Shaking with anger, Hazel turned away from her Wizard Partner. There was no more time to talk about Gaelyn’s lies and that the one person she had trusted most was Fae, the enemies of the Dr’gons and the ones who wanted to kill Cl’rnce. Although part of Hazel had a hard time believing that Gaelyn had done anything to her brother, Hazel didn’t feel she could trust her. Yet, Gaelyn had offered to cure Cl’rnce. Maybe her Wizard Partner was still the same person she had always been.

Hazel forced herself to focus on Cl’rnce. Great and Mighty thought Cl’rnce was dying. Hazel believed her, but neither Great and Mighty, nor Hazel herself, or anyone she knew had the magick to save someone who was dying. Gaelyn had that Jinn, a creature unique in the Dr’gon Realms. Could Gaelyn and her Jinn have a magick that would save Cl’rnce?

It didn’t make sense to count on Gaelyn. The old stories about Fae, even before they were banned from the Dr’gon Realms, never said anything very positive about them. Summer Queen was supposedly as old as her Court, and twice as hateful. And the stories about the even worse Winter Queen were the kind Hazel once loved to tell her little brother to scare him.

Truth be told, despite those stories, not once in all the years that Gaelyn had been at Wiz-Tech had she ever been cruel or mean. She’d even snuck out at night to sit with the homesick youngest knight school students, telling them stories until they fell asleep without tears. Hazel snorted.

But that had always been the kind of person Gaelyn had been. Hazel just couldn’t picture her Wizard Partner doing anything evil. She wanted to believe Gaelyn. In truth there were no other choices. Hazel would have to use Gaelyn’s help. She would deal with Gaelyn’s lies and her being an enemy Fae after they saved Cl’rnce.

Hazel took in a deep breath, but her mind wouldn’t let go of Gaelyn’s lies. No matter how angry she was, or how she tried, there was nothing Gaelyn had ever done that was like the Fae Queen the Prophecy said would come for Cl’rnce. Gaelyn had always been helpful, thoughtful Gaelyn, who was always ready to do what Hazel asked, and never asked for anything in return. Gaelyn, one of those Fae from the old stories? How could that be true?

One thing Hazel remembered from the stories, especially the ones featuring the Summer Queen, Fae never did a “favor” without demanding a price in exchange. Maybe Gaelyn was super clever and all these years she’d been such a good friend to Hazel and the Dr’gon Nations, she’d been plotting to demand something huge and awful in return for all of her help. If she saved Cl’rnce, this would be the time to claim her reward.

Hazel would face that later. She had to focus on helping Cl’rnce. But before she was forced to ask Gaelyn for help, there was something she had to do. “We have to see my brother. Maybe one of the professors of medical arts can do something.” But as she looked past Gaelyn, she spotted Great and Mighty. She hadn’t noticed the little wizard’s arrival. Why was she smiling?

Great and Mighty clapped her hands, and Cl’rnce slowly walked into Gaelyn’s chamber. Hazel’s heart soared. It was all a mistake! She hurried over and threw her arms around her brother, then quickly stepped back. “If it isn’t that ‘waste-of-scales’ brother of mine.”

“He’s fine now,” Great and Mighty said with a small laugh.

“Are you laughing at me?” Cl’rnce, usually the one to laugh first at jokes even at himself, snarled. “Don’t you dare laugh at the Primus!” He looked a little confused, but then he shook his head and straightened up so that he stood taller, by just a scale, than Hazel.

Gaelyn put a fist to her mouth to cover a grin. Hazel choked down her own laugh. She was relieved that Cl’rnce’s Bumblespells Wizard Partner had gotten it wrong. “Now you’re the Primus?” Hazel said. “Not when all the scrolls come in from all the Dr’gon clans? Not when there’s days of work to do for that party you want?” Hazel choked and spit out another laugh. She stepped back another pace and looked hard at him. “Look at you, Primus. Why is your left leg bloated and floating like a balloon?”

