz was tapping his phone screen; then he held it up. “We have a revised winner!” he announced. “Abel, your time was fifteen minutes, twenty-three point two seconds; Lu’s was sixteen minutes, eight point one seconds. She missed zero checkpoints. Abel, in spite of your amazing speed—really, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a faster dragon—you missed nine checkpoints. At five seconds apiece, that’s a penalty of forty-five seconds added to your time—”

“No one told me there’d be math!” Topher groaned.

“Which means—” Fitz confirmed with his calculator, but Roa had already done the math in their head.

“Lu wins by one tenth of a second!” they groaned.

A smile blossomed over Lu’s face. The Red Talons cheered. Arvin gave her a fist bump. Another of the Red Talons handed her a patch with their symbol on it. She was getting everything she’d wanted: She was going to become a kinner. She looked over at Abel and made a claw with her hand and then gripped her throat with it. She mimed ripping it out, an unmistakable gesture that did not mean Great job, kiddo.

In the crowd, Abel’s old teacher Ally and her Thunder Wing crew laughed and turned their backs on him, melting away again into the night. Clearly they were satisfied with Abel’s public humiliation. He’d snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

“You lose,” Lu mouthed at him from the center of her adoring crowd.

“WHAT! NO! I DIDN’T! I WON!” Abel shouted. Brazza stopped flirting or whatever she was doing with Fitz’s serpentine dragon and swung her head around to look at him. Then, seeing him upset, she swung her head around to find out why. Her eyes locked on Lu. She showed her teeth.

Brazza, it turned out, was an excellent judge of character.

She took a step toward Lu’s wyvern, readying to attack. Abel was tempted to let her.

But Fitz rode his dragon in between them and raised his arms for an announcement.

“Congratulations to you both for a well-flown race,” he said. “In the interest of a peaceful transfer of ownership, it’s tradition for the winner to present the losing dragon with a token of thanks for worthy competition. So, Lu?”

Fitz gave Lu a very stern look, the kind he used at his bookstore to prevent shoplifting. He never had a problem with a kid taking a book if they couldn’t afford to pay, he just wanted them to ask first. No one ever defied one of his looks, no matter how tough they thought they were.

Without further ado, Lu dismounted her saddle, slid down her dragon’s wing, and approached Abel.

Brazza tensed. Abel felt her muscles ripple, her scales growing hot again. He still wasn’t sure if she had a breath weapon, but this wouldn’t be the place to find out.

He dismounted too and slid down Brazza’s wing, intercepting Lu.

“Nice race,” she said. “Too bad you lost.”

“On a technicality,” Abel said. “Too bad you weren’t faster.”

“A win is a win,” she said. “And now that I’m officially a Red Talon, I’m going to own your dragon, and you are going to pay me some respect.”

“I only pay what I owe,” Abel told her.

She grunted and took out a smooth piece of colorful glass the size of her fist from her pocket.

“Lightning-forged glass from the flats,” she said. “Unless your dragon doesn’t like pretty things.” She eyed Abel up and down. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Why don’t you throw it to her and find out?” Abel suggested. “See if she thinks you own her now?”

Lu looked back at Fitz, who shook his head at Abel just enough to warn him to be gracious in defeat.

“Ugh, fine,” Abel grunted, and took the glass. Then he turned and showed it to Brazza. “It’s for you,” he said. “From her.”

Brazza looked between the glass and Lu and back to the glass. She licked her lips. No dragon could resist a pretty piece of treasure, even a contrarian dragon like Brazza. She raised a claw and took it from Abel’s hand. Then she settled down right there in the middle of the street, turning it with her sharp claws to see how the city lights danced on its surface.

Lu went back to the Red Talons to accept congratulations while Abel’s mother and friends stood around him, looking at the dragon enjoying her prize.

“She won’t go with Lu,” Abel said. “No matter how much she likes that gift.”

“She’s not gonna have a choice,” said Roa. “You can’t just ignore the rules. People who ignore the rules end up eaten.”

“But I didn’t really lose,” Abel argued. “I did not miss nine drones. Some of them just, like, shut off!”

“I know,” Roa told him. “I think somebody hacked them so that you’d lose.”

Abel gasped. “A hacker like—”

Abel looked over Arvin, who stood in the throng of Red Talons around Lu. He raised his eyebrows, signaling something, but Abel had no idea what. Then he bulged his eyes, but Abel shook his head.

“What?” he mouthed.

Arvin rolled his eyes and gave the quickest of gestures toward Lu’s wyvern. Abel turned and saw it had a new rider, dressed in black.

Lu noticed a heartbeat later.

“My dragon!” she yelled, but the rider had already gained control and spurred the dragon to take off. “They’re stealing my dragon!”

“No!” someone in the crowd wearing Sky Knights colors yelled at her, laughing. “They’ve stolen your dragon.”

The wyvern was airborne and, though weary-winged from the race, flew fast into the night.

Lu ran on foot, like she could catch up, shouting curses and pleas. Then she collapsed to the concrete after about a hundred feet. “Stop! Please! Come back! Help!” she cried out. No one moved to help her.

The Red Talons weren’t about to go chasing after some schoolkid’s stolen dragon. Lu looked around desperately, pleading. Tears streaked down her face. “That was my uncle’s dragon,” she cried. “He … didn’t know that I … borrowed it.”

“Racing on a stolen dragon.” Topher shook his head. “What’d she expect to happen? It’s Drakopolis. Fire burns, smoke rises, and thieves steal.”

Lu looked to Fitz for help, but he shook his head. “No way my dragon could catch that one,” he said. “Sorry, kid.”

There were a few people with their own big dragons who’d come to watch, but they all avoided eye contact, pretending to be busy on their phones or checking their saddles.

And then her eyes landed on Abel. He knew already that his was the only dragon fast enough to catch up with the thief.

Lu was already walking toward him.

“Please,” she said simply. “You can keep your dragon if you help me get mine back.”

“You’ve got nerve,” Roa told her. “Looking to us after all your threats. We know you cheated to win.”

“I didn’t cheat,” she said. “I swear.”

“Someone cheated,” Roa said.

“It was Arvin,” Abel whispered. He met the boy’s eyes across the street. “He knows how to hack phones; if he could hack my brother’s, he could probably hack Fitz’s too. He wanted you to win.”

“But why?” Lu said miserably.

“I guess I have to find out.” Abel turned to mount Brazza again.

“No!” Topher objected. “She doesn’t deserve our help.”

Abel shook his head. “No, but we’re gonna help anyway. WW3D, right?”

Topher groaned. “This is hardly the time to act like a comic book hero!”

“WW3D,” Roa agreed with Abel.

“This city teaches hard lessons,” Abel said. “But they won’t make less of me.” He patted Brazza’s neck. “Hey, pal, can you give that glass to my mom? I swear she’ll take good care of it for you.”

The dragon eyed Abel’s mom suspiciously. She looked like a fabulous Dragon Queen in her high-heeled boots, sparkling makeup, and mirror-scaled coat. The shine of the lights off her outfit made her look like a valuable treasure herself. Maybe that’s why Brazza decided to trust her. Or maybe she sensed Abel’s trust. Or maybe she just felt like flying some more. Whatever her reason, she set the glass down at Abel’s mom’s feet and took a running start after Lu’s stolen wyvern.

“Be careful!” his mom shouted after him “I lo—”

He didn’t hear the rest of what she said because they were airborne and flying like winged fury. He barely had time to lock in his safety strap and realized—much to his chagrin—he still hadn’t picked out his racing wedgie.

Who knew that being heroic would involve so many underwear malfunctions?