But first I must tell you about the minch-wiggin.

Her name was Flax, and she was completely ordinary.

Well, except for her whiskers, which glowed in the dark. And her bare feet, which sometimes struck sparks from the floor of the Floating Forest.

And except for the small, sharp sword she carried in a sheath across her back, next to a leather satchel.

Minch-wiggins do not usually carry swords. So you would expect Flax to be proud of hers. After all, it had been passed down from her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. And it made her very important.

But right now, it was getting in her way.

She would have taken it off and laid it under a tree. But if she did, one of her cousins might come along and find it. They wouldn’t dare touch it. But they would set up a great squeaking, loud enough to be heard from one end of the Floating Forest to the other.

‘I have found Flaxseed’s sword, but there is no sign of Flax,’ they would squeak. ‘The dragon must have eaten her. Help! Disaster! We are doomed!’

And before she could shout down from the piplum tree that she was right here above their heads, and that the dragon hadn’t been seen in the Floating Forest for at least a hundred years, every minch-wiggin in Minchfold would be in a panic.

The minch-wiggin babies chasing each other along the branches would freeze with terror. Their fathers and mothers would drop the nuts and seeds they had painstakingly gathered, scoop up the babies and dive into the nearest nest. The grandmothers, grandfathers, aunties and uncles would grab anyone left behind and tumble in after them.

The noisy bustling trees of Minchfold, which were filled with magic from root to twig, would fall silent. But the ropes and vines and swings would tremble with fear, and so would every one of Flax’s people.

Flax didn’t want them to tremble. So she kept the sword on her back, next to the leather satchel.

And, as the forest birds sang up the dawn, and the frogs croaked, and the horned globs moaned, she worried under her breath.

‘I wish it hadn’t been me,’ she whispered as she strung a rope woven from the finest spider silk across the path. ‘I wish Grandpa had given the sword to my brother Bean, or to Cousin Violet.’

But he hadn’t. He’d passed it to Flax on his deathbed, when everyone was watching. So she’d had no choice. She’d had to take it.

She snipped off another piece of rope with her teeth and strung it next to the first, using her black-tipped tail for balance.

A third rope went across the first two. And a fourth, and a fifth. Despite the sword, Flax worked quickly. It was nearly sunrise, and she wanted to have the web finished before the sun touched the treetops.

‘I wish I’d dropped the sword,’ she whispered. ‘I wish I’d squeaked, “Oops, butter-fingers!” and dropped it on the floor. Then Bean or Violet would have picked it up, and the satchel as well. And they would be Destroyer-of-Dragons-and-Protector-of-her-People instead of me. I’m sure they’d be much better at it.’

She tied an extra strong rope to the edge of the web. She took the other end of the rope in her hand, scrambled down from the tree and hid in a pile of leaves at the side of the path.

And she waited for the wild magic to come.

Flax had strong legs for climbing, and strong fingers for plucking seeds and peeling acorns. She had a black-tipped tail for holding on to branches. She was quick and nimble.

But wild magic was even quicker. It darted along the forest paths so fast that Flax could never catch it without a web.

So she crouched among the leaves. And she waited.

Alone. But not quite alone.

Beside her squatted a Secret.

A Dark and Terrible Secret.

No, I’m not going to tell you what it was.

Why not? Because this is a story. And it has to be told in the right order.