Cl’rnce looked down and growled as he hopped on the leg that was normal. The inflated leg floated a bit off the floor, like he couldn’t get it to land. These symptoms were a little like that time he ate the wrong nut and had an allergic reaction.

“And why is the right side of your muzzle so ... so ...?” Gaelyn demonstrated his puffed cheeks by blowing out her own normally slender cheeks.

Laughing felt good after the fear Great and Mighty had caused. Except: Cl’rnce angry? He was perpetually in a good mood, never snarly. Despite him looking pretty healthy, comical but healthy, Hazel couldn’t get rid of the feeling tickling the back of her horns that something was actually very badly, even dangerously, wrong. “Did Great and Mighty bumble a spell again?” she managed to ask.

Great and Mighty ducked around Cl’rnce, whose tail now had a fat bubble in the middle of it. The little wizard held up her arms and a pile of books appeared. She trotted past Hazel. There was no smile on her face anymore. “No. This time it wasn’t me. At least I think it wasn’t.”

With a “whoosh,” the tip of Cl’rnce’s tail blew up like a balloon, and his entire rear rose in the air. He tried to reach around and bat it down, but each time he moved, his tail bounced out of reach.

“Jeschen,” Silkkie muttered from her ball and then turned her back on them all.

Great and Mighty, eyes on her load of books, laid them carefully on the long granite table. They landed on top of five of the unopened scrolls that had come in marked “Urgent.” Two scrolls rolled off, but no one moved to pick them up. The parchments were part of the hard work of being a Primus, the part Hazel and Gaelyn had taken over for now.

Hazel watched Great and Mighty. The young wizard might not be perfect in her spell work, but she was plenty smart and the wiser half of the Co-Primus, which for the first time in history was a shared Primus between Dr’gon Cl’rnce and wizard Great and Mighty. Perhaps the cold feeling that hadn’t left the back of Hazel’s horns was the same as the seriousness in Great and Mighty’s eyes.

Though Cl’rnce looked like a clown, he snarled like an angry cat, and Great and Mighty once again had a white-eyed look of terror. She didn’t smile once as Cl’rnce turned and turned, trying to catch his bouncing tail. Which became harder to do when both of his front paws puffed out. Then his toes grew bulbous, and he tripped several times. Finally, he collapsed on the floor, shot them all a hateful look, and fell asleep.

No longer laughing, Hazel cocked her head at Great and Mighty.

“I didn’t do any of this, including putting him to sleep,” said Great and Mighty. “It’s really not funny. Something is badly wrong.” Her fingers knit a spell Hazel recognized as one Gaelyn had taught the little wizard for calming oneself when things were very bad.

“He’s just napping, and, look, he’s breathing fine. Why are you so upset? Why did you think he was poisoned?” Hazel asked, hoping they were wrong to be worried.

Without asking, Gaelyn hurried over to the cupboard where she kept an overflow of magickal items. She pulled out a purple crystal and a green rock. Using a leather thong, she tied the two together and trotted back to Cl’rnce. Hazel looked at Great and Mighty. The little wizard was even better than Hazel at sensing danger to Cl’rnce. But Great and Mighty was focused on Gaelyn and definitely doing nothing to stop her.

At first Gaelyn merely dangled the rocks over him. Then she shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. Next, she placed them on his heart. Easy enough to do since he had rolled over on his back, all four paws and tail floating in the air, two front and two back legs as fat as ancient tree trunks.

Hazel moved close to her brother and immediately clamped her snout holes closed with two claws. Her brother twitched, and a tsunami of stench rolled off him. “Good grief. Has he not bathed in the last year? He stinks! Probably his body is mad at him for being such a slob. Could dirt gases be puffing him up?” Even as she said this, she didn’t mean it.

Both wizards shook their heads. Great and Mighty said, “He bathes at least twice a day and swims in the river four or five times a day too. I don’t smell anything.”

“I don’t either,” Gaelyn added, watching Hazel.

