Flax stood on the same spot for a long, long time, staring after the Floating Forest. It was almost lost in the distance now, like the merest wisp of cloud.

She thought of her brother Bean, her cousin Violet, and her aunties and uncles.

How frightened they must be.

She thought of the sketters, the mor-kits, the horned globs, the owls, the frogs …

This is griv, she thought. I didn’t get the pup back to the forest quickly enough.

And she groaned again, because she had failed so badly.

The sound woke the pup at last. He stood up in a sprawl of legs, yawned, and bounced up to Flax and Rose. ‘Do you think we’ll get there today? Do you think so? Huh?’

‘Pup,’ said Flax, ‘the dragon has stolen the Floating Forest. We saw it being towed across the sky.’

She thought he’d let out one of those anguished howls, and be just as unhappy as she was. She wanted him to be as unhappy as she was.

Instead, he thought for a moment, flopped one ear forward and said, ‘It makes no difference.’

‘What do you mean it makes no difference?’ cried Flax. ‘Of course it makes a difference. We can’t go home—’

Rose interrupted her. ‘Excuse me, what’s the Floating Forest? It didn’t look at all like a forest to me. Are you sure it wasn’t a storm cloud?’

You are probably thinking that the Queen needs spectacles. After all, the smallest child can tell the difference between a forest and a storm cloud, even when it is so high in the sky that they almost have to fall over backwards to see it. So a ten-year-old with good eyesight should have no trouble at all.

But those who live in the Floating Forest know that it looks like a storm cloud to anyone who doesn’t live there.

That is one of its secrets. That is how it keeps itself safe.

Or rather, how it kept itself safe. Because it certainly wasn’t safe now.

‘We can’t go home,’ said Flax, ignoring Rose. ‘Because home isn’t there anymore!’

‘But we weren’t going home,’ said the pup. ‘We were going to find the dragon. And when we find the dragon, we’ll find the Floating Forest, as well as my parents.’

Flax couldn’t believe he was taking it so calmly. ‘But what will we do when we find the dragon?’

‘You’ll fight it,’ said the pup, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘With your famous sword and your amazing magic.’

‘Magic?’ said Rose. ‘What magic?’

‘Let me think,’ mumbled Flax. ‘I have to think.’ And she hurried away to the other side of a hedge, where she could be by herself with no one saying ridiculous things like, ‘You’ll fight the dragon.’

But once she got there, the pup’s words wouldn’t leave her alone. They rang in her ears. They made her tremble all over. They reminded her that home wasn’t there anymore.

She tried to imagine living in the World Below. Not just passing through for a little while; actually living there. Forever. With hardly any trees, and too much sky, and no magic in the land at all. With no cousins and brothers and aunties and uncles. With all those humans, most of whom were even bigger than Rose.

It was such a dreadful thought that for the first time, Flax began to wonder exactly how a not-very-brave minch-wiggin might fight a dragon.

How she might fight – and win.

She looked at her famous sword. She looked at her bulging satchel.

She swallowed.

‘Maybe – maybe if we could find a thunderstorm?’ she whispered. ‘And the pup could do that thing Spellhounds do?’

Maybe then they’d have a chance. A very small one.

Flax swallowed again. ‘I – I’m going to fight the dragon,’ she whispered.