Hazel grabbed her Wizard Partner just as Gaelyn’s legs folded. Holding her up, Hazel ordered, “Great and Mighty get us all out of here. Can you do it?” She studied her exhausted Wizard Partner’s face. “Can you do this, Gaelyn? Great and Mighty will try hard, but we need you and Silkkie.” As soon as she said that, Hazel caught herself. She’d been so angry with Gaelyn for lying, for not trusting her enough to share her secret, for being the Fae Queen the scroll said would hurt Cl’rnce, but when it got down to it, they were friends. She couldn’t let the lies between them, some of them her own, drive them apart. And right now, she couldn’t even be sure she’d translated the scroll correctly. She hoped it was all wrong about her friend who had done nothing but try to help.

“What can I do to help?” Hazel asked.

Holding onto Hazel’s arm, Gaelyn wobbled to her feet. She began to speak, but Great and Mighty interrupted, “I’ve got this. Where next?” Great and Mighty’s hands made complicated designs in the air. She pointed at each of them and then whirled her finger in the air like she was stirring a pot.

“To Greater Haven,” Gaelyn said. “I need the plant life, the greenery.”

Hazel nodded at Great and Mighty encouraging her to transport them all to the mythical plane known for its gardens. It was said every kind of plant had a place there in one of the one hundred gardens. If Gaelyn believed it existed, then Hazel decided it did.

“Grater Haven?” Great and Mighty looked puzzled, but she shrugged and snapped her fingers.

In an instant they were all in a place with plenty of light, and a lot of rocks and sand. All of it stirred in a strong wind that pushed the debris around polishing the rocks.

“Where is this?” Hazel asked covering her snout to keep the dust out. Gaelyn didn’t say a word, but her eyes were huge with what Hazel hoped was not fear.

“Grater Haven,” Great and Mighty said. “But I don’t get why we’re here. It’s a nasty place that sands off everything. And keeps on going until everything looks like it’s been through a ... grater.”

“Oh, no!” Gaelyn said in a weak voice.

“Grater? Cheese grater?” Cl’rnce asked, smacking his lips. “I don’t see any cheese.”

“We’ll be the cheese in a few minutes if we don’t get out of here,” Gaelyn said. “I meant the kind of great like wonderful or big. We need to get to the plane with all the gardens.”

“Oh,” Great and Mighty said. This time her hands moved twice as fast. “Got it. Greater. Like Bigger. Bigger Haven.”

“No!” the others all yelled.

But it was too late. They were in a land with some plants this time, but everything was huge. It was as if they had landed in a giant’s backyard.

“Bumbled again,” Cl’rnce mumbled. He patted his Wizard Partner’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ll get it right.”

“Greater Haven, greater haven, greater haven!” Great and Mighty chanted quickly.

This time they snapped into the right place.

But Cl’rnce started sneezing. He sneezed and sneezed, each one sounding a little weaker to Hazel. He swiped at his nose and said in a stuffy sort of voice, “I’mb allergibc. What are those flowers?”

Gaelyn stood straighter and took a step away from Hazel. “Allergic? To plants?” She bent over one with red, pink, white, and orange buds. They resembled roses but did not smell like them. In fact, they smelled rotten.

Hazel had never heard of different colored roses on one bush. She pinched off a branch and held it out to Cl’rnce.

He sneezed over and over.

“Ooops,” Jeschen said.

Hazel looked at the substitute chef. “Let me guess. Was that one of the ingredients you put in the cure?”

Jeschen nodded. “Now that I look closer, they’re very like roses, but I think they are false roses.”

“And false roses are poisonous?” Hazel felt her stomach tie in knots. “It would have been bad enough if they’d been roses. Cl’rnce is allergic to those, but would this false rose have killed him?”

Gaelyn said very lowly, “It’s a good thing Silkkie spotted the unicorn in the garden. It’s possible she was digging out the false roses so we wouldn’t discover the poisonous plants had been there.”

Hazel nodded, but she didn’t feel any better. Cl’rnce still looked ill to her, even if he acted as silly as he often did. At the very least, they needed to get away from this poison.

“Stop muttering,” Cl’rnce snuffled. “I want to get out of this place.”

Hazel buried her fear and put on her Big-Sister-Taking-Care-of-Cl’rnce face. “Yes. I’ve heard there are ninety-nine other gardens here. We can still let Gaelyn recharge. Everybody, follow the path. Stop sneezing, Cl’rnce.” Hazel ordered. “If the unicorn followed us, she’ll hear you.”

Cl’rnce sneezed four times in a row. “I can’t help it.”

“Then keep moving.” Hazel looked at Gaelyn. “How are you doing?” She needed her Partner’s help saving Cl’rnce, and at the same time she worried about Gaelyn and all she had been through that day.

“Better. Any plant life helps restore my powers.”