Hazel didn’t have to ask why Gaelyn was staring. They both knew what a stench only Hazel could detect meant.

“This is a deathly poison after all?” Gaelyn asked.

Hazel nodded. When a Dr’gon had been poisoned only another Dr’gon smelled the poison. Hazel had never wished so hard that she had paid more attention in the classes on Dr’gon health. If only she could tell what poison this was.

Gaelyn plucked her rocks off Cl’rnce. “The stones don’t say it’s life threatening.”

“You mean for now,” Hazel said. “Can we be sure that his puffiness is only on the outside? What if his heart starts to grow and grow?”

Gaelyn stared once more at Cl’rnce. For the moment, beneath the earthquake-loud snores nothing new expanded. “Can you smell what poison is in him?” she asked.

Hazel shook her head.

Great and Mighty spoke up. “I can’t tell either, but surely one of my books has the answer.” She pointed to the pile.

Hazel took a deep breath, shaking her head. Gaelyn reached over and patted Great and Mighty’s shoulder. The little wizard had grown up too poor to ever have a book and now couldn’t resist owning or at least reading any book she could get in her hands. Even if her first tries at magick from her first magick book had resulted in bumbled spells, Great and Mighty believed knowledge was in books, and she meant to discover it all. Despite being part of the most important royalty in all of the Dr’gon Nations’ Island of Albion, she was still a very humble person. She still wore the ragged robe she had on when she and Cl’rnce first met. What magick she used always benefited others.

No matter how much Hazel claimed her brother was a dope, she admired Great and Mighty and thought Cl’rnce was incredibly lucky to have her, bumbled spells or not. But the truth was the little wizard was so very new to magick and did at times make catastrophic mistakes.

Hazel needed another, faster way to help Cl’rnce. “There is a Dr’gon in the high plains. Or is that the deep forests? Anyway.” Hazel cleared her suddenly shaky voice. “I remember there is a myth of a Wise Dr’gon who can cure what cannot be cured. I just wish we knew how Cl’rnce got poisoned and what kind. We can send a messenger to the Wise Dr’gon and get her here, but the more we can tell her the better.”

Gaelyn scowled at Hazel. Her Wizard Partner knew Hazel was making up this Wise Dr’gon, trying to distract Great and Mighty until Hazel could come up with something, anything. Gaelyn had always been a stickler about the truth, just like Hazel. Even though she clearly had lied to Hazel about being Fae for years, Gaelyn was irritated with Hazel, because she knew Hazel was making up stupid tales instead of accepting help from Gaelyn.

But the lie worked. Great and Mighty’s shoulders dropped from where she had hunched them up around her neck, and her face softened. Great and Mighty nodded and stepped closer to the table and her books. Her hand stretched over a book titled Magick Medicines and Cures. But the little wizard was not paying attention to where she stepped. Her foot came down on one of the fallen scrolls that had been pushed off the table by the books. The scroll ripped open as Great and Mighty fell to the floor.

Gaelyn extended a hand to help the little wizard stand. As Great and Mighty got to her feet, she scooped up the torn scroll. It ripped more and rolled out, exposing a short message. Great and Mighty gasped. “Oh! Did you see this? A plot!”

Hazel snorted, ready to dismiss the scroll. Almost every scroll sent by the clans was marked urgent, and at least a quarter of them mentioned plots against the Primus. After investigating a hundred, she and Gaelyn had decided they were all cranks.

Great and Mighty continued to read. “It says there will be an attack on the Primus on ... today! And here’s the time. I think that was when Cl’rnce first started to expand.”

Gaelyn shook her head at Hazel as they stepped behind Great and Mighty to read over her shoulder. “Those piles of scrolls are full of lots of threats and proposed plots. None of them turned out to be real,” Gaelyn pointed out.

