Millie wasn’t sure what to do. She had rescued her friends from certain death, but she had no idea what shape Zoë and Francis were in. For all she knew, they could die. When she tried to land, the ice beneath her began to melt and she had to flounder out of the pooling water, afraid that her charges might drown if she stayed on the ice for long.
Simon-Leo seemed fine, but neither Zoë nor Francis had said anything, which really had her worried. She supposed she could take them to the flatlands, but they were so far away. Even the foothills were too far.
It was nearly dusk when Millie saw the other dragon. She had flown over the pass in search of the ice castle, where she hoped to ask the Blue Witch for help, but before she could reach it, Francis had groaned again and Millie knew she had to set them down right away. She was looking for a flat rock big enough to land on when something flew so close that the wind of its passing knocked her off her stride.
Startled, Millie looked up from her study of the mountainside and saw a dragon unlike any she’d seen before. His scales were white tinged with blue, his wings were well shaped, and his body was long and sleek. When he turned and flew back to join her, she saw that his deep blue eyes looked kind and had the spark of intelligence common to the larger dragons.
“Are you lost?” he asked as he matched his speed to hers. He was about the same size as Millie, and his voice had yet to deepen into that of an adult male.
“I guess you could say that,” she replied. “My friends are hurt. I need to land so I can help them.”
“Follow me,” he said. Tilting his wings, he turned and swooped across the face of the mountain to a ledge swept clear of ice and snow. “This is my home,” he told Millie as he landed. “Or, at least, it is now.” Glancing at her friends, he pointed at Simon-Leo. “I can understand being friends with humans, but that one’s a troll, isn’t it?”
“Unfortunately,” Millie said as she dropped Simon-Leo on the ledge. The other dragon backed out of the way as Millie landed and very carefully laid Zoë and Francis beside the troll. She nudged Francis with her talon and was relieved when he turned his head.
“I think somebody hit me with a sack of bricks,” he said. Opening his eyes, he looked up and saw his cousin. “Oh, it was you.”
“I didn’t hit you with anything,” Millie said, feeling indignant. “I caught you when you were falling to your death.”
“Did you have to be so rough? I think you cracked one of my ribs.”
Millie frowned at him. “You could say thank you,” she said, and turned to Zoë.
“How is she?” Francis asked, and groaned as he tried to sit up.
“I don’t know,” said Millie, and nudged Zoë with a talon. When her friend didn’t respond, Millie looked up at the other dragon with her brow ridges creased in worry. “I think she’s unconscious.”
“I have something you could try,” said the white dragon, and headed to the back of the ledge.
Francis looked worried. He rolled over and got to his feet, even though it was obvious that he was stiff and sore. Kneeling by Zoë’s side, he turned to Millie and said, “Will she be all right?”
“She will be if I can help it,” said Millie.
Francis was watching over Zoë when Millie turned to see what the other dragon was doing. The ledge went farther back than she had thought, and opened into a cave. From what she could see, it was big enough to hold a dozen dragons and had another opening at the rear. Sacks and trunks were stacked against the cave walls and it was one of these trunks that the white dragon opened. He was returning to her when something in the cave moved and Millie realized that Simon-Leo was rooting through the sacks.
The white dragon must have seen the troll at the same time, because he glanced at him and said, “I wouldn’t go to the back of the cave if I were you.”
“Why not?’ Simon asked. “Is that where you keep your treasure?”
The dragon snorted. “I wish I had a treasure. There’s nothing there except poison gas.”
“Poison gas?” Millie asked when he returned to the ledge.
“I sleep in that room. I’ve been so mad lately that I exhale poison gas in my sleep. Even a troll wouldn’t last long if he breathed enough of it. Here, give your friend one drop of this. Two, if one isn’t enough.”
Francis hovered by her side as Millie took a small bottle of tonic from the white dragon’s talons, pulled out the glass stopper, and let one drop fall between Zoë’s parted lips. When nothing happened, she gave her friend another drop, then sat back to watch. Millie felt helpless with Zoë lying there with skin even paler than normal and her chest barely moving as she breathed. She wanted to do something … anything, but there was nothing, unless … Millie turned to the white dragon. “Can I give her some more?”
The dragon shook his head. “Another drop would kill her. Either this will work soon or—”
“Ooh, my head,” moaned Zoë.
Francis sighed with relief. “Thank goodness,” he said. “You had us worried.”
“What happened?” asked Zoë. “The last thing I remember, those monsters were chasing us. One tossed you into the air, Millie. I thought I’d never see you again.” Her voice was gaining strength as she spoke and the barest hint of color had come back into her cheeks. Suddenly, she looked like herself again.
