Moon Rising (18 page)

Winter’s words had an instant effect on the other three dragonets.

He’s right,
Kinkajou realized.
How — what —

Turtle’s mind was as opaque as ever, but he shifted on his talons and gave Moon a curious frown.

Worst of all was Qibli.
How did she know? She couldn’t have done this — could she? She’s a dragon with secrets, and Thorn said not to trust the NightWings — but why would she? I know I haven’t figured her out yet, but I don’t see violence in her. And yet, how did she know? But if she set the fire, why would she try to stop us from going in? But surely she wouldn’t — she couldn’t have — I can’t even believe I’m thinking this —

“You didn’t — sorry, but — you didn’t have anything to do with —” he started.

“No!” Moon cried. “Of course not!” She brushed away tears, trying to keep her voice steady. Trying not to think about Carnelian. Or how everything was now falling apart. “I would never hurt anyone.”

“I know,” Qibli said, but not convincingly.
She was better at hunting than anyone expected. There is strength beneath those scales. In the right circumstances, wouldn’t any dragon be capable of hurting another? Even her? But why?

“If you
didn’t
do it, then do you know who did?” Turtle asked. He hadn’t spoken since the blast; he hadn’t moved from his spot by the wall until he came chasing after them. He looked shaken, but not destroyed. Moon wished she knew what he was thinking. Did he suspect her, too?

“Or maybe you saw something?” Kinkajou suggested hopefully. “Something that warned you?”

That might work,
Darkstalker said.
At least two of them want to believe that; start with that lie and build from there.

I don’t want to tell them
any
lies,
Moon pointed out.
Even ones they want to believe.

She pressed her front claws together, feeling a wrenching fear all through her chest. Her mother was echoing through her head:
Never never tell anyone about your curse. Never let anyone find out. It will be the end of everything.

“There’s only one explanation,” Winter hissed through his teeth, looking down his snout at her. “You did this. You set that fire. I don’t know why yet, but I will find out.”

The other explanation was there, hovering at the edge of his mind, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe it yet. He’d been so sure — so
sure
— that the NightWings were lying about their powers all along.

“I swear I didn’t,” Moon said. She spread her wings helplessly. “Please believe me.”

“Can’t you tell us how you knew?” Kinkajou pleaded.

Moon couldn’t speak. She felt as if there were claws clamped around her throat, as though her worst fear was trying to choke her so she wouldn’t reveal her secrets.

Winter stared at her for a long minute, and then he lashed his tail, spikes clattering against the stubby pillars dotting the floor. “I will give you one chance, NightWing. You have until midnight tomorrow to tell me the truth — or I’m going to tell everyone what you did.” He took a step toward her and she flinched back. “I knew NightWings couldn’t be trusted, but I was starting to think maybe you were different. Clearly I was wrong.” He stalked out of the cave.

Moon buried her face in her talons, shaking. Kinkajou reached for her hesitantly. The doubt in Kinkajou’s mind — of all dragons — made Moon want to disappear completely.

I don’t understand
, Qibli was thinking, and that was clearly an unfamiliar and uncomfortable experience for him. His brain kept circling all the possibilities … including the truth, but he kept shying away from it. Moon knew it wouldn’t be long before he came to it, though.

But he wasn’t the first one there.

“Three moons,” Turtle said. Glowing lines lit up along his wings and neck, making him shimmer eerily in the dark cave. He took a deep breath, staring at her with wide eyes. “It was a vision, wasn’t it? You can see the future.”

Kinkajou gasped. “No way,” she whispered.

Admit nothing,
Darkstalker advised.

Stay secret, stay hidden, stay safe,
her mother’s mantra echoed in her head.

There didn’t seem to be any chance of that now.

Moon looked down at her talons and nodded.

“What?” Kinkajou cried. “What else have you seen? Anything about me?”

“When did you know?” Qibli asked, taking a step back, away from Moon.
But all those powers are supposed to be gone! So who’s lying to us — the prophecy dragonets, the NightWings, or Moon? Or all of them?
“About the explosion — how long did you know without telling anyone?”

“I just saw it,” Moon said. “It was right before class — sometimes the visions come months before something happens, sometimes only a few minutes. I never know…. It’s not like it’s a
helpful
power.”

“But it is,” Kinkajou said, bewildered.
Monkeys and mangoes, I’d love to be able to see the future!
“You saved us.”

Maybe she could have saved the others, too,
Qibli thought,
if she’d told us it was a vision. If we’d
known
what was going to happen, we could have stopped them. If she’d told the truth — if we’d known about her power beforehand —

She saw Carnelian in his head, tangled up in his guilt that he should have tried harder to stop her from going in.