But then Hazel smelled it. The scent of a stranger, maybe a Fae, seeped off the scroll. Had that Fae from the tower really escaped? Could it still be in Wiz-Tech? Might it have gotten to Cl’rnce and poisoned him? At least this couldn’t be the fatal poison of the Fang, but some other deadly source. The Fang was still in the secret chamber. Wasn’t it?

Was this Jeschen the cat genie had muttered about behind this? Why would the Fae Queen send an assassin and at the same time send a warning? Was it possible this was a declaration of war, letting the Dr’gons know they were under attack? How did the Fae or the scroll get into the school? Fae couldn’t cross into the Dr’gon plane, at least not before today. Something about that picked at Hazel, but she had to figure out if the scroll meant anything.

“How do you know this isn’t a real threat?” Great and Mighty held up the unrolled bit of the scroll and peered at it.

Hazel thought of the Prophecy scroll in her pouch. She wanted to get it out, to read if there was anything there about how exactly the Fae Queen would attack the Primus. Was there anything besides the Fang mentioned? She worried that her difficulty with the Ancient Dr’gon tongue might have made her miss something important.

“I tested those.” Gaelyn waved her hand at the pile in the corner as she paced to her cupboard and opened a tiny drawer. She pulled the drawer out and carried it over to Great and Mighty. She pointed to the scroll. “Put it down on the table.”

Holding the torn scroll with her fingertips, Great and Mighty snapped her wrists and flipped the scroll so that it laid out flat on the table. The scroll rolled all the way down the length of the table, but only the top tiniest part had writing on it. “It’s silly that some Dr’gons waste whole scrolls when only a small parchment document will do.”

Hazel watched wondering if this helping was all an act by Gaelyn. Surely, she wasn’t covering up a real threat?

Gaelyn tapped the written-on portion. She took a pinch of a glowing purple powder out of the drawer she had carried over. Rubbing her thumb and forefinger together, she spread the powder over the scroll’s inked words.

Some of the words faded to white, and others became fiery orange.

“What does that mean?” Great and Mighty asked.

Gaelyn stared open-mouthed. “Fae. Summer and Winter.” She whispered the words so quietly Hazel almost didn’t hear.

Great and Mighty didn’t wait for Gaelyn to say them again. She read aloud tapping the orange words, “Jeschen. Is this who poisoned Cl’rnce? So many of the words faded to white, and I can’t see them. Is there anyway to make them readable again?” She looked up at Gaelyn.

Gaelyn shook her head staring into the space above the scroll. After what was too long, her lips silently formed the word “war.”

Hazel’s anger fired up. Gaelyn knew what Hazel suspected! This was the Fae Queens, two of them, declaring war once again. Was Gaelyn hiding the message on purpose? Was she as good as declaring war on Hazel?

But Gaelyn’s face was the picture of someone bewildered, someone betrayed. Her eyebrows were drawn together, and she kept shaking her head. It was almost as if she were arguing with someone else.

Gaelyn looked up, her eyes wide. “It’s a warning. The Queens of Summer and Winter Courts, something about war. Some of the words are missing. Something about the Primus.”

“But they didn’t poison me.” Great and Mighty put a hand to her forehead. “I feel okay. No fever. Yeah, I feel fine.”

“Perhaps this attack is only on Cl’rnce, because it is not widely known that both of you are Primus,” Gaelyn said.

“Not known?” Great and Mighty shook her head. “But there were all kinds of Dr’gons around when we became Co-Primus.”

“Yes. But how many Dr’gons outside the River Clan know? How many wizards or knights at school or outside it know?” Gaelyn asked. It was a curious question, Hazel thought. The Co-Primacy was no secret in Albion. Was Gaelyn trying to calm Great and Mighty? Why? Hazel waited for Gaelyn to say more.

Great and Mighty shrugged. “I thought everybody knew.”