“I saw it all,” said Francis. “A monster rolled you around in the snow and tossed you down the side of the mountain, Zoë. I tried to stop him, but he knocked my sword out of my hand and threw me after you.”
Zoë shivered. “I had the nicest dream, though. I was all warm and toasty. The air smelled good—not like here. What is that smell?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
“I smell it, too,” said Francis. “It’s sour, with a real bite to it.”
“I don’t smell anything,” Leo said.
Simon smirked. “You never do.”
“That’s the poison gas,” said the white dragon. “It won’t hurt you unless you breathe it in when it’s concentrated. That’s why I said you shouldn’t go to the back of the cave.”
When Zoë shivered again, Millie turned to the white dragon. “Would it be all right if I started a fire? I’m Millie, by the way, and this is my friend Zoë, and my cousin Francis, and that,” she said, pointing at the troll, “is Simon-Leo.”
The dragon grinned and his whole face lit up. Millie’s heart gave a funny lurch. What’s wrong with me? she thought. He’s a dragon, not a human.
“My name is Audun,” he said. “You could start a fire, except I don’t have any wood. I can get some if you want. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. There are some trees on the south side of the last mountain in the range and I—”
“You don’t have to go to all that trouble,” said Millie.
“I don’t mind,” said the dragon.
“Why don’t you just use coal?” said Leo. “I found some in a sack back there.”
“What’s coal?” asked Audun.
“I’ll show you,” said Leo.
Everyone waited while Simon-Leo trotted into the cave and returned lugging a bulging sack. “This is coal,” Leo said, dumping the sack on the ground. “It burns like wood, only it doesn’t smell so good, so I wouldn’t do it inside the cave. We have a whole lot of it in our mountain.”
“We’ll do it out here,” said Millie. “Maybe the fire will block the cold air from blowing into the cave.”
Audun looked on while Leo piled the coal on the ledge. A puff of coal dust reached Audun, smudging his pure white scales. “My grandfather brought that with him. He was going to take it with us to our new home.”
“What happened?” asked Millie. “Where is your grandfather now?”
“He’s with my grandmother and my parents, locked away in a castle,” said Audun.
“There,” said Leo, “you can start the fire.”
“I’ll get two rocks,” Audun said, glancing back into his cave. “We can smack them together and get a spark.”
“There’s no need,” said Millie. “I can handle this part myself.”
Taking a short breath, she exhaled a trickle of flame onto the coal, turning it a warm, glowing red. At the same moment, a line of fire raced from Millie’s flame across the cave and into the room beyond. Whoom! Fire exploded in the back chamber, burning with great intensity for a moment and going out just as quickly.
“I guess your poison gas was flammable,” she said, giving Audun an apologetic look. “I hope I didn’t burn up something important.”
“There wasn’t much back there,” he said, his eyes wide in disbelief. “How did you do that? I’ve never seen anything like it. That was amazing!”
Millie felt her face get hot. “All the dragons where I come from can do that.”
“No one around here can. All we can do is breathe poison gas.”
“That sounds pretty impressive to me!” said Simon.
“I guess it makes sense,” Millie said, watching the water from melted ice trickle out of the cave. “If you breathed fire, you would melt half the mountain.”
“What else have you got back there?” asked Simon.
“Just stuff my grandfather collected,” said Audun. “We were on our way to a new home when we stopped to rest. We were planning to stay here only a day or so.”
The troll was already edging back into the cave when Audun glanced in his direction. “Mind if we look around?” Leo asked.
“I don’t care,” said Audun. “I already told you, there isn’t much there.”
Millie was using her talons to rearrange the coals in the fire when Audun turned back to her. “You can touch fire?” he asked, sounding amazed.
Millie glanced up. “Can’t you?”
Audun shook his head. “Frost dragons can get burned just like most creatures.”
Francis and Zoë got up to follow Simon-Leo, leaving Millie alone with Audun. “How did your family get locked away in a castle?” she asked.
“The day after we arrived, an eagle told us that a witch had built a castle near here,” he said, his eyes growing fierce. “My grandparents went to see her. When they didn’t come back, my parents flew off to look for them. I wanted to go, too, but my father made me stay here in case my grandparents came back. He said it was so they wouldn’t think we’d left without them, but I really think it was to protect me. The next morning I went to the castle and saw their claw markings on the ice. The witch had blocked the door so I couldn’t get in and my family couldn’t get out. It’s been three weeks and nobody’s returned yet.”
“Where is this castle?” asked Millie.
“On the far side of that mountain,” Audun said, pointing at the next mountain over.
“She wouldn’t happen to be the Blue Witch, would she?”
Audun nodded. “That’s what the eagle called her. How do you know her name?”
“She’s the reason we’re here,” said Millie. “I came to learn something from her and my friends came to help me.”