“Would you have believed me?” she asked him. “If I told you I’d had a vision?”

“
I
would have,” Kinkajou said, wounded, and Moon realized with a wrench of guilt that that was true.

“Who else knows you can do this?” Qibli asked. “Can all the NightWings see the future?”

“No one knows,” she said, wincing as a flash of pain from her injury suddenly zigzagged from her head down to her spine. “And as far as I know, no one else in the tribe can do this.”
Apart from my secret friend, the legendary monster Darkstalker, of course.

“Is that it?” Turtle asked. “Or is there anything else we should know?” He inhaled sharply, looking suddenly more awake than he ever did. “Can you read our minds?”

Kinkajou and Qibli stared at her, their eyes wide.

This is the last moment they’ll like me.

This is how I lose them.

Moon felt as though she was standing at the edge of a precipice, with howling winds below her waiting to smash her into the mountains. All of her mother’s great fears, the whole parade of nightmares she’d been watching her entire life, went marching through her head: dragons shunning her, dragons screaming at her, dragons setting her on fire, dragons locking her up and forcing her to use her powers for them … but mostly dragons hating her, everybody hating her forever.

Just lie,
Darkstalker whispered.
Hold on to your one advantage.

Secret. Hidden. SAFE.

But Moon could hear what her friends were thinking, too.

Qibli.
Won’t she just lie to us? How can I trust her? How will I ever know if she’s lying?

And Kinkajou, the dragon who wanted to be her best friend:
I believe in Moon. She’ll tell us the truth.

How could she be the deceitful NightWing Winter thought she was, when she had the choice to be the dragon Kinkajou saw?

“Yes,” Moon confessed. “I can read your minds. I’m sorry.” She turned to Kinkajou. “I’m really sorry. I can’t help it. It just happens; it’s always happening. I can’t turn it off. Please, please don’t tell anyone.”

Is she hearing my thoughts right now?
Qibli wondered. He clearly saw the answer on her face, because he took another step back.
What has she heard?
The pace of his thoughts, incredibly, sped up, as he seemed to flash through all the possible things she might have seen.
All my plans to get other dragons to like me? My nightmares about my family? My thoughts about
her
?
How many embarrassing — she must know — I can’t — has she been laughing at me this whole time?

“No!” Moon cried. “I really like you.”

He grabbed his head, as if he was trying to keep his thoughts inside, and then flared his wings.
What if I accidentally think about one of Thorn’s secrets, or one of the hidden dens of the Outclaws?
Secrets she didn’t understand started spilling through his head.
Or what if she hears some of the terrible things I think about other dragons? Who would ever like me if they knew what I thought about everyone?
“Talons and tails,” he mumbled. “This is not OK. I have to get out of here.” He turned and bolted through the cave entrance, disappearing beyond the torchlight.

But I don’t understand,
Moon thought, half to herself and half to Darkstalker.
He never thought anything more terrible than any other dragon. He’s more interesting and kinder and more insightful on the inside than almost anyone else I’ve met.

He doesn’t know that,
Darkstalker pointed out.
He’s never seen inside anyone else, the way you have. After a few years of reading minds, you’ll see — it’s often the most brilliant dragons who are the most insecure. And the ones who are most afraid of having their minds read — because they think they must have the worst, lowest thoughts of anyone — are nowhere near as bad as the ones who complacently don’t care because they assume everyone else is as terrible as they are. Mostly everyone
is
terrible, by the way.

“I wish you’d told me,” Kinkajou said. Her head was spinning:
I thought she was going to be my best friend, but all along she was hiding this huge secret from me. And now Carnelian is dead, and Tamarin is hurt, and someone tried to blow us up, and there are all these grumpy dragons here, and school is nothing like I expected. I wish it was yesterday. I wish none of this had happened. I wish someone who could SEE THE FUTURE had maybe STOPPED ALL OF THIS FROM HAPPENING.

“I’m sorry,” Moon said again, hunching her shoulders miserably. “I was afraid. It’s not exactly the first thing I tell other dragons.”

“Well, it
should
be!” Kinkajou said, fiercely enough to make Moon flinch. “If you’re going to be in our heads hearing everything, then you should at least warn your friends. And if you’re seeing the future, and it’s
bad
, then you
really
have to tell someone. I don’t understand you.”

“I didn’t want you to hate me,” Moon said.