Great and Mighty spent almost all her time learning magick, so it wasn’t really a surprise that she hadn’t paid attention to the outside world. When Gaelyn frowned but didn’t speak, Hazel spit out her suspicions, hoping Gaelyn would fess up. “No. Of course, most of Albion knows, every clan and kingdom, but we do not share our business across the planes. The Fae Courts were not informed.” She let that hang in the air for Gaelyn to comment on. When she didn’t, Hazel turned the scroll over, spilling the dust on the table when she looked to see if there was any mark identifying the sender. “It came in with a load of other scrolls. I wonder if anyone knows who sent this?” She paused, her eyes on the bewildered Gaelyn.

“A spy perhaps,” Gaelyn said.

Hazel flipped the scroll back over, writing side up. “I hope the scroll itself is not cursed.”

As it settled on the table, Great and Mighty winced. She put her hand under the scroll and propped it up. Peering under, she shook her head. “I thought I saw something. Maybe I’m seeing things. Anyone see a flash? Maybe I don’t feel so well.”

Gaelyn took the little wizard’s hand and held it for a minute. “You’re fine. I sense nothing out of order in you. If there is a curse on this scroll, only Cl’rnce is affected.” She looked at him then back at Hazel. “Did Cl’rnce touch this scroll?” She looked at her own hands.

Why was Gaelyn acting like she didn’t know anything? Hazel had heard her say Summer and Winter. Gaelyn knew who sent the scroll. And she knew something more that she should be sharing. Hazel wouldn’t wait much longer for Gaelyn to tell what she knew. For now, she said, “No. He never touches the scrolls. Remember his silly saying about ‘touch, touch, no take back?’ It’s how he thinks he makes me do all the work: by avoiding being here or handling any of the scrolls or anything else work-related.”

Gaelyn frowned, and Hazel waited. Her Wizard Partner wasn’t going to do the right thing and admit all she knew to Hazel.

“So back to where we started,” Hazel said watching Gaelyn. “Something made Cl’rnce an even bigger buffoon than he usually is.” He didn’t really look like he was dying, and what if the scroll was a hoax? She tried to sound more positive than she felt. She needed Gaelyn to speak up and say what she knew. If there was real danger to Cl’rnce, Gaelyn needed help before it might be too late.

Hazel continued, “All we have is some disappeared words on a mystery scroll. We don’t know if this Jeschen is the threat, but it’s all we have to go on. Maybe ‘Jeschen’ is made up.” She didn’t mean a word of it. She was certain this Jeschen was Fae, a spy at the least, and probably an assassin.

Gaelyn, sounding like her old practical self, added, “I wouldn’t count on it being a hoax. We have to act like the threat is bigger than just ‘blow up’ Cl’rnce.”

That was a good beginning. Hazel hoped her Wizard Partner would act like she always had, as a faithful citizen of Albion. While she waited for more, Hazel bent over her brother. “I don’t see anything but the bloating on him. What could cause this? Seems to me if we can find out about Jeschen, we’ll have an idea what happened to Cl’rnce. How do we find out?” As she finished talking, she heard a rattling, rolling sound come from under the table. It took only a moment to realize it was Gaelyn’s pesky Jinn-in-a-ball.

The snarky little pink cat gave Hazel an idea and a way to get Gaelyn to tell what she knew. “Doesn’t your Jinn know about every creature, magickal or otherwise?” she asked. The Jinn had come with Gaelyn when she first arrived at the school. No big deal then since several wizards worked with partner Jinns. But since Gaelyn was Fae, and Jinn rarely worked with Fae, this partnership was definitely part of Gaelyn’s secrets. A bad part for Cl’rnce? Hazel swore it better not be.

Gaelyn nodded. “She does know.” But then Gaelyn said and did nothing.

“Ask her!” Hazel ordered, then added grudgingly, “Please.”

Gaelyn scooped up the crystal ball and held her weighted hands stretched over the table and the scroll. As she balanced the ball, Hazel and Great and Mighty cleared the remaining scrolls, making an empty space near the end where they all stood. “Hold hands,” Gaelyn said. Great and Mighty and Hazel joined hands. “Wait. I need to stand inside your hands. I think it will be more powerful if I hold my crystal while I stand there.”

