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V ahly held her breath, grabbing the gryphon and spinning.

The leader of the band of rogues blew dragonfire at Nix. She dodged the flame, spinning in the air, her red hair flying as she slashed him across the face. Then the rest of the rogues flew in around them.

Vahly’s stomach turned. They must have found the body of the dragon Vahly had killed. The feigned rockslide must not have convinced them, and now, they were set on avenging their fellow rogue.

Baz yowled from the sky as Vahly perched the gryphon on her shoulder to free her hands. She unsheathed her sword, and the familiar weight of the weapon brought an idea to mind.

Magic drumming through her blood, she flipped the blade to draw the edge along the ground.

Arc shouted spells in the elven tongue as he wielded crackling beams and luminous spheres of air magic. The resulting wind forced the dragons back, the smaller wings of their human-like forms shuddering.

Gathering close, they fired on him, and storm clouds clustered above, silver streaks of lightning attracted to their joined power.

Vahly, sweating and chilled, lifted her earth-crusted sword.

By the Source, let this work.

The undeniable urge to move and shout coursed through her, shoving her into action, despite the fact that she didn’t know what her magic could do.

The gryphon shrieked at her ear and leapt from the perch of her shoulder. His feathers lengthened as he landed, and she realized he was larger too, standing at the height of Vahly’s knee.

One command flashed through her mind. “Fight!” Her voice was hoarse, but the sound carried, earth magic grinding and pounding through the noise.

The gryphon spread its wings, and two shapes crawled from the dirt—gryphons with bodies and legs of dark brown earth, born of the bond between Vahly’s magic and the gryphon’s inner spirit.

Her familiar had indeed changed everything.

The realization beat against her heart, in time with the earth, as wings of vines and emerald oak leaves wove themselves into existence, and claws and teeth of briar thorns showed at paw and mouth.

Shaking, Vahly tore her eyes away from the two earthen gryphons to grab a handful of the earth at her feet. She thrust the dirt forward. The earth answered her call. A mound surged upward between the other rogues and Arc, creating a wall of protection around which Arc could launch his spells.

Turning, Vahly watched as the two earthen gryphons flanked the real gryphon, and then surrounded Baz, flying quick to avoid Nix’s coordinated attacks on the rogue, and doing their own striking with jagged claw swipes and gnashing at ears and eyes.

Lightning flashed out of a bank of fierce clouds in an otherwise blue sky.

Luc rushed to back up Baz. He blew dragonfire at the gryphons, and a panicked sweat broke across Vahly’s face.

The two earth gryphons disintegrated into nothing.

Gutted, Vahly shouted, and the earth lifted her on a wave of sandy dirt, akoli vines, and grasses. Rising up eye-to-eye with Luc, she swung her sword and cut the dragon deeply across one wing. Spraying blood, he reeled back, his body disappearing down the hill and into the rocks at the sea’s edge.

Baz reached for the gryphon and grabbed it by the neck.

“You seem to like this one, human. I liked Fedon, and you buried him, covering your tracks as if I’d never know a true rockslide from a created one.

I have lived here in the wilds while you’ve been suckling at the Lapis matriarch’s teats like a babe!

You’ll never defeat the Sea Queen. Give up.

And don’t follow us, or we’ll exact more than a life for a life.

” He held the gryphon high and laughed, moving his talons around the gryphon’s neck.

“I will slaughter you, rogue!” Vahly’s throat was raw, and her eyes burned.

She stumbled, pulse knocking against her teeth. Pain dragged across her stomach and just beneath her heart, in the place where her magic guided her.

As he gripped the gryphon and flew higher, Vahly felt the pain in her own neck, only an echo of the hurt the gryphon had to be feeling, but the sensation strangled her enough to stop her voice from working. She pointed her earth-crusted sword at Baz, but no more earth gollums rose.

Baz slashed out at Nix and scored her eye. Vahly tensed, frozen.

Nix fell out of the sky, tucking her wings and rolling to a stop beside the cave.

“Rogues!” Baz waved an emerald hand, his other talons still wrapped around the struggling, mewling gryphon.

Vahly threw her sword onto the mound she’d called up and gripped the dirt. “Swallow!”

The ground under Baz lifted into the sky, ten—now twenty—feet. Go down, monster. Go down. Vahly seethed, her nails cutting into her flesh. But the dragon evaded the wave of churning earth and flew up and up, into the mountains, his cohorts trailing him like storm clouds.

Shaking with fury, Vahly ran to Arc. He was bent at the waist and breathing heavily.

Smoke drifted from his surcoat, and the odor of burning hair marred his usual natural scent.

Nix rushed toward them, hand cupping her eye.

Blood leaked from the wound like liquified rubies between her sapphire talons.

Vahly wanted to run screaming—to wreck everything in the world to get her gryphon, but her heart also ached for Arc and Nix. “Are you all right? Did they burn you badly? Nix, how is that eye?”

Arc lifted his left arm. Dragonfire had bubbled the flesh on the tender underside of his upper arm, where he’d evidently raised his hand to block his face. The skin was an angry scarlet. Vahly took his elbow and blew gently on the burn as if that might help. “Can I do anything to help you heal?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Nix took her hand away from her eye and tried to blink. Blackened blood covered her lid and crusted her eyelashes. Her lips quirked into a sad grin. “I thought it might be fitting to take up Dramour’s style. He always said I’d look good in a patch. More mysterious.”

Vahly hugged Nix hard, tears threatening. “You’ll be even more irresistible.”

“By the Blackwater, I wish those rogues would mind their own business,” Nix hissed, pulling back and shaking her head.

Shuddering, Vahly closed her eyes and took three deep breaths. “Did you see what the gryphon did with my earth magic?”

“I did.” Arc eyed Vahly’s fallen sword, then her face. He retrieved the weapon, wiped it clean with his surcoat, then presented it to her across his palms with his head bowed. “And you will use that new magical bond to rescue him with us at your back.”

Nix blew a blast of fire into the sky. “Just tell me when.”

“Now. That’s when. Right now.” Vahly ran in the direction the rogues had flown.

Arc ran beside her, eyes fierce and magic curling around his head.

Mid-takeoff, Nix transformed into full dragon form, not bothering to disrobe and ripping her clothing to pieces that fell from her like ash.

The back of her neck prickling in warning at what they were about to do, Vahly attempted to speak to the gryphon like Arc did to horses.

We are coming for you, my new friend. We will never stop fighting for you.

No answer whispered through her mind. Either he could not communicate in that manner, or he had been silenced .

Vahly ran faster.