“Well, did you want me to trust you?” Kinkajou demanded. “Because this is the opposite of how to do that.” Orange and red were starting to flicker through her scales.
Why am I even bothering? She knows what I think. She can hear it all herself.
“I have to go check on Tamarin. I need to think. The kind of thinking that’s just between me and me,” she added sternly.

And then she was gone, too, leaving Moon with Turtle.

That’s what happens,
Darkstalker said with a sigh.
But don’t worry. They’ll come crawling back when they need you.

I don’t want them to crawl,
Moon thought with a shudder.
And now what do I do about Winter? If Qibli and Kinkajou reacted that badly — won’t he hate me even more than they do? But if I don’t tell him something by tomorrow, everyone will think I set that fire. That
I
killed Carnelian and Bigtail.

She sank to the floor, wrapped her wings around herself, and started to cry.

After a moment, she felt a wing gently brush her back.

Even when he was touching her, she couldn’t sense anything but that quiet fuzz from Turtle. He looked down at her with his dark green eyes.

“Come with me.”

It occurred to Moon, somewhere deep inside the mountain, that perhaps following Turtle off to a dark secluded spot might not be the best idea.

Between the vision she’d had of him and Anemone, and the fact that she had no idea what he was thinking, she suspected she probably ought to be more nervous.

But his mind was so quiet and — well,
cozy
seemed like a strange way to describe someone’s brain, but it was the best word for his. Trying to listen to it was like sinking into soft moss, muffling all the voices of the other dragons in the school. Or like being underwater, she guessed.

The voices got quieter anyway as they walked, putting layers of rock and space between her and the thinking going on up above. Neither of them spoke, although she could think of a million things she thought she should tell him. There were few torches down this far, but Moon’s eyes adjusted to the dark, and Turtle’s scales glowed just enough for them to see the floor beneath their talons.

Here and there she saw slick, glowing trails along the rocks, and after a while she realized they were left by luminescent snails as long as her claws.

Soon after that, she noticed a faint dripping sound up ahead, and then all at once, the passage opened up into a huge cavern studded with stalactites, shimmering with glowworms — and surrounding an enormous underground lake.

“Oh,” Moon whispered. At first she thought there were glowworms in the water, too, and then she realized she was seeing the reflections of stars. Far above them was a hole in the roof, big enough for a dragon to fly through with her wings outstretched. Big enough for the moons to shine through, casting broken silvery-green light across the still water. Two of the moons were visible through the hole, half full and swathed with clouds in the growing twilight.

Moon looked around for Pike and Tamarin, but although a faint burnt smell still hung in the air, there was no sign of the injured RainWing or the dragons taking care of her. They must have immersed her and then taken her to the healing cave.

Turtle nodded at the lake. “You should wash your shoulder. I’d take you to the infirmary, but I imagine Clay is busy with Tamarin right now.”

It had started to hurt in earnest while they were walking. Moon peered at it again, then slowly edged into the lake. The water was colder than she’d expected, sliding around and under her scales, and when it hit her wound, she yelped with shock.

There was a small splash as Turtle dove into the lake beside her. He surfaced and studied her shoulder as she gingerly dipped it under, washing off the dried blood. It started to bleed again, but after a minute it stopped, and she could see the prickly thing stuck in it more clearly.

“This might hurt,” Turtle said, and without any more warning than that, he pincered his claws around the object and yanked it out of the wound.

“Ow!” Moon cried. Turtle pressed his talons to her shoulder as another spurt of blood fountained out. She felt a little faint, and caught herself wondering what he would do if she collapsed here in the lake. Would he leave her to drown?

He lifted his claws, checked that the blood had stopped, and then dipped his talons in the lake to wash them off. He was still holding the strange object, and now he rinsed it off and peered at it.

“What is that?” Moon asked, scooping water over her shoulder. She could see that it was a blackish-brown misshapen sphere, about the size of a rainforest frog, and covered in those sharp thorns.

“I think I know,” he said, “but I should look at it in better light, and maybe check the library. How’s your shoulder? Can you fly?”

“Probably,” Moon said. She glanced up at the moons shining through the hole in the roof and caught herself wishing she could fly all the way to one of them and just stay there, surrounded by silver and silence.

“Go ahead and try,” he suggested. She knew he meant “try flying,” but she looked into his unreadable eyes and wondered if he was offering her the chance to escape. She could be out that hole and on her way to the rainforest in no time. Or even farther; she could run to somewhere where Winter wouldn’t be able to track her down and scrape out all her secrets.

But then he’d really believe I did it. And so would everyone — why else would I run away?