So instead of placing her crystal ball on the table, Gaelyn stepped between Hazel and Great and Mighty. They clasped hands while she gripped her crystal ball and looked into it. “I need an answer. It is very important. I need to know, what is a Jeschen? And if there is one here?” Hazel felt a huge relief. Gaelyn surely wouldn’t reveal where her partner was if she was working with an assassin.

The ball immediately turned from clear, to cloudy, to filled with purple smoke, to filled with orange smoke, to filled with a rumbling and thumping. Gaelyn sighed. “That’s quite dramatic. Can you answer?”

The ball cleared again, and the small pink cat stood inside the ball. “I want to go for a walk,” she meowed in the Dr’gon tongue.

“Not funny. I’m asking for information,” Gaelyn urged in a soft voice.

“I’m serious about this. I want to go walking. And Flying. And ...”

“Really!” Hazel grouched. “I promise! You can have your dratted walk, just answer the dratted question!”

“I don’t like you!” the little pink cat said, the fur standing on her back and her muzzle peeled back in a snarl.

“Who does?” Hazel snapped back. She thumped the ball. “I don’t care. Now come on out and tell us about Jeschen.”

Before Gaelyn could finish her gasp, the cat was out of the ball and perched on Hazel’s shoulder. “Thanks. Maybe I like you a little. She would practically never let me out.” The pink cat settled down folding her front paws under her.

“Seriously?” Gaelyn muttered and sighed. “What’s done is done. It can’t get any worse.”

“Yes, it can,” the cat said. “Think about it. The Jeschen is a very slimy untrustworthy, lying, nasty creature. Sometimes. And it is poisonous. And I know how its poison got into Cl’rnce.” At that the cat smacked its lips closed and stared around.

Gaelyn looked totally shocked. “I’m not sure she’s telling the truth. Silkkie likes to play games.” She bent close to her Jinn. She sounded very irritated. “This is the wrong time for you to torment the Dr’gons. And you better not be making things up about Jeschen, because you think it’ll get Hazel to stop being mad at me. We need the truth. If you ever want your reward, you must help me.”

“How did Jeschen poison Cl’rnce?” Hazel asked, trying to keep her voice kind so she didn’t alarm the little cat.

“Not telling,” the cat said, squeezing her eyes shut. “I’m hungry.”

Hazel carefully and quietly moved her tail until she managed to swing it up and encircle it around the cat. She tightened until she had a good grip on the cat/genie. “You’ll eat when you answer.”

“No.” Silkkie wiggled a bit on Hazel’s shoulder as if settling in for a nap. “He doesn’t look so good.”

At that moment Cl’rnce stopped snoring, stopped breathing. Hazel, Gaelyn, and Great and Mighty all forgot about the cat and turned to him. “Do something!” Hazel ordered.

Great and Mighty ran at Cl’rnce and dove at his big chest: hands out. She landed hard and pushed harder so that her face went purply-red. Nothing happened. She stepped back and threw herself at him again. This time he snorted and started breathing, but his breaths were quick and shallow. “He’s getting worse,” she wailed.

“That’s it, Silkkie. No more games. Tell us about this Jeschen. We have to save Cl’rnce,” Hazel shouted. She told herself she was just worried about the Primus, but in her head, pictures played of her little brother and herself as young Dragonelles, laughing and arguing, but always family.

Silkkie snapped back, “I’ll show you, but we’ll need an army. It’s dangerous.”

Fear that the Jinn was talking about a Fae invasion sent a cold chill climbing up and down Hazel’s scales. The Summer and Winter Queens had been mentioned along with war. Was the Prophecy really happening?

Hazel ordered, “Great and Mighty will stay here with Cl’rnce, and we’ll gather an army and go after Jeschen. Now!” She had to do something. She hoped capturing this mysterious Jeschen could stop whatever plan the Courts had.