“That explains all the plants you have in your chamber, and that garden you keep back at Wiz-Tech,” Hazel said, talking to keep from panicking that she was depending on a worn-out Partner and a bumblespelled wizard. She strode out in front of the others. “Is this the right direction?”

Great and Mighty started to answer.

“Not you,” Hazel said. She knew she was being rude, but there just wasn’t time to soothe hurt feelings. They needed to get going.

Gaelyn caught up to Hazel. Walking side by side, her Wizard Partner said, “Yes, we’re doing fine. All the paths lead to other gardens.” She stopped talking for a minute. “Is he allergic to anything else?”

“Only not getting to eat,” Cl’rnce answered. “I hope one of these gardens has food.” He sneezed once more and wiped a fistful of mucous from his snout.

“An army travels on its stomach,” Hazel said. “An old saying, but they didn’t figure on one Dr’gon eating all the food.” She leaned down to Gaelyn. “It’s not about him being hungry and allergic. Did you know? My twin-sense tells me he’s dying or close to it. We have to save him. When he got sick as a Dr’gonelle, Mother would keep him hungry and purge him. I can’t tell. Do you think it would help now? I don’t know what’s wrong, but would it help?” Hazel caught her breath and told herself to slow down, calm down.

“I’m not sure. If we had a purge, it might help temporarily. But he’s already testy about being hungry.” Gaelyn looked back at Cl’rnce as he wiped his snout with a wide leaf.

Hazel hoped they were not near any of the plants even a little bit related to the false rose.

“We have to keep him occupied, so he doesn’t eat.” Hazel thought for a moment. “I’d rather put a saddle on an angry cat, but I have an idea.”

They passed through an arbor and into a garden full of little creeks, weeping willows, small ponds, and many, many lush plants.

Cl’rnce took a deep breath without sneezing. Tapping him gently on the shoulder, Hazel said, “Cl’rnce, we need to hide from the unicorn. What do you remember from your Shape-Shifting class?”

Cl’rnce waded into a pond, dunked his head under the water, and came up with a nose dripping leakage as well as pond water. He sputtered and choked for a second. Hazel watched hoping for once he would actually vomit and maybe get rid of anything poisonous, but he did not. Finally he said, “I learned that there are a lot of excellent practical jokes that can be played if one is small enough to morph into any number of hard to see creatures.”

“That’s what I was thinking. We can morph into other creatures to hide from the unicorn when she arrives.” Hazel waited for Cl’rnce’s objection. They didn’t have time to argue.

He shook his head, spraying mucous. “I said, morphing is for smaller creatures. Everybody but you and I can be morphed into small things. We’re stuck being big.” He sneezed and the spray stopped just short of Hazel. “But it would be a great trick to play on the unicorn.”

Hazel had an inspiration. Something that might even help a sick Dr’gon for a while. “You’re right. We can’t be small creatures, but, Cl’rnce, what is one of the things we can be?” He was going to love this one. Especially since he had already connected morphing to practical jokes, his favorite past time.

“I don’t know.” Cl’rnce gave her his distrusting slitty-eyed look.

“Dr’gon ships!” Hazel said knowing he’d go for it and hoping an inanimate object morph might stall the sickness. The long-keeled ships with Dr’gon heads and warrior shields along the sides were definitely something her brother would enjoy.

And she was right.

“Yes! I get to pick mine out first.” He looked at Great and Mighty, Jeschen, and Gaelyn. “You’d better hurry up and make yourselves into little furry creatures.”

Irritated, Hazel watched Silkkie jump in and out of her ball, like this was some big game. She grabbed the ball when Silkkie was inside and said, “Stay!”

“What about me?” Silkkie asked. “I’m stuck in this ball. Let me out so I can shift too.”

“No!” Hazel said. “I’ll hide you in my Dr’gon ship.”

Gaelyn nodded and shifted into a small green elf, who quickly hid under a leaf of the nearest weeping willow.

Great and Mighty picked a rabbit. A good choice, since it would have speed if necessary.

But the tubby Jeschen shifted to a fat frog. Hazel was about to tell her to pick something with speed, when Jeschen leapt into the pond and disappeared for a second before her two eyes emerged peering about. That would definitely do.

“Go ahead, little brother,” Hazel said.

Cl’rnce shifted himself to a fifty-foot long boat, gleaming with gold. Hazel lightly smacked the Dr’gon’s head on the front of the boat. “No! You have to float in a pond and look like an ornament in the garden. You won’t fit in the pond. There is no way that Monad won’t be warned immediately that something is wrong.”

Cl’rnce sighed and shifted until he was a duller bronze and small enough to float in the pond at their feet, but he took up all the water.

“Smaller. I have to float near you.” Hazel waited. Cl’rnce shrank himself until there was just enough room for both of them.

Hazel made herself his size but took on a hull of wood. Gaelyn ran out from under the weeping willow and jumped on board.

As she landed, the air vibrated with thunder. Pounding waves of sound from the direction of the first garden rocked the pond.

“She’s here,” Hazel whispered.