Moon hesitated for a moment, then took to the air, soaring over the lake and circling in the moonlight. Her shoulder hurt, but she could still move her wings. The silvery touch of the moons on her scales calmed her a little, but then she remembered Winter’s furious expression and felt sick all over again.

She swooped around in an arc, watching Turtle swim below her.

Will they tell everyone my secret? I guess there’s nothing I can do to stop them, if they decide to do that.

Do I wish I didn’t have this power?

If I couldn’t read minds, everyone I met would be like Turtle — completely unreadable. Strange and blank. I’d have no way to know if they were kind or cruel. I’d never understand why they act the way they do. Everyone would be all surface.

I’d think Winter was just mean; I wouldn’t know about his dead brother and how he hates himself more than anyone else. I might think Qibli was just goofy and ordinary, if I didn’t know about his layers and his amazing mind and his childhood. I’d have stayed away from Kinkajou, because I wouldn’t have known or believed that she really liked me.

I guess that’s how other dragons live … never knowing how complicated everyone else is.

That’s what it would be like, to be normal.

But if I could choose, would I want that?

And since I can’t choose … should I run away from what I can do, or risk revealing it to dragons who won’t understand?

Moon tilted her wings and sailed down until she landed on a craggy boulder that jutted out of the lake. Spongy, bluish moss clung to its sides and squelched under her claws. Turtle swam over and clambered up beside her.

“How did you find this place?” Moon asked.

He shrugged. “I went exploring. There are a couple of underground lakes, but this is the biggest, and the only one with a view of the sky.”

He leaned back to look up at the visible moons. Moon studied him for a minute.
I don’t know him at all.

“So,” he said slowly, without meeting her eyes. “I guess you must know my secret.”

“No,” she said, stopping him before he could say too much. She was desperately curious, but she didn’t want to trick him. “Turtle, I — I don’t know why, but I can’t read
your
mind. With a few dragons, I just don’t hear anything.”

He gave her a startled expression. “Like there’s nothing in there?” His snout crinkled, amused. “That’s alarming.
What
are you saying about me?”

“I’m saying you’re safe,” Moon said. “Your secrets are safe. I can’t hear your thoughts.” She hesitated, wondering if she should mention the vision about Anemone. Something made her hold back.

“Oh,” Turtle said. “Awesome? I think?” He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m not very interesting anyway.”

I’m sure that’s not true,
Moon thought.

“Thanks for letting me keep my secrets, then,” he said, giving her an easy smile. “So what are you going to do about Winter?”

Moon dug her talons into the rock. Her stomach hurt and she had this horrible, prickling, tense feeling everywhere, as if she might erupt out of her scales. She made herself lie down on the boulder and reached to drag one claw through the pool below her. “I guess I have to tell him the truth,” she said finally.

“Not if you don’t want to,” Turtle said. “Why don’t you figure out who really caused the explosion, and tell him that instead?”

Moon gave him a bemused look. “Oh, all right, I’ll just go solve that mystery by midnight tomorrow. No problem.”

He shoved her off the rock and she landed with a splash, coming back up startled and sputtering.

“What was that for?” she cried.

“You’re a
mind reader
,” he reminded her. “All you have to do is walk around the school until you hear someone’s mind going, ‘Well done, me; tip-top explosion I caused today; aren’t I a clever arsonist.’ ”

“It’s not exactly that easy,” Moon said, spreading her wings to stay afloat and shivering in the chilly lake. “It’s really noisy out there; you have no idea. And you’re not the only dragon who can shield his thoughts from me. What if it was someone like that — someone like you?”

“Well, it wasn’t me,” he said, not sounding the slightest bit offended. “So anyone else you can’t hear, put them on your list of suspects and keep listening to everyone else in the meanwhile. Why wouldn’t you? You could figure this out in an hour if you just hear the right dragon.”

“And if they’re thinking about it when I do hear them,” Moon said. She climbed back onto the boulder and shook the water off her wings. “But if it were that easy, I should have heard them planning it. I should have heard
something
from
someone
….” She stopped, realizing she had.

The conversation with the dreamvisitor. Planning to kill someone — multiple someones. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten about that, even in the chaos of the explosion. Was the fire in the history cave the plan she’d overheard?

And if so … then perhaps the dragon with the dreamvisitor (Queen Scarlet?) would return tonight to find out if it worked. Maybe there’d be another conversation between killers in the dark, under the cover of dreams.

And if Moon was listening at the right time, maybe she’d have a chance to catch them.