“I wouldn’t do that,” said Silkkie. “I’d leave your army here, all around the school, to guard Cl’rnce. Jeschens never do their dastardly deeds on their own. They’re always controlled. Someone wants you to go after Jeschen so they can get to Cl’rnce. Just saying.” The cat sat back and licked her shoulder.

Hazel darted a look at Gaelyn. But her Wizard Partner had her eyes closed like she did when she was thinking hard and deep. Even though now Hazel knew Gaelyn was Fae, she just didn’t seem any different than before. She was offering to help, even if she was not telling Hazel everything she knew.

“Then we’ll all stay and guard him.” Hazel paced.

“No. You need to go get Jeschen to cure your brother. And really take as few as possible. Otherwise you’ll never sneak up. The Jeschen has been to the Fae planes,” the Jinn said. “I can get us all there.”

As much as Hazel wanted Gaelyn to not be a Fae, or to turn her back on them, there was no way Hazel would trust Silkkie. She was known to love nothing better than fabricating fantastic stories. Gaelyn had just reminded them all of that. But Cl’rnce was in trouble. What if the Jinn wasn’t lying? Hazel couldn’t take a chance.

Hazel rang a bell. Immediately five Dr’gons appeared in the chamber, all wearing armor like a huge version of that worn by the knights in the Knights Academy. “Gather as many knights as are trained. Guard the school. Guard Cl’rnce. Do not let in any strangers. No, do not let in any visitors of any kind. Two of you stay in this chamber and watch Cl’rnce at all times. Only Great and Mighty comes near him. You will do whatever she says.” She gave them her most imperious glare.

The Dr’gons tapped their chests with their right paws and nodded. Two stepped to either side just inside the doorway, and the other three hurried out and down the hall in three different directions.

“Gaelyn, I’ll give you a choice. You can stay and help here or come with me and the cat.” Hazel watched her Wizard Partner. She was not sure what Gaelyn would do, if she would help. If Gaelyn stayed, Hazel would treat that as a threat against Cl’rnce, that Gaelyn was an enemy and would use the chance to attack the Primus while Hazel was away.

Squinting at Silkkie, Gaelyn shook her head. “There is no choice. Great and Mighty will keep Cl’rnce alive until we return with a cure.” She looked at the snoring Dr’gon. “If you will agree, Great and Mighty, I will cast a time suspension on him. That should stop the poison for a while.”

“Poison,” Hazel repeated to herself. She’d been so busy thinking about attacks, that she’d forgotten about the poison.

Settling down next to Cl’rnce, Great and Mighty nodded. “How long?”

Gaelyn sucked in her lips. “I’m not sure since I don’t know the poison. But we’ll return as fast as we can.” She laid a slender hand on Cl’rnce’s brow. “Stay.” His chest stopped rising and lowering. The snoring stopped.

Eyes as huge as platters, Great and Mighty asked, “He’s not breathing! He’s not dead, is he?”

Gaelyn shook her head. “No. Just suspended in time. You can tell by his color. Dr’gons turn as white as a pearl when they die.”

Great and Mighty leaned back against the wall behind her.

“Stay,” Hazel said to Cl’rnce, a little encouraged that maybe Gaelyn meant to help if she was coming with Hazel. “I like that. Can you teach my brother to fetch, roll over? Or even to work?” she asked Gaelyn. For a second she let herself believe they would solve this, let herself believe that Gaelyn’s lies had been told for some reason other than treason. She allowed a small smile to chase away a bit of her deep fears for her brother, but the moment passed, and her heart beat fast again. “Let’s go.”

Gaelyn nodded, and Silkkie complained, “What about my dinner?”

“Eat now? Really?” Hazel asked.

“Really. She’s stubborn, and she will not help unless she has food. We’re only taking a minute.” Gaelyn glared at Silkkie, mouthed “transport to kitchen” and as the cat whipped her tail, Gaelyn snapped her fingers.