“If you’re smart you won’t go anywhere near her,” Audun said.
“I have to see her,” Millie replied. “It’s why we’ve come so far and gone through so much.”
“Do you know a way in?” asked Francis. He had come up behind Millie, but his eyes were on the white dragon.
Millie glanced at her cousin. “Audun says that we shouldn’t try to see the Blue Witch.”
“If we listened every time someone told us not to do something, we’d have turned back long ago.” Francis held up a sword so the white dragon could see it. “I wanted to ask if I could borrow this. I lost my sword today and I don’t want to go into that castle without one. You have a lot of them back there.”
“Sure,” said Audun. “You can keep it if you want to. It doesn’t have any jewels on it, so it isn’t worth much to me.”
“Thanks!” said Francis, running his fingers the length of the scabbard. “This is perfect!”
“Do you know a way in?” Millie asked the white dragon.
“Yes, but you won’t be able to use it. After the witch captured my family, she filled in the entrance so nothing bigger than a human or a troll,” he said, glancing at Simon-Leo, “can fit through the door.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to wait until Millie is in a good mood,” said Francis.
Audun looked puzzled. “What does that have to do with going to see the witch?”
Millie sighed. “I’m not always a dragon. I turn into one only when I’m angry. Usually I’m a human girl and could fit through that door.”
“Did an evil witch cast a curse on you?” asked Audun.
“Nothing that simple,” Millie said. “My mother is a witch who likes being a dragon. She was a dragon too often when she was expecting me, and I’m the one who has to pay the price.”
Audun looked confused. “Do you really think that being a dragon is so awful?”
“It’s not awful at all!” she exclaimed. “I love being a dragon! The only time I feel free and at peace is when I’m a dragon. It’s just that I wasn’t born to be one, not like you.”
“So, about that door,” said Francis.
“I don’t like this,” said Audun, “but if you have to go see her, I’ll show you the door on one condition. Once you get inside, you have to try to find my family. I need to know if they’re alive and if there’s some way I can get them out.”
“That’s it? Go into a castle made of ice, get an evil old witch to reveal her secrets to Millie, then free some dragons who will probably spout poison gas at us?” Francis was practically sputtering as he looked from Audun to Millie and back again. “You can’t be serious. It’s bad enough that we have to go in there at all!”
“I don’t know what else to do!” Audun told Millie.
“Of course, we’ll do it,” said Millie.
“Millie!” said Francis.
“We’re going in, anyway, aren’t we?” she asked her cousin. “It won’t be that hard to look around. Between your magic and Simon-Leo’s strength, it shouldn’t be any problem to free a few dragons.”
Audun’s gaze traveled up and down Francis. “You have magic?” he asked.
“Yes, I do. So you’d better watch your step!”
Millie ground her teeth and glared at her cousin. “Francis, you’re being rude!”
“Somebody around here needs to set this dragon straight,” he snapped. “And I know you’re not going to do it.”
“How do you turn into a human?” asked Audun. “I wish I could.”
“I have to relax,” Millie said, “which isn’t easy when I have such an infuriating cousin around.” She glared at Francis again, but he pretended not to see it.
“And then what?” asked Audun.
“Then it just … happens,” Millie said. “When I’m relaxed enough I think about being a human again, and I am.”
“Can you do it now?”
Millie closed her eyes and tried, but nothing changed. “I guess not. I must still be too wound up inside.”
“Can you hurry up, Millie?” said Francis. “I want to get this whole thing over with and get home before my parents do.”
“You didn’t get your parents’ permission, did you? How old are you, anyway?” Audun asked him.
“That’s none of your business,” said Francis.
“Stop it, both of you!” Millie roared. “I’m going to go lie down and try to relax, which isn’t going to happen if you two are fighting.”
“I take deep breaths when I want to relax,” said Audun. “If that doesn’t work, I think about a place that I really like—one that makes me happy. That’s what my mother told me to do when I was just a hatchling.”
Millie found a comfortable spot against the wall of the cave and curled up so that her nose was resting on her tail. Although she didn’t think she could fall asleep, she was so exhausted that she was soon snoring gently. When she woke a short time later, she saw Audun only a few feet away, watching her.
“That was amazing,” he said. “One moment you were the most beautiful dragoness I’ve ever seen and the next you were the most beautiful human. You must have really powerful magic to transform that easily.”
Millie sat up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. “I don’t know. I can’t control it yet.”
“But you will. Someday you’ll be able to do all sorts of things. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
“I don’t think there are too many people like me around,” she said, and glanced past the dragon to the cave opening. “It’s time for us to go.”
“If you’re ready.”
“I am,” she said, taking the talon he offered to help her up. “I guess it’s now or never.”